Could It Be a Movie

by Christina Hamlett

  Where many of these texts fall short, however, is in delineating just how much material should comprise each section in order to escalate the suspense and keep the pace briskly moving from start to finish. This chapter invites you to rethink conventional frameworks and learn how to relate your story’s events in the most compelling sequence.

  LINEAR VS. NON-LINEAR PROGRESSION

  When I think back on the various snippets of wisdom I’ve been given about the writing profession, the best probably came from a high school teacher who simply said, “Always start your story in the right place.”

  Whether you’re writing your first screenplay or your twentieth, of course, that’s not always the easiest advice to follow. What is, exactly, “the right place?” And how do you know that a different place wouldn’t work better?

  One thing for certain is that the longer you stare at a blank page or computer screen, desperately trying to summon the words to leap out of your brain and nicely splat themselves into sentences, the greater likelihood that you’re trying too hard to force an unworkable chronology. Your subconscious already knows this and yet you stubbornly forge ahead and fight with it, convinced that there’s absolutely no other logical point for the action to begin and the dynamics to get underway.

  If you’re like most writers starting a new project, you’ve already mapped out most of the storyline in your head. Where that storyline is going to commence, however, is ironically compounded by the fact that you — its creator — not only possess all the personal history on the characters you’re going to use but also know how and where they’ll ultimately end up as a result of their opinions and decisions.

  To illustrate the conundrum that results, I like to use the example of arranged marriages, wherein both parties are told everything there is to know about each other and, like it or not, that this relationship is destined for the altar. At what point, then, should these two people be allowed to actually meet? Will they be introduced at childhood or a scant 10 minutes before the formal ceremony? What other influences will impact the anticipation/dread of that meeting? Will they be kept in the dark about the arrangement and (1) fall in love with each other on their own or (2) resent having a life partner not of their personal choosing?

  The journey that your script takes follows the very same path, the difference being that the audience members themselves have been designated the “other half” in an arrangement which you, the author, have decreed. Do you want them to meet your main character as a young girl and move through the scenes as she evolves into a stunning beauty whom they can’t help but fall madly in love with by the final credits?

  Or is their first sight of her going to be in a dark alley where she’s standing over a murder victim and whistling “Que Sera Sera?” Certainly the latter would give them plenty of pause to wonder what, exactly, they had just gotten themselves into when they committed themselves to walking into this movie to begin with.

  Starting your story in the right place is based on an appreciation of how the different variations of “time as a template” can significantly affect the structure and complexity of the same story. If the method you’re using on your current script keeps resulting in mental cul-de-sacs, a different approach may be just the ticket you need to greenlight the plot and get it past page 1.

  LINEAR

  The most often-used formula of storytelling is “linear time.” In linear time, as in real life, events happen chronologically. Example: Walter wakes up on a Thursday, eats his breakfast, catches the Metro, heads toward his office, and finds an antique brass lamp tucked in the bottom drawer of his desk that wasn’t there the day before.

  Where would you start this movie?

  Certainly the hook/leading question involves the mysterious appearance of the brass lamp. Since the plot presumably revolves around Walter’s unexpected discovery, it would seem logical to introduce that discovery as early as possible. On the other hand, showing that Walter’s life has been pretty routine and boring up until the time he opens his drawer helps to establish a before and after contrast.

  Whether the lamp (1) has magical powers, (2) is stolen loot that was stashed for safekeeping, or (3) is a gift from a secret admirer in the typing pool, Walter’s life will not be the same at the end of the film as it was when the film began. The trick with linear storytelling is determining just how much “pre-story” an audience really needs in order to understand the main event.

  BOOKENDS

  In the “bookend” method of storycrafting, the bulk of the plot is told in the form of one big flashback. James Cameron’s Titanic is an easy example of how this works. At the beginning of the movie, we meet the elderly Rose in conjunction with the salvage operations of the famous ship. The middle of this movie focuses on all of the past events leading up to and including its collision with the iceberg. The film concludes in the present with elderly Rose. Even though we are familiar with the ocean liner’s real-life fate with destiny, what we don’t know are all of the individual stories of heroism and cowardice among the characters on board.

  Likewise, Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman, employed the same technique of storytelling by having the incidents pertinent to Custer’s Last Stand revolve around its only survivor, Jack Crabb. Plausibility is inherent in both of these fictitious personas because of our frame of reference regarding the kind of people who, respectively, booked passage to a new world and those who chose to redefine what they felt their current world should be.

  Had either story started anywhere other than where it did, we would not have been swept up in wanting to learn how these characters of advanced age managed to endure the same circumstances where so many others had perished. We identify with them not because of the events themselves but because of the emotional chords they pluck in striving to rise above changes that are beyond their control.

  The biggest disadvantage with bookends, of course (and especially in stories regarding pulse-pounding adventure), is that no matter what the danger is, we still know for a fact that the lead character lived to tell about it.

  Let’s apply this to the story of Walter and the brass lamp. In a bookend version, Walter is now a grandfather living a comfortable life in a mansion in Kentucky. His grandchildren come to play and ride his horses. One of them picks the brass lamp off a shelf and is instantly warned by Grandpa Walter that the lamp has dangerous powers. We then flashback to the past to learn exactly what those powers are and how Walter himself came to be a wealthy man. Was it because of the lamp or in spite of it? Inquiring minds want to know.

  PARALLEL TIME

  In 1998, Gwyneth Paltrow starred in Sliding Doors, a story in which her character’s life is played out in two parallel dimensions which split off from the initial premise of catching or missing a certain train. How a seemingly random incident such as this can result in two entirely different outcomes for the heroine is a good example of the concept of parallel time. Mystery stories are another popular place where this method is used; for instance, showing what each of the various suspects was doing during the very same timeframe.

  Parallel universe storytelling can be complicated to carry off effectively but does offer many intriguing possibilities. Let’s say that we try this with a Good Walter/Bad Walter scenario. The Good Walter finds the lamp, discovers its enchanted properties, and uses his wishes to benefit his friends and community. The Bad Walter, however, uses the same lamp’s powers to get rich, get girlfriends, and get back at other people.

  This is a wonderful exercise for exploring morality issues and pointing up the consequences of selfish actions. At the end of the Good Walter story, his selflessness and compassion reap their own reward in terms of recognition and happiness. The Bad Walter, however, brings only ruin and misery upon himself.

  THE MAYPOLE

  The most complex device for storytelling has already been given several names: serpentine, spiral, wraparound, and corkscrew. “Maypole,” however, is my own term for it and conjures the English image of a tall po
le with colorful streamers, around which merrymakers frolic. Their respective proximity to the pole itself depends on how many times they circle it and whether it’s always in the same direction. In a maypole fashion of plot development, there are multiple flashbacks and multiple points of view, each revolving around one central event, object or theme.

  Kenneth Branagh’s 1991 Dead Again is an example of this convoluted technique.

  The central issue of a murder in the past and an amnesiac woman in the present (Emma Thompson) is coupled with a theme of reincarnation that alludes to the notion that we continue to encounter the same people throughout multiple lifetimes.

  Let’s say that in the Walter story, the maypole is the lamp itself and that Walter is not its first owner. The plot then weaves back and forth among the prior owners, incorporating flashbacks and futuristic sequences of what actually happened to them and what they wanted to have happen, instead. Maypoles are very tricky to handle well. Why? Because if you don’t know where your characters are at all times and what they’re doing, they could literally collide and tie themselves into knots!

  REVERSE ENGINEERING

  If you really want to mess with an audience’s collective mind, of course, you can try something along the lines of Memento or the episode of television’s Seinfeld in which the character of Elaine recounts a wedding in India from the present backwards. Using the aforementioned Walter scenario, the story would begin with the end product of Walter’s use of the lamp and work its way back to the original discovery of the lamp in the bottom drawer of his desk.

  TIME AS YOU KNOW IT

  Identify three films that utilize the linear formula:

  Identify three films that utilize the bookend formula:

  Identify three films that utilize the parallel formula:

  Identify three films that utilize the maypole formula.

  Identify three films that do not use any of the above formulas.

  What type of linear or non-linear progression works best for your film idea? Why?

  Now that you know which time formula best fits your movie plot, it’s time to divvy up the action. In order to do that, however, you need to be aware of the pitfalls inherent in the traditional three-act format.

  AMBITIOUS OPENINGS

  A common problem I see with novice screenwriters is a failure to recognize when they’ve done enough introductions and need to move on. The enthusiasm to start a new story and bring the audience on board often results in a front-loaded script that is too heavy on character detail and exposition to successfully propel itself forward. The longer it takes to get the conflict underway, the less time you will have remaining to resolve it.

  SAGGING MIDDLES

  Have you ever started something with great zeal and run out of steam about halfway through? Maybe it’s a result of external distractions. Maybe it’s the fact that where you thought you wanted to go with the plot just didn’t work out the way you envisioned. Yet another scenario is that you hadn’t prepared a preliminary outline and now have no idea what’s supposed to transpire next. Think of your plot as a wet bed sheet; if you only had two clothespins to hang it up, where’s it going to sag?

  SLAP-DASH FINALES

  Yikes! You just finished page 115 of your murder mystery screenplay and the inspector still hasn’t figured out who the killer is. Time for drastic measures. You promptly assemble all the usual suspects in a parlor and — wow, what a surprise — have the protagonist explain everything in dialogue that you ran out of time to reveal through action. Or perhaps you decide to endow your super-hero with amazing abilities he didn’t previously possess in order to extricate him from a perilous fate. Such contrivances reflect that, somewhere along the path, the writer became more interested in finishing the script than in providing a satisfying pay-off.

  FOUR-PART HARMONY

  In order to address these scripting conundrums, my own approach employs a four-act template which can be applied to any genre, any length and any medium.

  It starts out with an 8-1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper.

  The first thing you need to do is turn the paper sideways to a landscape mode and fold it vertically into four equal columns. At the top of the first column, write the words: FORESHADOWING – 1ST 10 MINUTES. At the bottom of the last column, write the words: UH-OH—LAST 10 MINUTES. Leave a space below each of these notations; we’ll get back to them later on.

  How this template works is that you divide the total length of your project by four. If you are writing a two-hour film, for example, each column represents a 30-minute increment. This method also applies to page-count and chapter manuscripts; i.e., if you’re writing a novel and want it to be 24 chapters, each column would address 6 of them.

  Before you start writing your screenplay, you are going to jot down an equal number of key actions that occur in each block and which escalate the central conflict.

  Let’s start with a really simple one:

  Column 1 – Boy meets girl and falls in love.

  Column 2 – Boy loses girl.

  Column 3 – Girl gets engaged to someone else.

  Column 4 – Wedding is scheduled to take place.

  From the looks of it, it appears that our hero is doomed to lose his lady love. But wait! As the clock ticks down to the exchange of wedding vows, our hero suddenly remembers something that is going to change the whole equation. This is called the “Uh-oh” and is tied back to whatever foreshadowing was introduced in the first act. In this case, the hero was at the airport heading back to Los Angeles after a business trip and casually witnessed a man being welcomed home by his wife and three young children. This scene comes early enough in the film that most of the audience will quickly forget about it.

  We’re now in the fourth act when the hero has reluctantly decided to show his support for the bride by coming to the ceremony. Keep in mind that, up until this point, he has never seen the groom who robbed him of a happily ever after. As she starts down the aisle, he suddenly can’t shake the feeling that he knows this guy from somewhere.

  Uh-oh! It’s that same guy he saw two months ago at Heathrow. Just in the nick of time, he speaks up, stops the wedding from proceeding, and just might possibly manage to win his lady love back by the closing credits.

  As you get accustomed to using this template each time you outline a new film idea, you’ll find it much easier to equitably distribute the action and allow a reasonable amount of time for each significant plot point to develop. The template can also be set up and saved as an Excel chart on your computer.

  WHEN TIME PERMITS

  To see how this template works with existing films, watch a few movies or television shows with a stopwatch and log the critical plot points throughout. What you’ll discover is that the conflict escalates in balanced proportions throughout the entire script, regardless of its length.

  CHAPTER 8: BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

  If you were going to build a house, you wouldn’t just nail a couple boards together on a vacant lot and throw a tarp on top for a roof. You’d want to find the best location, secure the proper permits, learn everything you could about architecture and construction, buy quality materials, hire experts to assist with the tricky parts, and stick to a workable schedule so that your new dwelling could be completed while you still had plenty of years to enjoy it.

  Unfortunately, a lot of beginning writers ignore this useful analogy when it comes to building a script from the ground up. They throw together a flimsy framework, refuse to seek out advice on how it could be improved, and abandon it after the first deluge of rejections.

  In order to write for the movies, you not only need to understand movies from the inside out but invest in the necessary research to make your plot ring true, regardless of the locale, the era, or the livelihoods of the characters who people it.

  HAVE WE SEEN THIS BEFORE?

  A Web site that merits special mention is the Internet Movie Database at www.imdb.com. Its applicability to this chapter is that you can condu
ct searches on titles, characters, and even plots to determine if someone else has beaten you to the punch.