The first form, a contraction of the word, is widely used to indicate that the same character is speaking after an interrupting bit of scene description. Almost every screenplay you read will have it.

Most screenwriting software will automatically generate the (cont’d), and you should let it. It’s standard, and particularly useful for actors. It’s your choice whether to have it be uppercase; (cont’d) or (CONT’D) are both fine. Pick one and stick to it.¹

A related situation happens when a block of dialogue needs to extend off the bottom of the page. Screenwriting software will offer to put a (more), with a matching (cont’d) on the next page. Let it — though you might also consider tweaking the lines so that the dialogue doesn’t break there.

A second form of continued happens when a scene spans across multiple pages. If a scene continues off the bottom of a page, most screenwriting software will offer to put CONTINUED: at the top left of the next page, next to the scene number.

You don’t need it. Turn it off.

The only time to use these continueds is when you’re headed into production, complete with a shooting schedule and scene numbers. They help reduce confusion when you have colored revision pages. Beyond that, they’re clutter. Get rid of them.

The final form of continued happens in scene headings. Some screenwriters use CONTINUOUS to indicate that action is ongoing despite changes of location:

I’m not a big fan of this use of continuous, because it’s all to easy to forget what time of day it’s supposed to be. In the (rare) cases in which I need to clarify that the action from one scene to the next is continuous, I put it in brackets.

1. You may run into situations in which a character is both speaking and giving voice-over in a scene. Your software might try to flag those voiceovers as continuations of the character’s normal dialogue. Don’t let it.

I feel like scripts with multiple storylines (3+ stories) like Pulp Fiction or Crash can rely on simple loglines that get across the overall theme of the story. But what about scripts with two distinct storylines that parallel one another…do you pack both storylines into the logline? Or do you pick one and focus the on it?

– Mac
Los Angeles

Some movies are really difficult to logline. Go is one. When forced to give a short description, I try to chart the three main threads: “It’s about a really tiny drug deal, a wild night in Vegas and two soap opera actors — all of which cross paths at LA’s underground rave scene.”

Again, not great. But it gets the job done.

For something like Big Fish, I make the parallel structure clear: “It’s the story of a man’s life, told the way he remembers it: full of wild, impossible exaggerations. At the same time, his grown son is trying to separate the truth from the fantasy before his dad dies.”

Julie and Julia has dual storylines, yet summarizes easily: “It’s the story of a young woman determined to cook her way through Julia Child’s famous cookbook, intercut with the adventures of Julia Child’s life.”

If both plotlines are key to your story, you need to make that clear in the logline. Otherwise, you risk future readers feeling like you bait-and-switched them.

You’d love to see a bigger sample, and correlation does not imply causation. But to me, it suggests that increased sampling usually generates more sales than it costs.

Advance screenings of movies work the same way. When a studio expects good word of mouth, they are often willing to give up a day’s box office¹ in order to get more people talking about their movie. They’ll also conduct word-of-mouth screenings tailored to specific audiences. “Free” and “exclusive” are big motivators.

(thanks Howard Rodman)

1. When you buy a ticket for a sneak preview of The Proposal, it’s actually counted towards another film, generally one from the same studio currently playing at that theater.

The movie was written by Linda Woolverton. I never read the script, and haven’t seen a frame beyond the trailers and commercials. I’ll get to see the film for the first time on Monday, and really look forward to it.

With that clarification out of the way, let me explain a strange fact of my career: I’ve not written Alice in Wonderland three times. It’s a recurring motif.

1995

The story that became Go was originally envisioned as a retelling of Alice, substituting the underground rave scene for Wonderland. As it developed, I pretty thoroughly scotched those ambitions, but you can still see vestigial elements in the first section of the film:

• Ronna, like Alice, charges boldly into unknown territory, and proves unexpectedly brave in the face of strange events.
• She visits a smoking psychedelicist who talks in riddles but ultimately helps her.
• Poorly labeled drugs are consumed with unanticipated consequences.
• A talking (telepathic) cat offers advice.

Other than the cat, these are all extremely tenuous connections. I would never claim that Go is remotely an adaptation of Alice. Rather, I had Alice bumping around in my head during Go’s genesis, and some Alice DNA worked its way into the genotype. For example, the yellow Miata was for a long time a white Volkwagen Rabbit.

2000

Shortly after the release of Go, producer Paul Rosenberg brought me to E3 to introduce me to American McGee, who was working on a videogame adaptation of Alice. The world he had come up with was dark and spectacular. American and I hit it off so well that two hours later we were pitching a movie version to director Wes Craven.

Craven said yes, and Miramax bought it the next day. They wanted the movie out within a year.

But I was already committed to writing three other projects. So we reached a compromise: rather than writing the script, I would write a detailed treatment laying out the characters, story and world. So I did. The document was 21 single-spaced pages. American McGee liked it, as did the producers. Wes Craven didn’t. And thus began a series of writers and re-imaginings that as far as I know may continue to this day. It’s been in turnaround several times.

I left the project having a friendly relationship with American McGee, who later introduced me to fellow game designer Jordan Mechner. Which begat the movie version of Prince of Persia and several other collaborations.

2007

While standing in the registration line for the Sundance Film Festival, where The Nines was about to premiere, I got a call asking if I would be interested in writing an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland for director Sam Mendes at Dreamworks. I said yes as I was trying on my official Sundance parka.

I met with Sam in New York and pitched my take, which blended a lot of Lewis Carroll’s biography into the story. As before, I was backed up on other projects (including the release of The Nines), so it would be six months before I could get started. I got about 40 pages written before the WGA strike began, at which point I had to stop working.

During the strike, Disney’s Woolverton-scripted Alice roared to life when Tim Burton signed on to direct it. I’d always been aware of it as a potentially-competing project, but now my Alice would be going up against the guy who had directed my last three films. It didn’t matter that our takes were wildly different; the world didn’t need or want two pricey Alice in Wonderland movies.

The day the strike ended, I called Sam Mendes, the studio, the producer, and my agent. Tim Burton’s movie was already in preproduction. It was pointless for me to keep writing something that couldn’t and shouldn’t get made. After a few days of discussion, we reached an agreement. I wrote a check back to Dreamworks and the project was killed.

This adaption of Alice was the closest of any of mine to becoming real. I love what I wrote, so it’s disappointing and frustrating that it won’t end up on screen. But that reality is a big part of any working screenwriter’s life. Much more important than this half-written movie was maintaining relationships with studios and filmmakers I hope to keep working with for the next few decades.

I left Alice to write a different movie for Sam Mendes and two more projects for Tim Burton. So, as before, my failed Alice had a curious number of upsides.

2025

Considering it’s been 15 years to this point, I suspect it may be another 15 before I finally write an Alice in Wonderland. That’s okay. Writers aren’t Olympic athletes; we can have very long careers.

Whatever the future looks like, Alice in Wonderland will still be relevant. Depending on your approach, the story can be silly, scary, ominous or charming. Is it a dark parable of computerized dystopia? Sure. Candy-colored comedy of manners? Perfect.

Alice has become one of our fundamental myths, an ur-story that thrives through perpetual reinvention. I’m looking forward to seeing this year’s Alice, and all the ones thereafter.

I’ve changed the name of the character, but I want her to be a comedienne, as this fits really well with the story. Most of the other aspects of the story are completely made-up, and I’ll probably only include a few situations based on real events.

Can I get in trouble for creating a character with the same personality and the same profession as the real person? How much can I get away with? Can I include things that this person has said in real life? This character is fascinating and needs to have her story told!

– Lex
Calgary, Alberta

Yes, you can get in trouble. She could sue you for libel, defamation — or the equivalent under Canadian law. By your description, she probably would sue, so you’ve really answered your own question.

Don’t poke bears.

As a writer, you’re naturally going to be drawn towards real-life people who are fascinating. That’s a good thing. Observe behavior. Figure out motivations and pathology. Then forget the real person.

Unless you’re writing a bio-pic, don’t base characters on anyone who actually exists. Not only are you exposing yourself to legal trouble, you’re ultimately shortchanging yourself as a writer. Real people are good in the real world, but you need characters that feel real in the universe of your story.

So stop thinking about this character as being the comedienne. Rip a photo out of a magazine and decide your character looks like this woman instead. What does her voice sound like? Where does she live? Is one of her neighbors stealing her mail? Is she trying to avoid her Bible-quoting brother?

Make her situation specific, and specifically different than the comedienne. It’s okay to admit to yourself that she inspired your character — inspiration is free to the universe. But every detail should be something you created, discovered, or wove in from the hundreds of other people you have studied. Your story will be better for it.

My question is, when sending queries should I mention that this title was previously optioned? I don’t know how a production company or agent/manager might view this. Would it be a good thing because someone else thought the script had potential or a bad thing because they weren’t able to sell it?

– Mark Violi
New Jersey

You have two different audiences.

For agents and managers, absolutely mention that it had been optioned. Anything which shows that producers are interested in your work makes you more attractive as a potential client.

Producers and production companies aren’t necessarily going to be excited that someone else had the project before them. Yes, it validates their taste a bit, but they may worry that the script has already been burned out around town. If everyone has read it and passed, what are they going to do with it, exactly?

If someone asks, always be honest about the project’s history. But you don’t have to lead with that information.

Also, it’s legit (and common practice) to make a few changes to a script and put a new date on the cover. If you’re trying to shop a script that says 2007 on the title page, there will be natural questions about why it’s so old.

“I’m mad!” she’ll declare, pursing her lips and scrunching her eyes. Most times, she’s not the least bit angry, but rather curious whether her simulation of anger is close enough to the real thing to elicit the desired response. The adults in her life are essentially lab rats. We run through her mazes as she tests her hypotheses.

Currently, the bulk of her experiments involve fake tears. Every parent knows exactly what real crying sounds like, be it a scraped knee or a crushed hope: plaintive, gasping, desperate. Real tears show up uninvited and unwelcome.

Fake crying is a caterwaul, a siren parked three feet away. It’s a performance. Lacking the ability to summon tears, children rub or cover their eyes, pausing every now and then to survey the room to see whether it’s working.

Nope? All right. Back to the wailing.

As a parent, I endure these episodes with a measured response, knowing it’s just a phase.

But as a writer, I watch her with fascination, secretly hoping she gets better at faking it.

While it doesn’t rank up there with math and reading, the ability to simulate an emotion you’re not actually feeling is a fundamental skill, one that’s served me particularly well.

This is an essay in defense of fake tears.

Writing as acting

I had lunch yesterday with a former child actor who has gone on to have a big career. I knew he got his first roles when he was four years old, but I was curious at what age he started “acting” — that is, when did he become aware of craft and technique?

His answer: at four. His father taught him to maintain eye contact with the other actors in the scene, and listen carefully to what they were saying. He wasn’t allowed to perform. He simply had to experience the moment and follow along.

Experiencing the moment is what writers do, too.

Screenwriters are basically actors who do their work on the page rather than the stage. Both professions earn their keep by pretending things are much different than they are. Actors ignore the lights and cameras and missing walls. Writers ignore the missing everything, summoning locations and characters to enact scenes which they can later transcribe.

Actors and writers are trying to create moments that feel true, despite being completely invented.

Read a good book on acting, and you’ll find many techniques that can help you as a screenwriter. Sense memory — the ability to experience a sensation that is not actually present — lets you feel the rumble of approaching tanks. Other exercises have you substituting your experiences for the character’s, letting the broken arm you got in fifth grade be the gunshot in your hero’s leg.

Once you become aware of the techniques, you find yourself pressing your brain’s RECORD button whenever you experience something remarkable or intense. The middle section of The Nines documents my disassociative disorder during production on the TV show D.C. in 2000. Even in my fugue state, I realized it was fascinating and worth recording. That red light was blinking in the corner a lot.

When my dog of 14 years passed away this summer, I was a wreck. I wasn’t faking any tears, but I was keenly aware of them. I kept mental notes on how it felt to feel that way; rather than push past the experience, I pushed into it.

My dog was a huge part of my life. He was my kid before I had my kid. In losing him, one thing I gained was that experience of profound loss. I’ll have it to use for the rest of my life.

Feeling your way through

Here’s how I wrote the last ten pages of Big Fish.

Sitting in front of a full-length mirror, I brought myself to tears. Then I started writing Will’s dialogue. I looped over and over until I got a piece of it finished, then started on the next section. It was three solid days of crying, but it was cathartic and productive.

These were fake tears, in the sense that I wasn’t actually guiding my Southern father through his last moments on Earth. But they were true in the context of writing the story. I was creating in myself the experience I was hoping to create in the reader.

One basic goal of creative writing is to evoke a desired response. That sounds clinical and scientific, but the process is squishy and exhausting. I don’t hear other screenwriters talking much about it, probably because it’s uncomfortably personal. At least writers get to do it alone, without a crew and cameras watching.

My daughter’s fake tears are writing practice, just as much as her wobbly uppercase letters. I’m hesitant to offer her much coaching on how to cry more convincingly; it’s like arming your opponent.

But as I watch her perform an ersatz lament, I find myself pressing the RECORD button. And hoping she’s doing the same.

I just got a review copy, and I’ll confess that the only thing I’ve done so far is flip through to make sure my quotes are reasonably coherent. And they are — so kudos to the copy editor. As I turned pages, I noticed many things I want to go back and read, including bits by the always-entertaining Josh Friedman and Shane Black. The book also features Frank Darabont, Nora Ephron, Paul Schrader, David Hayter and more than 40 others.

The book is blurby and conversational, like listening to a film festival panel in which the microphone gets handed around a lot. That’s not a criticism, but an attempt to frame expectations. I think a lot of readers will like it, but it’s not a master class or anything.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle editions. There’s also a companion DVD coming, if you really want to see the giant world map from my old office.

Tonight’s director is Jason Reitman, joined by cinematographer Eric Steelberg, editor Dana E. Glauberman and composer Rolfe Kent. We’ll be talking about Up In The Air, Juno and Thank You For Smoking.

Next Wednesday’s director guest will be announced tonight. We’ll be talking about casting and working with actors.

Word from the organizers is that it’s almost sold out, but “a limited number of passes” will still be available at the door if you want to try. It’s at the Landmark Theaters in West LA, beginning at 7:30pm.

Film Independent is recording these panels, so if you’re living outside Los Angeles, don’t despair: I’ll pass along the info when I have it. In preparation for the series, they shot a bunch of short interview pieces with me, which you can see up on YouTube.

The Twitter hashtag for the series is #DCU2010. If you have questions for anyone on the panel tonight, tweet it (@johnaugust) and I’ll try to ask.

1. Keep it short. Maximum seven words per card.

2. A card represents a story point, be it a scene or a sequence. You don’t need a card for every little thing.

3. Keep cards general enough that they can be rearranged. (“Battle in swamp” rather than “Final showdown”)

4. Horizontal (a table or counter) often works better than a vertical (a corkboard).

5. Post-It notes make good alternative index cards.

6. Consider a letter code for which characters are featured in the sequence. Helpful for figuring out who’s missing.

7. Most movies can be summarized in less than 50 cards.

8. Cards are cheap. Don’t hesitate to rework them.

9. Consider a second color for action sequences. Helps show the pacing.

10. Write big. You want to be able to read them from a distance.

I’m doing very well with school but I feel I’m not getting anywhere in the process. I mean, the way school is going I’m not going to graduate until I’m around 25 – 26 years of age which is just absurd especially since I’ve been in school already for a year & a half. I may not even finish my online schooling because it’s a bit pricey for the cost per class. I’m also not able to truly associate or really affiliate with anyone through the online program. Online schooling is just not good in that matter since everything is through a message board. You’re also not able to get hands on with anything. I’ve even looked on transferring but the situation is just not presenting itself well.

I’ve talked to a few people and even read some things on if schooling is needed for this industry and some say yes and others say no. It’s a guessing game from where I’m standing.

I’ve even looked around on ways to get noticed or recognized as many have said film festivals, film schools and so forth but that’s nothing new and I didn’t already know. But in order to enter a film festival, I need a film and that takes a lot of money to get a film made and I just don’t have the resources either. I’m really just looking for answers on what do and how I can get my foot through the door but then again, I’m still looking for a door.

I can’t just up & move to California even though I do plan on going out there sometime down-the-line (when? Who knows at this time) but I wouldn’t know where to begin or let alone look, on how to get some kind of acknowledgment or advice. My folks and I are just trying to find some answers for me or a path of some sorts. It’s just becoming frustrating. My folks are questioning on what to do as it’s a dead end on every corner and opportunities are just not coming about.

I hope that maybe you could provide some answers or something.

– Scott
Florida

I think online classes are a great option for many topics, but basic filmmaking isn’t one of them. Drop out and save your money.

Yes: a class that was purely about screenwriting could be taught online, but almost every other part of filmmaking is physical and collaborative. You need to be setting up lights and comparing angles and figuring out why the sound isn’t recording right. An online session might offer a master class with Robert Elswit talking about composition. It would be fascinating. But it wouldn’t be the practical information you need right now as an aspiring filmmaker.

Make short films. Find little movies that are shooting in Florida and work on them for free. Take local classes in the things that interest you.

You’re 22 — you don’t have to have your whole life figured out. But you owe it to yourself to pursue every interesting thing with every bit of energy you have. And if you still find filmmaking is your number one passion, move to a place where they make movies. That’s Los Angeles, New York, and (recently, thanks to tax credits) Louisiana. Get yourself there and get hired on a movie. You’ll learn more your first week as a PA than you have so far in your online classes.

Read what Adam Davis wrote about his experience moving to LA to get started. It’s not easy, but it’s not overwhelming either. Every young actor you’ve seen on TV has moved to Los Angeles, and trust me, many of them aren’t that smart or confident.

Your parents are nervous because they don’t see a clear path ahead for you. My mom was the same way. But once I was here, working 16-hour days on a hundred different things, she could at least see that I’d found something that really engaged me. I was making things, even if I wasn’t making enough money to buy a bed.

It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to have doubts. But don’t let them paralyze you. You don’t have much, but you have your youth. There are many folks reading this blog in their thirties or forties with a marriage and mortgage who don’t have options you have. Embrace your freedom and explore.