Your script and the art of carrot dangling

For more years than I care to remember, I have worked with playwrights and screenwriters on developing techniques that will help them create lively, compelling dialogue.  In many ways a writer's ear for good dialogue is simply there or not--an aspect of his or her raw talent that can't be taught or learned.  But there a few principles of good dialogue writing that I continue to put forth.  And there's one that seems to especially resonate with writers struggling to get better at their craft.  I call it the Art of Carrot Dangling.

Some years ago I asked my artist daughter to come up with a sketch that could help illustrate what I mean by such a term.  This is what she came up with:

Silly as this diagram might look, I think it holds a basic truth about the mechanics of how a script (both dialogue and descriptions of action) should function with an audience once it's brought to life in performance on the stage or screen.  You, the writer, are the driver of a horse-drawn wagon full of vegetables (the "goods" of the script) who's expertly manipulating a carrrot (the script in performance) tied to a long pole in front of the horse's nose (the audience)--the purpose of which is to keep the wagon moving to a stable down the road (your destination) so the horse can be fed the whole wagonload of vegetables (the story's ideas and content; what you ultimately want to communicate).

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)

When a script doesn't do its job

The other night some friends and I watched writer/director Rahmin Bahrani's 2012 film At Any Price, an official selection at the Toronto, Venice, and Telluride film festivals and starring Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron.  The story centers on a farmer in the Midwest who is involved in somewhat shady dealings wtth GMO seed sales and the big companies supplying them.  It's also a father/son story with the boy not wanting to follow in his father's footsteps as a farmer and instead become a race car driver.  As stories go, there are many twists and turns, but the movie ultimately doesn't work.

So why is this worth writing about?  Because it is an excellent example of what not to do with a screenplay.  And as Edward Albee, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, once told me, sometimes you can learn a lot by studying why a project doesn't lift off.

The Motor of Your Script

Raise the hood of any play or screenplay and you should see its motor staring back at you.  And without a doubt, in the vast majority of cases, that motor is the script's central character and his or her main want and/or need that somehow has to be satisfied.  This is what drives the story from the beginning to the end of the journey, what pushes it forward and gives it ongoing momentum.  

Just this week I've been struck again with how critical this basic tenet of good script writing is.  I've been reading a client's screenplay that is filled with wonderful moments and lovable characters. Clever and witty humor abounds.  But the story never fully springs to life and gets me entirely engaged in the first act because the writer has not clearly defined the main external want and dominating internal need of the central character.  I found myself not being able to focus on the story and get swept up in it's unfolding early on because the motor was not yet firing on all pistons.

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:

Finding out more about our MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, the New Hampshire Institute of Art is offering a new 2-year low-residence MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen run by yours truly.

Launched with great success this past June with a stellar faculty of established professional writers and students from NYC, Los Angeles, and Canada, this is a unique hands-on graduate program designed to guide a small number of talented student writers through an intensive process-oriented approach to the writing of plays and screenplays.  See my recent post below for a rundown on our first residency.

The next residency is this coming January 3-12 and we're actively seeking to add a small number of new student writers to our "family" when we reconvene as a group.  The application deadline for new students interested in joining us is the end of November.

Held in the historic and culturally alive New England village of Peterborough, New Hampshire, each of the five ten-day residences over the two-year program are designed as script laboratories utilizing a collected ensemble of theatre and film professionals to test and give voice to student work and offer intensive courses and workshops in various aspects of the craft and profession.

Between residencies students work on writing projects throughout each of the four semesters under the supervision of established writer/mentors drawn from the professional theatre and film worlds.

If you're in New England or happen to be in the area in the coming weeks, you can find out more at one of the following upcoming information/open house sessions:

Saturday, September 14th, 10-11:30 am--Sharon Arts Center Gallery, 30 Grove Street, Peterborough, NH

Tuesday, October 15th, 6-7:30 pm--Panopticon Gallery, Hotel Commonwealth, 502c Commonwealth Ave., Boston

Tuesday, October 22nd, 6-7:30 pm--Sharon Arts Center Gallery, 30 Grove Street, Peterborough, NH

Saturday, October 26th, 10-11:30 am--Amherst Street Gallery, 77 Amherst Street, Manchester, NH

To register for one of these info sessions:

Email:  gradadmissions@nhia.edu
or
Call:  603-836-2522

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.