6 Techniques to Write a Great Screenplay

A movie, I think, is really only four or five moments between two people; the rest of it exists to give those moments their impact and resonance. The script exists for that. Everything does.

– Robert Towne

When we watch a movie or heard of a story or read a brilliant novel that really escapes us from reality is no ordinary thing — it requires lots of craft study and techniques that help build a great story and reverberate far across oceans. A craft that makes people laugh, cry, frighten and make feel different kind of emotions is the ultimate goal for any story teller. The fact is filmmaking is all about creating emotions on the screen for two hours — it’s an emotional delivery business. After all movie is a metaphor for life — a story told within life story. So to design any story, you must reduce the life story to just two little hours. For this one has to read, observe and experience a lot before getting into this business.

So the answer to this quest is learning techniques that are required for screenwriting or any kind of storytelling, because screenwriting is filmmaking on paper. If one fails to pre-visualize it before making into a two hour motion picture — it would better stop then and there, saving millions of dollars. The story should grow organically from the characters’ actions and needs rather than creating artificial events and structure that decide fate of a screenplay.

The one and only objective of the screenwriter is to be able to see the story on paper before it turns out to be a big motion picture.

PREMISE

A man vexed with his daily routine and felt lifeless. So he decides to go on for a long drive one day. He fuelled his car and started his journey. He drives for almost three hours, took a small break and again drove for two more hours. He drives until his wallet becomes empty and gas in his car too and finally makes a halt in nowhere.

This is what happens when you don’t know what you are up to. This guy is not at least on an adventurous journey, so that he may discover something new. He doesn’t know where he is going and he is not going to prove anything to anyone. He is just driving on a free way don’t know what if he ran out of the fuel. You may say, he just leaves the car and start walking. That’s really funny guys. But he doesn’t know where he is heading to, isn’t it?

So here comes the point, “every sensible invention must have a purpose, every soul must have a purpose.” Likewise every story or film must have a goal to achieve. It’s called premise.

Laos Egri says, “Everything has a purpose, or premise. Every second of our life has its own premise, whether or not we are conscious of it at the time.”

Let us consider the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ — the premise of the movie is ‘Honesty defeats duplicity.’

In the movie Groundhog Day, Phil Connors, the weather reporter finds that he is reliving the same day. Phil is an ego-centric guy and he wants everything goes his way. One day he finds that same day is happening to him over and over again; he confesses to his network producer, Rita that he is reliving the same day. She doesn’t believe him and thinks that he is trying to impress her — in fact nobody believes him. He goes to psychiatrist, who confirms nothing wrong with him. Vexed with his ‘Day Repetition’, he decides to flirt women; becomes a moron and finally decides to kill himself but of no use — he awakes in the morning and relives the same day again and again.

Finally he begins to realize and throw aside his hedonistic behavior and believes in doing some good work — making others happy and gradually becomes a changed man. On seeing Phil like this, Rita the love interest of Phil falls in love with him. HONESTY DEFEATS DUPLICITY and he lives happily ever after with her and the day won’t repeat anymore once he becomes a transformed man from being crooked to honest man.

AVOID EXPOSITION

One of the tricks is to have the exposition conveyed in a scene of conflict, so that a character is forced to say things you want the audience know — as, for example, if he is defending himself against somebody’s attack, his words of defense seem justified even though his words are actually expository words. Something appears to be happening, so the audience believes it is witnessing a scene(which it is), not listening to expository speeches. Humor is another way of getting exposition across. — ERNEST LEHMAN

The characters in a movie or a play already know their past — How they behave? Why do they think like that? What does he/she wants from the other characters? But we the audience don’t know, isn’t it? So the objective of the exposition is that to tell the audience to get the fullest experiences of the characters’ actions and behaviors.

Exposition should be used very carefully because it is a narrative technique — a technique which makes the audience know something about the characters already know about their past situations and circumstances.

Remember it is only a narrative technique which can’t produce any dramatic effect in the scene. If we go on narrating the past experiences of character’s the audience would feel boredom.

So most screenwriters cleverly disguise exposition in the conflict of a scene rather explain.

Film examples of Exposition

The Godfather — In the opening scene of the movie, a man comes to seek revenge of his daughter’s death with the help of the Godfather, Don Corleone. The scene is full of conflict and packed with high intensity, albeit we the audience come to know the rules, formalities, expectations of the Don’s character and his world.

China Town — When Jake tails Mulwray and his associates taking pictures of him with Noah Crosss, we the audience believe it is the mere exposition of the craft of detection. But at the same time the audience comes to know the context of story — the drought, the plight of farmers, the politics and past of water management.

AVOID “ON THE NOSE” DIALOGUE

William Goldman says that dialogue is among the least important parts of a screenplay. If movies are story, and they are, then screenplays are structure.

ON THE NOSE are dialogue that is obvious and explicit, where characters speak directly, stating what they think, mean, and feel.

OFF THE NOSE dialogue, on the other hand, illuminates what the characters are not saying, revealing the emotion behind the words. The way to solve this problem is to disguise it, providing multiple levels of depth, which ultimately give the reader a satisfying experience. You do this through subtext, to be discussed later.

A SUBTEXT IS MUST

OFF THE NOSE, it illuminates what the characters are thinking without saying it. This is “subtext,” which a writer once called, “The River of emotion that flows beneath the words.”

In THE GODFATHER, the meaning of the memorable line, “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse” is clear to all of us, although it’s not spelled out.

There are two specific reasons why subtext is necessary: characters have too much to lose if they’re direct, and you want the reader to experience the scene actively rather than passively.

Look at these examples and note how the simple words, “I hate you” take on a different meaning each time the context of the scene and the character’s emotions change:

An angry mother shouts at her mischievous child:

Mother: I hate you…

Later break down in tears and hugs her child.

At the climax of When Harry Met Sally:

Sally(almost in tears): I hate you, Harry…I hate you.

They kiss.

ANTICIPATION MINGLED WITH UNCERTAINTY

You don’t want to explain to the audience, because that makes them observers. You want to reveal to them little by little and that makes them participants because then they experience the story in the same way the characters experience it. — BILL WTTLIFF

The objective of the screenwriter is to ‘engage’ the audience to the fullest while watching a two hour feature film. By and large, participation of audience in the movie is must for its success. This can’t be achieved easily. The screenwriter should not make the audience participate to witness the casual proceedings of story because it could be dull, boring and tedious and soon audience lose interest in engaging the movie. To engage or participate audience in the movie there should be drama — a drama which entangles them and keep guessing what might happens next, not what will happens.

The screenwriter should make them anticipate what might happen next but with uncertain events that happen contrary to audience guessing. The trick is to participate the audience in the movie, with the help of uncertain events — which is called uncertainty. Drama (comedy and tragedy) requires an emotional response from its audience in order to exist.

SURPRISE THE AUDIENCE

Surprise is all about unexpected twists and turns. Never underestimate the audience’s intelligence; they always keep guessing what the next move of the character might be. If it is very much obvious or predictable then as a screen writer you should worry that audience might lost interest and disengages with story or movie. As a screenwriter, you can take advantage of the audience’s tendency of guessing, thereby avoiding predictability through surprise.

Surprise always comes after or before the suspense. For example, if a time bomb is placed beneath the dining table where the family is unaware of it creates suspense. Then, depending on the writer’s creativity, the audience has predictability if the time bomb explodes as expected or surprise if the bomb doesn’t go off as expected. This is the way to achieve surprise through unexpected twists and turns. Audience will engage and enjoy by clever twists. Huge surprises are so rare in the screenplays that they often sell a script on the spot.

Comedy is generated with the use of surprise. We laugh at a punch line because it twists our expectations.

So make use of these techniques as tools that fix the story problems rather than obstacles for your creativity

Ramu Maddy

Newlight Cinemas