The window into your story...

I can't stress enough how critical it is to land on the perfect title for your script.  A title needs to be examined and questioned during the rewriting process just as much if not more than any scene, plot adjustment, or bit of dialogue.  It's your window into your story and it has to be wide open and deliciously exciting and alluring.  It has to grab you and pull you in.

Because of this, it's imperative that your rewriting phase include a good hard look at the working title you've been living with.  Several questions need to be asked:

--Is your title still working as well as it did when you first came up with it?

--Has the writing of your first draft and your subsequent reworking of it opened up any new possibilities?

--Are there any specific references or turns of phrase in your dialogue that now pop out at you?

--Does anything now hold a double or triple meaning, working on several levels at once?

--Have you locked into a working title and gotten so used to it that you pass right over a brilliant title lying there in, or between, the lines?

--Are you honestly challenging yourself to find something better?

Don't ever be leery or afraid to try a new title on for size and live with it for a while.  You can always go back to your earlier one.  And if you think you may have found something, go so far as to make up a new title page.  Then wait and see if it grows on you.

Keep searching and testing until you're absolutely convinced you've found the perfect title.  Keep challenging yourself to find something better.  It may happen early or far into the writing process, but you'll know when you've hit gold--you'll feel it.  So don't settle for something you've simply grown used to.   Because a good title always throws that initial window open wide and seduces you to enter into the adventure inside.

                                        *                    *                   *                   *

I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran from January 6-15, and we are still considering applications for starting the program with our June 2017 residency running from June 22-July 1.  If you're interested, email me at buzzmclaughlin@gmail.com.

I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.  You can follow me on Twitter @eitherorfilms or @mfastagescreen.  I’m also on Facebook at buzzmclaughlinscriptconsulting.

Finding a title for your script that works, Part 2

Last week I focused on the critical importance of capturing a great title for any script you write.  Here I offer up a simple title search exercise that has proven very successful for myself and with my students and clients over the years in finding a title that really works.

First, reread the early draft you have completed or, if you haven't yet gotten to draft, meditate on your preliminary jottings about the script you hope to write and the ideas you want to deal with and make a concerted effort to capture in your mind what you want to leave in the heart and mind of your audience once your story has been experienced.

What is the essence of that feeling?  Try to feel it yourself.  Ponder this for a few minutes, keeping your focus solely on what you want your audience to feel when the stage lights make their final fade to black or the movie reaches its final fade out.

Next, keeping this focus in mind, write down as quickly as you can a list of every word or phrase you can think of that even in a small way describes or connects to this feeling.  Put down anything that comes to mind through free association, keeping each item as short as possible, a word or two or three should suffice for each.

As you do this, don't allow yourself to think about an actual title.  Just make a list of words or phrases that in some way captures the essence of your project emotionally, intellectually, or both.  Don't judge anything you put down.  Some of your items may sound silly.  Or out in left field.  Put them down anyway if your brain has brought them to the surface.  Just let these descriptions flow out of you. And don't stop and dwell on any of them.  Force yourself to create as long a list as you possible can--at least fifty or more items.

Next, when you've run completely dry, immediately put the list away for at least two days without looking back over it.  It's critical that at this point you don't go back over what you've come up with right away.  In fact, the exercise is largely worthless if you ignore this step and don't distance yourself from it.

When you finally do come back to your list, read it over carefully, putting check marks next to the items that trigger even the slightest positive response.  Don't necessarily be looking for a title yet. Then look back over the checked words and phrases.  See if any can be combined into something interesting.  If so, put them together.

Usually, but this time a title has jumped out at you.  All of sudden you see it sitting there in that list. You may have to create it by putting together words from two or more items on the list, but it'll be there.

I realize this may sound too good to be true , but it almost always works.  The three keys to success are first focusing clearly on what you want to leave your audience with at the end of your story; then giving your mind free rein when composing the initial list; and third, getting some distance from your list before dissecting it.

Try it and see.

                                   *                    *                   *                   *

I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran July 21-31, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program with our January 2017 residency that runs January 6-15.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.

Finding a title for your script that works...

Every writer I know needs to have a working title of his or her current project.  It's a label, a simple and often generic description of the story that's taking shape.  That's all it needs to be.  And sometimes you get lucky and find increasingly that as your script takes shape your working title resonates ever louder.  If that's the case, consider it a little gift from the muse.

In the vast majority of cases, however, there comes a time in the writing process when that working title needs to be looked at anew and an all out effort must be made to discover the title that truly resonates and that will seduce readers into opening that cover page to discover what's inside.

A good title is provocative and alluring (for you and everyone else), something that will stop people in their tracks and make them want to devour the script then and there.  It needs to capture perfectly the central idea you're dealing with and it should reverberate strongly in the reader's mind after the script has been experienced.  In other words, what you want to capture is a title that pulls the reader in and defines perfectly what the reader is left feeling and thinking after the read.

Of course, a good title does not a good script make, but a weak title can seriously threaten the future life of a good script.  It's a label for what's waiting to be read between those covers and eventually for what's running in theatres or seen on the screens of the world, and your title needs to reflect the life and passion found in it.  It's imperative that you settle for nothing less because it represents your initial gateway into that rarefied world where scripts find legs and start attracting serious attention.

Look at a handful of some of the all time great titles:

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
A Streetcar Named Desire
Death of a Salesman
Angels in America
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Crimes and Misdemeanors
To Kill a Mockingbird
It Happened One Night
Five Easy Pieces
The Rules of the Game

Obviously, I could go on and on.  But my point is clear.  Every great title pulls you in, makes you want to discover and embrace the story it represents.

My next blog will walk you through a simple and field tested title search exercise that I've found is quite successful in uncovering your own perfect title.

                                  *                    *                   *                   *

I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our last residency ran July 21-31, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program with our January 2017 residency that runs January 6-15.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.