How important is voice in screenwriting?

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  • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

    Originally posted by TigerFang View Post
    My suggestion was meant to be to take from Fundamentals of Good Writing its underlying principles for writing in general.
    Yes, I agree.

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    • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

      I'd love a link to the thread, because I can't find it. (It also pre-dates my joining here by a couple of years, but maybe I had an older account?)

      But assuming I did write that... I like it that I said it was okay to use "we see" fifteen years ago, but I hope people will allow some growth on my views on why in the last decade and a half.

      Again, I'd love the context. I've been a fan of using stage direction to show personality since before I broke in. I remember reading a produced sitcom script by Russ Woody where he stuck a joke in a stage direction... It was a revelation. There was ZERO reason to do it except to entertain the reader, and I loved it. It felt so freeing knowing that that was "allowed."

      (Also, like everyone else, I'd read "Lethal Weapon" and knew how effective asides could be.)

      So again, if anyone has been laboring under a false impression that stage directions don't matter because of something I said fifteen years ago, I apologize wholeheartedly.

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      • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

        Jeff says, “I’d love a link to the thread…”

        It took me hours to find that. I am not going to spend more hours searching for it again. The thread contained a total of six pages.

        Jeff says, “(It pre-dates my joining here by a couple of years, but maybe I had an older account?)”

        Yes, you did. Done Deal upgraded in 2005 where all previous accounts had to be redone. In the 2003 post you were listed as a New User with, at that time, 53 total posts.

        Jeff says, “…I hope people will allow some growth on my views on why in the last decade and a half.”

        Of course, we all grow as a writer. Even Pros. It doesn’t matter if a writer is willing to admit it or not, but as writers we will continue to grow until we’re buried six feet under and become a tasty morsel for worms.

        I’ve grown by changing my view on “we see” and other stuff, because of you, which I feel makes me not only better as a writer, but also as a human being. I was a real ass back then about their use. I still don’t like their use, but now I give my opinion, along with examples, on how to use them purposely and effectively for those who’s style incorporates their use.

        By the way, I used a “CUT TO” transition in the script I’m working on now. It killed me to use it, but I found it was the most effective way to get across to the reader what I wanted to get across.

        Jeff says, “Again, I’d love the context.”

        Your post is pretty clear about the context. A-holes like me were bad mouthing “we see” and you jumped in to protect the newbies. And again, I’m glad you did. Now I do, but not back then. You see, I've grown. I’m guessing you said what you said out of frustration of what was being said. Sometimes I have that affect, or is it effect, on people.

        You’re not the only industry person I heard that the action/description is referred to as “the black stuff between the dialogue," but you were my first. I was shocked to hear that.

        Note to members: To overcome a busy executive’s love to skim action/description, some professionals highlight a few select words, phrases or sentences (the essence of the scene) by CAPPING. I gave an example of this in a past thread called, “Capitalizing Verbs for Effect,” by using a scene from M. Night Shyamalan.

        Jeff, after knowing me, in the context of Done Deal, for over a decade, I hope you don’t believe I’m the type of character who would make that post up?

        ComicBent seems to have also forgotten about that thread, because he posted right after your post, though he wasn’t addressing you and what you said. He was addressing something what TwoBrad and Dues said.

        If you do feel I could have made up that post, which surely would disappoint me, I did print out a few of the pages, not all of them, which I could copy and mail (don’t have scanner to e-mail) to Done Deal to pass on to you, which I really don't want to go through this trouble, but to maintain my credibility I will –- only if necessary.
        Last edited by JoeNYC; 05-27-2018, 10:06 AM.

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        • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

          I'm definitely not accusing you of lying. It just struck me as odd that I couldn't pull up the post, since I'm pretty good at searching. For example, if you search for the word "fret," which you quoted me as saying, there's only one post in all of 2003 that used it, and it wasn't mine.

          I'm guessing you archived the posts back then? (If you'd found it now, it wouldn't say the total number of my posts - it would say "n/a" like all the other posts do from that era.) I shudder to think of the stupid shit I said that's buried on your hard drive.

          This is why I tell my kids never to post anything that they wouldn't want read/seen for the rest of their lives.

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          • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

            Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
            I'm guessing you archived the posts back then?
            ?
            Last edited by JoeNYC; 05-27-2018, 11:26 AM.

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            • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

              ?
              Last edited by JoeNYC; 05-27-2018, 11:25 AM.

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              • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                Originally posted by JoeNYC View Post
                Nope, I wasn't that smart back then to save posts on the craft. I'm telling you the truth. I searched for hours to find that thread. You do believe just because YOU couldn't find it doesn't mean someone else won't be able to find it. Cause that would be an ego as big as Mt. Everest.
                This is getting weird. Assuage my huge ego and tell me where I screwed up:

                I searched for every post that had the word "fret" in it (there are 101), and it is not there.

                I also searched for threads that had the word "wrong" in the title (there are 35), and there isn't one called "What's Wrong With 'We See'."

                In the 2003 post you were listed as a New User with, at that time, 53 total posts.
                Again, if you pull up a post from back then, it does not have a post count. An example. As you can see, it says "n/a" for post count.

                So the archive was made before the software switch.

                Unless I'm screwing something up, archive.org didn't archive the posts, since donedeal was using ezboard, which was excluded from archiving.

                So... what am I missing?

                Comment


                • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                  Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
                  This is getting weird. Assuage my huge ego and tell me where I screwed up:
                  Okay, I edited my previous posts because I figured out what happened. It wasn't you who screwed up. It was me.

                  In the past, I wasn't bright enough to save threads on the craft to my hard drive, but once in a while throughout the years I did print out some pages on the craft. It was just recently I've been going back years searching for past threads on the craft to save them to my hard drive and print them out.

                  When you wanted proof that you said what you said, I knew I had printed it out from one of my past searches, so I went through my hard drive and then my printed out papers and after hours of searching I found it. I assumed it was from my recent Internet searches, but when you said you searched and it wasn't there, I was too quick in accusing you of having a big ego when after all it turned out to be me that had the big ego. Surprise. Right.

                  I thought, "hey Jeff couldn't find it but I did. I'm great. I was flying high, but when I came back down to Earth, I looked at the print out of the "we see" thread more closely and I had an "Ah, sh!t" moment. The date that stated when I printed it out was one year after 2003. It was printed out in 2004.

                  Sorry. Do you forgive me?

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                  • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                    Of course! I'm slightly disappointed there isn't a bigger archive I hadn't found there are some old discussions about theme that got wiped out in the boski rage-quit that I'd love to see.

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                    • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                      ComicBent seems to have also forgotten about that thread [the one from 15 years ago], because he posted right after your post, though he wasn't addressing you and what you said. He was addressing something that TwoBrad and Deus said.
                      Whatever I said then, it was probably something that would embarrass me now. But we all learn.

                      "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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                      • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                        "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
                        Know this: I'm a lazy amateur, so trust not a word what I write.
                        "The ugly can be beautiful. The pretty, never." ~ Oscar Wilde

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                        • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                          Quickly browsed through the link to Fundamentals of Good Writing, including the Table of Contents and Index. Didn't notice any mention of Writer's Voice or Voice in the pages.

                          I wonder why. Is "Writer's Voice" a fairly recent term? The book seems to cover all the elements of writer's voice without mentioning voice.

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                          • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                            Originally posted by jonpiper View Post
                            Quickly browsed through the link to Fundamentals of Good Writing, including the Table of Contents and Index. Didn't notice any mention of Writer's Voice or Voice in the pages.

                            I wonder why. Is "Writer's Voice" a fairly recent term? The book seems to cover all the elements of writer's voice without mentioning voice.
                            It takes many trees to make a forest, grasshopper.

                            When you can snatch the brass fastener from the hand of the sensei, you will know what is “writer's voice.”
                            Last edited by Clint Hill; 05-28-2018, 04:55 AM.
                            “Nothing is what rocks dream about” ― Aristotle

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                            • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                              TigerFang sent me a PM to point out that I had misspelled a word in my earlier post about the Brooks and Warren books. He was not being pedantic. He knew that I would want to know. I used the verb pour in place of the correct homonym verb pore. I answered him this way in a PM:
                              Well, you got me. You are correct. It is supposed to be *pore*, not *pour*, in the sense in which I used the word: to study something intently.

                              It was not a typo. I just spelled it wrong.

                              I really do not know whether I have ever seen the word spelled out, though I must have at some time in my reading over the last several decades. Strange that the spelling did not stick, because I am one of those people who can see a word once and remember the spelling almost infallibly.

                              Thanks for pointing it out.



                              "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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                              • Re: How important is voice in screenwriting?

                                That could be the most helpful post in this thread lol.

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