The rules of engagement rings
Any advice on how to buy an engagement ring? I have no idea how to not get hosed, even after reading a bunch of information online. As soon as I walk in I’ve got sweaty palms.
– Jack
Atlanta
One advantage to marrying a dude is that there are no engagement rings. So I can’t offer any first-hand experience.
But opinions? Sure, I got plenty of those.
The tradition of sending a man into a jewelry store to buy an engagement ring is ridiculous. I think women should pick their own rings. It’s something they are going to wear for the rest of their lives, after all.
If you want a ring to propose with, use a vintage ring. Use something with sentimental value. That way, when she shows it to her friends, everyone will have something to coo over — yet there will be a clear understanding that this ring might get replaced.
Diamonds flummox me. Yes, they’re pretty, but I can’t tell a $10,000 diamond from cubic zirconium. I don’t understand why newly-engaged couples will start their lives at a deficit for a bauble. And I hope you know the two-month salary guideline was invented by DeBeers.
If your girlfriend wants the traditional experience, then I’d enlist her sister or best friend in the process. Be upfront about how much you can pay, and why.
If your girlfriend is more progressive, propose on a Friday and get the ring together that weekend.
Or if she’s that kind of woman, get tattoos. That makes just as much sense to me.
Where do I eat lunch?
Okay, so what’s your favorite casual restaurant in LA and what’s your favorite thing on the menu?
–Emily Blake
Buddha’s Belly for Buddha’s Chicken Salad.
Veggie Grill for the Chop-Chop Chef Salad and kale.
Nyala Ethiopian, where you should bring a friend and order doro tibs with the vegetarian combo.
BLD for the warm lentil salad.
Mozza for the fungi mista pizza.
El Cholo for the blue corn chicken enchiladas.
Yes, I’m aware that three of my choices are salads. This is Los Angeles.
Also, Veggie Grill is technically a chain, which gives me bad flashbacks to Michael Scott extolling his favorite New York pizzeria, Sbarro.
Advice on anything
This is a blog about screenwriting, geared primarily towards aspiring writers and film-types. And while I love answering those questions, I occasionally pine to share my opinions on topics far afield from the craft.
Things like:
This coming week, I’ll be answering questions completely unrelated to screenwriting or the industry. This is a one week only, one-time deal.
If you have a question of the “What Should I Do?” nature, send them in.
To be clear: I’m not an expert in relationships, real estate, finances, time management, travel or whether a third tattoo is a good idea. But I’ll happily answer questions to the best of my ability and enjoyment.
Screenwriting and the problem of evil
One of the joys of screenwriting is putting childhood terrors into words. The screenplay I’m currently writing has monsters. Not werewolves and vampires (as my last three have had), but otherworldly forces of darkness and destruction.
In this case, the heroes’ goals are relatively straightforward, but the antagonists’ agenda is — by dint of their nature — extraordinarily bleak.
So what’s challenging for this script has been writing against a backdrop of indifferent oblivion. Nihilism is not a crowd-pleaser.
Bad isn’t that bad
In most movies, the villain isn’t really “evil” — he’s just at cross-purposes with the hero. Darth Vader does not perceive himself to be doing wrong. The queen in Aliens is protecting her brood. The shark in Jaws is, well, a shark.1
The villains/monsters of most films can be found to have one or more of the following motivations:
- Self-preservation
- Propagation
- Protection of an important asset
- Hunger/Greed
- Revenge
I’ve ranked these on a scale from “least evil” to “closest to evil.”
A monster acting in its own defense might be terrifying, but it’s morally understandable. A spurned lover on a killing spree steps closer to the big E, but it’s still relatable to normal human emotions. We’ve all lashed out irrationally, though to less fatal degrees.
A sixth motivation is something I’ll call bloodlust/sociopathy. The villain’s actions serve no direct need; bloodlust is its own motivation. Slasher films often fall back on this. Jason Voorhees wants to kill you just because.
As an audience, it’s unsettling. It feels genuinely Evil.
Slasher films usually have one bad guy. What happens when the whole world is similarly bloodthirsty?
Some movies dip their toes into this big pool of bleakness. Zombie class situations, for one. Even if you survive this one moment, do you really want to live in a world overrun by the living dead?
And then there are robots. One could argue the machines of both the Terminator and Matrix franchises are acting out of self-preservation in terms of why they come after the hero. But their greater agenda for enslaving humankind is kind of murky, even if we make good batteries.
They seem intent on wiping us out just because, the treads of their war machines crushing our blackened skulls.
Making oblivion cinematic
The villains I’m writing fall somewhere in between zombies and robots: more sentient than the shambling dead, but less purposeful than Skynet. The challenge has been figuring out how to articulate What They Want in a way that makes sense in a popcorn movie.
If I were writing a junior-year philosophy paper, I’d be able to fold in some Nietzsche and Sartre quotes and call it a day. But that won’t play at 24 frames per second. It needs to be satisfying without external support. So I’m left to look for parallels in other successful movies.
- What do Satanic cultists hope to achieve?
- Why does Hannibal Lecter eat people?
- If Sauron won, what would Middle Earth become?
In looking for my answer, I’m trying to be careful not to explain away the darkness. Or to humanize it. There’s something compelling about evil with the indifference of an earthquake or a tidal wave.
The closest I’ve come is an ant’s perspective of eight-year-old boys, smashing and destroying without apparent motivation or qualm. Scale that up, and it feels like a movie. But not an easy one to write.
- Never forget, every villain is a hero. ↩
Unpaid internships in the crosshairs
The NYT reminds us that just because it’s common practice, doesn’t mean it’s legal:
“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” said Nancy J. Leppink, the acting director of the department’s wage and hour division.
Unpaid internships are foot-in-the-door gigs for screenwriters in Hollywood. I wrote free coverage for a small production company during my first year of film school, which led to a paid job at a studio.
Was I breaking the law? I guess.
But I wonder if it’s somewhat defensible as apprenticeship. Writing coverage is a skill you have to learn. I got better at it, and the two or three months I read for the company were genuinely educational, with feedback and evaluation.
But if I had been stuffing envelopes? Yeah. That’s a minimum wage job that should be treated like one.
(/via MW)
What’s real, then what’s funny
Jane Espenson makes the case for finding the essence before writing the jokes:
I guarantee you that they did not start working on the latest episode by thinking of funny things that could happen in a pottery class. They started by thinking about their characters, what they believe, and where they’re weakest.
Find your characters’ vulnerable spots and poke them and you’ll find a story. The idea that Jeff was over-praised as a child, resulting in a self-image that needs correction is not hilarious. It’s grounded and real — which allows for more license when writing the jokes.
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