FIVE BASIC, ESSENTIAL SCRIPT WRITING DO’S AND DON’TS

Marketting Bods beavering away in the back rooms of Consumer Cathedrals like Waitrose and Sainsburys use the words Basic and Essential to draw the wider slice of the human consumer-pyramid towards products that are vital to the average kitchen cupboard.  It’s no different in the world of writing – here then a list of my FIVE BASIC, ESSENTIAL things to get right and to avoid getting wrong in your script writing, for budget-savvy writers (this advice is free!) who also want to avoid slipping below the Good Writing radar.

1/ SCENE DESCRIPTION – GEOGRAPHY and CONTENT: DESCRIBE WHAT YOU WANT US TO SEE – NO MORE NO LESS

Two things to remember here: don’t under describe your scene but also don’t over describe. Both mistakes on the page cause confusion and irritation in a reader. No-one likes to have to trawl through pages of description to get to the vital information of the scene. But the flip side of that is a tough place to be as well. There is nothing more tedious than having to work out for yourself where characters are at the top of a scene, or what they are doing – what it is, in fact, that we are looking at. So my rule of thumb is this; imagine and visualise for yourself before you put finger tip to keypad or ballpoint to paper where your characters are and what image you want us to see at the top of the scene. It sounds an obvious thing to say, but writing for the small or big screen means you have to use your visual imagination as much as you do your verbal skills to get your story across. Tell the story in pictures as well as words. So what is it you want us to know? Tell us succinctly but with a touch of description to keep the top of the scene alive. Set the scene – literally – paint it in words but chose yours carefully and remember – we need to get a move on here – this is not a novel – so place your characters and prepare for them to move the story on.

2/ CUT TO THE CHASE – KEEP UP THE STORY MOMENTUM – HAVE CONFIDENCE IN YOUR STORY

I know it’s a tough one – but never allow yourself as a writer, to procrastinate. Your characters can, if you demand it, in order to further a plot point or build some tension in the narrative, but you the writer need to ensure you ‘get a wiggle on’ throughout the writing of your script. You are in control of not only the imagery and dialogue, but also the pace and mood of the story. It’s a truism that many writers lack faith in their storylines and worry that if they truely do push the script on they will run out of story before they complete their all important third act. My advice is always to allow the story to build the momentum it will naturally and if the writing begins to stall and the story to wane then more invention is required from you. Do not apply the brakes, thus holding back the plot incrementally scene by scene, do push your foot on the accelorator and give the storyline and your script some welly instead!

3/ CONSTRUCT A SHAPELY SCENE – INTRO/DEVELOP/END

Here’s another cliche but a true one (like most cliches in fact). Each scene must have a beginning, a middle and an end. So many writers forget this basic essential fact when bringing their story together in script form. Introduce your scene, develop it’s particuar theme and end it on a definite, clear note. This might be on a visual image, or an expression, or on a parting word; but do end your scene. Do not leave it and your characters hanging.  It’s sometimes easier to write the meat of the scene and harder to give it a good opening and ending, but it is essential to get this right in order to keep your overall control of your story intact. Ask yourself some basic questions when beginning to write a scene: ‘what is this scene about? What is the job of this particular scene?’ What must I put in and what can I leave out?’ ‘How do I need to leave this scene in order to push the story along?’ Be tough, be exacting and be clear with both yourself as the writer and with your scenes.

4/ VISUALISE, VISUALISE, VISUALISE

I can not stress enough how important it is for the writer to visualise, to imagine, to literally paint with words both your characters and the world they populate. Television, film, are visual mediums and the vitality and impact of your story on the small or large screen is dependant on your skill as both wordsmiths and visual storytellers. A lot of writing pitfalls can be avoided if your visual imagination is strong. Try literally, to ‘see’ the scenes as you write them and in so doing, create an atmosphere or a feeling using a simple but effective description of a room, or lighting, weather, a colour, an item of furniture, a picture. Couple a strong visual imagination with a skill in writing real, grounded, credible dialogue and your script is virtually writing itself!

5/ ONLY CONNECT – MENTAL EDITING

This is a tough one but if you can do this, my guess is that you may have dallied a while in pitfall number 1 and grazed a knee in pitfall 2 but I think you will have skipped lightly over 3 and 4 with little effort. Again, I make the same point but as you are in the business of writing in a visual medium, it is essential that you try and visualise how each separate component of your story, (in scenes) will cut together, and once positioned, how it will look, how the story will hang together and what the overall style and tone of your script will be.  Doing this will ensure you do not fall into another trap (perhaps on a sub-headed list of essential do’s and don’ts!) of allowing yourself too many jumpcuts within the narrative. Where a character literally seems to leap from one set/location to another as if they have jumped time between scenes. When cut together, unless these jumpcuts are explained in the visualisation of the scene, the script will both read and look disjointed. Try and keep in your head as you write, the pace, the tone and the style of your narrative.  The placing of your scenes along your narrative through line is very important. Scenes do not necessarily have to follow a linear pattern of storytelling and chosing to abutt one scene in particular with another can add atmsophere and story intrigue which you may not have actually scripted intentionally. Play with the narrative in your mental edit and in so doing, you will be controlling the pace of your story and where you want your audience to relax and where you want to up the pace.

That’s my TOP FIVE BASIC, ESSENTIAL SCRIPT DO’s AND DONT’s – I hope you find them useful – any feedback is always useful and look out for future DOs and DON’T lists from me@ http://www.SCRIPT ADVICE.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SECOND DRAFT EDIT

Welcome to the second instalment in the life of George, my fictitious enthusiastic writer, trying to make her way in the tricky world of television.

A Day In The Life Of George – Jobbing Writer

4.45pm – my flat SE London – Watching Deal or No Deal

Noel Edmunds knows how to milk his moment – he calls it ‘a crucial point in the game’ – we are ‘at 8 box’ and the middle-aged woman on screen is hyperventilating. She’s biting her bottom lip really, really hard. She strokes her lucky gonk, as the music swells beneath an unflattering close-up of ‘Jakki’ (why do game show contestants spell their names funny?) gurning away on National Television. Will number 22 box reveal £250,000 or 1p? Well, will it? I am on the edge of my seat now, don’t care if it’s tacky and television at its lowest common denominator – will Jakki be Deal Or No Deal’s second quarter of a millionaire?  The phone starts to ring – am caught in a vice-like grip of indecision – if I answer it I’ll miss out on watching Jakki either plummet into a penniless hell or instantaneously and without any effort, get very rich. If I don’t answer it I am giving in to the insidious toxin that is daytime television and something that all freelancers worth their salt know, should be avoided at all costs.  Also, I may miss out on a fab telly job or it could just be my mum – again. Noel’s saying some guff about Jakki being a brave contestant and how she’s given the Banker a run for his money – get on with it Noel! I grab the phone as Noel breaks the seal on box 22.

5.15pm – same place

It wasn’t my mum – it was Hope from Westenders – she’s the nicest Script Editor out of the lot but today sounded panicked and a bit pissed off. She tells me a complicated tale of why her script schedule has gone pear-shaped – I manage to catch something about Patty Faulkner (who plays Jessie in the soap) double booking a stint on a cruise-liner, a sorry tale about the main frame crashing and her producer’s smear test as the reasons for this upheaval. The upshot is that I have to come to Westenders Production Office first thing tomorrow for an emergency Script Edit on my second draft.

No Problem! I pipe enthusiastically while trying to swallow the huge lump that is currently crawling up my throat. The truth being (which I naturally don’t tell Hope) is that I haven’t written a word yet – having (I thought) 2 whole weeks to get it done.

Putting the phone down I catch a glimpse of Alan Tichmarsh on a garish sofa gushing away to a celebrity chef – bugger – Deal or No Deal has finished and now I’m wallowing in deadline hell and can’t even take solace in a complete stranger’s fate to boot.

2.00am – my flat – bedroom SE London

I am in bed but not asleep. I am drowning in a sea of paper, whole pages ripped and torn, ink stains from a handful of biros leaking into the pillow case (don’t know why, I like to write with a pen before I laptop my stuff) but at least it’s done; my second draft – in approximately 7 hours (allowing breaks for weeing and weeping) – not bad for a first timer and I am rather proud of the cliff-hanger I have come up with, whereby Stella (Laundromat assistant to the cruise-liner bound Jessie) and her secret lover Davey (on-screen husband of Jessie) get down to it during the spin cycle of his white wash. Done. Thank God. In my bedroom mirror a red-eyed alien stares back at me – whoever said television was a glamorous job was not a writer and did not work in television.

9.30am – Westenders Production Office – Hope’s Desk

I have a murky-looking coffee in a Styrofoam cup, I have blood-shot eyes, my mouth is totally without moisture and the coffee is sticking my tongue to the roof of my mouth. My script is no longer in one piece but approximately 5,000. Hope is ‘re-arranging’ my scenes – she says it’s not the dialogue that’s the problem – it’s the structure. She says it’s not the characterisation that’s at fault – it’s what the characters are saying (doesn’t that mean the dialogue’s no good?) Apparently not asserts Hope, it’s merely a matter of context – scene context – which is why she’s just ripped apart the best part of my third act, ruining in my view, the build up to the sex on the washing machine dénouement. But Hope is no longer listening to me. A Script Editor on a 4 x a week soap under pressure is a terrible sight to see and Hope is under more than most. I got here at 8.30am as requested and she has spent the last hour speed reading my episode so she can tear it apart to try and make sense of the pre-planned storyline centring almost entirely on Jessie and her brave fight to combat breast cancer, before Patty Faulkner who plays her, took herself off to sing ‘Memories’ around the Canaries. I really want to cry but Hope has just started so I do the decent thing and give her the floor.

1.30pm – Westenders – The Canteen

Well. Am I glad that’s over. The episode is now to length, it has characters in it that are available to play the scenes, it has 2 ad breaks and instead of a sexy dramatic cliff hanger, it has a comedy one, featuring Beckam, the laundromat’s Great Dane and his fatal attraction to the Pekinese from the pic ‘n mix next door.  But at least Hope is happy. Or I hope she is – the last I saw of her before I crawled to this over-lit, over-heated canteen for a bowl of something cheap but nourishing (I settled for just cheap) was her scurrying figure clutching my annotated second draft, with Jane H the scary PA trying to grab it out of her hands bleating about not having enough time to do a shooting schedule…I reckon if I get a wiggle on I’ll get back in time to catch Noel’s recap of yesterday’s episode of Deal Or No Deal and find out if Jakki got lucky or not….

Thanks for reading and WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT INSTALMENT OF GEORGE THE JOBBING WRITER, SOON TO APPEAR ON THIS BLOG!