my favorite screenwriting advice

If you’re anything like me, you often put off the hard work of doing the thing by reading about doing the thing until you can no longer hide behind the guise of “doing your research” and are forced to just do the thing already. While screenwriting, like most things, is probably best learned by doing, there is definitely some utility to reading a book or two about it, if only to understand the language of the industry. Oh, and also because formatting (Although, one would hope, that if you’ve just spent $250 on screenplay word processing software, formatting would take care of itself. One would hope….)

That being said, most screenwriting advice is just a repackaging of the same old ideas, along with a new trick or technique regarding how to skin the cat you just saved or whatever. Several books and many blog posts later, only a few ideas have really endured for me. The following “sticky” ideas remain top of mind whenever I’m writing:

Ellen Sandler’s Six Beat Story Structure

I understand three-act structure and the hero’s journey. I have no trouble identifying inciting incidents, midpoints, and plot points when I’m reading a script or watching a movie or TV show. However, I have a lot of difficulty applying those ideas to a new story that I’m writing.

Ellen Sandler’s six-beat story structure, as outlined in The TV Writer’s Workbook, is my solution to the problem of creating a structured story from scratch. This book has probably been the single most useful manual on TV writing that I have ever read, and I don’t think I would have finished a single script without it. The amazing thing about the six beats (Oh, Uh Oh, Ouch, Big Uh Oh, Twist, and Ah) is that they’re so simple, yet when I use them the more complex elements of three-act structure appearing naturally in my script. Seriously, if you haven’t read this book already, do it. It’s brilliant.

Stephen King on Writing the Story and then Figuring Out What it’s About

In most episodes of television, stuff happens, but the episode is also about something. Since there is a deeper meaning or greater lesson in most episodes of television, I used to feel bad for not knowing what the deeper meaning or lesson was at the outset of my own writing. Then, I read Stephen King’s On Writing.

In On Writing, King makes a big distinction between the first draft and the second draft. He says the first draft is about story, while the second draft is about drawing out the deeper thematic elements in the first draft.The thing is, King says you don’t necessarily know what those elements are until you’ve finished the first draft, let it sit for a while, and then gone back and read it with fresh eyes. This doesn’t mean that the first version of your story doesn’t have theme, just that it hasn’t been emphasized. I’m so glad that King addresses this because there is a lot of writing advice out there that encourages leading with theme, or considering what themes you want to explore before you begin writing. However, every time I’ve tried to do this, it’s been an epic failure. My mind just does not work in that direction. But apparently, neither does Stephen King’s!

Allowing myself to focus on putting a really funny and entertaining story on the page during the first draft, then returning it to imbue it with meaning during the rewrite, was a huge breakthrough for me, and the main reason I’m so grateful I read this book. But no matter what your opinion on Stephen King is, you gotta admit, the guy is prolific and has had tons of popular success. In addition to the theme vs. story thing, this book is full of tons of general writing and process advice that can be applied directly to screenwriting. It’s definitely worth a read. Also, it’s short.

The South Park Guys on “Therefore: and “But Then”

A few years ago, South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone crashed an NYU storytelling class for an episode of MTVU’s “Stand In.” In the episode, they proceed to dish some storytelling pro tips. One thing they say is, if the beats of your story can be joined by “and, then,” all you’ve got is a boring sequence of events, but if each element in your story can be joined by the words “therefore” or “but then,” which indicate connectedness and conflict, then you’ve got yourself a story. I’ve found this to be a really effective heuristic to keep in mind when outlining. It’s also fun to watch the video and see how titillated the NYU freshman are when Trey and Matt use the f-word.

So that’s the top three things I think about when I’m writing. What about you? What screenwriting advice have you taken to heart?

TAG: I’ve been watching a lot of Friend re-runs (I’ve never watched Friends chronologically!) this week. I also read this excellent piece by TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach called “The Eleven Laws of Showrunning.” It’s long, but you can also listen to him talk about it on The Children of Tendu podcast.