• They all had vivid characters. In a few, there was always one main character, like Oedipus, who went through a remarkable ordeal, composed mostly of his own missteps, ending in a wrenching final moment of self-realization. The Greek word for this is catharsis. Its meaning is actually closer to “a purging” or a “release” of emotions.
• This he realized was the most important attribute of great drama: without the main character’s ordeal, the audience would feel less, and that is what is called in show business “a flop.”
• Finally, he stated very plainly what our job is as dramatists:
“Write what the story demands.”
Think about that. It’s not about you. It’s not about “I’d love to see this on screen.” It’s not about, “wouldn’t it be cool if . . . ” He was telling us that it’s about the protagonist. You, the writer, are telling this story because it must be told to the main character, not the audience.
So, what I strongly recommend is that you simply forget the audience. You actually don’t know who this audience is. They number in the billions and for you to identify everything that amuses or moves or compels them as a group would not only be impossible, but incredibly time-consuming and ultimately stupid.
Forgive me. I just said you were stupid for considering the audience. I didn’t mean that. I simply meant that for the time being, once you have come upon and created this marvelously storyworthy idea, then you must trust that you will now use the “moving parts” of your screen story to fulfill everything you hoped for in your audience’s expectations.
I only ask that you don’t keep them over your shoulder, laughing (or not) and applauding (or not). It’s too damned noisy. You need to concentrate on your main character and his/her ordeal. You are permitted to understand why you as a writer have decided to do this to your character. That is vitally important. That is what makes you an artist. But don’t get hung up on being “liked.”
Aristotle also identified a great number of other attributes of great drama that we still use, whether we realize it or not:
• The climax. A Greek word, and yes, it’s no coincidence that we use the word in relation to sex as well. It’s just the most important, loudest, most exciting moment in a movie.
• Protagonist and antagonist. Two very important words in dramatic writing.
• Prologue and epilogue. One comes before your story begins, the other after it ends.
• Praxis. This was the word Aristotle used for action. Not a word we commonly use. It is all the stuff that happens and everything that the main character does.
• Aristotle also states something that I feel fully articulates the use of action:
“Drama is the psyche of the protagonist pushing outward.”
Wow.
That to me is the essence of drama. The inner mind and soul of the main character made manifest through action. But what does that mean? Does that mean it’s all the character’s inner thoughts? No. Lots of dreams sequences? No.
Plain and simple, it’s the actions that this character takes to get to the end of the ordeal. The things that are “pushing outward” are coming out as actions. Everything the main character does based on how he/she feels, which is in turn based on his/her response to the action preceding and the one after, etc.
Get it?
You Can’t Learn to Write a Crappy Screenplay
If you haven’t studied writing of any kind, this might be a difficult thing, this writing a screenplay.
Fundamentally we look at screenwriting the way we look at rock music. It appears that anyone really can sit down and write a hit song. They don’t seem to need a college education. The Beatles barely made it out of high school. Carole King and all those Brill Building kids never got a degree in anything.
Since screenwriting can be classified as a “folk art,” it springs from the people; from the folkways of down-to-earth philosophy and thinking that we are all a product of. But writing is a craft. Writing is a skill. Writing requires training. I would no more ask you to spit out a script than I would a mahogany shelf unit. You need to know some carpentry to do that. You need to know how to cut straight and how to use a hammer. Also, you need to lay out a good design plan if you’re going to build a piece of furniture. Would you just pick up a hammer and saw and start building? No. You would measure the space. Make a drawing. Decide how much wood you’ll need and then — sticking to the plan — set about to cut and nail and glue everything together. The more complex the project, the less confidence you’ll have if you haven’t had proper training and experience. Remember: you’ll waste a lot of time, money, and wood if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Same with screenwriting. You have to know what you’re making. You have to know the history of that thing you’re making. You need to know the basis for two thousand years of dramatic writing and all that other stuff.
You Have to Know What You’re Doing
Most screenwriters are pretty well-educated people. They know stuff like history and philosophy. I was raised in the theater; in show business. My parents were actors. My father appeared on Broadway and in films and on TV. He never studied anything! He dropped out of school in eighth grade. But, he was a standup comic for fifteen years before he started acting. He used his own senses to learn his craft.
Even though I was making films since the age of fourteen, I still went to NYU film school. I hated school, all of it. But sitting down and learning about literature was the most important thing I ever did. I thought I was going to be a director. I never thought of myself as a writer. But then, I started writing plays. They were easy to put on in New York. Two actors, a chair or two, some lights, a place for the actors to face an audience, and that is all that was needed.
But the thing is, I started studying how this is done. I read the great books. I read books on writing. I taught myself the craft. I used what I had learned in watching my father rehearse and perform. In short, I immersed myself in the world that I was hoping to succeed in.
You have to do the same. Writing a screenplay is no small task. I would say it’s just about as hard as remodeling your kitchen or building a small house. It’s no easier than writing a novel or composing a symphony. It’s arduous work that requires knowledge and skill.
Notice I haven’t even used the word talent yet. We will get to that.
Just as Brando dropped out of high school and came to New York to be an actor, he recognized immediately that he had to train and so (to also meet girls) he enrolled in training that would make him a skillful actor. He had talent. He had energy. He had a vision of himself as a successful performer. But he had to train.
I’ll cut you a break: because you are reading this book you recognize your need to get more knowledge. To find out how other, more experienced writers do it. So you’ve taken an important step. You realize you need help. You understand that this thing may not be as easy as it looks.
As difficult as it is to write a script, it’s not easy to sell one either. Notice I didn’t say “good script.” That’s not only difficult, just as difficult as writing a bad script, but of the 287 people in the industry who are trusted to know such things, all of them are wrong at least 75% of the time. (PS: Okay, these numbers are arbitrary. But most of my colleagues would probably back me up.)
Imagine the movie trailer with Don LaFontaine saying in that deep rough voice: “In a world . . . where eighty-five percent of your output makes no profit . . . where those in charge of making the final decisions are wrong almost all of the time . . . a young writer decides to make his mark in a world where . . . NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING! . . . coming this summer to a theater near you. ‘NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING!’”
That