Question for the pro screenwriters and industry pros

I know this question has been asked a few times before, but I couldn't find any threads dealing with it in the FAQ section, so I figured I'd start a fresh one here. Perhaps this one is destined for FAQ!

So, here goes (actually, two related q's):

What are some of the major areas, craft-wise, where there is a consistent disparity between aspiring screenwriters (with potential) and professional screenwriters? What common mistakes do aspiring screenwriters make that pros have transcended?

I'm not a Pro but IMHO the most basic and consistent misstep made by a newbie is the selection of a story that has little to zero spec market value. Understanding the business and knowing what sells and what doesn't is the essential cornerstone of any successful spec writer.

Newbies write what interests them.

Pros write what interest them and the market.

It's not a choice between commercial or passion. It's about developing a commercial sensibility and creating a story that is commercial and you feel passionate about.

If you are the kind of writer who can not ever find passion for commercial material, you should think seriously about if screenplay writing is right for you.

My 2 cents.

Opinions are all my own:

1) Bland idea. Nobody would ever want to pay $ to see this movie. When I do one of these pitch clinics the main problem with the stories being pitched is either that they are boring, or on rare occasions soul-less commercial crap. You need a story that you are passionate about that a whole bunch of people will want to see (as an escape from their boring lives).

2) Unfocused. No central conflict - just a bunch of incidents. They don't even *have* a story, they just have a character going from incident to incident. Who is your protagonist? What do they want? What ONE THING prevents them from getting what they want?

3) Bad writing. Bland writing. I read scripts for one of the events I was at recently, and many of the scripts were just poorly written. You still have to be able to construct a sentence that makes sense and actually *use those sentences* to create emotions in the reader. Words are the tools we use - so be an expert at using them.

There are industry pros who will tell you that the writing isn't important if the story is there - but they're forgetting that you have to read that writing to get the story. If the writing is awful, they aren't going to fully understand the story. It's *communicating* - the greatest story in the world told to you in some foreign language is pointless. You won't understand it. So good writing is *critical* to the reader understanding your great story.

4) Description instead of actions. It's not a novel - don't tell me what color the frigging curtains are. The only time the color of the curtains may come into play is if they are bright red and the protagonist is going to use the material to make a gown for the Grand Ball. If it's not critical to the story - leave it out. Meanwhile - make sure the characters are DOING SOMETHING not just sitting there yapping.

5) Characters we care about. *People* pay to see movies - so make sure your script is about people. Make sure you really dig into the characters and make us understand them. Don't just give us the surface, give us the *person*. Characters aren't chess pieces you move around the plot, they need to act like real people. They need to be motivaqted. They need to have issues they are struggling with. They need to be *human*.

6) Be willing to learn. I don't understand why so many writers think they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. That's just crazy. Everyone can learn something - and there's something we all *need* to learn. You never reach the point where you know everything. When I was at Santa Fe teaching I took 2 classes during my free time. And I learned something. I know the learning thing has nothing to do with craft, per se, but it really has *everything* to do with it. If you aren't on a quest for knowledge you aren't doing the things that will improve your writing. You aren't reading scripts, you aren't studying films, you aren't reading novels, etc. The quickest way to becoming creatively dead is to think you know everything.

- Bill

Great stuff, guys. Thank you.

Looking forward to more...

Idea. Idea. Idea.

Also, speaking in terms of the suspense/adventure/thriller genre, I've seen a lot of pro and non-pro writers ignore opportunities within their script to heighten tension. In essense, they choose the easy way out, both for the characters, and for themselves.

unca,

got any examples? i'd be very interested to know more.

2) Unfocused. No central conflict - just a bunch of incidents. They don't even *have* a story, they just have a character going from incident to incident. Who is your protagonist? What do they want? What ONE THING prevents them from getting what they want?

This is a definite biggie, along with incredibly illogical decisions by characters, which only serve to move the plot along.

For example, there are myriad amateur scripts out there, that use an "inciting incident" containing absolutely no logic, cohesiveness, or forethought at all.

For example, a Nobel prize-winning scientist receives an anonymous letter with a plane ticket to Bangkok in it. So naturally, this renowned thinker of our time boards the plane, not telling friends, family or co-workers where he's heading.

He arrives in Bangkok, and a bum drops a hotel reservation in his hand, then high-tails it. Obviously Mr. Genius just has to take a cab to the seediest district in Thailand, and checks into the hotel.

Upon entering his room, he finds a mysterious phone number written on a piece of paper, with "CALL ME IF YOU WANT SOME FUN" scrawled on it. Monsieur IQ 190 is soooo curious that he proceeds to call the number and sets up a midnight meeting in a dark alley right in the middle of Drug Central.

When he reaches this den of inequity, the scientist is then knocked out, gagged, and launched into a life-and-death race against time, hoping to counter the forces of evil before they can release Biolex XXX onto the hapless population of Bulgaria...

Total and absolute BS, as anyone with an IQ over 10 would never have moved past Step 1 in this contrived and illogical plot.

My clients include both pro and non-pro, and I of course read scripts that have been produced, and also some purchased specs.

Deus and Bill Martell have pretty much covered it ... yes, an interesting, dramatically viable, potentially salable concept has to be the biggest and most important distinction.

Not that all pro premises are great. But most premises by the pros are significantly stronger than most premises by the non-pros.

We can devise several tests for the worthiness of a premise. Can it be conveyed clearly in a concise manner? If it takes much more than 50 words to explain clearly ... it may be too unfocused, or too complex (and yes, high-concept premises should be able to be conveyed in 25 words or less).

Assuming the concept is clear and can be conveyed concisely, then ... is it in some way intriguing, compelling, or fascinating? Were it to happen in real life, would it be gossip- and/or newsworthy? That's an important criterion.

Beyond the foundational idea ...

Bill noted about non-pros moving the characters around like chess pieces, in the sense of them not seeming like real, flesh-and-blood people. I agree, but some writers (a goodly percentage of non-pros, not very many pros) also move them around like chess pieces in another way: by having them do things that they really would not do, for the sake of a "good" line, action, or reaction, or so the plot works out the way the writer wants it to. That is, for the sake of a laugh or surprise, or to have the plot work a certain way, some writers will have characters act out-of-character. And we're thinking, "Oh, he'd *never* do that." And sometimes, "NO one would do that!" Accompanied by internal comments of "gimme a break!" and "yeah, right!"

So credibility-- of incident and especially character -- is a big difference. Not with the top-level non-pros, of course.

I write "HDWK?" in the margins of non-pro scripts quite often, but very, very rarely in pro scripts. It means, of course, "How do we know?" -- relative to some bit of background or inside information or a character's inner thoughts stated in the description, but which wouldn't come across on the screen. For novels, fine. But on screen, we have to see or hear it. Treat the reader like the viewer.

Another big difference: only about a third of the non-pro's, compared to most of the pro's, are able to "get into the heads of the characters." They clearly know and understand their characters, and beyond that, are thinking their thoughts and feeling their emotions. They are able to do that for one character and then immediately leap into the head of the other ... or be in both simultaneously, and then kind of switch perspectives immediately, like switching between windows of open programs on a computer.

Finally, good pro's are good to excellent in all areas: idea, structure, plotting, characterization, dialogue, and quality of scene description/action. Probably there are exceptions in some collaboration teams ... where one guy may be brilliant in one area, good in some, and weak in, say, structure, and he works with someone who is great in structure but has a different weakness. But for pro's working on their own: they can be better in some areas, but they can't usually afford to be *bad* or even decidedly weak in any one area. They have to be fairly good to excellent in all areas.

Almost all non-pros have at least one area where they are decidedly weak. If it's structure: that can be learned. If it's language mechanics: that can be learned, with some time and effort. If it's characterization and/or dialogue where they aren't just a bit weak, but seriously deficient: better find a collaborator.

Jeff Newman
storynotes.com

tonyrob

non-commercial ideas that nobody would spent 3 hours and twenty bucks to see. lousy writing. i mean pure crap. poor narrative, dialogue that fell off the back of a truck. redundant scenes or scenes that don't need to be there. typos. why typos? we have software with spellcheck and there's always rewrites where you check your work, so why any typos. a script shouldn't have even one typo

mostly though, terrible ideas. boring ideas. lame ideas


zilla

Phoenix,

Specific examples are hard. Let me see if I can add a bit to what I said.

We know that conflict is imperative in drama, and that obstacles help create conflict, either within the character as an emotional issue or between the character and his/her environment (physical obstacles, other characters preventing his advance, etc). What I've seen way too many times are scripts where the writer lets the main character off easy by letting secondary characters suffer through things that the main character should have to overcome.

Especially in thrillers, etc, things should never be easy for the main character, yet aspiring writers overlook opportunities to put their lead's feet to the fire.