The Importance of Preparation

TEN POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Before you start writing your screenplay save yourself months – or even years – of frustration by answering these questions:

1. What is your story about? (In a couple of sentences – see the discussion of loglines in Chapter 9.)

2. What genre is it? (Comedy? Horror? Thriller? Drama? See the discussion of ‘Genre’ in Chapter 10.)

3. What ’s the mood of the film? For example, edgy/comic/ mysterious/poignant/frightening, etc.

4. What time period does the film cover? (A day, a month, a year, many years or centuries? Would it matter if you changed the time period?)

5. Who is the main character? (The protagonist.) Who is opposing him or her? (The antagonist.)

6. In what order are you going to tell your story? Sequentially, with one event linked to another in a sequence of time? Or are you going to jump back and forth in time through flashbacks? (Obviously, more complicated.)

7. How many locations do you need to illustrate these time periods? Do you need them all? Why?

8. What conflicts are there in your story? (What do your characters want? What obstacles are you going to give them?)

9. How are your major characters going to overcome these obstacles to reach their goal?

10. Do you have a subplot? (A minor plot which relates in some way to the main plot. Some scripts have more than one, but don’t make life too hard for yourself.)

To show you how effective these questions can be in writing an exciting, tight screenplay, I’m going to use this list to explore how I wrote my psychological thriller called White Witch.

1. Richard, an attractive ex-painter, travels to a Jamaican sugar plantation in 1830 to escape his past, but finds life even more disturbing as the plantation is run by a beautiful obeah woman (white witch) who’s looking for a new lover. Richard is seduced by her, but eventually, he manages to find the courage to help the slaves and escape.

2. This is a historical, psychological thriller.

3. The mood is dark. (It could hardly be anything else with such a story.)

4. The script covers a period of 20 years.

5. The protagonist is Richard; the antagonist is the white witch and her obeahism.

6. The story is not told sequentially. The script starts in 1856 when Richard is middle-aged and moves back to his life on the sugar plantation in the 1830s, then moves forward again.

7. I used one location in the present (a lecture hall); one location in the past (Richard’s brother’s bedroom, where he’s burning); all the other scenes take place in Jamaica.

8. There are numerous conflicts and twists in the story; Richard is desperately trying to escape the guilt he feels about his young brother’s death (first obstacle), but going to Jamaica makes his life far more complicated and dangerous (second obstacle). Two women fall in love/lust with him (many more obstacles). Richard is desperate to leave the plantation once he discovers the appalling things that happen there but, of course, the white witch stops him in numerous ways.

9. Richard has to learn that he must change himself before he can help the slaves on the plantation. This will be the only way he will achieve any peace in his life and find a means to escape.

10. I have a number of subplots which reflect back to the main plot through the themes of guilt, witchcraft and oppression of people.

As you will see from point number 8, Richard has a strong goal and a strong adversity in the white witch. It is vitally important for screenwriters to create a strong goal for their protagonist and to have one or more people (antagonists) who try to stop him from achieving that goal. It is also important that the audience identify with the hero for then they bond with him and engage with his struggle.

IDENTIFYING WITH THE HERO

One way to make an audience identify with the hero is to show a trauma in their past. My protagonist, an artist called Richard, feels incredible guilt because his young brother burned to death while he was painting and listening to music. He travels to Jamaica in an effort to forget the past but, of course, it travels with him. Once we know about Richard’s guilt, we become interested in him and concerned about his future.

Here’s another example of how the past can affect the present life of a character.

James is an overly cautious man, afraid to enjoy life. To stop the audience finding him irritating, we must show early in the script why he’s become so cautious. Here’s a way to do it: when James was 13 his father lost all the family money by gambling. His mother died and he and his alcoholic father lived in poverty until James left home. Consequently, we understand why he is frightened to take risks – they could lead to a similar disaster. This backstory makes us empathize with James so we want him to overcome his fears. Of course, we now escalate James’ problems by introducing a character (the antagonist) who challenges him so much that he is forced out of his caution to achieve something he never thought possible.

We also identify with people who are being unjustly treated. The theme of injustice has a universal appeal in all cultures (and has spawned many Hollywood films). Once we identify with people’s problems we are hooked; we worry about them and so must continue watching to see what happens to them. This worry creates tension, especially when we know that a character’s actions are likely to make life even more difficult for him.

Of course, as a writer, you must escalate the problems your protagonist faces so the audience can’t imagine how he can possibly get himself out of the terrible situation he finds himself in.

CREATING INTERESTING CHARACTERS

When you’re creating characters, think in contrasts: in age, gender, attitude and social status. This will help you create interesting people.

Answer these questions:

1. Where were your characters born and when?

2. Do they like the way they look?

3. What are their parents like? If they are still alive, do they relate to them or not? If they don’t, why not?

4. Were they well educated or not? Were they happy and popular in school or not? Why?

5. What work do they do? Do they enjoy it or not?

6. Do they have siblings? Do they get on with them? If not, why not?

7. How do they dress? (Classic/casual/elegant/hippie, etc.)

8. How do they speak? Have they got an unusual speech pattern? Do they interrupt people/listen carefully/only listen occasionally/speak spontaneously or after some thought? If none of these, how?

9. How do they move? Are they awkward/confident/hesitant/ graceful or none of these?

10. What do they like about themselves? What do they dislike?

11. What is their major character flaw? How are you going to use it in your plotting?

12. Have they ever suffered a trauma in the past? How does this affect them now?

13. Have they got a favourite place? (This could be a den in their house or a country.)

14. What do they hate/love doing in their leisure time?

15. How would you describe their personality?

16. What do they really want? What are they prepared to do to get it?

17. Are they active, i.e. do they have the energy to achieve their goal? (This doesn’t need to be physical energy – elderly characters may have a burning mental power that controls the people around them.)

To make us care about your characters, you must make them believable. There must be a consistency of action, dialogue and reaction with which we identify. Audiences always want to know why someone behaves or acts or speaks in a certain way. As long as the writer shows the audience credible reasons, we will accept even villainous characters like Hannibal Lector. (Did you know that Hannibal’s sister was eaten by soldiers when he was a young boy?)

N.B. The bottom line for writing any character is credibility. It’s vital to know what motivates each character to create fascinating, flawed people.

EXERCISE
Write out character biographies of all yourmajor characters. By writing biographies youwill discover exactly howeach character thinks, moves and acts, i.e. they will become three-dimensional.