The new Story and Plot Pro Session starts in three weeks.
I haven't taught a live class outside of UH in almost a year. I'm excited to get back to it.
If you're not familiar with the Pro sessions, they're three months long, 8 sessions, and inside an online community, so it's an ongoing thing. They're fun, and we get a lot done.
This session is focused on Idea To Outline where I shepherd your project from an idea to a full outline.
They are only available for those who have taken Mastering Structure and Idea to Outline, so if you haven't enrolled in those, you would need to before the Pro session.
There are two primary skills in feature screenwriting.
The cinematic story. This is what is going to happen on the screen.
The textual storytelling. This is how we communicate that to a reader on the page.
We are telling a story meant for a visual and aural experience by using a medium that lacks both: text.
Each one of these is a massive challenge.
Then, add the natural friction of the screenplay format? There seem to be multiple elements working against each other!
One of the primary ways I deal with this is:
Focus on the FLOW.
It is my (and others') attempt to smooth out the clunkiness of the form.
Where are the reader's eyes?
How do I get them to read the next line?
How do I get them to go DOWN the page?
How do I get them to read every word?
How do I get them to comprehend every word?
How do I get them to see the movie and feel the emotion?
It's a lot, right?
Yes, screenwriting is difficult. Yet, this does not matter.
We have a job to do.
And our job is to get to "Yes."
Whatever that yes is. Yes to represent, yes to produce, yes to direct, yes to star, whatever it may be.
To get to YES when writing on spec, we want to transfer our enthusiasm for the project to the reader.
In the early stages, when there is no momentum, no cast or director, no anything, all we have is what is on the page.
So the quickest route to YES is for them to see the movie in their mind and to LOVE it.
They say yes because they have "seen" it. And in turn, push it forward and try to transfer THEIR enthusiasm to someone else.
You are writing for the reader.
Your primary concern is the reader's experience. This was taught to me by the first producer I ever worked with. He kept hammering the expression, "A good read."
"Make it a good read."
This went beyond the content of the story. It was all about smoothing out the natural clunkiness of the screenplay format so the reader could experience the emotions of the movie.
Put the work in now.
When I first started, I had the basic attitude, "Just read it. You'll love it." If they didn't like it or want to buy it, it was, "Of course, it's not as exciting on the page. It will work great when it's on-screen!"
I simply did not appreciate:
How many good writers I was competing with.
How hard it is to read a screenplay.
How many unproduced screenplays were circulating.
I wanted everyone to meet me halfway.
It's a bad strategy.
Your work is scalable. The reader's is not.
All the effort you put into your screenplay to make it easier to read scales to every single person who reads it.
On the other hand, if you ask the reader to work extra hard to muddle through a page or to comprehend a moment, their labor benefits only them.
The next reader may not choose to put any effort into it at all.
Do not ask the reader to do the work that is really your job.
You don't know who the reader is. You don't know if they're lazy, incredibly busy, or having the worst day of their life.
Take nothing for granted.
You don't meet them halfway. You pick them up at their house.
The commitment to the reader matters.
If you read this Weekly Email, I don't need to convince you about this too much. You want to get better. You're interested in how someone else thinks about this stuff.
Don't lose that. Because the commitment is the hard part. It is tempting to listen to the voices that say it doesn't matter.
One narrative requires work. One does not.
The one that requires less labor will always have a certain appeal!
Don't be a slave to format.
I don't understand how this continues to be a big debate, but it does. Yes, you need to understand format. But once you do, stop worrying about it.
The only absolute formatting rule is that it needs to look and read like a screenplay.
That's it. This means courier font, margins within 0.5-1 inch of standards, and certain lines always being all-caps.
There is a time and a place to be flexible with everything else when it is done with confidence, clarity, and purpose.
My three priorities.
In order, are:
Clarity of intent.
Emotional truth.
The flow of the read.
Basically, I will only sacrifice the ease and flow of the read for the first two. Other than that, I am constantly trying to figure out how to move eyes DOWN the page.
Read more screenplays.
But keep in mind that you are not just looking for great screenplays. You are looking to know what it is like to be a reader.
Yes, seeing what great screenwriters do is fantastic. You will learn a lot. But you are also looking for what YOU don't like.
Where do YOU slow down? When do you start to skip?
Are you reading because you want to or because you agreed to?
Knowing the reader's experience will teach you what slows a read down, creates confusion, zaps energy, and what a reader tends to skip.
If you can anticipate a reader's struggle ahead of time, you can avoid it and replace it with something that improves their reading experience.
I noticed how I skipped scene headings.
For whatever reason, my eyes hate reading EXT. or INT. I don't know if it's the repetitiveness or the fact that I still read "EXT." rather than "exterior."
Whatever it is, it feels like I'm rolling over gravel.
And so I started skipping scene headings.
If I am skipping scene headings, other people are skipping scene headings.
Knowing this, I devised ways to make the scene headings more engaging so readers wouldn't skip them.
Find your own roadblocks.
What do others do that consistently slows you down? What annoys you and what are your habits to counter them?
If you do it, assume others do, too.
So, how do you counter those habits to keep your eyes on the page?
How do we evoke more with less?
This will remain your primary challenge when it comes to words on the page.
But this isn't just flowery, undisciplined language. This is also about those extra words that add little but an interruption.
This is especially true with scenes of dialogue.
Keep the scene as clean as possible.
Scenes should have a flow when you watch them. Accordingly, they should have a flow when they're read as well.
Look at this example:
That's a lot. You will see this sort of thing often. It's not terrible. Each line makes sense. They're just unnecessary.
Now look at this:
Good dialogue will suggest the emotions and often even the actions as well. Not always. But usually.
On the first page, each line is interrupted. It's a constant stop-start. Again, it's not terrible. But imagine that over 100 pages.
On the second page, the reader is cooking. They're turning pages quickly. The story is moving. The progress is felt.
There is energy and momentum.
There are obviously times when you will need to interrupt the dialogue.
As always, the key here is to make conscious choices. For every word, and every line.
Get away from how you think you are SUPPOSED to do it and focus more on how you WANT to do it.
Know what you want to achieve, and decide the best way to do it.
The CHALLENGERS screenplay.
I pulled another random screenplay from my 2024 Awards folder and found CHALLENGERS.
The first page of CHALLENGERS actually got some attention among screenwriters last fall. The first page is dense. It is full of details, atmosphere, and the emotions of the moment. It is a well-written screenplay.
Here is what page 1 looks like:
But it is a 90-page screenplay. Which means there were 89 pages after it. Many of those look like these:
This means the screenwriter, Justin Kuritzkes, is picking and choosing when he writes detail and when he doesn't. When he slows the pace down and when he speeds it up.
In other words, he makes conscious choices for what best serves the moment.
Be careful with "just make it compelling."
This is often stated as blunt advice. It is usually well-meaning but can sometimes cross over to a dismissiveness that pretends to want to liberate you while making you feel small.
Of course, make it compelling. It is HOW we make it compelling that challenges us. And there are few better ways to do that than to remind yourself who you are making it compelling for: the reader.
This doesn't mean you're looking for a secret key or some shortcut. It's the opposite.
You're choosing the meticulous way. The hard way.
We are not trying to hide or salvage a bad story here.
We are trying to make a great story easier to identify and experience.
That's a wrap for this week!
I got very good news on a couple of projects. I will try to update y'all next week.
Another project took a step back, so it's not ALL good news. But if it comes in 2-to-1, I'll take it.
Until next week!
All the best,
Tom
PS - Your first course with me should be Mastering Structure.
When you’re ready to take that next step, CLICK HERE.
And don't sneeze on The Bundle either! It's a heck of a deal.
