3. What specific changes did the author make in each rewrite to change the tone of the dialogue?
4. How did conflict or agreement about status roles contribute to the friendliness or tension of the dialogue?
LESSON 9: SOLO EXERCISE
1. Put the numbers one through ten on slips of paper and place them in a hat. In this exercise, the numbers will represent a spectrum of friendliness to antagonism. Ten is very, very, very, very friendly. One is very, very, very, very adversarial. Five is about halfway in between.
2. Draw three numbers out of the hat.
3. Go to a random web page. You can either find a random page yourself, or you can get directed to a random page through a site such as www.randomwebsite.com.
4. Inspired by the content of that random web page, write a three- to five-page scene between two characters. Write the scene so that the dialogue starts out at the friendliness level of the first number, moves to the level of the second number, and then finishes at the level of the third number. Make sure to use status conflicts and agreements to create the tension and friendliness in the dialogue.
5. Repeat this exercise regularly as an ongoing writer's workout.
TYLER: The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club.
—Fight Club (1999)
LESSON TEN:
Tools
L
ike other mammals, humans use a variety of physical cues to communicate what status they are playing. A straight spine, squared shoulders, and a straightforward gaze are signs of someone playing high status. A slouched spine, hunched shoulders, and a downward gaze are signs of someone playing low status. These mimic actions seen all over the animal kingdom. High status orangutans stand and beat their chests to assert dominance. When my late beagle got caught eating from the table, she would hang her head and crouch low to the ground — a sign of submission.
In the animal kingdom, the strongest and healthiest animals take on high status roles. The remainder of the pack falls into lower status positions. This social arrangement works for animals. Animals have very basic needs: food, good mates, and defense from predators. For animals, health and fitness are the primary requirements for survival. But what about human communities? We don't only need food, good mates, and defense from predators. We also need to build bridges, enjoy music, share knowledge, and accomplish an infinite number of other tasks to maintain our society. For us, we don't always need the strongest or the fittest to be in charge. Sometimes we need to put the smartest in charge, or the most diplomatic, or the most musically talented, or the best teachers, or the most patient listeners, or the most spiritually enlightened, or… the list goes on and on.
Because our large, complicated brains evolved sophisticated language skills, created an infinite number of different communities, and invented everything from sports cars to boxer shorts to nuclear weapons, our ways of showing status are far more diverse than any other creature on the planet. We aren't limited to roaring and beating our chests to show high status. We buy huge expensive cars, show off our understanding of current events, or play loud banging drum solos in a rock'n'roll band. We aren't limited to cringing and slouching to show low status. We send fawning greeting cards, listen attentively as someone else explains current events, or scream adulation at our favorite movie star as he walks down the red carpet.
In fact, there are as many different ways of displaying high status or low status as there are different human communities on the face of the planet. As part of its attempt to define status to its members, a community will create status tools: special environments, objects, powers, rituals, or responsibilities that broadcast and maintain the status roles of its members.
When I taught in my former classroom, the community of the Northwestern University Theater Department put me in a high status role. I was the person with authority; I was the person who could demand things from everyone else in the room. I had the power to assert my will in the classroom. The university community helped me accomplish this by giving me some high status tools, most notably the power to control my students’ grades. If I needed to push a student in line, I didn't have to beat my chest like an orangutan (although, sometimes, I wanted to); I simply needed to threaten the student with a failing grade. It was the university equivalent of beating my chest. It was how I displayed high status within this small human community. And it only worked in this particular community. Threatening a judge with a failing grade has never gotten me anywhere in traffic court, for example.
On the other hand, if I get pulled over for speeding, I am in an innately low status position. The community has given the police officer some high status tools (the ability to write me a ticket, the ability to arrest me, the gun) to keep me in line.
As a writer, you should start paying attention to how status manifests itself in different communities. Look for the status tools: the special environments, objects, powers, rituals, or responsibilities that each community creates. What do these things say about a community's values? How might characters use these tools to try to control status?
LESSON 10: SCRIPT ANALYSIS EXERCISE
Have the group watch the same film or see the same play. (See the Appendix for a list of suggestions.) Try to pick a film or play that is set in a world very different than your own. It might feature a different culture, age group, race, socioeconomic background, workplace, or time period. Whatever it is, the environment should be dramatically different than the one you experience day to day.
For Discussion:
1. To what values and ideas does this community assign high status? What in the production made you think this?
2. To what values and ideas does this community assign low status? What in the production made you think this?
3. To whom does this community assign high status? What in the production made you think this?
4. To whom does the community assign low status? What in the production made you think this?
5. What special environments, objects, rituals, powers, and responsibilities does the community use to impose and maintain status roles?
6. Does any character in the script have a different understanding of status or a different vision for what values should be given high status or low status? If so, who is it? How does that difference manifest itself in the character's actions? How does that difference manifest itself in the character's dialogue?
7. How does all of this compare and contrast to your own world? Where are the similarities? Where are the differences?
LESSON 10: BEGINNER EXERCISE
1. Research or visit a community that is very different from your own. It could be a community from another culture or time, or a community characterized by an age group, profession, or gender that differs from your own. In this exercise, it will help you to be as specific and narrow as possible in defining the community. (For example, the community of women at the ritzy hair salon will give you more specific results than the community of all the women who live in New Hampshire.) Analyze the status tools and rituals of the community.
2. Write a three- to five-page dialogue between three people in this community.
For Discussion:
Review the scenes with the group. For each scene, discuss the following questions:
1. To whom does this community assign high status? What in the dialogue made you think this?
2. To whom does this community assign low status? What in the dialogue made you think this?
3. To what values and ideas does this community assign high status? What in the dialogue made you think this?
4. To what values and ideas does this community assign low status? What in the dialogue made you think this?
5. What special environments, objects, rituals, powers, and responsibilities does the community use to impose and maintain status roles?
LESSON 10: INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED EXERCISE
We've been talking a lot about dialogue, but it's important to remember that status interactions d
on't just take place with words. In many cases, status interactions are physical. Even without dialogue, characters are able to utilize the status tools of a community. The CEO gets the biggest office. A celebrity is trailed by his entourage. The president of the United States enters a room and citizens stand. All of these things wordlessly communicate high status. A sports fan waits in line for her hero's autograph. A defendant sits on a chair lower than the judge's dais. The devout bow or kneel in prayer. All of these things wordlessly communicate low status. In this exercise, you will practice writing status interactions without dialogue.
1. Do step 1 of the Beginner Exercise in this lesson.
2. Write a two- to three-page script that takes place in the community you've selected. The script must be completely without dialogue. Use only stage directions and actions to communicate status interactions.
For Discussion:
Review the scenes with the group. For each scene, discuss the following questions:
1. To whom does this community assign high status? What in the script made you think this?
2. To whom does this community assign low status? What in the script made you think this?
3. To what values and ideas does this community assign high status? What in the script made you think this?
4. To what values and ideas does this community assign low status? What in the script made you think this?
5. What objects, rituals, powers, and responsibilities does the community use to impose and maintain status roles?
LESSON 10: SOLO EXERCISE
1. Select an existing dialogue scene from a play or screenplay. Adapt and rewrite the scene to take place in a completely different setting. For example, you might change the location, culture, or time period. As you write, you should try to keep the characters as faithful as possible to their original status roles, while updating dialogue, the environment, and the status rituals to the new setting. (If you're confused about how this works, compare the film Emma (1996) to the film Clueless (1995). Clueless is an adaptation of Emma. Clueless takes the original characters from Emma, and maintains their plot and status roles, but places the whole story in a completely different world).
2. Repeat this exercise regularly as an ongoing writer's workout.
THE SCENE: DIALOGUE WITH DIRECTION
DOROTHY: Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
—The Wizard of Oz (1939)
LESSON ELEVEN:
Setting the Scene
C
haracters don't exist in a vacuum. They exist in an environment. Some kind of world exists outside of your character's self. As part of your writing process, you need to determine what that world is. You need to understand it in detail.
When people talk about writing, they frequently zero in on the importance of character. Every writing book I've ever read discusses how important it is to understand every facet of a character's personality and every nuance of his life. It's true. Character is important. However, a character's environment brings as much life and meaning to your script as a character's self. This is a strangely neglected fact in the discussion of scriptwriting. I read many scripts in which interesting characters inhabit dull, stereotypical, or poorly defined worlds. This is particularly true when I teach actors how to write. With their training, actors are good at understanding the depth and complexity of people. They have had less practice in thinking about the depth and complexity of a character's environment. As a writer, you need to approach your character's world with the same curiosity, open-mindedness, and commitment to discovering detail and nuance as you use when exploring your character's psychology.
To make this issue more complicated, you need to understand that characters don't just inhabit worlds. They inhabit worlds within worlds. If I were to ask you to describe the world that I live in, where would you start? By describing planet Earth? Or the United States of America? Would you focus in more closely and describe the Midwest, or the city of Chicago? Even within Chicago, I inhabit many worlds. There is the world of the office in which I work. There is the world of the church that I attend. There is the world of my marriage to my husband. There is the world of my home, which in turn holds the worlds of my dining room, my living room, my bedroom, and my kitchen. There are worlds that I visit, such as the world of a Caribbean resort, or that of the Nepalese family I lived with when I traveled after college. Then, there are also worlds that are part of my universe, but that I've never been inside, such as that of Pennsylvania coal miners, for example. I've also never been inside the world of British Parliament, French fashion, or that of the stranger sitting next to me on the train last week.
I have a fundamentally different relationship to each of these worlds. Each has its own personality, set of rules, vocabulary, and culture. It is a common mistake among new scriptwriters to ignore these differences.
LESSON 11: SCRIPT ANALYSIS EXERCISE
NOTE: Beginning and intermediate writers should do this exercise with an established play or screenplay. See the Appendix for a list of suggestions. Advanced writers have the option of bringing in their own material for analysis.
Have the group watch the same film, attend the same play, or read the same script.
For Discussion:
1. What world is the story set in? Give it a name. Be as specific as possible.
2. What are the larger worlds that this world is a part of? What are the smaller worlds contained within this world? Identify what it was within the script that led you to these conclusions.
3. Describe the setting and situation of this world. What is its time and place? Give a detailed description of what this world looks like. What do you see when you walk around this world? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel? What kinds of clothes are people wearing? How do people talk? What is the day-to-day activity of this world?
4. Who are the inhabitants of this world? Who do you see when you walk around this world? What are they doing?
5. What defines status in this world? Who or what has the highest status? Who or what has the lowest? Identify moments within the script that led you to these conclusions.
6. What is the tone of this world? What emotions does it evoke? Identify elements of the script that evoke those tones and emotions.
7. Are there any special or unique rules that govern the way this world works? Identify what it was within the script that led you to these conclusions.
8. How is this world different than your own? How is it similar?
LESSON 11: BEGINNER EXERCISE
You are an explorer. Your job is to identify a world and to map it out.
1. Give a name to this world. Does it exist in a real or imaginary location, such as the “World of Buckingham Palace,” the “World of My Mother's Beauty Salon,” or the “World of Planet Krypton”? Does it exist among a particular set of people (real or imaginary), such as the “World of Secret Agents” or the “World of Talking Mice”? Is it the world of a particular person, such as the “World of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” or the “World of Luke Skywalker”? Is it an abstract concept or organizing principle, such as the “World of Computer Technology,” or the “World of Republican Foreign Policy”? Does the world exist at a particular time, such as the “World of September 11, 2001” or the “World of the Fifth-Century A.D.” or the “World of Star Date 3456.23”? Perhaps the world can be described by a combination of these factors: the “World of Computer Technology at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001,” for example.
2. Identify the larger worlds that this world is a part of. Identify the smaller worlds contained within this world.
3. Describe the setting and situation of this world. What is its time and place? Write a detailed description of what this world looks like. What do you see when you walk around this world? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel? What kinds of clothes are people wearing? How do people talk? What is the day-to-day activity of this world?
4. Who are the inhabitants of this world?
Whom do you see when you walk around this world? What are they doing?
5. What defines status in this world? Who or what has the highest status? Who or what has the lowest?
6. What is the tone of this world? What emotions does it evoke?
7. Are there any special or unique rules that govern the way this world works?
8. Repeat steps 2 through 7. Add more detail.
9. Create a collage of words and images that you might associate with this world.
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