Sunday Picture Post 27 / Tip: Ask Questions
Photo: 1949, CB&Q via Ian Allan Library
SCREENWRITING TIP OF THE DAY: ASK QUESTIONS
Asking questions to and about your guest or host is considered the polite way to have a conversation in France.
Asking questions is also a good way to get your characters and story moving when you are stuck in a rut.
Some questions you might ask of the above picture to get your story moving are:
At what is everyone looking?
From where are they coming?
Where are they going?
Do they know each other?
Are they general passengers?
When was the last time the blond lady had sex? With whom? Why?
Where did she get that pearl necklace?
In life, you can look at anything or anyone and ask questions. The answers will give you story and color your characters.
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HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SUNDAY PICTURE POST
For The Sunday Picture Post, we flip upside-down the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thousands of words are great if you are writing a novel, but if you are writing a screenplay, you need to do the opposite and be as concise as possible.
Each Sunday, I post a picture. For your screenwriting practice in brevity, in the comments section, using the image above, please post one or all of the following:
- A title for this movie
- 1 word describing the theme, mood, or scene
- 1 sentence to describe the scene
- A pitch to sell the entire movie
The more colorful and creative you are, the better! Use any genre.
A good screenwriter is laconic, using a few words to say a lot.
Sunday Picture Post 26 / Tip: Deadline
photo credit: mattbellphoto
SCREENWRITING TIP OF THE DAY: DEADLINE
Deadline — sounds looming!
In the dictionary, it says that a deadline is the perimeter that when prisoners pass, they may be shot by the guards.
Creating boundaries for yourself is a good idea. Limits help to inform you of where you are and where you can go. As a writer, you might get fired by an employer for not submitting a project on time, otherwise, no one will shoot you if you pass your deadline.
Whether on a paid job or writing for your own personal gratification, if there is no one at your back to crack the whip, you should give yourself a specific date that you want to be finished with the project.
As exemplified in my Write a Screenplay in One Month exercise, only one person was actually able to finish a screenplay in one month, but the rest of us, by having a deadline, wrote much more than we would have without the deadline.
Give yourself writing deadlines, even if you never want to sell a screenplay and never intend to show it to anyone or don’t have a boss harassing you because deadlines help to motivate you and structure your time.
Achieving something is better than nothing.
The sooner you complete one project, the sooner you get can to the next project.
With the experience of each project, you improve.
Set a date with your destiny!
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HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SUNDAY PICTURE POST
For The Sunday Picture Post, we flip upside-down the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thousands of words are great if you are writing a novel, but if you are writing a screenplay, you need to do the opposite and be as concise as possible.
Each Sunday, I post a picture. For your screenwriting practice in brevity, in the comments section, using the image above, please post one or all of the following:
- A title for this movie
- 1 word describing the theme, mood, or scene
- 1 sentence to describe the scene
- A pitch to sell the entire movie
The more colorful and creative you are, the better! Use any genre.
A good screenwriter is laconic, using a few words to say a lot.
Sunday Picture Post 25
photo credit: brettneilson
For The Sunday Picture Post, we are going to flip upside-down the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thousands of words are great if you are writing a novel, but if you are writing a screenplay, you need to do the opposite and be as concise as possible.
Each Sunday I will post a picture. For your screenwriting practice in brevity, in the comments section, please post one or all of the following:
- A title for this movie
- 1 word describing the theme, mood, or scene
- 1 sentence to describe the scene
- A pitch to sell the entire movie
The more colorful and creative you are, the better! Use any genre.
A good screenwriter is laconic, using a few words to say a lot.
Sunday Picture Post 24 / How to be Funny
photo credit: Chris(sy) W
For The Sunday Picture Post, we are going to flip upside-down the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thousands of words are great if you are writing a novel, but if you are writing a screenplay, you need to do the opposite and be as concise as possible.
Each Sunday I will post a picture. For your screenwriting practice in brevity, in the comments section, please post one or all of the following:
- A title for this movie
- 1 word describing the theme, mood, or scene
- 1 sentence to describe the scene
- A pitch to sell the entire movie
The more colorful and creative you are, the better! Use any genre.
A good screenwriter is laconic, using a few words to say a lot.
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SCREENWRITING TIP OF THE DAY: HOW TO BE FUNNY
The line between what is funny and what is offensive is almost invisible.
Here you are, making the best jokes of your life, but you either get blank stares, or people shrink away with embarrassment, or you get violent death threats, or the public boycotts your movie.
Why don’t they get your jokes?
It happens to me regularly when I intend to deliver a compliment, or try to explain something, or God forbid, crack a joke and the people completely misunderstand me; the results are disastrous.
My intentions are good; my heart is in the right place; what went wrong?
I figured out one possible reason.
This week, I reread an uplifting and enlightening book I picked up a long time ago, Comedy Writing Step by Step: How to Write and Sell Your Sense of Humor by Gene Perret who wrote jokes for Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller. I highly recommend this book.
The key: SEE, RECOGNIZE, and ACCEPT things as they are.
Anything can be turned into comedy: light bulbs, driveways, obesity, politics, trends, health issues, mother-in-laws, bad dates, and death. The trick is talking about the topic in a way that everyone can relate; you have to get outside of your own head and into those of your target audience.
Perret gives the example of balding.
He said, if you make a joke about balding to a guy who has not noticed he is balding and therefore certainly has not accepted it, he is going to be offended.
Whereas, on the other hand, if you make a joke about balding to someone who has seen and accepted it, you will get a laugh out of them.
When Perret had to attach a medical instrument to his body, but he was too hairy for the tape, his daughter told him to attach it to his head, where there was no hair. That got a laugh out of his whole family during a really tough time because Perret had already seen, recognized, and accepted his hairiness, balding, and health issue.
One-liners in public give you limited time to make your point, so you have to make sure you are coming from a commonly accepted place that everyone can understand.
You have to recognize what your audience sees, recognizes, and accepts, whether it is a creative executive who is reading your script or a drunk girl listening to your spiel at the bar, you must tailor your humor to a common ground that can be understood by someone who is not inside your head, not seeing what you have seen, not knowing what you know.
With writing, you have more time to build up a joke or a story, and you can edit as necessary. The length of a movie or a book allows you more freedom to be different and open a window to a new world. Still people need to be able to relate.
When you are live on the spot, maybe you only have 10 seconds to impress someone, you have to make sure that everyone is following your train of thought. You can’t just throw something out of the dark recesses of your brain and except everyone to know about what you are talking.
Every time I launch some random thought into the air, people assume the absolute opposite of what I intended; they come to a conclusion based on what is inside their head, not mine.
Instead of offending people, you want to relieve the tension of a person’s insecurities and frustrations; the similar things we suffer and enjoy are our common ground.
Laughter is a release of tension.
People who naturally know the common ground are generally well-loved. Understanding what is common ground is what makes a great comedian (or politician, for that matter). If you haven’t yet, check out The Deep Friar who is very good at writing funny things to which we can all relate.
Know your audience.
See, recognize, and accept the reality of what your audience sees, recognizes, and accepts.
Sunday Picture Post 23 / Extraordinary
For The Sunday Picture Post, we are going to flip upside-down the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thousands of words are great if you are writing a novel, but if you are writing a screenplay, you need to do the opposite and be as concise as possible.
Each Sunday I will post a picture. For your screenwriting practice in brevity, in the comments section, please post one or all of the following:
- A title for this movie
- 1 word describing the theme, mood, or scene
- 1 sentence to describe the scene
- A pitch to sell the entire movie
The more colorful and creative you are, the better! Use any genre.
A good screenwriter is laconic, using a few words to say a lot.
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SCREENWRITING TIP OF THE DAY: EXTRAORDINARY
A good and simple creative writing tip I have heard about how to write an epic story is this:
Tell a story about an ordinary person living an extraordinary life, or an extraordinary person living an ordinary life, but never an ordinary person living an ordinary life.
Can you think of some examples of each type of these movies?
Superhero movies are usually extraordinary people trying to live ordinary lives, like The Incredibles or Spiderman.
Bruce Almighty and Indiana Jones are examples of ordinary guys living extraordinary lives; Bruce is a reporter who acquires the power of God and Jones is a archaeological professor who goes on adventures.
Comedy tends to be about ordinary people living ordinary lives, one-liners and ironic jokes provide relief through laughter about one’s own ordinary life, like Bridget Jone’s Diary or The Office TV show. Stories about ordinary people in ordinary settings are best received by television audiences, where people can laugh away the day’s hardships on a regular basis with familiar friendly faces and recurring TV shows on which they can count.
For great timeless tales and better chances at selling your script to Hollywood there must be something extraordinary about the story.
P.S. Oops! I forgot to add above, for an epic, you can also write about an extraordinary person living an extraordinary life.
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