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I recently finished reading Blake Snyder's Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need. It's the first screenplay writing how-to book I've read, and going in I felt a mixture of eagerness and scepticism. Having already written a first draft of my first feature-length screenplay I was looking forward to learning more about the craft from an industry professional, although I knew I had to take the advice with a pinch of salt. That was the right mindset; it's an incredibly interesting and useful book as long as its word isn't taken as gospel. It would be better used to enrich and enhance screenplays already written or being written, or to learn from and put away when it comes to writing, rather than to use as a rigid base for your writing. Snyder presents this book as the comprehensive tome of screenwriting knowledge, which it is not, because there is no such thing. Every screenplay is different and is written differently, and there are both "good" and "bad" screenplays with conventional and unconventional structures. Save the Cat! is not designed to simply make good screenplays, it's designed to make marketable screenplays, which it makes clear, and this inevitably creates a certain conventionality. That said, it does what it aims to. It's all useful stuff, especially his screenwriting 'rules'. Some seem obvious once they're spelled out, but they're very insightful: for example 'The Pope in the Pool', which basically means dealing with exposition by distracting the audience with something else so they don't even realise they're being told a lot of information. Another idea I liked was his 'emotional colour wheel', about making sure your scenes provoke different emotions to create a 'roller coaster ride' of a screenplay. His beat sheet template was perhaps overly specific with its page numbers, but very useful in terms of pacing. I will definitely be taking Snyder's advice to fix problems in my current and future screenplays, and I do recommend this book. Just leave room for your own ideas- don't stick to the template. It's a well accepted fact that talent rarely makes a good writer by itself. No one immediately bashes out a perfect first draft, and even if a misguided writer thought they had and did no further work on it, I imagine it would be difficult to find an agent, publisher or film studio that would take on that piece of work. Today I want to take a look at some factors other than a good instinct for writing that help to create great pieces of writing- not just acceptable first drafts, but great finished pieces. PracticeLet's start with the cliche: practice makes perfect. It's another well accepted fact that writing a lot makes you better at writing, so I won't labour the point. Whether your initial aptitude for writing is high or not, practice will develop it. LearningThis one I am a huge, huge advocate of, and it's one people don't think about a lot. 'I've read a few novels, so I could write one.' True, you could. But would it be the best you could do? You'd do infinitely better if you were to learn about the craft first- by reading online articles, maybe doing an online course, and yes, reading lots of books, but also analysing them and figuring out exactly how they do what they do. If you want, you can go on your instincts to write your novel or other project, then do your learning and use your newfound skills and knowledge when you're editing. I'm currently midway through a two-week online Intro to Screenwriting course on FutureLearn, and I would highly recommend this sort of thing. Screenwriting is a totally new area to me- most of us don't read screenplays in our free time, after all- and the course has so far helped me to get to grips with not simply what a screenplay is and does, but the actual craft of what goes into one- what makes a good one, how to create plots and characters, how it differs from other forms of writing. Yes art is a form of expression, but skill goes into it as well, and those skills have to be learned. Not all writing is the same- if you've written 26 bestselling novels but don't know anything about screenplays, you won't be able to write the latter straight away without learning the craft because they're completely different. It's important to know the difference. So if you're trying a form of writing that's new to you, pick up a book on it, or try an online course. Take responsibility for your own learning, because it's writing, and you write because you enjoy it, right? PlanningI'm a meticulous planner. I never start writing a project until I have some basic character outlines and a plan for a plot, however vague and hole-filled. For the screenplay I'm currently writing, I've become a big fan of index cards with scene details written on blu-tacked in order and covered in post it notes with extra things I've thought of. However, some people prefer not to make initial plans, and that's fine. Different people work different ways. But when it comes to editing, that's when I believe plans really come into play. Structure is an integral yet often overlooked aspect of storytelling, especially when it comes to screenplays, and nothing beats a plan to try and work out how best to use it, even a plan made in hindsight. Editing, editing, editingThis is my favourite bit- the part of the writing process where you start to craft your creation into something great. My favourite saying (credited to several people including Robert Graves, although I found it in Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld) is 'there is no good writing, only good rewriting' and it's something I remember every time I get downhearted about my writing when working on a first draft. The initial writing is only the first step- it's filling up the sandbox so you can make the castles later. Stocking the fridge so you can cook something.
Editing is where you stop creating and you start crafting- you pull in all that learning you've done and use it to your advantage. You start to be meticulous and careful- everything in your work needs to be on purpose. 'Good enough' doesn't matter anymore, you make everything the best it can be. This is also where your plan comes in again. Have you stuck to it? Could it be improved? If you have no plan (or the draft differs from the plan significantly), make (a new) one! This will help you to plot character arcs, see which characters are getting most of the action, look at your pacing, the amount of locations you have... There's no end to how many editing thoughts you can gain from looking over a plan. I'd just like to reiterate my point from earlier: art is a form of expression, but as with drawing and playing musical instruments and other forms of art, writing has craft to it, and different forms of writing have different requirements. Learning the craft is not only fun, but necessary in order to create a great piece of work. I'm currently writing a film, and one of my best friends is writing a play. The other day, we sent each other our opening scenes to give feedback. Another of my friends is writing a short film, and she recently sent her draft to our group chat to ask for our opinions. This all got me thinking about the concept of getting feedback from friends (and family), and there's a couple of questions in particular I want to discuss this week. Part 1: Why is friend-feedback so hard to ask for?Because it really is! And there's a lot of factors that go into that. Firstly, it's scary to put ourselves and our work out there at all- what if it's bad? what does that say about me?- but when it's to a friend there's usually added pressure because their opinion matters a lot to us. We don't want their belief in us to be proved misguided, or for them to look down on us for our work, or simply for them not to like it. Because if even your best friend doesn't like your work, that must mean it's crap, right? Obviously this isn't the case. No one project can appeal to everyone and just because it's not their thing doesn't mean other people won't like it. But the idea easily worms its way into our heads. Another factor is that creative projects are often very personal; we take emotions that we've felt, aspects of people we've met and situations we've been in and we use them to create something. Not only is it easy to feel embarrassed or scared about being vulnerable and exposing ourselves in this creative way, but our friends have usually been around us through these events, and sometimes can connect the dots of 'oh, so that situation in your writing is a bit like that thing that happened to you a while back that made you feel bad.' They'd never say it, but you'd know they knew where you got that from, which heightens the vulnerability. There's also a sort of stereotype about getting feedback from friends which is that they don't tell the truth and just say it's great no matter what. If you ask the right friend, they won't do this- even if they don't love your project, they'll point out why or why it's not for them in a constructive way, or just focus on the bits that they honestly liked. Even worse, we can think that we're imposing on our friends by making them read or look at our work, because we can convince ourselves that they don't care. Obviously, even though all these hurdles are valid and scary, they are pretty much irrational, and completely worth getting over. Part 2: Why does it even matter?Getting feedback from friends is so important for just as many reasons as it is difficult to ask for. One of the most important yet undervalued reasons is the simple encouragement and validation it brings- seeing your friends complimenting your work or congratulating you on your dedication to your project is wonderful, and seeing them get excited about something you made is one of the best feelings. This can help reinforce your belief in yourself and your work, and increase your enthusiasm for it; it proves to you that what you're doing is worthwhile, it isn't silly or a waste of time, and it's real. Discussion is also a great result of friend-feedback; when I showed my friend my opening scenes of my film, we had a chat about the setting of one of the scenes (it was in a coffee shop), and whether it was right for the characters, and for that matter precisely what kind of coffee shop we were talking about. It was fun, as was talking about various aspects of her play- lines I liked, and asking her plans for certain characters- and helpful for my writing. Talking about your project helps to clarify your vision and work through any issues you're having, and is also practice for if you ever have to pitch your project to professionals. Finally, if you're writing a film or book etc., find a friend who you think would like it if they saw it on Netflix or in Waterstones, and have them read it to get some target-audience-reaction. I have a friend who doesn't write, but has a similar taste in films to me, so I'll be asking her to read my screenplay when it's finished.
What have been your experiences with giving or receiving feedback to or from a friend? Or; Not Treating Your Audience Like Idiots, But Not Confusing the Hell Out Of Them Either |
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