Your private scriptwriting world...the first draft

So you're ready to plunge into your first draft.  You've done your research and extensive character and other backstory exploratory work and have come up with a plot outline that you think has real shape and punch--a structure that delivers.  All you're lacking is the script itself and you're eager to start turning out actual pages.

My one caution as you start into your first draft is to KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!  Every writer naturally feels the urge to share work as it's being written.  Or at least talk about the discoveries and progress being made as work proceeds on the draft.  We're in this business because we want to communicate ideas to others, right?  However, this is not the time for that.  In fact, it is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.  Resist the urge.  Do not, under any circumstances, show your work or talk about it to anyone while you're working on your first draft.  Keep it totally to yourself.  This is your private world, your virgin soil.  It should be written as a personal and solo experience.

As Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman once told me, "Plays are not written by committee.  They are written by single voices.  They are products of a single vision."

At this phase in the writing process your job is to protect this private world from all outside influence, whether it's a play, screenplay, or teleplay.  Think of it as contamination, even if it comes from a trusted friend.  Nothing can destroy a first draft faster than to show pages to well-meaning people in your life.  They'll want to help you, even feel obligated to give you feedback.  As Norman added, "People love to get in and tell you what to do.  Isn't that true in life and of writing?  Everybody knows what you ought to do." 

And, of course, the moment someone gives you input, you won't be able to get it out of your head, whether it's positive or negative.  It's contamination either way. 

Resisting this urge to share your first draft-in-the-making can pay huge dividends by building an increasingly stronger and more intimate connection between you and your material.  What's happening in the developing script becomes yours and your characters' own secret and your unique source of strength.  This, in turn, produces an energy which helps propel you through to the end. Even when you're stuck on something and go through a few days or even weeks of feeling lost, the experience remains a private one, shared only between you and the people inside the play.

The time will come soon enough when it's necessary and useful to share your script with others and hear what they have to say. Now, however, it's just as critical that you don't.

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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 next residency runs January 3-11, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program in January.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

A successful scriptwriting workshop

This past summer I flew out to Santa Fe for the week-long Glen West Workshop run by Image Journal, a literary and arts quarterly currently in its 25th year. Over two hundred writers and other artists gathered to share their work and creative ideas in a glorious setting high on the New Mexico plateau.  Although the elevation of 7,000 feet set me back for a couple of days (my meager 2,000 feet in New England didn't give me a running chance not to be affected), it was the script writing workshop that I was invited to run that truly kept me going.  I thought it'd be interesting to share why it was so productive.

My approach to the workshop was to have all nine of my participating writers arrive the first day of the class with two or three story ideas--ideas that as of yet were not really developed beyond a simple description of a couple of sentences or a short paragraph.  That was it.  No writing samples to share or finished scripts to dissect or discuss and analyze.  Just a couple of simply stated story ideas that each student had a strong hunch might be something they'd like to develop into a play or screenplay.

We spent the first few days going around the room breaking down each idea into the basic structural components that in one way or another have to be present in any good script:
     --a single central character
     --his or her dominant want and need
     --the other principle characters that have to be in the story
     --the major conflict that the central character is facing that sets up his or her primary dilemma
     --how that conflict manifests itself in action
     --how the conflict is ultimately resolved
     --how the central character is changed by the end of the tale
     --and stating what the premise of the story might be (the statement it is ultimately making)

Where Script Writing Begins...

I've been struck again recently with the degree to which playwrights and screenwriters I work with often tend to be unaware of, downplay, or largely ignore the importance of pre-writing work before going to draft.  Talented as they are, a number of my script consulting clients and students in the MFA program I run are not adequately familiar with the pre-writing tools available to them and that are, in my opinion, essential for thorough character exploration and for laying the structural groundwork for any good script.

There are a number of basic principles that need to be embraced as you plunge into a new project, all of which point to the importance of undertaking extensive pre-writing work:

Launching a New MFA Program in Writing for Stage and Screen

The last ten days of June were a special adventure for me and a talented group of writers.  In the beautiful and culturally alive village of Peterborough, New Hampshire we launched a new low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  I’m happy to report that the launch was a big success.

With a small number of students hailing from New York City, Los Angeles, and Canada and a faculty of established working professional writers, we gathered together to explore the process of developing stories for the stage and screen.

Sharing Your Script For The First Time: Part 2

Continuing our discussion...

Once you've located your initial readers and they've agreed to the task, expect to wait a while before hearing from them.  For most people, reading a first draft of a friend's play is a big order.  They'll take this very seriously and wait until they can clear a morning or afternoon or evening for the task--something that, for almost all of us, takes time to pull off.

Once they've read your play, set up separate, one-on-one sessions with each of them.  The last thing you want is for them to hear each other's reactions as they're attempting to tell you their own.

Sharing Your Script For The First Time, Part 1

I can’t stress enough how important the very first sharing of your work is.  You’re about to cross a line in the life of your project that you can’t ever cross back over.   Outside input will now enter your creative process for the first time.  And it’s going to have an impact, positive or negative or both.  It’s going to reshape how you think about your script.

The rewriting process: scanning your script

Here’s another simple little exercise that you might add to your arsenal:  

Before releasing your new play or screenplay to anyone for the first time and after you think you've made all necessary revisions and the script really works for you from beginning to end, I suggest you take your rewriting process one step further.

Too Many MFA Programs in Playwriting and Screenwriting...?

Yesterday I came across a comment in a LinkedIn discussion that suggested that there are too many MFA programs out there turning out second-rate playwrights and screenwriters.  The thrust of this person's thinking was that as a result the market is being flooded with new mediocre scripts that are actually doing damage to the profession.  And inferring that most of those who graduate from these programs--in addition to sending out their inferior scripts to every theatre, production company, and literary agent in the country--are looking for teaching jobs that will allow them to turn out even more wannabe successful writers, creating a vicious cycle and further exasperating the problem as the years tick on.

Having taught scriptwriting for over three decades on both the undergrad and grad level, worked professionally in new play and screenplay development nearly as long, and had many of my own scripts developed and produced at writers' conferences and productions, I have to say the comment may have hit on something that's been bugging me for years.

To my mind, the only kind of MFA program in playwriting and/or screenwriting that is worth its salt is when working professionals are doing the teaching and the focus of the program is on the serious testing of student work with other working professional collaborators.  Student scripts need to be put through the ringer of a carefully structured lab environment where actors, directors, designers and other theatre and film artists are allowed to get their hands on student writing and see what works and what doesn't. An environment where the student writer engages directly with seasoned people who have been in the trenches for a long time--and still are--and who know how to give voice to material, spot strengths and weaknesses, and offer targeted suggestions for improvement in a way that may sometimes hurt, but is offered sincerely and can be trusted.

It's this kind of writing program on the graduate level that is sorely lacking (with a few notable exceptions) and the main reason there's a growing negative attitude in the professional world about the perceived treadmill of MFA programs turning out writers whose work has not been truly battle-tested and that, for the most part, forever remains gathering dust on the page.  So when I was approached with the prospect of designing yet another new MFA in playwriting and screenwriting, I jumped at the chance to put together a different kind of program that would be truly hands-on and have the capacity to turn out writers of plays and screenplays who know the ropes and whose work reflects a professionalism several notches above the norm.

Announcing a New Low-Res MFA in Scriptwriting

Since my last post I've been busy with many projects, not the least of which is putting together a new low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen  that's being offered through the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  I've welcomed this opportunity as it's allowed me to design a graduate-level playwriting and screenwriting program that will be the most hands-on and practical program of its kind in the country. The focus is on learning and developing craft, of course, but what makes it unique is its lab-based approach to testing student work with an ensemble of theatre and film professionals at each residency, allowing for scripts to be given voice and to provide extensive and realistic feedback to our student writers. We've gathered a stellar faculty of proven pros and are launching the program this coming June 2013 in beautiful Peterborough, NH nestled in the heart of the famous Mt. Monadnock region of New England.. Please take a look and spread the word to any potential students you may know who might be looking for an MFA program that will give them a very special professional launch as well as their graduate degree.

Developing great characters, Part 7: Leisure time

     Ah yes… leisure time.  Or extra time.  Blogging time.  Something I haven’t been able to find for many weeks now.  Hence my absence from this blog as I’ve been working on getting my film company’s three active projects up and running.  Still at it, but I also want to keep this blog from going into a deep freeze.

 

So here’s my next musing on character development:

     Another important angle from which to view a character's relationship to his or her external world (see my previous posts in this series) is to look at how and with whom the character spends his or her leisure time.  Although occupation will often influence leisure time activity, this is the one area where a person, at least to some extent, has the freedom to choose what he or she wants to do.  As a result, you have the opportunity here to make choices that will truly individualize your characters.

Developing great characters, Part 6: Place in community

  

Continuing with my series of posts on character exploration and development, let's take a look at how the external world outside of a character's immediate family circumstances--namely their place in the larger community they find themselves in--is worth pondering early on.

I realize that a lot of this is pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many writers I work with have never taken the time to think about or invent these key character “facts”—info that can often loom large as your writing process unfolds.

Developing great characters, Part 5 – Your characters’ external world

Continuing my series of posts on character exploration and development: 

Placing your characters into their own unique social contexts--the external life circumstances your people have lived through and are currently involved in—is essential.   By doing so, you'll start seriously to dig into their lives and begin asking some critical questions about the forces that have shaped them and that continue to influence how they think and act.  Every person has a definite set of social circumstances that has helped define who he or she is.  I suggest you need to have a pretty good idea of what these are for each of your people.

For starters, make some choices about each character's own blood family circumstances.  There are a whole set of crucial questions you need to think about:

Developing great characters, Part 3 – physical characteristics

            Continuing with this series of posts on character development and exploration, I’m going to walk you through the various aspects of what I call the short-form biography, beginning with your characters’ physical characteristics. I acknowledge a debt here to Lajos Egri who first presented this basic approach in his all-time best-selling book The Art of Dramatic Writing, first published way back in 1941 (and still in print).  The short-form biography is adapted from and an expansion of the three-part character breakdown Egri calls "the bone structure" of character.

     I should also mention upfront that as we take a closer look at the various elements making up the short-form bio, keep in mind this early character work is just that:  a starting point.  As you explore your people more fully and get to know them intimately, these initial sketches will most likely have to be adjusted to fit the fuller personalities you uncover.  And as your idea is developed and refined, your people may very well have to change to fit into what your script is becoming.  For now, however, the important thing is to get the exploration started.

Developing great characters, Part 2 – the short-form biography

     Here’s the second installment in a series of posts I’m doing on character development/exploration:

Once you’ve formulated a workable idea for a script—a framework for your story, a point of reference, a strategy for the tale’s telling—it’s time to expand it into a bigger and richer dramatic field, to dig deeper into the possibilities you've sketched out and discover what you really have to work with.

Developing great characters: the heart of scriptwriting, Part I

     One of the most critical phases in the writing of a first-class script is the upfront character exploration work that is done before a draft is tackled. Different writers approach this in different ways.  Some do extensive work and others very little if any at all.  In my next several blog posts I’m going to lay out an approach I’ve developed in my own writing and that I’ve “field tested” and refined with hundreds of scriptwriting students and clients over the years.

     So, starting at the beginning:

     What’s in a name?

Locations and your script

     It goes without saying that as a screenwriter works away in isolation on a project it’s important to give serious thought to the locations where scenes are set. Imaginative and unusual settings can help raise the stakes in a story and at times can even play a significant role in moving the story’s plot forward. But it’s also worthwhile to keep in mind that once a script is greenlit and pre-production gears up, those carefully considered locations in the screenplay may very well be drastically altered as location scouting for the production commences and new and exciting possibilities start presenting themselves.

     This is exactly what happened on our feature The Sensation of Sight. The movie was set entirely in a small New England town.  Once we located the town where we wanted to shoot the film (Peterborough, NH), we set about looking for locations that would work for us.  Our locations manager Nick Koloski, writer/director Aaron Wiederspahn, and DP Christophe Lanzenberg spent many days investigating various possible settings for scenes and they found some wonderful surprises.  In fact, a number of the key scenes in the film were shot on locations that didn’t exist in the script—locations that actually demanded that the script be altered to include them. 

The script as a means to an end

     Last week I sat on a scriptwriting panel at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.  The focus was on the process of writing a screenplay and there was a lot of lively give and take among the panelists and with our audience.  Many interesting and useful points were discussed and I think everyone in attendance left with ample food for thought. 

     However, as the two-hour session progressed and the discussion got ever deeper into the screenwriting process, one overriding thought began to nag at me.

Developing a script that’s “ready”: What it takes

            A pattern has emerged for the projects my production company is interested in putting into development. Not that what we do is any different than most other producers.  But I thought it would be interesting to detail the process our current top-listed project has gone through in terms of script development.

Submitting your script: Is it ready?

The degree to which a script has to be truly ready before submitting to producers and agents was brought home to me several years ago in a rather vivid and unforgettable way. 

Patience and perspective in script development

     There’s been a lot written about the development process that the vast majority of scripts go through before they’re finally made into films or produced on the stage.  What comes through loud and clear from these accounts is that rarely is this a solo experience with the writer working alone through a number of drafts. More likely it’s an arduous undertaking involving many professionals giving input and taking up to a year or more of work.

But what’s the point of it all?