Now Write! Screenwriting: Screenwriting Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers

CHOOSING YOUR STORY

MARDIK MARTIN

Start with a Conflict

MARDIK MARTIN is a highly esteemed screenwriter, who penned MEAN STREETS, RAGING BULL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK, VALENTINO, and other screenplays. He has also served as an uncredited script doctor for numerous other feature films. His documentaries include ITALIAN-AMERICAN, AMERICAN BOY and THE LAST WALTZ. He’s also the subject of the acclaimed 2009 documentary MARDIK: BAGHDAD TO HOLLYWOOD. He’s currently a senior lecturer at USC and has previously taught at New York University. In 2006, the American Film Institute named RAGING BULL the fourth best movie of all time, and the Writers Guild of America rated RAGING BULL as one of the top 101 screenplays of all time. In 2008, Martin was honored with a lifetime achievement award from AFFMA (Arpa Foundation for Film, Music and Art).

The biggest trap in writing a screenplay is the starting point. Remember, you’re going to spend possibly a year of your life on a feature film script. So don’t make the common mistake of using a theme, premise or message to start your story. It’s easier and more effective to build with a conflict.

Let’s assume a friend of yours sees a movie and tells you, I loved it. I completely identified with the main character.

That’s bull, in my opinion. Your friend did not identify with the main character. She or he identified with the protagonist’s conflict. Your moviegoer friend can never be that person in the movie, but she could have experienced the character ’s conflict, problem, or situation. That’s why she loved the movie. It was the conflict not the character that involved her in the story.

So, when you create a story, keep the character’s conflict at the forefront of your screenplay’s starting point. In other words, don’t obsess over a point you want to make or a theme, as Lajos Egri states in his popular book The Art of Dramatic Writing. He insists that the writer should start with a premise, such as Love Conquers All or Foolishness Leads to Poverty. The problem with the premise as a starting point is that you will inevitably create contrived situations and characters to make your theme become a story. But it usually ends up being phony or heavy handed. You’re hitting your audience with a premise that’s obviously not based on reality but on a point you want to make.

A much better place to start is observing (or stealing) from real life. Collect anecdotes. You will want to observe real people around you and, more important, their problems, their situations, their conflicts.

Pay close attention to the people who cause those problems. In movies, we call these problem-givers the antagonists. You should study both the antagonists and the protagonists like a scientist. You don’t make judgments. You don’t want them to be tools of your theme. So become like an objective scientist and research the human behavior of your characters so they can be as real as possible.

EXERCISE

A good place to start a story is to look around at the people you know and observe their problems, and at the people who cause the CONFLICT. Maybe your best friend has a problem living with his mother. Or your sister is getting married to a wealthy man she doesn’t actually love.

Like an objective scientist, observe the conflict and imagine it as a scene. Take notes. Try not to interject your own opinions of the people. Stick to the facts of what you see and what happens.

The main thing to concentrate on at this point is the antagonist. Most beginning writers are comfortable creating a protagonist that substitutes for themselves, who they are. However, what actually creates drama is the antagonist, the conflict-giver. So when you observe life and take research notes, be sure to pinpoint the actions, motives, and desires of the ANTAGONIST. The protagonist, while important, may not be the key to your starting point.

And by the way, the antagonist does not mean the bad guy. Your friend’s mother could be an antagonist. She might be the sweetest, nicest person in the world, but she’s a total pain in the ass to live with.

So watch a real-life mother create problems for her son. Or, better yet, combine several mothers, each of who compounds the conflict. Here’s where a little imagination can help you. Remember, you can only steal so much from real life. The great writer uses ingenuity to combine characters and their situations.

As an easy and obvious example, think of James Bond movies. Bond is always the charming, dapper, ladies’ man who does his thing. He would be extremely boring and repetitious were it not for the antagonist. Every antagonist in the Bond films is the character that creates hurdles for Bond to jump. The more interesting the hurdles the antagonist creates, the more ingenious Bond has to be to overcome them. So, in your exercise, it’s the Goldfingers (or Goldmembers) who are the key to your story.

The starting point of your story will be the antagonist creating problems for your protagonist. Now create scenes combining your observations with your imagination.

HAL ACKERMAN

The Cringe Exercise

HAL ACKERMAN has been on the faculty of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television for the past twenty-two years and is currently co-chair of the screenwriting program. He is the author of Write Screenplays That Sell . . . The Ackerman Way. His play Testosterone: How Prostate Cancer Made a Man of Me, which concluded its premiere theatrical run in Santa Monica, California, won the William Saroyan Centennial Award for drama.

I like to do this one the first day of a new class, though it can also be done alone. It is a great icebreaker. Beyond that, it addresses several fundamental issues that go to the DNA of story. New writers are so often cautioned, admonished, brainwashed that movies must have a likable protagonist. We sometimes paralyze ourselves and eviscerate characters by trying too hard to invest them with characteristics that will look good on their college resumes and by engaging them in acts of gratuitous nobility. Whereas many characters that leave indelible impressions upon us are those who perform acts that may seem or may be reprehensible.

Think for a moment about the fantastic documentary WINGED MIGRATION. We have spent two hours in the most amazingly intimate company of flocks of migrating birds, flown the thousands of miles with them, endured with them hardships beyond imagination—freezing and starving at the Pole while sheltering precious eggs in their fur, living weeks without food. Now, at last, a group of them returns to their home nesting grounds in the familiar warm pastureland of France. As they pass overhead, a farmer raises a shotgun, fires twice, and a bird, whose name we never knew but in whose struggles we were active participants, falls dead to earth. God! Our hearts break.

Now think of the Donner party, a group of settlers trekking from the Midwest in 1848 to a new home in California. After hardship and misery, deprivation and loss, at last they are on the verge of the Promised Land. Only one more mountain to cross. They reach the peak of the Sierra above Reno and, exhausted, decide to rest the night before moving on. A blizzard hits and they are stranded for months. All their supplies are depleted. They have eaten leather and are about to resort to the unthinkable, cannibalism. One last chance: A few of them trek out into six-foot drifts with a rifle. A game bird appears. They are so weak it takes three of them to lift the rifle. They fire. Do we want that bird to be killed? You bet we do. Same situation. Different emotion. Why?

Ackerman’s Axiom #1: Intimacy trumps morality.

EXERCISE

1. Write ten things you have done in your life that literally make you cringe when you realize that you actually did them. (Just a brief one-line description.)

For example: Fed lighter fluid to my sister’s fish because I wanted to make it an electric eel. Got drunk in junior high school and frayed the climbing rope in gym. On way to visit fiancé’s parents met man on plane and joined Mile High Club. Be honest.

If in a group: All the people read theirs aloud. The thing to notice is that listeners are fascinated, not turned off. This is also true in the case of characters! Audiences, too, will be fascinated.

2. Choose one of these events and write a two- to three-page prose story around it. Remember, your reader has never met any of these people, so use all your storytelling skills. All of your five senses. Put your audience in the world. Construct a real emotional truth around the event and character.

3. Adapt that story to a screen story. Screen stories are different. Would you start in the same place? Since movie audiences only know what they see and hear, as a screenwriter how do you make the inner life of your character, narrated vividly in your prose story, accessible to an audience?

ALAN WATT

Trusting Yourself

ALAN WATT works in Los Angeles as a screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He is the author of the award-winning Los Angeles Times-bestselling novel Diamond Dogs, which he recently adapted for the big screen. He is the founder and creative director of LA Writers Lab and teaches the twice-yearly workshops 90-Day Screenplay and 90-Day Novel.

Story structure is not a formula, though it is frequently taught as such. In my workshops I describe structure as an immutable paradigm through which to explore our hero’s transformation. What I mean is that every hero has a journey, but there is nothing predictable about it. The desire to write is connected to the desire to evolve or resolve something in our lives that we don’t yet fully understand. We are naturally drawn to ideas and images that allow us to explore these unresolved questions for ourselves. Operating from this premise, we begin to recognize that we are necessarily uniquely qualified to tell our story.

Sometimes we approach our story from a distance, out of fear. The following exercise is the first one I give to my writers. It is a potent means by which to shed our idea of our story, for the true story. Our fears, those hobgoblins we believe we must exorcise before getting down to work, are in fact our guides! What if we simply gave ourselves permission to write from this raw, vulnerable place? What if we explored the nature of our fears and allowed ourselves to write, without judgment, whatever arose? We don’t have to become something more or something better in order to write our screenplay. What we need to know already lies within.

So, here we go.

EXERCISE

Take a couple of minutes and list all of your fears around writing your screenplay. List them on a piece of paper, from the trivial to the forbidden. Perhaps you are afraid that your family will know something about you, that you will be discovered for being the strange, twisted creature you really are. Perhaps you are afraid that you will fail, that you will have wasted your life on a pointless quest, that you are not really a writer. Or maybe you are afraid that you will succeed, and that you will have to become responsible, some better and more noble version of yourself.

Maybe you’re afraid that this is your only decent premise and that you ought not waste it while you’re still learning. And on and on . . . People will hate me, My relationships will end, It won’t be commercial, and so on.

List all of your fears.

OK? Excellent!

Now, why do we do this exercise? The first reason is obvious: We want to be conscious of our fears so they don’t rule us. But that isn’t the big reason. The big reason arises from the idea that the desire to write is connected to the desire to evolve. What I mean is that our fears around writing our story are identical in nature to the fears that our hero has in the story.

There is often some initial resistance to this idea. You may look at your fears and say there is no connection between my fears and the fears of my hero. Continue to investigate, sit with it for a moment, and be curious if you don’t start to see some connections. This is not to say that the situations around the fears are the same, but rather the nature of our fears is connected to those of our hero. For example:

1. I’m afraid to write this script because it will be a waste of time and it will never sell.

Ask yourself: Where in the story does my hero believe he might be making a terrible mistake? And also, is it possible that my hero is refusing to face or even acknowledge his fear of making a terrible mistake?

2. I’m afraid people will know my darkest secrets.

Ask yourself: Where in the story does my hero believe he will be abandoned for being different? And even, what is the secret that my hero may be in denial of?

3. I’m afraid I’ll discover I’m not really a writer.

Ask yourself: Where in the story does my hero fear failure? What is the dream that my hero fears he may never realize?

Though our fears are real to us, they are also just regular garden-variety fears. Everybody has them. When we can shed our idea of our story and shift our focus to the nature of our characters, fears and all, we begin to realize that there is nothing to figure out, that we are actually channels for the screenplay that wants to be told through us. It is from this place that the true structure of our story begins to emerge.

BRAD RIDDELL

Note Card R&D

BRAD RIDDELL has written feature scripts for MTV, Paramount and Universal, in addition to working with several independent producers. He cofounded The Kentucky Film Lab and teaches screenwriting at the University of Southern California and Spalding University.

It is critically important that aspiring screenwriters learn to fight on multiple fronts. Most professionals rarely work on just one project at a time, instead keeping several stories moving forward simultaneously in various stages of development. Think of screenwriting as your start-up business, and then consider that there aren’t many new companies that succeed without continuous research and development. A screenwriter ’s R&D involves carving out time each week to keep the assembly line moving, to provide a quick transition to the next project and to arm himself or herself with answers to the question that even the most successful scribes always hear in meetings: So what else ya got?

To better kick-start our students’ conveyor belts and fill their idea armories with blockbuster ammo, I teach a class at USC called Breaking the Story. One exercise I developed for that class was at first only intended to simulate the task of writing a studio assignment, but it has since grown into a useful tool for generating new ideas when R&D slows and the cache runs dry.

For many writers, working on spec from a totally blank, anything-is-possible, wide-open canvas proves to be a difficult challenge that can quickly cripple inspiration and momentum under the weight of too many options and too much indecision. But if you add a few immutable parameters to the project (as they exist in a studio assignment), suddenly you have a starting point. Several of my students have turned projects derived from the following exercise into feature scripts, and recently one earned Distinction on his USC thesis, which he first developed using Note Card R&D.

EXERCISE

1. Gather fifteen blank note cards.

2. Separate them into three stacks of five.

3. On each card in the first stack, write the name of a prominent actor.

4. On each card in the second stack, write the name of a genre.

5. On each card in the third stack, write the name of an interesting location.

6. Flip each stack over to hide your writing.

7. Keeping them separate, shuffle each stack vigorously.

8. Select one card from the top of each stack.

9. Drumroll your desk before turning over each of the three cards.

10. Now use these cards as building blocks to develop a movie treatment.

It is important that you not allow yourself to reshuffle and redraw. What you get is what you get. The challenge (as well as the fun) is born from working within rigid parameters. These random variables are what give your creativity a starting point and free you from preciousness and indecision. Holding fast to your hand of cards will push you to work on ideas outside your typical comfort zone, and sometimes the best stories come from the most unlikely pairings.

For instance, I once had a student draw Denzel Washington, Period Piece, Japan, and turn it into a gripping World War II treatment. Another student wrote an excellent feature-length script from Natalie Portman, Action, Las Vegas, even though she hated all three elements at first. Kate Hudson, New York, Sci-Fi once generated a hilarious romantic comedy, and Shia LeBeouf, Drama, Africa was the foundation for the aforementioned thesis script that earned Distinction at USC.

The stories you derive from your note cards may not always be home runs or lead to finished feature scripts, but they will inevitably help you to explore new characters, worlds and scenarios that may become useful to you in other projects down the road. Most important, they will serve to keep your R&D factory humming at full speed and brimming with potential.

CHANDUS JACKSON

Concept Is King

CHANDUS JACKSON is an award-winning screenwriter, having recently won the Walt Disney/ABC Writing Fellowship for his political thriller screenplay RENDERED. While at Disney he also developed and wrote the sci-fi/family THE COMPLETION. He has won several screenwriting awards to include top finishes in the Page International Screenwriting Awards and Austin Heart of Film Screenplay Competition. Chandus presently has feature and TV scripts in development.

One lesson I’ve learned in Hollywood is that right out of the gate a screenplay will be judged solely on its concept or premise. You may say that this isn’t fair and that once a creative executive or agent reads your latest opus he’ll realize it’s the next blockbuster or Oscar contender. You may be right. But for most writers the first step is to get someone to just read their script. In order to create this desire for a read, the premise or concept must be locked tight.

So what’s this premise or concept? It’s the big idea, or rather, the high concept, as many in the industry are fond of saying. I call it the sticking point. It’s that one-liner about a story that leaves the reader wanting more. It essentially signals to the reader whether a script will be going to the top of the pile for the weekend read or the bottom of the stack. As an audience member we make similar selections about what we read or watch in our daily lives. We can all relate to flipping past channel after channel with the TV remote because what we’re reading on the screen doesn’t pique our interest.

Such is the case with the concept of a screenplay. The truth of the matter is that solid structure, great dialogue and superb characters cannot substitute for a faulty premise or an ill-conceived story idea. What this usually signals is that a script may be better suited for another medium such as a novel, teleplay or short story. As storytellers we must know what medium works best as we find the perfect vehicle to share our stories with the world.

How can we be so sure that what we’ve found is worth the investment of the next four months or several years? The short answer is: Test the marketplace. I test the market every time by pitching my premise to a group of trusted friends. If these friends seem confused or even lukewarm, then it’s back to the drawing board. The primary goal is to determine whether this concept is market-ready before investing time and resources in writing. Many scripts in Hollywood don’t do this and, as such, are Dead on Arrival. You say, I’ll get some feedback, but hold on. There’s more. As writers it’s our job to understand the entire family tree of the concept we’re writing. Whether it’s a comedy, thriller or action script, we must know what films are similar to our own, with an understanding of why our script is different and what sets it apart. We must also understand the current marketplace. There’s no worse feeling than spending months or years on a script only to discover that another writer ’s similar script has been green-lit for production. I say, cut your losses and start writing something else, because life is just too short. As a screenwriter you must learn to develop several concepts if you’re going to make it as a Hollywood working writer.

EXERCISE

There are two simple exercises that can be beneficial during the development process.

Part A. Write out the family tree of recent concepts you are working on. How is your concept similar to what has already been made? What’s different or unique about your project? What’s fresh? Most of this information about past films and future projects can easily be found on IMDb.com.

Part B. This next exercise involves watching films that are similar to your concept along with reading the script. This is an excellent way to see how similar projects are executed. Still, this exercise isn’t just for projects you are working on. Every time you come across a script that interests you and that has recently been sold, look up its family tree. Research the story and see how it’s different from other scripts in the marketplace. This will only strengthen a writer’s story-development muscle. This, of course, is critical to the success of a Hollywood screenwriter. Remember, concept is king.

BARRI EVINS

When Sally Met Harry

BARRI EVINS is a both a screenwriting teacher and a film producer. She has taught at the UCLA Graduate Producer Program, AFI, CineStory, Great American PitchFest and the L.A. Screenwriting Expo. As a producer, Barri has set up numerous pitches and specs at Warner Bros., Universal, Disney, Nickelodeon, New Line and HBO. Her current passion is a project with actor-producer Tobey Maguire and Academy Award- nominated writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby.

In the delicious scene between Harry and Sally in Katz’s Deli, Meg Ryan’s character claims men can’t tell when women are faking an orgasm. Billy Crystal, supremely confident of his own prowess, insists he can. Meg launches into an utterly convincing demo, right there amid the corned beef and knishes. Here in Hollywood, we’ll always side with Billy. We can tell when you’re faking it. Probably by Page Two.

When frustrated screenwriters say to themselves, To hell with Hollywood; everything they make is crap. If that’s what they want, that’s what I’m gonna give ’em. I’m gonna write one of those pieces of crap and sell it for Big Money, They inevitably fail.

They’re faking it.

The material is flat. Dry. Forced.

Even if it’s impeccably crafted, something’s not quite right. Like saying When Sally Met Harry—it just doesn’t flow. What didn’t excite you can’t possibly turn us on.

When writers fake it, they ignore the very keys to their success.

Remember when you were a kid and nervous about fitting in? Mom said, Just be yourself. As usual, Mom was right.

The secret to being yourself as a writer is to know what you do best as well as what really matters to you. What you’re good at and what you want to say. Your strengths and your passions.

Combine those two ingredients with what I call a hooky idea, one that ignites our imagination, grabs us and won’t let go, and eureka—career rocket fuel! You’ve discovered the Magic Triangle.

FADE IN: A struggling writer taking bit parts in movies attends a boxing match where the underdog miraculously goes the distance with the champ. Inspired, in three days he writes a screenplay he titles ROCKY. Sylvester Stallone was offered $250,000 for the script but turned it down. He sold it for $25,000 and the starring role. Sly used a powerful idea combined with his strengths and passions to get where he wanted to go.

The most important decision you will ever make as a writer is what to write next. Your Screenwriting Strengths are one invaluable tool for determining, before you begin to write, if your idea can catapult you to the next level in your career.

EXERCISE

1. Identifying your Screenwriting Strengths:

—What do you enjoy most about screenwriting?

—Your favorite genre to write in and a few words about why.

—Your least favorite and why.

—What aspect of screenwriting comes easiest to you?

—If as a screenwriter I never again have to _________________, I’d be thrilled.

—I’m most happy when creating:

Typing FADE OUT Or ____________

2. When writing a scene, I:

—Just hear the characters talking

—Close my eyes and envision what’s happening

—Think about how the characters feel

—Focus on advancing the plot

—Concentrate on what I want the audience to feel

—Figure out how to reveal something about my characters

—Write everything I can think of, then cut, cut, cut

—Have no idea

—Other: ________________________________________________

3. What kind of dialogue is your forte? Your second greatest strength?

Or ______________________________________________________

4. Without stopping to think twice, complete the sentences:

—My favorite line of movie dialogue:

—The scene without dialogue that blows me away:

—My favorite relationship between two characters:

—The comic moment that makes me laugh so hard that popcorn spurts out my