I recorded this video to illustrate the different ways screenwriters can indicate dialogue is being interrupted. It’s a situation that happens quite often in most screenplays. The choice of how you show it can impact the read.
There aren’t hard-and-fast rules, but there are definitely conventions, and in this video I cover most of them.
For the third Arlo Finch book, I was considering having one character use bear spray on a non-bear adversary. Since the books take place in the mountains of Colorado, it was very believable that the character would have it handy.
I also assumed that bear spray is stronger than conventional self-defense pepper sprays because, well, bears.
But it turns out, I was wrong:
Although pepper spray and bear spray contain the same active chemical, they are not the same thing. Bear spray has a much lower concentration of oleoresin capsicum, and should only be used as a bear deterrent.
Pepper spray is a self defense weapon intended to incapacitate human threats, and it is very effective at doing this due to its higher concentration of oleoresin capsicum. If you are serious about self defense, go purchase some pepper spray. If you are a hiker or camper in bear country, buy some bear spray.
What’s more, bear spray is designed to put out a wide cloud, filling the air with droplets, discouraging the bear from attacking. On the other hand, pepper spray is a targeted stream designed to incapacitate a person close to you.1
Bear spray isn’t designed to fend off humans, but one reason you might see people carrying it for self defense (in real life and in fiction) is that it’s legal in places where pepper spray isn’t. It just isn’t as effective.
You’ll have to wait until book three to see if and when oleoresin capsicum gets used.
Film Industry, Follow Up, Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Transcribed, Words on the page, Writing Process
John and Craig dive into plot holes: why they happen, how to fix them, why not to fix them, and how to turn them into opportunities.
We also respond to listener questions on outlining, servicing many storylines, and what screenwriting challenges go under-appreciated.
Links:
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
UPDATE 1-30-19: The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Interviewed with other screenwriters for the New York Times, Christopher McQuarrie makes a great point about action sequences:
The best action sequences are free of exposition, with stakes that are established in advance or, better still, self-evident. They don’t ask an audience to think, to process, to remember. Instead, they keep the audience’s collective subconscious focused entirely on one simple question.
The question is not how will it end? If this mattered, there would be no Ethan Hunt, James Bond, Jason Bourne, John McClane, Indiana Jones, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd or Charlie Chaplin. We know they’ll come out on top in the end. We count on it. It is a contract, a sacred pact between filmmaker and audience.
The only question that matters is, how can this possibly end well?
McQuarrie just signed on to make two more Mission: Impossible movies. You can hear my interview with him about his transition from writer to writer-director in Scriptnotes episode 300.