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Wesley Rowe: Proactive Protagonists |
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 Of all the notes a screenwriter can receive from a reader, one deserves a special, more fiery and rusty-nail-pierced coffin in hell: "The protagonist needs to be more proactive." I have seen it applied to nearly every genre, and it is almost never the story's actual problem. I think it's worth discussing here, though, because the issue of proactiveness reveals so much about who we are and what draws us to be writers and readers in the first place. Continue reading on the Scriptmag blog ... |
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Meet the Reader: Flashback Back(f)lash |
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 Since the purpose of a flashback is to provide information vital to our understanding of a script’s plot or the characters, it follows that, for a flashback to be effective we would first need to know what that plot is or who those characters are first. Which means that, ideally, a flashback should be introduced well into the story -- after the plot has been set up and the characters established. Despite this logic, many of the scripts I read begin using flashbacks on the first page and often in the first paragraph, before the writer has the chance to establish much of anything. Continue reading on the Scriptmag blog ... |
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Mystery Man: On Adaptations |
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 Try to look at the source material from a completely fresh perspective. Do a modern reinterpretation. Do the story from the perspective of a secondary character -- or the antagonist, like Gregory Maguire did with Wicked. Restructure the book. Make it non-linear. Do it in reverse. Explore aspects about characters that didn’t get explored back then, like sexuality. What if the lead was a female instead of a male? Or vice versa? Consider adapting lesser known works by famous authors. Take one of those generic science, political, or social works of non-fiction and be totally inventive with it as Kaufman did in Adaptation. Adapt a book no one has ever dreamed of adapting. Add an unexpected twist. What would the story be like if something didn’t happen or happened differently? Continue reading on the Scriptmag blog ... |
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Meet the Reader: The Long and the Long of It |
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A spec script is an original story conceived directly for the screen. To attempt one, a writer needs to have a firm understanding of the parameters of cinematic storytelling. For many reasons, both creative and practical, it is generally accepted that the running time of the average commercial narrative film should be somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes, so a screenwriter needs to figure out how to tell his/her story in that amount of time. The existence of the thousands and thousands of feature films made over the past 90 years proves it is possible to do so, and numerous paradigms and guidelines have emerged that, if followed, can help a writer get the job done. Continue reading on the Scriptmag blog ... |
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Discussing May/June With Andrew Shearer, Part 2 |
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 The very first film I think of when I think unsympathetic protagonists is In the Company of Men, the dark comedy by Neil LaBute. It’s a brilliant film about two corporate execs who are so bitter about love, they decide to find a woman, simultaneously date her, then both break up with her at the same time to screw all women over in one fell swoop. See it if you dare. These guys are the definition of assholes, no holds barred, but when one guy starts competing with the other for the girl, we actually start to feel sympathy for the guy losing out. It doesn’t make the guy a “sympathetic” person in general, but having sympathy for him during his pathetic downfall is the only reason the story stays engaging. Continue reading on the Scriptmag blog ... |
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Women & Hollywood: Interview With Vendela Vida |
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 I knew nothing about Vendela Vida before I spoke with her a couple of weeks ago in conjunction with the release of her first film Away We Go which she co-wrote with husband Dave Eggers. (The film opens Friday and I liked it very much.) I very much enjoyed the conversation and am now going to make sure I read all her books which include And Now You Can Go and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. She also co-edits The Believer magazine. Continue reading on the Scriptmag blog ... |
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