Words on the page

Arguably, the most important part of a film (besides it being good) is the title. Great titles have graced the silver screen, only to have the film bite all kinds of ass. But the title did its job, it got the suckers to watch the flick (i.e. [The Phantom Menace](http://imdb.com/title/tt0120915/combined)). Conversely, a bad title can take the wind out of the sails of a very good film (I won’t watch [Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood](http://imdb.com/title/tt0279778/combined) cause the title screams chick flick).

My question is, how do you come up with the titles to the films you write? What process do you go through to come up with a title that’d grab the audience by the Ya Yas?

— Americo
San Francisco, California

The majority of my movies have been adaptations, either of books or existing properties, such as [Charlie’s Angels](http://imdb.com/title/tt0160127/combined). Obviously, it’s not too hard to pick a title for those ones. (Trivia: the “Full Throttle” moniker for the sequel was picked by the marketing team; the working subtitle title was “Halo,” named for the [McGuffin](http://johnaugust.com/site/glossary#mcguffin) of the story.)

I have been through the name game on several movies.

[Go](http://imdb.com/title/tt0139239/combined) started out as a short film script called ‘X,’ named for the ecstasy Ronna’s character is trying to deal. When I wrote the full version, my working title was ’24/7,’ but then I saw reviews for a British film called [Twentyfourseven](http://imdb.com/title/tt0341978/combined), so I nixed that.

About the same time I was writing this script, I’d made a holding deal with Imagine, for whom I’d just adapted the kids book How to Eat Fried Worms. As part of the deal, I had to pitch them five projects. One of my ideas was a Die Hard-y thriller about involving a bomber and a TV news crew, which I called “Go.” Imagine ultimately passed on all of my ideas, but I really liked the title “Go,” so I just took it for the script I was writing.

It was only after seeing the finished film about four times that I realized how often characters say “go” in the movie — and usually at crucial moments. It seems intentional, but trust me, it wasn’t.

One of my never-ending horrors is that an early Columbia press release listed the title as “Go!” rather than “Go”, so many reviews and articles about the movie include the exclamation point, thinking that’s really the title. It’s not.

I hate that exclamation point with an unmitigated fury. If it somehow became a sentient being, I would kill it without remorse.

Anyway.

Shortly after Go, I was hired to work on an animated movie for Fox called “Planet Ice.” That sounds like a sci-fi movie, and it was. The odd thing, I thought, was that there was no icy planet anywhere in the script. The title was a hold-over from many drafts ago. So along with the rewrite, I turned in a list of proposed titles for the movie, most of them centering around the long-lost spaceship at the center of the story.

Two years later, I went to a screening of the nearly-completed movie, which was now called [Titan A.E.](http://imdb.com/title/tt0120913/combined). “Titan” is the name of the missing ship, and the “A.E.” stands for “After Earth.” I guess. I never really got confirmation on that.

At any given point, I have a list of about 30 movies I’d like to write, and a good 50% of them have titles. Sometimes, that’s all they really have.

For example, that same thriller I pitched to Imagine is sitting on my to-write list as “Southland.” I think that’s a good title, but I doubt I’ll ever use it, since (a) I’ll probably never get around to writing the script, and (b) it’s too much like Richard Kelly’s upcoming [Southland Tales](http://imdb.com/title/tt0405336/combined).

I think some projects sell mostly on their title. A vampire thriller set in Alaska is an okay-not-great idea. But [30 Days of Night](http://imdb.com/title/tt0389722/combined) is a kick-ass title, which is why Sony bought it. On the flip side, my unsold zombie western has been through at least four titles: Deadfall, Devil’s Canyon, Prey, and Frontier. I don’t love any of them, and neither do readers.

But if you have a good title for it, by all means share.

What is a good way to distiguish good dialogue from exposition?

— Josh Hatfield

Dialogue:

Exposition:

Always ask yourself: Would the character actually say this, or is he only saying it because you need the audience to know some fact or detail? If the answer is the latter, you’re writing exposition and not dialogue.

That’s not good.

At its worst, you risk “M Syndrome,” named for the James Bond boss whose sole function seems to be telling 007 all the backstory so he knows who to shoot. (This was parodied in the Austin Powers movies by Michael York’s character, Basil Exposition.)

Honestly, there are times when you really do need to have a character say something that’s purely plot. In certain genres, like police procedurals, exposition is pretty much par for the course. But to the degree possible, try to avoid situations where characters are spouting information.

Wherever possible:

1. Show the information, rather than having a character say it.
2. Try to follow a natural line of thought: A to B to C.
3. Simplify. The reader may not need to know everything.
4. Keep your hero active in learning the information, rather than passively listening.
5. Balance natural speech patterns with efficiency. People rarely say things as concisely as they could.

Avoiding exposition is hard, especially in plot-dependent stories. But it’s one of the first things a reader notices, so spend the time to deal with it.