Learning scriptwriting by listening

Yesterday my short script was read in class. It's an interesting an important experience, to hear your words. Normally it would be done by actors, but here my friends from class read it. It's a very weird feeling, to hear your script being read. Sometimes it sounds like it's too slow. Sometimes you lose track.

My teacher loved it. Also most of the students, I think. You can never really know. People always trying to be nice. This is the hardest part in scriptwriting studies: to understand what people really think at your work. My problem is I never try to be nice, but then I don't want to be the only mean girl in class. Maybe I'm a geek. Probably.

I also liked my script. It's only a first draft, but I think by the second draft it can be ready for shooting. I think I'll start a blog in Hebrew (that's the language of the scripts I write at Uni) and post there my entire scripts. I would very much like to see them filmed. I can also contact animation students. They are always hunting new ideas. But then again, it takes them 2 years to make a 4 min film. But I guess better late than never.

I started now to read again Christopher Vogler's "The Writer's Journey". I thought both Dara Marks and Christopher Vogler approaching screenwriting from the point of view of myths. If you want to study scriptwriting you must get a broarder view of things. So I'm reading this book again, after 4 years almost.

Today (I got up real early, it's not even 08:00 now over here) I hand another script in class. This was a very interesting scriptwriting excersize: we had to complete one of the students' scripts. We all got the same script, 4 pages long, which was read in class the week before. It was a whole script, with a beginning, middle and an end (in that order, actually). Our mission was to add another 3-5 min script to the existing one.

It was hard for me to decide how to tackle this problem: obviously the script already had a protagonist with a problem that was solved. I looked for another open issue I can work with. I found it in another character (the father of the protagonist, which now became the protagonist in himself). He had an inner fault that screw up his life and the life of his family: he didn't respect his needs, he kept living in secret. It led to the break of his marriage and now it was happening again (this is where my script begins). He had a girlfriend. They used to meet at his place, staying in bed, ordering food, never leaving his house. He was afraid to meet one of his children on the street, he felt it would be awkward. After he and his daughter had a talk about the past (that part is from the original script) he finally realized it is ok for him to move on. It's not that everybody around him reminded him of his past - it was he who did it to himself. It was time to put it all behind. he offered his girlfriend to go out to eat instead of ordering food again. She refuses. It sinks slowly, but then he understands - he is the other man in her life. It ends right there. He's alone. He goes to the movies. They screen the German film "The Life of Others". At the end of the film, when the mailman walks the empty former east Berlin street alone, our guy starts to laugh. He doesn't stop, even when people look at him with anger. He laughs so hard.

That's it. I wonder if it's clear from my 3 pages script. The department for scriptwriting is the best thing that ever happened to me. Writing is...

ABC stories (a good book for screenwriters)

I'm so happy that in two weeks starts my semester break. I have tons of things I plan to do during this month (no exams, total freedom, yay). The course I took at UCLA Extension (Online) was over last Wednesday. The next one will only start on April 9th so I have two weeks of pure free time to work on my beat outline.

A few days ago I got the newsletter from Creative Screenwriting and it mentioned a seminar with Dara Marks. Her name didn't sound familiar so I googled her. Her seminar is based on her book, "Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc". I didn't find it in the Uni's library, so I checked out the Amazon "surprise me!" feature. They usually let you browse quite a good amount of pages. I started to read, bit here, bit there. I loved they way she approached the structure of the script. What Dara Marks says is that you have three main plots: your A, B and C story. So far I knew.

A story is the external goal of the protagonist. B story is her inner conflict. C story is a relational conflict. And guess what? Most of the stories don't put the love story on their A plot. She talks about Casablanca, and says: The A story is about Rick and Lazlow. Will he help him get away? The B story is about Rick's inability to connect to other people's needs. The C story is about Rick and the girl. If Rick solves his inner story (and start thinking about the needs of others), he will solve both stories A and C. Pretty neat, eh? Pretty neat.

This made me thinking a lot. A subplot is not something that is 'less then' the plot. It's actually more of the plot's basis. And guess what? The theme of your film, the one thing you can't pronounce for days? It's right there, in the inner conflict of your character.

What do I tell you, I really must put my hands on this book, they don't sell it anywhere besides Amazon and the official website of Dara Marks (as far as I know). Ah, and in the writer's store (CA). By the way, on the writer's store website you can find an extract from the book, about that inner conflict of your character. It's called "The Fatal Flaw". Have fun!