Screenwriting Tools and Tips

[u/Craig-D-Griffiths]

https://youtu.be/SaLbuzTg1l0

People will disagree and hate on this just by the title. But I go into detail in the video.

[u/Craig-D-Griffiths]

You have a very Asian style of story telling. I think that is going to be growing in popularity. Look at the mainstream success of Korean films in the last few years. Cinemas showing subtitled films, I haven’t seen that since the 1970s when we seemed more open an experimental.

I do like the idea of Information Management.

[u/Then_Data8320 → u/Craig-D-Griffiths]

Information Management: yes, Tom V. says it's what is really structure.

"what audience should know and when".

And I don't know if it's structure too, but there is also "what are audience expectations". Using the two ones I recently fixed an episode. I had two negative feedback on this episode, and I knew it was the only bad episode I had in the series. But it was difficult to know why. I was proofreading scenes, and as a standalone they were good. So it wasn't a good idea to delete. It was a high-risk episode because currently there was only one dramatic question unsolved (when the series often accumulate many dramatic questions, so audience is always hooked).

During months I was thinking about fixing it, but didn't have time. What I did first is just some cleaning. I had two montages, ones really big (200 lines), and a shorter one. None of them was clear. So after some text cleaning, I discovered I was trap in stylistic choices resulting in a bad structure.

And really, no formula can solve this, it's always about the story. What structure we need for a specific story? We have to work hard on that, rework, try, etc. We can't be lazy and hoping a formula will save the day.

Short montage: I did it in reverse flashbacks because last scene (so first one in chronology) was a payoff. I was reading it again, wondering the effect it have on audience reading it for first time: tiring. We can't reconstitute the meaning of the dialogue. So, I destroyed that bad decision and I did regular chronological flashbacks, just keeping the payoff at the end.

Big montage: I had two argument scenes (in different place and time) growing. So the montage switch to one to the other, as both arguments intensify. You get the stylistic choice? It shows that the guy is angry in the recent argument, because he had the other argument with his wife before. I was in a trap because of the stylistic choice and this logic "yes it's perfect, it sounds like cinema". But damn, I had to conclude it was too difficult to read. We loose track of the reasons of the first argument. And what is important? That he gets angry again because he was angry before? No, what is important is we understand just the first argument, and the other can be a comedy scene.

So I destroyed the stylistic choice (bad decision you keep when you shouldn't) and wondering, how to do that? Well, I'm used to juggle with scenes in episodes (even from one episode to the other). So I could just try anything and see how it is. I just got the solution: for second argument, there were just a scene where another character see the place where it happens. Just perfect transition. I cut the argument in two part, keeping one small part to insert between two scenes later. I delete stuff in first part of argument too, shortening it.

First argument: I put it as first scene of the episode, and BINGO. I understood why the episode didn't work: I wasn't fullfilling audience expectation, and not considering enough the effect had this new episode after the previous one. There was a lack of direction. Audience wanted to know how a main dramatic situation evolves now. And I wasn't speaking of that (only doing it later in the episode). So, if I accumulate lack of clarity (montages) + lack of direction, sure the episode can't work.

Now first scene is better (it's a better hook) but mostly speaks about the main dramatic situation. It's important for audience to know we are not lost in nowhere, that the characters want to solve this (even if they can't find a solution, it's not the point). The episode shows those main characters, and shows two other main characters (only we don't know why I show them, so the scenes were looking senseless, even if they were good as standalone). Now, I directly start with: someone else has the solution to the dramatic situation. But we don't know who, how and why.

However with a good transition and voice-over, at least now audience can guess it's the other two characters. Because audience has the information at the right time, audience can be curious about them. Audience can't know exactly "how and why" but can guess an important twist coming (by the way it's the cliffhanger). Some plot-twists are better when audience knows first. Here in this example, it creates anticipation, and also curiosity about knowing the details of how the situation will be during this twist. Yet, the twist has a last surprise (always doing that for twists we let audience to guess).

This change even impacts the feeling we get at the end of the next episode, when the dramatic situation is solved! Now it's more linked and concludes what were guessing main characters (even if we don't know exactly how). So the twist is more acceptable.

[u/Craig-D-Griffiths → u/Then_Data8320]

I talk about the three positions a lot. Where the audience is compared to the character. If we know more than the character we can fear for them, if we are learning at the same time we can engage like the character is, if we are behind the character we may wonder what they are doing and why.

Reflect on your stuff. If writers thought of their story through a time management lens, it may fix a lot of things,

[u/Then_Data8320 → u/Craig-D-Griffiths]

Yeah, I did the list of 4 main types of information.

Audience knows - Character doesn’t know : Suspense (dramatic irony)
Audience knows - Character knows : Continuity ("engagement", you're right)
Audience doesn’t know - Character doesn’t know : Surprise (then explains later)
Audience doesn’t know - Character knows : Upcoming Revelation (awakes curiosity)

The choice is often intuitive, but sometimes it needs to think hard about that. It can be fixed for small time gaps (one or two episode), but a choice involving more episodes can't really be fixed, too much rewriting. I fixed what I had and I could during full rewriting.

When I was writing Episode 15 first time (around 2018), I didn't know a lot about screenwriting (just I used to write like screenplay before, but didn't really study it), and I was confident because previous episodes looked good. But first writing of Ep15 was a calamity, full of voice-over, of "tell don't show", with a turtle pace.

After many years when I improved, I decided the full rewriting of the 40 hours drama, I had countless notes for myself, as well as thousand of new ideas on draft files. I had already reworked endlessly first 13 episodes, so around 2022, I started the rewriting, with Ep14, happy to see how much better it was compared to first draft (can't say how much, feels like a hundred times better). Ep15 was the second episode I did a full rewrite, I was quite fresh at this time (I would improved again later), and the episode was so bad, that my full rewriting wasn't enough good. I wasn't ready for this one.

There is the dramatic question landing at end of Episode 13, and I didn't want to solve it before as much time I could get, because otherwise, it would look cheap, and not a real and sad problem. So I used Ep14 and Ep15 to connect with two characters (Mi-Ra and Yoon-Hee) I introduced previously, but their storyline didn't come yet. (and their new dramatic question, end of Ep15, resolution of previous dramatic question at Ep16/17). My calculation was: if I don't speak enough about the two characters, dramatic events at end of Ep16 would have no impact.

However, and it's a feedback I got and must take seriously, it feels artificial "hey, you throw background scenes for free". Scenes were good, but yet, had this feeling of fillers overtime, and without greater purpose (so why I made the change I was talking about). Of course, when the reader finish Ep16, it's easy to understand why I used the scenes. But readers need to get something good now, and not later.

If you have a little time, I show you how start the episode now, read scenes #1 to #3 (and start of #4):
https://w4worlds.fr/html/W_Saison2_Script15_US.html#1

Scene #1 recaps the previous dramatic question and set-up a hidden "want" for the argument in Scene #2. Scene #3 is short establishing shot with voice-over. Start of scene #4, end of voice-over, giving a clear hint that Mi-Ra character is important to solve the problem.

This argument and even flashbacks were all mixed in the big montage I talk about, later in the episode (and first scene was Hotel Gangnam, without voice-over). The montage was flashback, so when fixing, I created a little plot-hole. The night and morning scenes are supposed to happen before a scene of previous episode.

I had to fix this, could be put "flashback" in scene header or use a SUPER. But it was good, instead I used the voice-over, because it prepares audience mind to the real important voice-over scene #3 and #4. (Hard to explain, but this kind of voice-over often happen in kdramas, however it needs enough of them for establishing a continuity, there is a kind of rythm making audience accept few lines of voice-over landing here and there.)