Overwriting

Here’s a question someone asked on one of the online boards:

What exactly do you mean by 'over writing'? I’m curious: I've heard it said a lot, and have always suspected it as being shorthand for just not liking a writer's style. Does it mean more flowery, too many adjectives, stuff like that? Or sentences overloaded with ideas?

I think “overwriting” is ubiquitous and can refer to several causes/symptoms.

Sometimes it's the use of three descriptors where one is enough. Often it's senseless and endless exaggeration; everything has to be the most, the biggest, the people (especially the women) beautiful beyond compare, etc. This boils down to too many adjectives and adverbs and sometimes a misperception of the audience.

Often the root cause of too many adjectives and adverbs is the writer’s desire to describe whatever it is absolutely down to a gnat’s eyebrow, so that the reader is forced, forced I tell you, to see it just the way the writer wants it seen. Caving in to this desire is probably almost always a mistake. Stephen King has described this problem, and its cure, elsewhere online, so I won’t go into a lot of detail on it here. I think it’s enough to say that written narration is a pretty broad-brush medium. The writer only needs to get things down generally, and each reader’s mind’s eye will supply the specifics. Exposition is almost always overdone – too much of it too specifically gone into. A good example of how little exposition is needed is “No Country for Old Men.” Just pick it up and start reading from the beginning and notice how little exposition there is and how you don’t miss it at all.

But overwriting, its causes and cures, can be more complicated. When reading someone’s manuscript, it’s difficult to separate out what is consciously intentional from what just happens to arrive at the point at which the writer needed something, i.e., what’s more toward the unintentional vs. the on-purpose end of the spectrum. What I mean by that is what’s written down in full awareness and what comes from habit, the writer’s more-or-less unexamined proclivities and tendencies. What I think I’ve learned about writing fiction is that until one becomes aware of it, the basics of the writer’s personal behavior patterns often get superimposed on the characters and their interactions without the writer really being too much consciously aware of it. I think this is particularly true of the writer’s personal modes of handling emotional issues and behavior. This no doubt is mostly the case for writers who haven’t yet reached a point where they’ve got their characters over there in another part of their mind where they are characters and not in some sense “the writer” in another guise. Of course, in another sense, everyone and everything must be by definition part of the writer (since it all comes out of his/her mind). Down this path lies endless back and forth, and I’m not going there; you know what I mean. Of course they’re all you, but when you’re more experienced (hardened? deft? facile? schizophrenic?), not that much you.

I think the root causes can be a lack of confidence in the writing and a lack of understanding how fiction works its magic in the mind of the reader. Getting this right is for a lot of people probably a pretty intuitive thing, but I don't think it has to be kept at that level. I would contend that the more conscious you make the process the better the writer you'll be.

Here’s a snippet of scene (a re-write by me of someone else’s purposefully bad example):

"You've got to be kidding," the hooker said. They stood on the corner, a light drizzle turning the midnight streets to inky blackness. "You've got a freaking beard down to your bellybutton, and you want me to do what to you?" She laughed. "You are one sick dude!"

Take just this phrase: the light drizzle made the streets an inky blackness. The true-life fact is that is pretty far from being an accurate description of how a dark, asphalt street really looks in a light rain. But what I was consciously aware of when I wrote it was that all I needed was a rough brushstroke or two that would get the idea across, because what it generates in the reader's brainstem is a vague memory of all those wonderful movie shots where they have wetted down the streets beforehand because it makes them look so damned dramatic. No one’s mind’s eye sees a real street; everyone imagines the movie image, which is so much better.

I think a lot of the art of writing well is to stay what could be called "below the line." By this I mean restrain yourself in the writing (or in the editing) process so that you allow the reader to bring his/her own images and associations to what you're doing. In the most powerful writing, the connections occur in the reader’s mind.

If you'd like more examples of how to do it, I always suggest finding a copy of "Lie Down in Darkness," William Styron's first novel. It is filled with such an abundance. I just picked it up and flopped it open and here's what I saw on page 126:

"Wait, no!" she began. " As God is my witness—" But only watched those smooth young wanton legs, limp-kneed, moving across the lawn, and into the house. Milton sitting spraddle-legged in his chair, glass in hand, turning lazily to see Peyton disappear beyond the door, his red neck swelling, enlarging as Helen approached on the run, digging in with her heels past the lawn chair.

Not a lot of words to create an indelible impression of a rather complicated bit of business. And don't you just love those young wanton legs? And don't you see Milton spraddle-legged, glass in hand, turning lazily, his red neck swelling? You don't need to have clarified just how drunk he is.

Of course, “Lie Down in Darkness” is probably unique in the annals of American fiction; it’s certainly one of a kind so far as I know. I’m unaware of any modern English novel that’s as richly layered.

What, you haven’t read it?

You should do that right away.

Got a story?

I’ve critiqued a couple stories recently where I’ve made comments like “where’s the story?” and “when is the story going to start?”

It’s got to be really frustrating and damned annoying to have such an impertinent question asked, especially if it gets repeated every few paragraphs.

I halfway expect a reply to come back, “the story was what you were reading, you nitwit. What did you think it was?”

But so far no one has responded with that, though they’ve probably been thinking it.

By saying “where’s the story?” and “when is the story going to start?” I pretty much imply that I know what a story is and that I can detect whether or not one is taking place.

I think I can (and of course you may think otherwise).

Here’s how I think I know that a story has started and that I’m reading one: I feel a tingle of anticipation mingled with uncertainty. I’m at least a little bit worried, a little fearful about what might happen to the major character, and I have a feeling something’s going to happen. (Well, I’m usually on one of the early pages of a 300 page novel, so certainly something is definitely going to happen.)

The thing that makes me feel this way is what professional writers call the story question.

“Story question” has some varied definitions you’ll find on the web, but so far in my searches I haven’t turned up a really good and reliable and useful and entirely practical explanation. Entirely practical. I’m an American, born and bred, so of course practical is for me a primary consideration.

The story question often is not a question that is specifically included in the narrative, though sometimes it is. But it is always a question that gets lodged in the reader’s mind.

Exactly where and how that happens in the reader’s mind is something I’ve thought about a little, and have some theories about. That’s a subject for another time, perhaps. But I’ll say this much about it now: I don’t really think about it as being lodged in the reader’s mind so much as in the reader’s stomach, in that part of the anatomy where the autonomic nervous system operates. (Is it the autonomic or parasympathetic? I forget. One of them, anyway, the one that deals with feelings vs. concepts.) In other words, the reader doesn’t really think intellectually about the story question: rather, he/she feels it. It’s what the writer causes the reader to feel when the reader reads his/her story.

One thing I am sure of: The stomach is the place where we feel fear.

And the story question always embodies fear. Always? That’s pretty unequivocal. Yes, I think always. Always. If somebody has another idea, I’m open to hear it, but you better have a pretty good case to back you up.

Fear is the common denominator word for the feeling, but it’s not an on/off kind of feeling. There’s such a thing as just a little hint of fear: call it uncertainty, apprehension, unease. Then there’s a whole lot of fear. We call that terror, dread, horror, panic.

A key part of the fear (or apprehension or uncertainty or unease or terror or dread) is what might happen next. That’s an integral element. You are terrified at the top of that first hill before the rollercoaster plunges downward — the fear is an anticipation of onrushing pain, death or dismemberment, or perhaps just the deep humiliation and mess of projectile vomiting. Certainly something unpleasant. You are terrified when Freddie jumps out from behind the door because of what Freddie is going to do next with those knives that stick out of his hands. In both these instances, and in all cases of fear, what we fear is what is going to happen next.

So reading a story, I’m looking for at least some mild form of fear. I usually think of it as the phrase that Alexander Mackendrick uses in “On Film,” (an early chapter devoted to “story:” anticipation mingled with uncertainty. To make me think the story has started, you have to give me the signals that make me at least just a tiny bit fearful that things are going to turn out badly for your major character. I have to fear for the outcome. So it has to be uncertain.

I have actually read at least one unpublished story that included in the first or second paragraph (I don’t remember exactly and it’s been some time ago) words to the effect that “after it was all over Jack had won the day and lived happily ever after.”

My reaction to that was to think well if you tell me that right at the beginning you’ve just taken all the fun out of it. Because the fun is the uncertainty (fear) I’m going to experience as I read your story.

Fear is fun? Yes, it certainly is. Do you know how popular the teenage horror movies are today? Do those kids go to those horror movies because they don’t want to be scared? No, quite the opposite. They walk out laughing and relieved, saying things like “When that dead guy lifted up out of the casket and reached for her I almost peed my pants.”

So forget what you might have assumed, fear is bad, something to be avoided. If you want to write a rattling good story, or a deeply touching drama, or any kind of fiction that works, engrave this into your writer’s way of thinking: fear is fun, fear is what you are out to generate. Maybe not a lot of fear (being the ultimate prose stylist that you are), maybe only a smidgen of fear. But you need to get at least a little anticipation and uncertainty in there, and the sooner the better.

The way you generate that fear in the reader is this: you plant the story question in their gut.

I had read about all this stuff I’ve just discussed, but I had not really integrated it into my writing mind until I managed to actually make it happen in a manuscript. The descriptions I’d read hadn’t been couched in the specific, direct way I’ve tried above to describe the mechanism. I didn’t really understand it in the way that I think it needs to be understood until I wrote something that actually caused it to happen.

I don’t know if you’re at all like me in this situation, or if (unlike me) you can learn without the doing. But I had to actually have the experience of doing it in order to learn it. In golf it’s akin to the experience of making contact with the ball in the middle of the clubface, with the clubface and the swing square to the intended line of flight. There is a sound and a feeling and when it happens you know that is what you’ve been seeking. Ben Hogan once described it as a feeling that comes up the club shaft and goes right into your heart. That, I think, has a lot to do with the fatal allure of golf.

When professionals talk about the “story question” I think that is what they mean.

How do you get a story question into your manuscript? There are probably as many ways as there are writers. Or as some of us say when faced with a seemingly intractable problem, there’s always a way.

One way is this: simply put the story question into the title.

“Snakes on a Plane” It might not be your cup of tea, exactly, but to a certain cultural milieu, the appeal is immediate. Here’s what it brings to mind: An airplane at 35,000 feet, no way to get off or open a window, and you’ve got a whole mess of dangerous snakes. I’ve got to see it! (i.e. what happens next?) You might think it would be a simple thing to write. But perhaps not. It took two guys to write the screenplay, John Heffeman and Sebastian Gutierrez, and this after the story was written by David Dalessandro and John Heffeman.

Sometimes the story question is right there in the first line:

“I can’t come anymore.” This hilarious little story was written by Jill Soloway. It’s called “Courtney Cox’s Asshole.” A serious problem, not being able to come, and it generates in the reader’s stomach anticipation mingled with uncertainty. And then there’s identification with the character: If she can’t come anymore, maybe it can happen to me? In any event, I feel anticipation and uncertainty for the protagonist.

Here’s a classic:

“Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him.” This hallowed traditional way to open a genre novel was written by Graham Greene in 1937 for “Brighton Rock.” Greene called it perhaps his best novel, critics call it his first masterpiece.

Here’s what looks like the story question from the first chapter of “Downtown Owl” by Chuck Klosterman, published in January 2009 (it says in the New York Times). But I think the first chapter from which this is drawn is a flashback:

Mitch was not clutch. Nobody said this, but everybody knew. It was the biggest problem in his life.

So you don’t necessarily get points for being subtle. Come right out and say it: the biggest problem in his life.

“The Shadow Factory,” by James Bamford, published January 9, 2009, from the first chapter:

Mihdhar was at the ops center when he received the phone call he had been waiting for. He and Hazmi were instructed to leave in a few days for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where their final, fatal mission to the U.S. would begin. Now Mihdhar had to make a decision.

At that moment, seven time zones and 7,282 miles to the west, the phone call was captured and recorded by America's big ear, the ultra-secret National Security Agency.

Is it cheesy? Definitely. But some agent thought enough to take it on, and some publisher believed there was an audience for it and published it.

Okay, you might be thinking at this point, maybe I don’t have one of those stupid story questions in my manuscript. If not, what was all that stuff you were reading when you were so rudely bitching about there not being a story?

As Dwight Swain (author of "Techniques of the Selling Writer") says, at the beginning of every story the reader subconsciously asks four questions:

1 where am I?

2 what’s going on?

3 who’s involved? and

4 whose skin am I in?

There will probably be some who disagree with even this basic description of things, and for some artsy-fartsy experimental writing, there may be exceptions. Fine. Noted. But can we confine ourselves to generally accepted principles of commercial fiction that might possibly find a publisher in today's ever-tightening market?

The answers to those four questions are the exposition, that stuff you know you’ve gotta get in there somehow so the reader knows what the hell’s going on.

Before I had a good idea of “story question” and the implications of it, I knew exposition when I saw it, but I didn’t make nearly as strong distinction as I do now between what is exposition and what is story.

When I wrote “Nikki” (posted here) I had no idea what I’d done until I had about the third draft done. Then reading back over it I realized that everything that happens prior to the story question is all exposition.

The story question doesn’t appear until page 4. So everything up to then is exposition. (Actually, there are foreshadowings of the story question, but let’s not split hairs.) I was very surprised at the realization at the time that this stuff was mostly exposition, and I wondered why it worked (I thought then and I still think the story does work pretty well; of course, no one’s interested in publishing it, but that’s another issue).

So I realized it was exposition but it felt like story. It didn’t feel like exposition. Why not? I think because the character appears in a situation where there is dramatic tension. The reader doesn’t know exactly what the deal is in all respects, but he/she does see that the character is unhappy and facing an immediate unhappiness (going home with Benjamin) and maybe something else. As a result there is uncertainty and anticipation and the exposition feels like story.

When things happen in scenes and there is the uncertainty to the outcome, it has dramatic tension and it feels like story.

Huckleberry Finn must escape the clutches of civilization that are smothering him. Will this backwoods kid manage to find a life for himself? Then Pap catches him. Will Huck escape Pap’s clutches? Then he meets Jim, the escaped Nigger, on an island. Will he help Jim evade a terrible capture, help him find and reunite his family? And all the time lurking back there in our mind is the first, over-arching story question: will Huck find a place in life where he can live happily ever after?

So once you’ve got that first story question planted somehow, you’re not finished. It’s on to the next one which creates the next complication (or vice versa), and the next and the next.

Finally there are the parts of the manuscript that are neither exposition nor story. These are events that are not related in some way to any story question and are not exposition (or rather, are not exposition that the reader has a need to know). Events generally don’t have any dramatic tension, no conflict, no goal for the protagonist, the story is not moving forward. These are things you need to cut. These may be your very most favorite things, scenes and images you absolutely adore. Sorry. Cut ’em all. I can’t find any examples of empty events in published manuscripts (which is in itself, of course, a pretty good indicator), but there are examples in manuscripts on writing sites. I don’t want to embarrass anyone by citing them. When you’re reading along and you start to wonder what this has to do with the story, you’re probably reading an event. Some events can start out sounding like they’re going to be story, and then they end and something else starts, and if you wonder what that part you just read has to do with the story. That was empty event.

Anyway, that’s enough of this. Hope it helps.

Ten questions to ask about your story

I think I found this somewhere on the web or in a book. Can't remember where. Not great, might be of interest to some.


Here are ten questions you can ask yourself about your story while you are developing it, writing it, and when you are finished.

1) What do you want to say with your story about...?
The state of the world?
Relationships?
Governments?
Religions?
Life in general?
People?

2) How will readers react to your story? Is the story...
Interesting?
Believable?
Credible?
Compelling?

3) Where does your story begin?
What is the set up?
What happens when you start reading at the second or third paragraph?
Is the protagonist in a crisis or facing an external problem or difficulty of some kind?
Have you established your story world? The rules? The restrictions?

4) Where does your story end?
What is the outcome or resolution? And why?
Do you answer any and all questions presented?
Is your ending both inevitable (given what has gone before) and at the same time surprising?
Did you fulfill the premise of the story?

5) Is there rising tension?
Is there tension (hopefully dramatic tension) in every scene?
Are there suprises?
How does the conflict escalate?
Is there a climax?

6) Your characters?
Are they likable? (or at least dislikable in a sympathetic way, i.e. Humbert Humbert?)
Interesting? Unique or different?
Bigger than life?
Will an audience care about him/her/them?

7) What is your protagonist like?
Can audiences empathize with them?
What do they want? Do they care very much about something?
What are their goals in life? Needs?
What's at stake for them?
Are they tied to the problem they face? No turning back?

8) What is your character's motivation?
Are these motivations shown?
Justified?
Woven into the story?

9) Who or what is the antagonist?
Why are they trying to stop your protagonist?
Is the antagonist a worthy foe?
What drives them?
What do they want or need?

10) Do you over explain your story?
Do you begin way before things get interesting?
Is everything spelled out too clearly?
Is the set up "messy" and too busy?
Do events get explained rather than unfold dramatically?
Do key events take place out of view of the reader?

How to write a scene

I thought this was pretty good stuff. The subject is screenwriting, but it seems to me it applies equally well to stories and novels.

How to write a scene

By John August (www.johnaugust.com)

One of the things I admire most about Jane Espenson’s blog is that she talks very directly about the words on the page, giving names to techniques I use but never really think about. The two-percenter, for example.

So one of my goals for 2007 is to get a little more granular in my advice-giving, and talk less about Screenwriting and more about screenwriting — in particular, scene writing.

Spend a few years as a screenwriter, and writing a scene becomes an almost unconscious process. It’s like driving a car. Most of us don’t think about the ignition and the pedals and the turn signals — but we used to, back when we were learning. It used to flummox the hell out of us. Every intersection was unbelievably stressful, with worries of stalling the car and/or killing everyone on board.

It’s the same with writing a scene. The first few are brutal and clumsy. But once you’ve written (and rewritten) say, 500 scenes, the individual steps sort of vanish. But they’re still there, under the surface. It’s just that your instinct is making a lot of the decisions your conscious brain used to handle.

So here’s my attempt to introspect and describe what I’m doing that I’m not even aware I’m doing. Here’s How to Write a Scene.

1. Ask: What needs to happen in this scene?

Many screenwriting books will tell you to focus on what the characters want. This is wrong. The characters are not responsible for the story. You are. If characters were allowed to control their scenes, most characters would chose to avoid conflict, and movies would be crushingly boring.

The question is not, “What could happen?” or “What should happen?” It is only, “What needs to happen?” If you wrote an outline, this is the time to look at it.1 If you didn’t, just come up one or two sentences that explain what absolutely must happen in the scene.

2. Ask: What’s the worst that would happen if this scene were omitted?

Imagine the projectionist screwed up and accidentally lopped off this scene. Would the movie still make sense? If the answer is “yes,” then you don’t really need the scene, and shouldn’t bother writing it.

But it’s so dramatic! you say. But it’s so funny!

Tough. Put that drama or that comedy into scenes that are crucial to the movie.2 One thing you learn after a few produced movies is that anything that can be cut will be cut, so put your best material into moments that will absolutely be there when it’s done.

3. Ask: Who needs to be in the scene?

Scripts are often clogged with characters who have no business being there. But because words are small, it’s easy to overlook that “Haversmith” hasn’t said or done anything for five pages. And sadly, sometimes that’s not realized until after filming.3

4. Ask: Where could the scene take place?

The most obvious setting for a scene is generally the least interesting, so don’t be too quick to set your scene in the police bullpen, a living room, or a parking garage. Always consider what the characters could be doing, even if it’s not directly related to the focus of the scene. A father-and-son bonding moment at a slaughter house will play differently than the same dialogue at a lawn bowling tournament.

5. Ask: What’s the most surprising thing that could happen in the scene?

Give yourself permission to step away from your outline and consider some wild possibilities. What if a car smashed through the wall? What if your hero choked and died? What if a young boy vomited up a finger?

Most of your scenes won’t have one of these out-of-nowhere aspects. But your movie needs to have a few moments that are completely unexpected, so always ask yourself, could this be one of them?

6. Ask: Is this a long scene or a short scene?

There’s nothing so dispiriting as writing a great three-page mega-scene and realizing that you could have accomplished just as much in two-eighths of a page.4 So ask yourself up front: How much screen time am I willing to give to this scene?

7. Brainstorm three different ways it could begin.

The classic advice is to come into a scene as late as you possibly can. Of course, to do that, you really need to know how the previous scene ended. There’s often a natural momentum that suggests what first image or line of dialogue would be perfect to open the scene. But don’t stop at the first option. Find a couple, then…

8. Play it on the screen in your head.

At least 50% of screenwriting is simply sitting there with your eyes closed, watching the unwritten scene loop in your head. The first couple of times through, it’s really rough: a blocking rehearsal. But eventually, you start to hear the characters talk to each other, and the vague motions become distinct actions. Don’t worry if you can’t always get the scene to play through to the end — you’re more likely to find the exit in the writing than in the imagining.

Don’t rush this step. Let the scene percolate. Mumble the dialogue. Immerse yourself as fully into the moment as you can.

9. Write a scribble version.

A “scribble version” is essentially a cheat sheet so you’ll remember the great scene you just saw in your head. Don’t write sentences; don’t write full dialogue. It shouldn’t take more than five minutes. Just get the bare minimum down so that you won’t forget the scene in the next hour as you’re writing it.

I generally hand-write a scribble version in tiny print — sometimes literally on the back of an envelope — but you can also type. This is what a scribble version consists of for me:

0. DUNCAN waiting edge of seat
0. ITO
0. I was one of the doctors who worked on your wife
0. accident
0. injuries severe, trauma team, sorry, couldn’t save her
0. (sits, reflex)
0. nature of injuries, concern fetus wouldn’t survive in utero. paramedic able deliver caesarian boy healthy
0. (nodding not hearing)
0. nurse can take you to see him, know a lot to handle
0. what
0. a lot to handle
0. take me to see him?
0. yes
0. see who?
0. your son. paramedic was able to
0. (grabs clipboard)
0. I know this may seem
0. My wife wasn’t pregnant
0. Your wife didn’t tell you…
0. My wife has never been pregnant. been trying three years. fertility clinic last week
0. I examined the baby myself. nearly at term.
0. I don’t know whose baby, not hers.
0.
0.
It’s kind of a mess, and really wouldn’t make sense to anyone but me — and only shortly after I wrote it. But that doesn’t matter. The scribble version is only there so you don’t get lost or confused while writing the full version of the scene. Yes, it’s finally time to…

10. Write the full scene.

If you typed up the scribble version, don’t just try to fatten it out. Start clean. The scribble version is deliberately crappy, and rewritten crap is still crap.

The scribble version is your outline for the scene. Yes, allow yourself the chance to detour from your scribble version if a truly better idea comes along. But if you’ve really spent the time to play it through in your head (#8), it’s probably on the right track already.

Depending on the nature of the scene, getting the dialogue right may be most of the work. Regardless, focus on choosing the best words to describe the characters, the action and tone, so your readers will see the same scene in their heads.

Repeat 200 times. ===

Clarification on point one

In my previous post on How to write a scene, I wrote that the first question a screenwriter should ask is, “What needs to happen in this scene?” Not only that…
Many screenwriting books will tell you to focus on what the characters want. This is wrong. The characters are not responsible for the story. You are. If characters were allowed to control their scenes, most characters would chose to avoid conflict, and movies would be crushingly boring.

As I typed this, I anticipated a sea of hands shooting into the air, a chorus of But! But! Buts! So I added a lengthy disclaimer in which I wrote about terms like “character driven” and “character motivation.” But then I decided to cut it, just to get the reaction:

John, are you fucking retarded? A character must act his character not what’s most convenient for you. — Chris

Now that Chris has lectured the professional screenwriter on the craft, we can take a look at why I stand by my point.

We’ve all seen dull, mechanical movies where the characters are pretty much spectators. The story is driven by external events, without any real engagement or decision-making by the so-called hero. Sure, at times they may discover information or get in a gunfight, but they’re basically zombies. Plot-bots.

This is a fundamental structural issue, not a scene problem. From the conceptual stage, the characters were placed in the wrong seat of the car. They’re in the passenger seat, staring out the window, when they should be behind the wheel. The best scene-work in the world isn’t going to solve this problem.

Remember: This is a tutorial about how to write one scene. The first question is, “What needs to happen in this scene?” Or, to rephrase it, “What do I need to show the audience?” Yes, the character should be responsible for his or her actions and decisions inside the movie, but you, the writer, are responsible for deciding which moments the audience gets to see.

Think of yourself as a documentary editor. You have hundreds of hours of footage. Which bits are you going to use to tell your story?

In your movie–an inspiring drama set against the majestic backdrop of Alaska–the hero may want to win the igloo-building championship to prove his dead architect father’s theories correct and reconnect with his Inuit half-brother. But in this particular scene, what needs to happen is that the judges rule that ice blocks must be quadrilateral, thus thwarting the hero’s geodesic ambitions.

Clear? Great. Now let’s talk about situations when “what a character wants” does become scene-specific.

Actors and directors often talk of “character motivation,” using phrases like, “What’s the character’s motivation in this scene?” That’s a valid if somewhat dispiriting question, particularly on the set; either they’ve shown up without doing their homework, or the script really is that confusing. You may find yourself explaining that the hero is trying to rescue his son from the avalanche because he loves him.

If you re-read my how-to, at no point was I advising forcing your characters to act against their natures. But I was telling you to take control. My post was about writing a single scene, and a single meandering scene can derail a script. The argument that, “But my hero really wanted to watch TV for a couple of hours!” won’t win you accolades for your dedication to the craft.

Joshua James on emotional content

I thought this was pretty good. It’s by Joshua James, a screenwriter who blogs. The original (and a lot of other columns) are here:

http://writerjoshuajames.com/dailydojo/?p=665

Rapping On Writing - Emotional Content

Lee: What was that? An exhibition? It needs emotional content.

The above quote is from the martial arts classic Enter The Dragon, though you won’t find it on the quote page, it’s in the film, when Bruce Lee teaches his student Lao how to properly kick.

And it’s very pertinent to what I wish to share with y’all about writing stories and screenwriting in particular.

This is a follow-up post to On Character, Ya Gotta Have Soul, in which I share my own small opinion that character matters slightly more than the other elements in screenwriting. I believe Character IS story, on some level.

Keep in mind this is only my opinion, no more, no less.

I’m sharing what I feel works, and anyone else is free to share their experiences as well. I’m sharing stuff that has come up from talking to my friends about what works and what doesn’t work FOR US.

This will be a fairly long post, and then I’ll shut up for awhile, heh-heh.

So the question today is:

What makes a story special?

My answer?

EMOTIONAL CONTENT. 


Let me be clear.

Usually when folks hear the words EMOTIONAL CONTENT, often they misunderstand that to mean one of two things:

One: I (the reader / viewer) like the characters.

Two: There’s lots of crying / shouting / emotional outbursts in the story.

And to my eye, that’s not really what EMOTIONAL CONTENT means, in terms of story.

What I believe it means is thus:

THE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION of the characters TO THEIR ACTIONS.

They are emotionally connected to what they do. That’s going to be the theme of this post, and so it’s gonna be repeated, but for good reason.

Too often, when I read a script that has a good idea to it, and good writing, I see that the characters aren’t emotionally invested in their actions.

By that, I mean the things that they do in a story (save a cat, drink a beer, smack a guy) aren’t powered by emotional logic, and so it feels more like a construct (this is where my hero does this action) rather than something not only would that person CHOOSE to do, but that person HAS to do.

And that’s the dirty secret not only of storytelling, but of life itself.

We are creatures of emotion.

Even the most intellectual of us make decisions based on emotional reasons.

We make choices based on avoiding pain and satisfying our emotional needs.

We take actions based on emotional choices.

Even when we detach ourselves emotionally, from something we don’t wish to think about, that in itself is AN EMOTIONAL CHOICE.

Here’s a personal example.

My friends would tell you that, on the street, if I witnessed a man harassing a woman on the street, it would be HARD if not nearly IMPOSSIBLE for me not to intervene. I’ve have intervened several times, the last as recently as last summer.

This is probably at times possibly dangerous and maybe a wee bit stupid. But I do it anyway.

This is due to my past, experiences in my life that formed an emotional belief system, a logic that makes sense to me.

*Stephen King writes in his book ON WRITING that of all the fiction characters he’s killed in all the stories and books he’s written, the one that outraged people the most, generating loads of hate-filled letters and anger, was the murder of a farm dog in the beginning of his book THE DEAD ZONE, killed by the bad guy, Greg Stilson. King got LOADS of hate mail for brutally killing that dog. King would write them back and point out, A) He didn’t kill a dog, Greg did, Greg’s a bad guy, and his killing a dog just for kicks is evidence of that and more importantly B) the story is fictional, therefore the dog is fictional, and no dogs were killed by anyone, anywhere, exception in the imagination. Didn’t matter. People were outraged that a horror writer killed a dog in one of his books.

**On a side note, I find it interesting that most people wouldn’t stand for someone beating the crap out of a dog, but watching a parent beat the daylights out of their kid on the street, that’s considered okay. Not everywhere, but in far too many places (I’m looking at you, Texas) it’s considered reasonable to beat a child but not a dog. I’m not saying anything. I’m just saying.

We all have that.

For instance, it’d be hard if not impossible for anyone here to stand by and do nothing if they saw someone beating a *dog terribly.

We’d call the cops, throw bricks at the guy, we’d do something.

The majority of us just wouldn’t stand there and do nothing as a dog gets beaten.

We’d take action.

We’d have to, because we don’t want to be the kind of people who just watch a man do something terrible to a dog** without doing something about it.

We won’t FEEL GOOD about ourselves if we didn’t do something. We’d hate ourselves.

There are those things.

Those choices we make based on our own emotional logic, that makes us who we are.

I’ve written about it before, but the way to profile a character is based on how Federal Investigators do it, which is WHAT PLUS WHY EQUALS WHO.

In other words, WHAT you do and WHY you do it makes you who you are.

And the WHY is always, always an emotional choice.

Even when you couch it in logic, the logic is employed to make you feel RIGHT about your choice.

Does that make sense?

We all have our own emotional logic, a sensibility based on our emotional experiences.

I have a good friend who, in his youth, attended Catholic school. And, for reasons best not gone into, hated it.

And to this day, whenever given advice or directions, even if he asked for the advice himself, he won’t follow it exactly. He’ll always quietly do it his way, he’ll always quietly rebel, and he knows he’s doing it, he admits it, but in a way he can’t help himself, it’s his reaction to the harsh do-what-I-say discipline of Catholic school, which turned him into a permanent rebel.

That’s not the sum total of his character, but it’s an interesting truth to why he does what he does. We’re all loaded with them, all of us.

And the key to writing great characters is finding those truths.

Think about the great movies you’ve seen, and the great characters within them.

Why do they do what they do?



Think about SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, a great, great film - that specific question is answered by Clarice, forced out of her by Lector, and explains why she’s in the FBI and why she’s so determined to save the girl at all costs.

Because of an emotional experience she had when she was young that altered her forever.

She made a choice with her life, an emotional choice, and it’s part and parcel of all the choices she makes. She not only chooses to do it, she HAS to.

She’s now defined by it, and will put herself in jeopardy to fulfill the need to silence the lambs.

We’ll put ourselves through great pain to satisfy our emotional needs. We’ll go to great lengths to avoid anxiety and that which we fear. We rationalize it, of course, but those rationalizations are done to satisfy our emotional needs.

When you’re creating a story, you need to know WHY your characters are doing WHAT they do.

They don’t need to know it, nor does it need to be spelled out for the audience, but as author, YOU need to.

I want to repeat. It doesn’t need to be explained for the audience, it only needs to feel emotionally real.



In L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, we know that Bud White (Russell Crowe) hates wife-beaters. We know it because we see him beat one up and rescue the victimized wife.

We don’t know why he does that. Nor do we really need to, for the film to work.

In the book, it’s explained what happened to him as a youngster, it’s explained that he suffered through something terrible that makes him extremely unforgiving to abusive men, but it doesn’t matter that we don’t know it in the film.

Because Bud’s actions are connected to his emotional choices and it’s clear, he just hates them and has to do what he does.



We all know Indiana Jones hates snakes right?

He’s totally terrified by them.

And we don’t even find out WHY he fears them until the third film.

Does it matter? No.

It only needs to be BELIEVABLE, emotionally. The reasons matter to the people constructing the character, but in the end, it only needs to be emotionally connected and emotionally believable.

As an actor, it’s often called FINDING MOTIVATION. It’s what actors do when deconstructing a scene, they ask questions to figure things out, such as, Am I avoiding a fight here, am I trying to get laid, what am I trying to do? What do “I” want?

Even selfless actions are, at their core, self-motivated (see Clarice, above) and one way of feeling good about yourself. You give to charity or to the Katrina fund because of how it makes you feel.

This is an important point, so I’m gonna repeat it. People are SELF-MOTIVATED.

Sometimes they’re selfish, sometimes they’re not selfish, but they’re always self-motivated.

In other words, the actions people choose serve their needs and serves the idea they have of who they are.

And because our emotional makeup as people is vast and complex, and because it also sometimes changes (key word, sometimes, not always, people fight change) you get contradictions within that emotional framework as differing actions are chosen for differing needs within the same psyche’.

For example, a surgeon who saves lives every day, who’s dedicated his life toward helping others, treats people terribly (HOUSE) and is incredibly egotistical and selfish.

A HERO named Indiana Jones who’s courageous when it comes to jumping on trucks or fighting Nazis, nerves of steel, but put a snake in front of him and he turns to jello.

I have my own contradiction. As a former bouncer, I’m pretty comfortable with physical confrontation. But emotional confrontations I prefer to avoid, I had to fire an actor from a play a few years back, the actor just wasn’t doing the job, was hurting the whole show and had to be let go. I fired the actor, but before I did, I threw up in the bathroom.

Pretty crazy, right? I’ve tackled muggers on the street (though I’m probably getting too old for that these days) without thought or pause, but got screaming butterflies in my stomach before having to tell an actor it wasn’t working out.

Logically it doesn’t make sense that any of the characters above (including me) would BE that way, but emotionally it totally does. That’s their emotional logic.

Think about that, think about the people you know, especially the fascinating ones, and think about each person’s individual emotional logic. I’m telling you, they’re as distinct as fingerprints.



Think about BUTCH from Pulp Fiction.

He gets away with ripping off a mobster for a lot of money, all he has to do is hide out until it’s time to take the train out of town.

But his girlfriend forgets his father’s watch back at their apartment. And Butch decides to go back for it.

Now we know it makes NO SENSE for him to risk his life for a watch. We know they’re probably waiting for him there, and he knows it, too.

But he goes back anyway. Because of the emotional attachment to the watch, and to his father, and to who he is.

Now if it had been written some other way, let’s say Butch says, “Oops, I forgot my watch. I better go back for it so I don’t have to buy another one,” it wouldn’t work for us. We wouldn’t buy it. It seems like it’s only a setup for a confrontation, because in that scenario, Butch doesn’t HAVE to go back, he’s just sort of randomly doing it for no emotional reason other than laziness and stupidity.

But in the film version, we know the reason he chooses to go back, and we also know he HAS to.

That makes the confrontations that follow not only more satisfying but believable. Because Butch knows WHY and makes us buy it completely.

What they do and why they do it, most important. And it has to have, like the side kicks Master Lee teaches, EMOTIONAL CONTENT. (For a bit more on that, check out The Last Gasp.)

So when constructing your characters, ask yourself why they do what they do. And what makes them unique.

Better yet, ask why YOU do what you do.

Seriously, think about one day in your life. Why do you eat that for breakfast? Why do you read the paper? Why watch that show? Why do you do this job, if you hate it?

Think about the EMOTIONAL ANSWERS to those questions.

Some choices you make you’re less attached to than others. You eat this breakfast because it’s the simplest. You read the Daily News because the Post pisses you off and the Times is too much trouble to unfold. You watch LOST because, when you think about it when you’re alone, it makes you tear up. You do this job because it allows you the time to do the thing you love in the downtime, and THAT is more important than anything else.

Take it further. What if you were faced with an extraordinary situation. A monster tearing up New York. A mobster waiting for you in your bathroom. You suddenly develop spider powers.

Now. What emotional choices would you make?

Get how it works?

Anything any character does in your script, at some point there was an emotional reason for it, large or small. Even if it’s “I don’t want to deal with this right now” to “That guy looks like the jerk who dumped me” or “you threaten my kids again and I’ll kill you”.

(Not room enough in the thread, for the balance of the article, click on the link at top.)

What I'm not reading

That's it, I said to myself. I'm not reading any more stories that have anyone, I mean anyone, vomiting in the opening. And also spousal abuse, or actually cruel and abusive treatment of anyone. Certainly not in the opening. Maybe, just maybe later on in the story, if it is completely justified and if the one getting beat up actually deserves it. And no more dying parents and suicides. For me it's just not an appealing opening, having someone die like that, especially if they're old and it's about time anyway. Yeah, sure it does happen every day, and it's happened to many of us. But it just doesn't appeal to me as the opening of a story (whether short or long). I guess it's just me, but parental death just doesn't suck me in and make me want to turn the metaphorical page (i.e., scroll down).

And when you start with the vomit and the death and the spousal abuse, where do you go from there?

I've never seen "East Enders," but I have the impression that too many of you are watching it and letting it influence your choice of subject matter.

I read this on wordplayer.com and this is what started me on putting this entry together:

FWIW, (for what it's worth) newer writers focus on the telling, competent writers focus on inventing good stuff to happen. I've read several interviews with reaaalllly good writers who worry about having a good idea--presumably they've learned how to do the first two, they are now looking a kernel that will allow them to invent the best story possible.

I'm not talking about the writing, I'm talking about deciding which story to write, or the question, when you have something in mind: Is this story a good idea.

I'm certainly not setting myself up as an example of someone with good ideas. My two most recent examples are 1) some narrow, selfish, self-centered people we don't really like compared to some old broke-down Mexican gardener and 2) an actress gives a producer a blow job and doesn't get the part, so of course she questions her place in the universe (after all, she *is* an actress).

I wrote 'em as well as I was able. But so what? Is this the kind of stuff any particular segment of the Reading Public is interested in? Certainly when you put a teenage boy with a gigantic, immense hard-on into a story, you're taking what we might call a "readership risk." Ewww! Kind of distasteful. Now the situation is probably true (after all, he *is* a teenage boy), but who needs to imagine it? Not me.

My kind of stuff is not geared toward that audience that likes what they call "cozys." I'm not exactly sure who does read cozys, but I'm pretty sure they are not my kind of people. I've been sending my stories out to the big contests, the ones where first prize is at least a thousand, and sometimes three thousand bucks. What are my chances? Probably about zero.

I went to one of the sites (Narrative Magazine). Here are the ten openings from ten "Stories of the Week." Just the openings, no authors, no title, no credits, and most of these people have won fellowships and published several novels and collections. And not one gigantic hard-on or blow-job in the bunch. But also no vomit, no parental death, no spousal abuse.

Story 1:

What to make of loneliness. Can you imagine? Three-fifteen a.m. and you lie spread-eagled in bed in your cocoon of a bed in your ripe swollen cocoon of a body while I drive through the snowy drizzle querying myself about life.

Driving along a deserted boulevard. Yellow street lights high atop slender poles. Rain, snow. Mist. Wind. What to make of loneliness. Not anger, not rage, not the wish to die or even the wish to murder. I’m too exhausted for all that. Just loneliness. What to make of it. Aloneness. Can you hear me? Can you guess? Never. You are eight months pregnant now and lie sleepless beside my lover, your spine aching, your stomach bloated, you are a beached bewildered mammalian creature gasping in the air.

Can you guess at me? Never.

But do you sense me, do you fear me?

Three-sixteen a.m. on a Friday morning, or do I mean a Thursday night. I drive too fast, and then slow down, skidding on a patch of ice a quarter-mile from your bed.

My loneliness has turned sinister.

I can’t be trusted.

Story 2

The two men sat across from each other. A pair of car keys rested on the table between them. One of the men held a glass mug, the other his head in his hands. A waitress stood by, waiting for their order. She coughed and scuffed her sneaker across the floor.

Get to it, Bill finally said.

What?

Order something.

Order for me.

I don’t know what you want.

Neither do I.

Bill looked at the waitress, tapped his mug. Two Buds.

Draft or bottles? she asked.

Either.

Which?

Bottles.
Bill watched her walk away. He whistled and winked at Ted.

Story 3

“Oh, mon dieu,” she said, “this is your first time, isn’t it?”

Had it been a question—Is this your first time?—you could have, would have, said no. But it was a statement, a proclamation. C’est ta première fois, she’d said, and you knew you’d been found out.
“Well, in that case,” she said, “let’s make it good.” And she started to unzip her dress. You stopped her. Much as you wanted to see her brown body naked, to feel her naked against you naked, you didn’t have time for good. You had locked the lobby entry, with one lodger still out on the town. If he came back and found it locked, he would bang on the glass, which would certainly wake the bosses, however deaf they might be, and you would be out of a job. Or worse. The hotel’s owners lived on the ground floor; the door to their apartment was behind the very desk that you had left unattended in order to bring this prostitute up to the second-floor laundry room. She’d stopped by, she told you, to thank you for having treated her so courteously these many months, but especially for coming to her rescue during what she called the calamity of last night.


Story 4


Jesse didn’t know a valley could be so vast, making those back home in West Virginia seem like hollows. When he wrote California on his dream sheet at the recruiter’s office in Elkins, he imagined beaches, not orchards, and never rice fields like those in Vietnam War movies. Jesse joined the military, as his brothers did before him, to get the hell away from lurching coal trucks, winding unemployment lines, his only sister’s grave, her candlelit photo recalling all the plain and lonesome mountain girls he knew in high school. He’s been in the Sacramento Valley exactly a week when he sees Helen sitting cross-legged on a pool table, singing “Blessed Assurance” to a group of shit-faced airmen like himself. She’s dressed in shorts and an Air Force T-shirt tied in a knot at her waist. Hair bleached blond and wearing entirely too much lipstick, Helen—like the other girls from town who hang out in the dorms—looks to him anything but plain.


Story 5

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

Story 6

The boy in row nineteen has a cold.

“Don’t lean on my armrest,” he cautions his sister. “You’ll get germs. They’ll stuff you up, it will hurt to fly, and like last vacation we’ll all have to listen to you whining, ‘I can’t unplug my ears.’ ”

The boy sits on the aisle and his sister, a little girl in braids, has the window, although—germs aside—she’s agreed to switch seats halfway through the flight, which means she gets to see the plane rise from Detroit, and he to see it land in Paris. She’ll probably grow into a beauty, but she needn’t contend with that yet, nor with the censorship that physical beauty can sometimes impose. Without a hint of self-consciousness, she sings an unrecognizable song, no doubt inspired by the view, as its only lyric seems to be floating, floating, floating . . .


Story 7


By the time the sun was over the ridge, Carl Veltre had already been up for three hours. He had milked the Holsteins before Lynne was awake, washed down the milking house while the kids were eating breakfast, and brought the school bus around to the house just as Lynne was handing lunch bags to their two boys and sending them down the driveway. For the past forty-odd minutes, he had nursed the aging bus along winding back roads, practically standing on the gas pedal to get it to crawl up the steep hills and stopping at all the least convenient places—blind corners, the very bottoms of long climbs—to pick up kids as young as five and as old as nineteen, an age bracket that, on mornings like this, Carl understood as the widest range of possibilities for obnoxiousness that the school system would allow.

“Hey, you all,” he shouted to the wide, oblong mirror that framed pretty much the whole bus. “Whoever threw whatever that was I saw come from somewhere back there—are you smilin’ at me?—whoever that was better not be smilin’ an’ better not do it again, neither.”


Story 8

“So,” Gwen began breezily, “Ethan invited this woman tonight. He thinks she’s, like, this amazing journalist. Apparently she got hooked on heroin for a while when she was undercover with some street kids.”

That was all Gwen said, but Denise understood. Gwen wouldn’t get any closer to admitting she was worried about her husband’s interest in another woman.

Denise feigned an extravagant yawn. “Ooh, heroin addiction. I must have missed the press release.”

The door buzzer sounded, and Ethan yelled, “I got it” from upstairs.

The apartment was all upside down: the main entrance was upstairs, along with the bedroom and bathroom. So now a wet-haired Ethan led a skittish-looking couple down the narrow staircase to the living room and kitchen, where Denise and Gwen were setting out wine glasses and napkins. A patch of dirt lay beyond the vaultlike back door. “Wow, garden access?” the blinky-eyed girl said, peering out a filthy little window. “Great apartment.”

The third or fourth buzz produced a woman who wore a black vintage dress and heavy black boots. She paused at the top of the stairs and surveyed the room. As she came down to the living room, her silver jewelry jangled.

On a hunch, Denise stepped up and introduced herself. “I’m an old friend of—” she overenunciated—“Ethan and Gwen’s.”

Unsmiling, Michelle held out a hand. Denise was ready to loathe her.

Story 9

At first she acts like she is looking past you, like she is reading the sign on the restaurant behind you. She stands across the street, but it’s a narrow street, so you can clearly see her face, those blue blue eyes, she isn’t any older than thirty, and you see that she has this smile that isn’t related to a mere restaurant sign, it’s a smile like she’s looking at something familiar, something sweet, but maybe a little sad too, like it reminds her of her grandmother who is buried deep in South Dakota. You turn to see if something smiley and somber is going on in the restaurant, and of course nothing is—it’s dead in there—but when you turn back, she’s looking straight at you, and contrary to your normal avert-your-eyes manner, you look right back at her, you connect with this stranger across the street in a way that you consider rare.

So without taking your eyes off her, without looking for cars in either direction, you cross the street to talk to her. Who wouldn’t?

As you approach, you see that she is chewing gum, all casual and relaxed, like this happens to her every day: girl gives boy look, boy crosses street and makes a fool of himself.

She says that her name is Blue, like the color, and even though you’ve never met anyone named after a color, it doesn’t surprise you, there was something blue in her smile after all. You tell her your name, you tell her that you’re nervous, but at least you crossed the street safely. She says, “You didn’t get run over. That’s a good sign.”

“So what now?” she asks.

Story 10

At first glance, it looked very much like all the others facedown on the table, which probably accounts for the otherwise odd fact that no one gasped when it appeared. It’s possible too that no one gasped because when guys get together in stag situations they tend to be extra careful to avoid displays of emotion that might make them seem like women. We were at Bobby Cravinho’s dark-paneled place in the Heights, the four of us regulars, and using Bobby’s vintage Coca-Cola deck, with the headshot of the happy vintage babe holding a Coke bottle in a swimming pool and the tagline Sign of Good Taste. It takes a pretty good eye to spot this particular joker-card, for the features of the girl in the bathing suit are just slightly altered, suggesting an indefinite mixed-race origin, though I have to say she looks, without question, way less than happy. In any case, suddenly prostrate in the middle of Bobby’s water-ringed, cigarette-singed, cork-top table, the card with its morphed visage possessed all the sour gravity of a Supreme Court justice. You can imagine what ensued: initial shock, a silent stop-action in the game, throat-pumping gulps from our Heinekens, and then a mounting recognition and acceptance of the inevitable—the dread thing was there, it wouldn’t go away, and no one was going to take responsibility for having played it. Indeed, everybody would adamantly deny having played it.

Drinka

Added Drinka to "Stories."