Yesterday I had quite an unusual experience. I was invited to take part in a punch-up session for a pilot. Why so unusual? Well, since I’m generally not a comedy writer, it was definitely a new experience!
I joined an interesting group — writers, a co-EP, and an EP/creator — and proceeded to participate in a table read. Our acting was awesome, naturally. After that, we went page by page. I don’t know whether this is normal or not, but here’s what we covered:
- Where to add more tension/conflict
- Where to add more funny
- Where to trim down
The pilot was in first draft, so I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t have heard trim down comments in other punch-up sessions. Or maybe we would? I was gratified that one of my first joke suggestions got a “Good joke” comment from another writer. I also brought up suggestions on how to get a little more tension in there (still a drama writer, can’t lie), which seemed to be well-received. We would pretty much skip over sections that served to move the story forward, which I found interesting. Overall, it was a lot of fun and a great experience.
If you happen to have been in a punch-up session, was it normal to talk about tension and story beats? I’m wondering how different this session was from the typical.
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In the process of developing a comic pitch, I decided to do a little research. I came across notes from a Steve Kaplan course on the keys to a comic premise and, I suppose, comedy in general. I feel fabulous not knowing some of this material already, because you’re only supposed to use these tools if you’re stuck and not naturally inspired. Of course, I’m always inspired ;) Except for today…
http://inscription.com.au/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=85
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I am taking a class on storyboarding through the Animation Guild, because I really wanted professional artists to laugh at my artistic skills. Oh, and supposedly I am there to learn a smidge about the art of animation, which just makes me wish I could draw. Biggest take-home so far? Anthropomorphic characters are easier to make appealing than human characters in animation. Now I understand why monkeys were big a few years back.
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I was speaking with Naren Shenkar (please, let me have spelled it right), the current Head Writer of the original CSI. He told me that when breaking an episode, they always start with the real crime first, then work from there. I’ve read elsewhere that LAW & ORDER may pull plot points and concepts from headlines — sometimes literally — and then build their story.
So is starting with the crime writing forwards, or writing backwards? To me, it feels like writing backwards, because the crime doesn’t appear till the end, and you usually see different permutations of it before you see the real thing. Especially in WITHOUT A TRACE, you can argue that the “crime” is ongoing… the real crime is happening in every act.
Eh, philosophical ramblings. Whatever works, works.
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I’ve been busy traveling and being sick, but I have not come back empty-handed! At the Game Developers Conference, one game writer volunteered a very useful way to differentiate character voices. In most cases, I differentiate character voice by rhythm, sentence length, humor, education, personality, etc. What’s great about this new method is it makes it easier to communicate and collaborate with another writer.
Ready? Here it is. For each character, make a list of vocabulary that only that character would say. Because no one wants to make an exhaustive list for 70 characters, this list should be about 7-10 words long. There’s the obvious vocab — like “Cowabunga” for Michaelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I figure it could include other expressions like “not cute” or “that place with the pots” (instead of kitchen). On one show I worked on, we had an invisible list of how each character addressed their grandmother: “Gram” for one person, “Gran” for another.
What’s nice about the list is that each word could be representative of a personality trait. Like “not cute” could indicate someone who’s generally very judgmental. Or the “that place with the pots” person could be a tragically clever and Blackadder-esque type of guy. The real challenge might be to find vocab choices that weren’t just examples of traits you’ve already decided on.
As a frequent collaborator, though, I can see how the list could come in handy. You can split the characters down the middle and say, “You do the list for those characters, and I’ll do it for these, and we’ll see what we come up with.”
Okay, your turn. Got any tactics you’ve use to differentiate characters?
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Have you ever watched a movie that was boring? Have you ever tried writing something and then got stuck? I’ve put some thought into this recurring problem, and I have finally figured out the solution. No matter what issue you face in a story, you only need one thing:
Zombies
Yes, zombies are the ultimate cure. Why does Sally go out in the front yard so she can conveniently run into John, the love interest? Because zombies are chasing her. When will Sara get over her unending guilt about the accidental death of the child in her charge? Somewhere between running for her life and facing down the zombie intent on eating her. It has been said that to make a film, all you need is a girl and a gun. Well, zombies make it one step easier.
Here are a few examples of how a zombie could be added to the mix of some of this year’s Oscar-level films to make them a little bit more entertaining:
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY - As the main character struggles to tell his story by blinking, zombies are attacking! His wife manages to get his last words on the page before he’s tragically mauled by zombies, who then quickly turn on the girl he was hot for who couldn’t be bothered to see him. Wife and children manage to kill all the zombies and retire on the proceeds of book.
ATONEMENT - After the main characters die, a mysterious plague infects the ground and they, along with many others killed during this time, rise again as zombies. Main characters go after the narrator of the story, saying “This is how to atone, bitch!” They eat her brains then go off and have mad zombie sex.
Have any other writing problems? I will happily apply the zombie solution to your story!
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I was watching an actual new episode of Ghost Whisperer. I’m assuming it was written by WGA writers, so here goes. I was actually not expecting a certain plot twist. Here it is in a nutshell. Ghost wants to protect his sister. It appears Ghost was dating popular girl. However, in reality, sister was trying to date the popular girl.
Why did we not guess that the girl was gay? Well, aside from heterosexual privilege 
, I think it’s because the son of one of the main characters seemed kind of interested in her. You were rooting for him to get with her, so you become really surprised when she’s not interested in him or guys. However, you feel a bit taken aback when the son doesn’t seem to care that the girl is gay.
I’d say this is a good tactic: create rooting interest in one character that actually counters a secret fact. Ideally, however, the guy should have reacted and perhaps been disappointed that she wasn’t into guys.
It’s late; I’m tired. This post may make no sense, but let’s see if I can come up with another example. Main character is hoping to get a job from Girl. He’s working hard and doing everything he can to get the job. Then it turns out girl is not even working. It’s even more helpful if all of this appears to be a subplot of some sort, so you don’t even question the validity of it. If it’s the main plot, the audience will be trying to anticipate the twist.
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I played a little bit of Resident Evil 4 for Wii last night, which caused me to experience cognitive dissonance, since every other game I’ve played on Wii has been a general audiences game. That said, I noted the long intro cut scenes and lots of exposition… so much so, people at the party talked over it and I couldn’t hear what they were saying half the time. Still, not knowing the exposition didn’t stop me from enjoying killing zombies.
This leads, somewhat, into another instance of “mystery notes” lying on my desk. Just a reminder, I found some notes I must have taken a million years ago scrawled on a scrap of paper. Here’s my effort to preserve it:
Subtext
Show past by how people treat you now - frat buddies joking
Could this technique have worked in RE4? Since I couldn’t hear much of what was being said, if your main character has much of a past, or if he’s experiencing his life-changing event right now. That said, there are three characters he talks to:
1. He starts out the game with two police guys, and I’m thinking he doesn’t know them from Adam. Instead of long cut scenes with two random strangers, what if they’d been, say, his frat buddies? Terribly funny, since the main character has a pretty boy haircut and clearly has never been in a frat ;)
2. After the guys ditch you, a woman calls who’s your guide for the operation. She introduces herself and you’re off to the races. What if she referred to past experiences, or treated you a certain way to indicate where you were in the pecking order? In the five minutes I played, I didn’t see any of that.
Of course, games is a different animal than most media. It can be a double-edged sword to give your main character a dramatic backstory, since, in the end, the player is the main character.
Anyone seen a good example of revealing the past through subtext rather than expository dialog? Lemme know.
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I was watching a documentary series about different kinds of evil, and when I heard about this trick, I immediately saw its usefulness in just about any type of writing. Ready for it?
When people listen to a statement, they default to thinking it’s true. Usually they take a moment to process it, then decide whether that original assumption was right or not. What certain evil people do is make a statement they want someone to believe, then interrupt this processing time. The interruption prevents the listener from reassessing the original statement, and so in his/her mind, it will remain true.
This sounds pretty evil, right? Well, if misleading your audience is evil, then all writers are evil. Here’s how it would work. You want your viewer/player to suspect Joe, so you have someone who is trying to frame Joe say something like, “Joe is a killer just waiting for an opportunity.” Or you could have someone who’s just misguided about Joe say the same thing. Then immediately you interrupt your viewer’s processing of this information with a huge distraction. The distraction could be relatively mild, or something as large as an explosion. Your viewer/player will accept the idea “Joe is a killer” until you do the big reveal.
I’ve certainly seen plenty of movies where the clues are laid in, so subtle you can’t even find them. What’s interesting with this technique is it’s not so much a clue as a misdirection the audience will blame itself for not recognizing. Obviously Sally was framing Joe, or obviously Sally didn’t know what she was talking about with Joe, but for some reason, I believed what she said when she said it.
I wish I could test how successful it was in different media and also the degree of distraction you’d need for it to work. This technique would be the most difficult in prose, since the reader can interrupt him/herself at any time. I’m wondering if an act break, which might leave to, say, a commercial would be sufficient distraction, or whether that would leave the viewer with too much time to dismiss the statement. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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