John August

Words on the page

How to Write a Photoplay

Film Industry, Formatting, Words on the page

Today’s one awesome thing comes from the Internet Archive: Herbert Case Hoagland’s 1912 book [How to Write a Photoplay](https://archive.org/details/howtowritephotop00hoag):

> To write a photoplay requires no skill as a writer, but it does require a “constructionist.” It requires the ability to grasp an idea and graft (please use in the botanical sense) a series of causes on the front end of it and a series of consequences on the other end. An idea so grafted will surely bear fruit; and to learn the art of this sort of mental horticulture it is necessary first to understand, in a general way, how motion pictures are made and what is done in the studio, in the field and in the factory. Let us learn something of these things and begin at the beginning—in the office of the Scenario Editor.

The photoplay was the precursor to the screenplay. It’s essentially a list of scenes, designed for silent films. Without dialogue, it can be challenging to establish the relationships between characters:

> The scenario writer must bear in mind that the first thing to do is to introduce his characters on the screen in a way that almost immediately determines their position in, and relationship to, the story. Many photoplays are failures because a proper beginning has not been arranged.

> If, for example, the scene opens in a young woman’s home and her lover is coming to see her, the fact that he is her lover and not her brother or husband should be clearly shown in the action, and the action of the play is the thing to write.

Scene geography and narrative sequence are extremely important. So are hats.

> If a man is to go from a room in one house to a room in another, there should be a scene showing him entering the second house, but it is unnecessary to have him leaving the first because in the first room he can be made to catch up his coat and hat and exit. Obviously he is going out, and when one sees him on the street and entering the second house the entire thought is conveyed to the spectator.

> The question may arise, if his action of putting on his hat and coat suggests leaving the house, why his entering another room and removing them doesn’t mean the reverse. The answer is simple—because he may have simply gone into another room in his own house and the man in the theatre seat wonders, “Why, in thunder, did he put his hat and coat on to go along the hall or just from room to room.” Seems farfetched, but it isn’t. The spectator asks just such questions.

Hoagland’s scenario writers are now called screenwriters, but many of the issues remain the same.

> Revising is the hardest part of a writer’s work. The first copy flows from the inspired pen like the proverbial water from a duck’s back and under the influence of watching the story grow the writer finds incentive to continue, but oh! the drudgery of rewriting and revising. Inclination may writhe and squirm and plead to go away and leave the work undone, but Determination must grab Inclination and club it into submission if the writer ever expects to flirt with the elusive Goddess of Success. Revision is imperative. All the big fellows in the literary world do it. Only by careful rewording and rewriting can any production of this nature be flawless. A good way to do this is to read your scenario aloud to members of the family or to friends; better still is it to have some one read it to you that you may hear the words with another’s intonation and vocal shades.

Hoagland’s book has a list of all the major motion picture studios, few of which exist today. But his warning sounds familiar:

> Don’t send Biblical stories to a manufacturer who makes a specialty of western stuff. Study the needs of the firms producing pictures and direct your scenarios accordingly. On another page the class of story most sought for by the different studios is touched upon, and ambitious writers cannot do better than to subscribe to The Moving Picture World or some other trade paper and carefully study the comments on the films as they appear week by week.”

You can read the whole thing [here](https://archive.org/details/howtowritephotop00hoag).

Writing in another writer’s style

Television, Words on the page

Dara Resnick Creasey has some advice for TV [staff writers on a new gig](http://hollywoodjournal.com/industry-impressions/the-write-way/20140409/):

> [Your] first script should as closely mimic the showrunner’s writing style as possible. Of course every script you write will have some of you in it. That’s why you were hired, after all. For your thoughts. Your voice. But your job in these first precious 55 pages is to show the people reading it that you understand the show – that you can write in the voices of its characters, and grasp its unique vernacular.

> This is not the time to take a risk, to deviate from the story you collectively broke in the writers’ room because you suddenly think you have a better act-out.

I’ve never written on someone else’s TV show, but I have done feature work where I was only rewriting a small part of the script and needed to match the previous writer’s style and voice. To me, that’s a blast. Just like calculus is higher-level math, this is higher-level writing. How would *this* writer write *this* character in *this* kind of scene?

It can be strangely satisfying to surrender your ego and imagine yourself as a wholly different writer.

Each writer has her own way of arranging words on the page. If you need to match someone else’s style, I’d start by looking at:

* Unfinished end-of-line punctuation. Two dashes? Ellipsis?
* How much uppercase she uses within scene description.
* Parentheticals. Are they for timing (beat), clarity (joking), or how-to-play (“please die in a fire”)?
* Sensible commas, or the Oxford variety?
* Profanity. Is it A SPACESHIP or a GIANT FUCKING SPACESHIP?
* How characters see events within a scene. Do they clock them, spot them, notice them, spy them?
* Transitions. Is it CUT TO every new scene, or do they mostly go away.
* Paragraph length. What’s the upper limit in terms of number of lines?
* Does an interrupted character get a CONT’D?
* Simultaneous dialogue: Side-by-side or (overlapping)?

In each of these cases, there’s no right or wrong answer. Except that in TV, the showrunner reading the script knows what she likes, and it’s how she writes. So as a staff writer, it’s absolutely in your best interest to write exactly like she would.

For a feature rewrite, it ultimately comes down to how much work you’re going to be doing on the script. If it’s nearly a page one rewrite, you’re doing no one any favors by aping the previous writer’s style. Yes, it’s more work to go through otherwise intact scenes and change the punctuation, but you’re trying to create the best experience for the reader. Consistency matters.

Consistency is also why you adapt to the previous writer’s choices when doing surgical work on a script. You’re a craftsman making a repair. Done properly, no one should see the work.

Uncomfortable Ambiguity, or Nobody Wants Me at their Orgy

Episode - 141

Go to Archive

Adaptation, Follow Up, QandA, Rights and Copyright, Scriptnotes, Television, WGA, Words on the page

Nothing is cut-and-dried this week. John and Craig talk Game of Thrones rape, allegations against director Bryan Singer and the new report showing the same low employment numbers for female writers in film and TV.

Then, what happens when a writer writes fan fiction for the novel she wrote but doesn’t own? We talk about the weird situation L.J. Smith finds herself in with The Vampire Diaries, and what it could mean for screenwriters.

We’re now taking entries for the special live Three Page Challenge on May 15th. Click the link in the notes for details. We’re delighted to have Susannah Grant as our special guest judge for the evening.

LINKS:

* [HearthStone](http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/)
* IGN on [Cold, Cold Heart](http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/25/batman-arkham-origins-cold-cold-heart-dlc-review) Arkham Origins DLC
* [South Park: The Stick of Truth](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006IOAHPK/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) on Amazon
* [Get your tickets now](https://www.wgfoundation.org/screenwriting-events/scriptnotes-summer-superhero-spectacular/) for the Scriptnotes Summer Superhero Spectacular
* If you are attending the show, [submit your Three Page Challenge here](http://johnaugust.com/threepage)
* [Weekend Read](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/weekendread/) and [Highland](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland/)
* [Game of Thrones season 4, episode 3](http://www.hbogo.com/#series/browse&assetID=GOROSTGP42365?seriesID=GOROSTGP31734?assetType=SEASON?browseMode=browseGrid/) on HBO Go
* LA Times on the [Bryan Singer lawsuit](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-xmen-director-bryan-singer-accused-of-1999-sexual-assault-20140417,0,5240173.story#axzz30Dlb8J5C)
* The [2014 (and past) WGAw Writers Report Executive Summary](http://www.wga.org/subpage_whoweare.aspx?id=922)
* [Alvin Sargent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Sargent) on Wikipedia
* [Vampire Diaries Writer Bites Back](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304058204579495491652398358), from The Wall Street Journal
* [Interrobang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrobang) on Wikipedia
* All our [One Cool Things](http://johnaugust.com/onecoolthings)
* Preorder xkcd’s [What If? book](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0544272994/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) on Amazon
* [Under the Skin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Skin_(2013_film)) on Wikipedia
* CarboLite [nutrition facts on MyFitnessPal](http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/carbolite-frozen-yogurt-467427) and Yelp on [where to find it in Los Angeles](http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=carbolite&find_loc=Los+Angeles%2C+CA)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Scriptnotes listener Adrian Tanner ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_141.m4a) | [mp3](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_141.mp3).

**UPDATE** 5-2-14: The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2014/scriptnotes-ep-141-uncomfortable-ambiguity-or-nobody-wants-me-at-their-orgy-transcript).

The accidental set-up

Story and Plot, Words on the page

Talking with writers last week, I pointed out that readers (and ultimately the audience) are always on the lookout for details that answer the question, “Where is this going?”

Often, they literally want to know, “Where is the character headed?”

So any time you refer to a new place — be it “the supermarket,” “school,” or “Boston” — you create a natural expectation that we will visit that place at some point in the story.

Often you mean to set it up: it’s The Emerald City. It’s Wally World. It’s the place where the resolution will happen.

But it’s altogether possible to set up places that you have no intention of visiting. Your hero might say something about how he hears good things about Marfa, Texas. It’s not part of his journey, and not part of this story. He’s just saying it because he’s the kind of character who would say something about Marfa.

But once you’ve put it on the page, it’s out there as a goal. You’ve accidentally punched a location into [Chekhov’s GPS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov’s_gun).

I often see this when characters talk vividly about something in their past. The more details you give about a place, the more important we think it is. That raises our expectation higher and higher that we’ll see it in the story.

A final thing to keep in mind about places: the audience often use them as structural signposts. “Well, he’s trying to get to Boston, and he finally did, so the story must be just about over.” That can often help you — we’ve reached the rendez-vous spot — but it can be trouble if you’re hitting that spot an hour into a two-hour story.

Similarly, the audience keeps track of the order of locations. If a character says, “We’ll get pizza at Romo’s and then go to grandma’s house,” we expect to see Romo’s pizza place, or at least some evidence that pizza happened. In a cut, it’s often easy to lose the pizza scene. But if you do, try to get rid of any mention of the pizza so there’s no dangling expectation for a location we’ll never visit.