The Craft of Scene Writing

by Jim Mercurio

  Cinematic writing is an oxymoron. It is a daunting and Sisyphean task to make the words on any given page keep pace with visuals on a screen. The only chance that your prose style can keep up with all that you want it to do is through constant vigilance over every word.

  The craft of action description is to not write flowery prose and instead to create intriguing visuals that address the practical circumstance of the setting and events, move the story, plus build mood, tone, and suspense, and simultaneously incorporate necessary elements that set up a scene’s surprises. To execute these tasks for every scene is a tall order. This craft of action description lies in discernment, which grows with experience.

  A judicious cut allows something else to shine. The perfect verb ultimately reflects on character. An ellipsis can create suspense. A discovered juxtaposition can shift the entire meaning.

  If you wrestle within each scene, with every opportunity to give the audience as much new information and insight as possible, then you must capitalize on this accumulated context to focus on images and language that will push your story forward with emotional impact. What seems like a fight for efficiency will merge into storytelling and guide you toward much stronger and well-told stories.

  Earlier I said that the only difference between a screenwriter and director is the medium in which they work—the page and the screen. However, you can overcome this limitation. If you can make your story come alive with carefully chosen images and meaningful movement, you’re not stuck with the physical boundaries of the page or screen. Your medium can and should transcend the page and become the very imagination of the reader.

  PART THREE

  THE HOME STRETCH

  11

  REWRITING I: THE BIG PICTURE

  Let’s begin with classical notions that distinguish writing and rewriting.

  Writing is when you plow forward and—even if you have a thorough and rigid outline in place—are open to discoveries about the characters, scenes, sequences, and overall structure. Here, you explore the characters more deeply and find nuances in their backstories and use them to create plot twists.

  Rewriting is when you cut away everything that doesn’t belong and wrestle with finer details such as resolving dialogue, wording, and scene-level issues. It also includes shuffling the order of scenes, sequences, and turning points until they flow “just right.”

  In the initial writing phase, commit to expanding and fleshing things out at every opportunity. Get in the flow and write fast. Use this process to discover your story and character. Consider this glorified outlining. Expect to cut a lot. And remember it is much easier to cut ten to twenty unpolished pages than ten perfectly polished pages. The more material you create from which to mine and extract, the better, and the more discoveries you will make.

  While in writing mode, you will begin a gardening process that includes planting, sprinkling, and transplanting your story elements throughout the script.

  When you switch to the classic rewriting phase, the gardening analogy continues. A literal or figurative red pen will become a physical tool as you begin to slice and prune your material.

  Here you think more left-brained, making judgment calls and using logic to shape your story.

  This chapter works in tandem with the next, and together they will track the rewriting process as it moves from the global to the microcosmic, i.e., from broad strokes of structure toward sequences, scenes, dialogue, and ultimately to the language of action description.

  Here, we begin by looking at the big picture relating to scenes within a sequence and how elements work between the scenes collectively. We’ll examine how one sequence segues into the next and how tracking your character’s internal, emotional state writes half of your script. And we’ll see how you distribute thematic touches throughout the scenes in your story.

  In Chapter 12, “Rewriting II: The Small Picture,” we will treat a scene as a stand alone unit, limiting our scope to the boundary (usually, a few pages) of a given scene. However, in this chapter, it’s just the opposite. This diagram clarifies our approach:

  The entire bar below represents a portion of your screenplay in sequential order, and the vertical lines are the beginning and endpoint of individual scenes. The circles represent an element (dialogue, conflict, motif, etc.) in a scene. The arced lines represent a connection between elements in two different scenes.

  Notice there are no lines between elements in the same scene. In this chapter, we are not considering how elements in a scene relate to the elements in the same scene, but rather how they branch out and relate to other scenes throughout the screenplay.

  The progression from big to small captures some essence of the truth for the writing process. For instance, by addressing first the larger picture, you avoid fretting for hours or days over details specific to individual scenes or sequences that might not even survive the next revision or draft. If you work within this flow, you might write more efficiently.

  Now, let’s start with the big picture.

  Big-Picture Perspective

  Recall in the opening chapter, “The Story of a Scene,” the Clurman Breakdown that had us label our beats one by one to evaluate a scene’s escalation. You can also apply this principle to the broad beats of your story to create an overview of your twists and reversals.

  Structure

  As part of your rewriting process, it’s very helpful to create a ten- to twelve-point outline or two- to three-page summary of the sequences—the “movements” or mini-acts—of your story. This overview gives you an important, big-picture view of your story and your essential turning points. Some writers use note cards at this point to fine-tune the beats of their story.

  Just as within scenes, you’ll want to look for abrupt swings from expectation to surprise in the plot. In My Best Friend’s Wedding, Julianne’s best friend George comes to help Julianne and gives her solid advice: tell her best friend Michael the truth—that she’s in love with him. The sequence builds the expectations of truth, truth, truth (zig, zig, zig), and then culminates in a surprise reversal in the climax of the scene and sequence: the lie (zag) that she and George are engaged. This establishes a clearly new reality; she now has to live with the consequences of the lie, and so does George.

  Even in the masterpiece drama Bicycle Thieves, the same sort of sharp reversals propel the story. Soon after the bike is stolen, there is a sequence in which Ricci and his son Bruno search for the bike in a market, but an audience can be interested in that for only for so long. The next sequence complicates things by escalating the physical search to what I would call a metaphysical search for the bike.

  Ricci and young Bruno travel from the bike market to a similar one, where we expect them to inspect more bikes. But good storytelling prevails. It begins to rain, which foils our expectations and avoids redundancy by preventing them from continuing their search. Moments later, Ricci spots the old man who helped the thief, and he confronts him. With his son by his side, Ricci harasses the old man and relentlessly pursues him into a church.

  Sequences, even more than scenes, must turn both story and character.

  In Bicycle Thieves, the inner state of the protagonist facilitates the abrupt story change. When Ricci follows the old man into the church and confronts him, the film deftly twists from a simple and mechanical search for the bike to a morally messy nightmare. The story takes a crisp, dark turn as Bruno witnesses his father’s desperation, which foreshadows the tragic, devastating ending.

  Structure and Character

  “What Would My Character Do Next?”

  The most fundamental question in drama, “What happens next?” can often be satisfied by the answer to the more specific query, “What would my character do next?” Answer this question well thirty times, and then turn those thirty answers into great scenes, and you will have written a great screenplay.

  My Best Friend’s Wedding has a scene of surprising emotional depth, in which Michael reminds Julianne of his pla
tonic love for her as a lifelong friend. It is accentuated with romantic light and shadow as they travel on a boat under bridges on the Chicago River. If Julianne were a psychologically healthy, well-balanced character, she would take the advice from her best friend and confidante, George:

  GEORGE

  Look, tell him you love him, bite the bullet.

  JULIANNE

  George, what will he do?

  GEORGE

  He’ll choose Kim, you’ll stand beside her at the wedding, kiss him goodbye, and go home. That’s what you came here to do, so do it.

  However, normal, well-balanced characters do not make great protagonists. Their stories are over before they begin.

  What does Julianne do? She takes the sincere expression of Michael’s love and funnels it through her distorted perspective and uses it as both rationalization and inspiration to destroy Michael’s wedding. She becomes reenergized and focused on her immoral and deceptive plan to break apart his healthy relationship with Kimmy.

  Continue to track the character. Constantly monitor his mental state as it relates to their actions. Given your character’s flaw—his twisted and unhealthy perspective on the world—ask, “What would he do next?” at every turn. This question forces you to link and align the external world to his inner state.

  A script’s ability to do this can elevate it from a made-for-cable B movie to a great genre movie such as French Connection, Serpico, L.A. Confidential, or Training Day. Great comedies such as Groundhog Day, Tootsie, and The 40-Year-Old-Virgin do the same thing. It is incredibly satisfying when we can have our cake and eat it, too, i.e., revel in the familiar pleasure that genre movies provide through the catalyst of well-developed and painstakingly tracked characters.

  A perfect example is in L.A. Confidential in which Bud White and Exley begin working together and rough up the D.A. (Ron Rifkin) and then dangle him from a window. White guides Exley on the path of his character arc by helping overcome his by-the-book, goody-two-shoes nature, which is the growth that he will need to defeat the antagonist.

  An Officer and a Gentleman tracks selfishness, the flaw of Zack Mayo (Richard Gere), throughout several training sequences. At one point, his drill sergeant Foley (Lou Gossett Jr) calls him on it with a reframe regarding a specific exercise: “You oughta be good at this, Mayo. Something you can do alone.”

  All movies have some aspect that is a physical obstacle course, but if every challenge is a mere physical obstruction, the audience will eventually lose interest.

  In fact, near the end of the movie, Zack’s team runs through a literal obstacle course. As he clears its biggest external obstacle, he faces his dilemma as an opportunity to break the course record or stop to encourage a struggling female candidate whose graduation is at risk. Does he choose personal glory or altruism and teamwork? Selfishness or selflessness?

  As with many films, you will find that your script has a series of repetitive events. In a romantic comedy, it might be dates. In a thriller, it might be chases. In a sports movie, it will be games or training sessions. For instance, if you are writing a movie about a stand-up comedian, you can’t sprinkle in half a dozen five-minute performances that merely show the character performing. The scenes need to do more than that.

  Follow your character’s internal state to bring something unique to each scene. The comedian’s various performances might represent overcoming hecklers, finding a groove, messing up because of self-doubt, and ultimately finding her honest voice.

  Any time you have a series of physical actions, each of which bear a similar description, such as a performance, game, battle, or event, you track the inner state of the character to create a vastly different subtext for each of them to give your story requisite fluctuations and variety. You must integrate each outcome into the narrative, but the base importance arises from the character’s emotional journey.

  Question Your Characters

  Some simple questions allow you to assess your character’s internal state—including emotions, attitudes, and habits—and turn it into story. How does any new situation impact my character’s approach? What will necessarily be different about his new approach?

  Remember, it’s not about the actions of a well-adjusted person. Your specific question often comes in this form:

  Given my character’s flaw of __________, what unique and organically motivated action would he take next?

  Sometimes it’s easy:

  • How does an impulsive and violent cop perform an interrogation?

  • How does a judgmental judge judge?

  • What does a sex addict do on a first date?

  Sometimes it’s a bit more challenging:

  • How does an egomaniacal therapist hold a therapy session?

  • How does a grieving widow handle a first date?

  • How does a sociopath celebrate Valentine’s Day?

  Character:

  Choose to Use Your Dilemma

  At some point during the writing process or the early stages of the rewriting process, you must pinpoint your protagonist’s dilemma. This discovery and distillation of character represent a monumental tipping point in your writing progress.

  If most of what you have written intuitively adheres to the protagonist’s dilemma, then your work now consists of clarifying the conflict in scenes, which might translate into only a relatively modest amount of rewriting. However, if the conflict in your scenes flounders and is not aligned with dilemma, then there may be substantially more rewriting ahead.

  Even in the latter case, your intuition will surprise you. Often character interactions happen roughly when and where they belong. Many scenes will need only a boost or streamline as opposed to an overhaul.

  The character’s dilemma helps you to track your protagonist through key moments. It unites the external story events with the arc of the character’s inner journey. Let’s look at how a clear understanding of the dilemma hands you a clear path through the rewriting and honing of several key scenes.

  Opening Image/Introduction to Character

  The opening image and introduction to character use the protagonist’s dilemma in similar ways. Whereas the opening image relies on ideas and theme, the character introduction translates the two sides of dilemma into an action. It captures the essence of the character and foreshadows the entire trajectory of their growth and character arc.

  Look at the carefully chosen description of the opening image from Shutter Island:

  EXT. FERRY ON WATER - MORNING

  The fog TWISTS over the water, a thick and almost impenetrable CURTAIN -- that suddenly PARTS to reveal:

  A FERRY

  The swirling thick fog creates an ominous mood, but the concealing and revealing suggest the essence of a mystery, if not the genre itself. The reveal and contextual cheat of the curtain hint that what we are about to see is a theatrical performance. Everything contributes to the idea that we and the protagonist will struggle to clearly see reality and the truth.

  Your opening image, even if it’s on the nose, should get to the core of your story as quickly and concisely as possible. You can finesse it later. In Dead Poets Society, Tom Schulman contrasted lifeless conformity with freedom in a giant mural. What was his image for freedom? Lady Liberty. Inspired by the location and articulation of the theme, the director Peter Weir did something more subtle and sophisticated.

  The opening image is a static shot of a mural section featuring three adolescent males dressed in similar sport jackets of muted colors. Behind them is a group of slightly older and taller boys with obscured faces. Two of the three younger boys’ outfits have a touch of red—a color often associated with emotion and passion. The older kids’ depictions have much less red, as if to say that most, if not all, of their passion has been snuffed out.

  For me, the layers of boys as mirrors or foils suggests the idea of lineage—something being passed down to the next generation—and that concept becomes explicit when the camera pulls out to reveal a third l
ayer, completing the pattern, of a live, much younger boy who wears a bright red hat. Still unformed by this society and institution, he is a bundle of passion and emotion. He stands before his mother as she fixes his hair and tells him to keep his shoulders back—posing him for a photograph.

  The moment reminds me of a line from a short, experimental documentary about male socialization and how society strips boys of their chance to be emotionally whole, The Smell of Burning Ants, in which the writer and director Jay Rosenblatt says, “(They tell you), ‘Smile, it won’t kill you,’ but, in fact, it does.”

  Adults and the world systematically squeezing the passion and personality from their children beginning at an early age? Can Dead Poets Society’s opening image be any clearer about what it will be about?

  In Chapter 8, “Theme,” we discussed how the filmmakers in Se7en used a concise visual—Somerset caught between a chess set and a window (the sounds of the city)—to raise a specific question of whether the world was filled with some sense of order or whether it was all chaos. The film translates that thematic idea into action when it follows up by using the manner in which Somerset prepares for work to introduce him. He orderly adjusts his tie and removes lint from his jacket. He lays out his tools of the trade: a pen and a badge juxtaposed with the switchblade. More order versus chaos.

  The strongest motif in the film that aligns with order, the recurring image of the metronome, a mechanism he uses to block out chaos so he might sleep, ends the scene as he walks by it. The camera lingers on a shot of it, which is followed by a shocking and on-point juxtaposition: a shot of a jaggedly framed dead body lying in a pool of blood at the crime scene Somerset visits; order versus chaos in content and form.

  Regard the first draft of your opening as raw content you get to rewrite or edit. Imagine it’s a documentary and you’re going to sift through the “footage” to come up with something even better.

  Love Interest/Meet-Cute/Best Friends

  When you introduce characters, your job is to give us a glimpse of both sides of their personality: who they are and who they are going to be. Nowhere does this become more important than with best-friend characters and love interests.