by Jim Mercurio
If you like a motif or location on, say, page 50, you can skim through the script—forward and backward—searching for other places to transplant it. You can plant setups, reuse the location, or echo a newfound motif. Your goal should be to plant at least three instances of echoes, hints, and clues throughout the script.
Why three? The rule of threes states that three is the smallest number of occurrences that creates a pattern. One is an isolated instance. Two could be a coincidence. Three is a pattern. Often it will take more than three strands of a given motif, but remember, your overall goal is to layer in enough clues for your audience to understand your intentions, even if only on a subconscious level.
In For Love of the Game, Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner), a major league pitcher on the verge of retirement, is in the middle of pitching a perfect game. By this point, you should know that winning the championship or pitching a perfect game in and of itself isn’t a particularly meaningful event for a two-hour film.
The filmmakers enable us see that the game represents his arc in life and that despite his almost-perfect career and this perfect game, he must learn that he needs people. Let’s look at the little snippets of dialogue peppered throughout the script that reframe the story toward this idea:
In a fun cameo, world-famous announcer Vin Scully plays himself as he broadcasts the game:
VIN SCULLY
… retiring 24 consecutive batters. Billy Chapel is certainly getting more than a little help from his friends.
The catcher, Gus Sinski (John Reilly), walks out to the mound in a trope familiar to all baseball movies—to settle Billy down—but notice how the specifics echo what’s “on the mind of” the movie.
BILLY
I don’t know if I have anything left.
GUS
Chappie, you just throw whatever you got.
…
The boys are all here for ya.
…
We’ll back ya up.
Billy’s first meeting with his eventual love interest, Jane Aubrey (Kelly Preston), is a meet-cute in which he stops along the side of the road to help her fix her broken-down car. Being stubbornly independent, her perspective echoes his flaw, and the word need ends up as part of the overall motif.
JANE
I don’t need any help.
When Jane calls him on his flaw—which manifests on the field and in his personal life—she once again uses the word need, and furthermore, the language evokes the perfect game, which is a framing device for the story.
JANE
I’ve always known it. You don’t need me.
…
You and the ball and the diamond, you’re perfect. You’re a perfectly beautiful thing.
…
You can win or lose the game all by yourself.
That wasn’t so hard, was it? Once you know your character and what your movie is about, you can brainstorm ways to make your language more specific and create subtle reframe lines to spread throughout your script.
The Pragmatic:
Action Description for Recurring Locations and Images
In Chapter 10, “Cinematic Writing,” you saw how context allows you to use language to multitask when creating mood, tone, and intrigue while simultaneously telling the story. In describing recurring images or locations, action description is not an island unto itself. Consider details that came before. If the audience already has a picture in mind, you can avoid wordy and redundant description. The resulting efficiency and brevity allow you to focus on the more important elements, such as emotion and story.
If you have five scenes at the same location, sculpt or shape your description in an arc across the script. In the first scene, you may need to be practical and give an expansive description. In the second, you orient us with a reference to the original description, but then follow up with new details that expand the story. In subsequent scenes, when the audience already has a familiar image of the space in mind and the story is moving faster, you can take more license with shortcuts and ellipses.
Here are several descriptions from Rocky of Rocky’s apartment taken in chronological order as they appear throughout the script.
INT. ROCKY’S HALLWAY - NIGHT
The narrow hallway is painted olive brown. A single light bulb illuminates the gloomy corridor.
INT. ROCKY’S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Rocky enters. The one-room apartment is drab, with a curling boxing poster of Rocky Marciano tacked on the wall…
Nailed against the far wall is a mattress. The mattress is used as a punching bag. Stuffing spills out of the center.
Rocky drops his coat on the floor. He puts on a pair of glasses. He crosses to a small turtle bowl… He lifts the creatures.
As we discussed in Chapter 4, “Non-Dialogue: Using Visuals,” the light bulb in the hallway can do the heavy lifting for mood and tone. Since this is the first time we see the space, it’s appropriate to give the reader some details of his space and establish his ritual.
INT. ROCKY’S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Rocky and Adrian enter his one-room apartment… She is nervous and taken aback by the bleakness of the room…
The reader already has an image of the apartment in her mind. The details don’t need repeating. The noun bleakness is a quick reminder of the vibe, which allows us to focus on the emotional heart of the moment: Adrian’s reaction.
INT. ROCKY’S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Rocky returns home and enters his apartment. After turning on the light, he flips on his RECORD PLAYER. He now feeds the turtles.
ROCKY
Look who’s home!
Appropriately, we don’t need burdensome visual detail. The turtles have been established, so we can provide a shorthand reference to them.
INT. ROCKY’S APARTMENT - NIGHT
They enter the dismal apartment… On the floor are at least ten telegrams. Rocky scoops them up and tosses them aside.
Next to the door is a pile of over a hundred telegrams.
The first time we see the space, we don’t want to rely just on an adjective, but again a single word (dismal) reminds us of the image we already have for the apartment. The action description immediately focuses on elements that move the story forward: the telegrams.
INT. ROCKY’S APARTMENT - DAY
Rocky arrives at his apartment… Adrian is asleep on the couch. He lowers himself beside her. Her eyes open.
Several times we have had description, hints, and reminders about the apartment (drab, dismal, bleakness). Finally, the script has the luxury of ignoring a practical description of the space and featuring only the characters and their actions.
When you finesse the elements of scenes that recur, you clarify your intentions and in the long run deliver a more coherent and emotionally satisfying experience to the audience.
Lining Everything Up
In big-picture rewriting, you are finding the flow of your story.
Use your understanding of character to come up with major twists and make discoveries that take the story in completely different directions. Create some of the major turning points. You’re looking to support the architecture and momentum of your story.
Keep an eye trained on constant progression to avoid static conflict. Avoid inorganic leaps over essential steps that miss out on opportunities to deepen conflict, build surprise, and create escalation that emanates from what has come before.
Follow the cause-and-effect of plot and character while simultaneously aligning the protagonist’s emotional journey with his outer one. Make sure you’ve left enough breadcrumbs so the audience understands the inner journey of your characters.
When you begin to focus on scenes, the rhyming categories of dramatic, thematic, and pragmatic remind you to address each as you track them across the whole script. At this point, hopefully you won’t be making major changes to the story but rather finessing its details to make it a smoother experience.
Regarding theme, highlight the indirect evidence, and
manufacture additional clues to corroborate your circumstantial case. To make everything fit together, use setups, reframes, and foreshadowing as support. Win over the audience by showing them your way of looking at things so that they effortlessly, and often unconsciously, understand your theme and other intentions.
And, of course, deliver the same clarity and efficiency with your action description.
After you smooth out these elements and how they all work together across the entire narrative, you can then shift your focus to the story within each scene, which we do in the next chapter.
12
REWRITING II: THE SMALL PICTURE
Unlike in the previous chapter, now we will focus within the narrow, sometimes as small as one or two pages, boundary of a scene itself. However, we follow the same trajectory as we did in Chapter 11, “Rewriting I: The Small Picture,” starting from a global, big-picture perspective and moving toward the nitty-gritty of a smaller-picture one. Yes, there is a big-picture approach to even one-page scenes.
Although there was a method to our madness in moving from big to small (story to scenes), no perfect chronological, step-by-step road map for rewriting exists. However, this chapter’s deeper look will illuminate more of the inherent nuance, contradictions, and back-and-forths of the actual screenwriting process.
Let’s start by introducing two mind-sets of writing: open mode and closed mode.
Open mode is when your writing is right-brained, uncensored, and expansive.
When you begin your screenplay, you will be in open mode, and I encourage you to consider spending some of your time outside of formatting software or even off the computer. If you use a device or program, avoid the backspace button. Allow everything to flow forward.
Closed mode is when your writing is left-brained, finessing, focusing, tightening, and narrowing down.
We can describe it in the same way we did with rewriting in the previous chapter: judgment, logic, shaping, and pruning.
Rather than associating open mode with writing and closed mode with rewriting, which is commonly done, you can apply each mode to either the writing or rewriting stage.
Having a closed-mode mind-set and logically solving your script’s problems are not talents resigned solely to a clearly delineated, well-defined, and distinct process called “rewriting.” Nor are your open-mode, right-brained skills relegated to another imaginary, perfectly demarcated process called “writing.”
Writing isn’t only creative, and rewriting isn’t only analytical. In fact, possibly the most important skill for rewriting is the ability to seamlessly shift between the modes. This begins with the often surprisingly tricky ability to discern the most productive mode.
Open mode is the big-picture, creating and expanding of any part of your story.
Closed mode is the small-picture, shaping and narrowing of any part of your story.
Our breakdown of the differences in big-picture and small-picture approaches to individual scenes will help you find and apply the appropriate mode, even in the challenging scenarios where it’s difficult to determine.
Adopt a fluid approach and stay open to maneuvering between these two mind-sets throughout the entire process.
Finding the Proper Mode
Sometimes when you are discovering your structure and the process feels wide open, you may have to shift gears into closed mode briefly to obsess over one or two turning points to make your story logically flow.
Conversely, it might seem intuitive that when you undertake the rewrite of a two-page scene in your near-final draft, you should be in microfocused closed mode, but sometimes you have to pull back to open mode. Rewriting a one-page scene or even a single sentence sometimes requires a wildly expansive mind-set.
Here’s a moment when the most productive mode and approach aren’t immediately obvious.
Let’s assume we’re polishing a dark comedy that involves a kidnapping. A woman looks at an empty animal cage in her secluded barn and has an epiphany that it could hold a human.
It’s a small, self-contained story, so we will rely on the actors and their talent. With that in mind, we are now in a closed-mode frame of mind, focusing on the character’s reactions and wrestling with the minutia of every scene. We want to make the script a great read. Here’s a draft of a line of action description:
She looks at the cage, thinks for a moment, and then a devilish grin overcomes her face: she has an idea.
We are facing the classic challenge of how to convey thinking. We all agree that it’s possible to discern the idea of thinking or an idea dawning on someone just from facial expressions. So now let’s come up with a visual image that suggests thinking.
She stares at the cage, furrows her brow, and suddenly a devilish grin overcomes her: she has an idea.
“Furrows her brow” is sort of a cliché. Let’s just cut it or make it more simple, since “she has an idea” will also help to make the point clear. How about one of these?
She stares at the cage and a devilish grin overcomes her: She has an idea.
She stares at the cage. Her eyes widen… she has an idea.
We believe that the intent of “she has an idea” can be readily apparent, so a quick, stylized semi-cheat might suffice to replace it:
Aha.
She gets an epiphany.
A light bulb goes on above her head.
A light-bulb moment.
Finally, we can settle on one of these as efficient and clear ways to express the moment:
She stares at the cage and a devilish grin overcomes her: Aha, an epiphany.
She stares at the cage. Her eyes widen… a light-bulb moment.
We know our actress can clearly convey the intent of thinking. We know our intent is clear, plus it’s a bit more fun than the original. And we even trimmed some words.
So are we finished? I don’t think so.
Let me put on my director’s hat to try to explain why. Remember, for our purposes, a director and screenwriter share the same goal, just on different canvasses (screen versus paper, respectively).
As a director, if I asked myself if I (or any director) would want to direct this, the answer is simply no. For all of the wrestling with words, my job on the set will still boil down to telling the actress, “Look at the cage.” I want to challenge the scene to give me something that would excite my DP, production designer, and sound artist. Essentially, I want to tell a story with images and sounds.
Let’s take what we have and incorporate it into a better approach. The light-bulb idea has a visual component to it, so I want light to play a role in externalizing her decision process. Although having a character pace is a cliché, some sort of blocking can illustrate her indecision. I also want to set up and accentuate the climactic moment, so that when the epiphany hits her, it simultaneously hits the audience with the same clarity and power. What about something like this?
She looks at the cage for a bit too long, shakes her head no.
Walks out of the room. Turns off the light. It’s pitch-black. Her FOOTSTEPS fade…
But then CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP they become louder… the light flickers back on…
Here, her walking away from us and shutting out the light shows her initial rejection of an idea, but then the sound of the footsteps getting louder hint that the idea is gaining power.
In general, using a character’s movement away from the camera to create a sense of no or reluctance makes sense because they diminish in the shot. Conversely, movement toward the camera can be a form of yes and engagement as the size of the character grows. Turning on the light is literally a light-bulb moment that expresses her openness to the idea.
Let’s let blocking and visuals clarify what’s on her mind for the audience.
She trots up to the cage; stares at the bars. Grabs them, shakes them: they don’t budge.
And then… WOW…
(Okay, my one cheat to build suspense.)
She turns sideways and tries to squeeze through the
bars. They catch her hips. She pushes harder but can’t get through.
She steps back. Aha! An epiphany.
A devilish grin.
Notice how the final action of trying to squeeze through the bars helps to convey the specific idea that this cage could hold a human. It allows the viewers to have their own light-bulb moment as her epiphany clearly becomes theirs, too.
We used sound, light, blocking, setting, externalization of inner thoughts, surprises, clarity, and the actress’s face to make the moment more understandable and emotionally impactful.
The first attempt at merely wrestling with words was the wrong approach. Although it was a final polish, instead of being in closed mode, we were better off thinking about the scene from a big-picture, open-mode perspective. Especially if you are not deft at traversing fluidly between the thought processes of these two modes, don’t focus on polishing prematurely. Exhaust all of the potential right-brained expansion before switching focus to the “narrowing in” involved with closed mode.
Big-Picture Approach
Although it might be counterintuitive, even if your scene is less than a page in length, sometimes the key to its rewrite is with an approach that is decidedly big picture. When you are looking for an inspiring way to overhaul a scene, consider these approaches: a completely visual solution, a new concept, or changing either the point of view or style.
Visuals
Sometimes by writing too quickly you can wind up with an overly talky first draft that is so reliant on dialogue and on-the-nose actions that you back yourself into a corner. In Chapter 4, “Using Visuals,” in The Color of Money, we saw how sometimes there can be a simple one-to-one translation of each beat of bad line of dialogue into an intriguing visual. However, there will be times when your approach has to be more global.
If it feels as if you’re in an endless loop of shuffling dialogue with no subtext or coming up with uninspired visuals to fix a static and talky scene, try discarding all of the talk and rewriting the scene from scratch with no dialogue at all, only visuals. It might be as simple as turning a walk-and-talk first date at an amusement park into a single shot of the couple on a roller coaster and cutting to a moment after the date to show their ebullient or comically depressed reactions.
