John August

QandA

Ad-libbing

QandA, Words on the page

How much ad-libbing do you write into your scripts?

–Walter Reichert

Some very funny movies have a lot of ad-libbing, which can give the
viewer the impression that there wasn’t really a script — the actors
just showed up and decided what they were going to do and say. But it’s
just not the case. The script may have been terrible, but something about
it was good enough to attract the actors and director in the first place.

If you happened to watch the second season of HBO’s "Project Greenlight" —
and if you’re reading this column, there’s a pretty good chance you’re
enough of a film masochist to watch it — you saw directors Kyle and
Efram defend their approach to an upcoming scene by saying, "We
were just planning on letting the actors improvise." To me, this
is analogous to saying, "We were just planning to let the children
drown."

Planned ad-libbing is like hoping for a white Christmas. Maybe it will
snow, or maybe it won’t. Your sleigh better have wheels just in case.

While I would never type the words "ad-lib" into a script,
there are occasions where people need to say something, but it’s not
exactly crucial who says what. For instance, in BIG FISH, there’s a scene
where the whole town has come to send Edward Bloom off on his journey.
Important lines are singled out to individual characters, but "the
crowd" gets just this:

THE CROWD (VARIOUS)

Goodbye Edward! / See ya! / We’ll miss you!

"Various" is a good word to choose when you need to indicate that there’s a range of possible options, be they in
action or dialogue. For instance:

VARIOUS SHOTS: Contorting his body in strange positions, Joe tries to get his candy out of the vending machine, but to no avail. Finally, he’s stuck in a half-pretzel as Jenny walks up.

Whatever you do, don’t use "ad-libbing" or "improv" as
an excuse not to write the best possible version of a scene. If you really
think the actors will come up with better dialogue than you can, find
a better writer.

Choosing character names

QandA, Story and Plot

How do you develop and decide on names for characters?

–Lauren

First, decide if you’re usually going to refer to this character by their
first name, last name or some other nickname. In GO, Ronna and Claire are always
referred to by their first names, whereas Gaines and Singh are last names,
while Tiny and Junior are nicknames.

Once you’ve decided which part of the name is most important, pick one that
sounds appropriate to the character. How you choose that name is up to you.
Some people use baby names books or the telephone directory. For some reason,
I name a lot of characters after streets in my neighborhood. If you’re really
stuck, Final Draft has a names database that can be helpful in a pinch.
However you find the name, it should start with a different letter than any
other name in the script, just to avoid reader confusion.

Now pick a first or last name to go with it. Often, I’ll just pick a letter
at random and start sounding out names until I find one that seems to work.
As a final check, I always rack my brain to see if I remember anybody else
with that name. It’s creepy how often I’ll end up with somebody I already know.

Research

QandA, Writing Process

When you get a great idea for a story, but you don’t know much about the setting
of the story, like the medieval times, how do you go about writing it? How
do you gain enough information about a certain setting or place so that it
sounds genuine (like Fargo) and not fake or phony (the basketball scenes from
Finding Forrester)?

–Henry

You do research. Right now, I’m in the process of writing a show for ABC about
murder in Alaska. Before I started working on it, I knew very little about
State Troopers, the provincial government structure, the Russian Orthodox Church,
tribal corporations and bush planes. I’m certainly not an expert on any of
these subjects now, but I know enough to write the pilot.

In my case, I started by reading books and Googling a lot of different Alaska
websites. The second round of research involved a lot of time on the phone,
calling the various people who actually have the jobs I’m writing about. Finally,
I’ll be making a research trip up to Anchorage to interview these people in
person, and investigate a lot of intangible details. (Such as, do Alaskans
carry over any of the strange Canadian pronunciations, like "SO-ree" rather
than "SAR-ree"? When Alaskans refer to non-Alaskans, is there a term
they usually use?)

If you were researching Medieval times, you would obviously find a lot of
your information in books about the period. But it would also behoove you to
find some experts in the field, and even visit some authentic sites to get
the most possible verisimilitude.

Just remember that no amount of research can substitute for good writing.
Knowing the exact shade of ochre in the king’s bedroom is pointless unless
you have a fascinating scene taking place there.

And keep in mind that audiences carry with them certain misconceptions about
places and times that make certain details less than crucial. For instance,
most audiences think of horses having saddles, and saddles having stirrups.
So when we see Russell Crowe and his men charging in on horseback at the start
of GLADIATOR, sandals in stirrups, we think nothing of it. Yet as many historians
(and Internet nit-pickers have pointed out), stirrups were invented centuries
later. Maximus’s advice to "keep his heels down when riding" is impossible.

Also, in A KNIGHT’S TALE, the people wouldn’t have been singing along with
Queen’s "We Will Rock You."

Finding the structure

QandA, Writing Process

I’m a 28-year old writer with a very old problem. I do my best work when I’m
not consciously structuring a screenplay. I’ve found trying to shuffle scenes
around on note cards about as useful as trying to construct a meaningful sentence
out of syllables. So I’m reluctant to embrace a fully plotted mode of writing.

–Zackery West

First off, apologies to Zackery for editing his question down so much. The
original was filled with a lot of other good observations and side-questions,
but ran longer than my whole weekly column. And in cutting it down, I was doing
exactly the kind of work Zackery is struggling against.

Structure isn’t really about tacking notecards on a wall. It’s about organizing
ideas — sequences, scenes, and beats within those scenes — so that they can
have the most possible impact. You don’t just create structure before you write.
It happens inevitably with every character who walks in the door, or takes
an action that spins the story in a different direction.

I doubt there are any working screenwriters who would say they’ve adopted
a "fully plotted mode of writing." Whatever plan you’ve made for
the movie, be it notecards, an outline or just an idea in your head, it’s always
subject to change based on discoveries you make while you’re writing.

You’re beating yourself up over not plotting out your whole script beat-for-beat.
Guess what? You don’t have to. For now, just write the best scenes you can,
keeping in mind that they may need to be changed or cut to service the movie
as a whole.

The best thing about fighting with yourself is that when you give up, you
win.