WHY FORMAT?

Part One | Part Two

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Also, be daunted. Be quaking in your boots. Be paralysed. Be stricken. Because formatting is difficult, right? Right. Formatting’s terrifying. Imperative. Mandatory. Obligatory.

Except it isn’t. In truth, formatting is a bit of a red herring, a test that sorts the wheat from the chaff. Those who pass know formatting is irrelevant. Well, almost. Certainly it’s irrelevant in the beginning stages. That’s because writing a screenplay is nothing more than writing a story. Sure, there’s some structural niceties and, at some point, the story will have to be understood by studio bean-counters. But in the first place there’s no need for formatting at all, least not till you’re ready for sale. So relax, stuff formatting, and start fretting about page count.

Ah, page count. The iron fist of the studio process. Page count is all-important because of a cherished industry iROT (iROT = idiotic Rule Of Thumb):

1 page = 1 minute running time = $250,000 upwards

Now that the Frenzy is over we asked Ron and Steve–who sometimes work as writers–for advice on making the leap from young scribe to master. Take it away, boys!

So we have roughly 500 words to write something to transform brand-new scribes into screenplay-scrawling masters. A bit of a challenge perhaps, but we can do it. After all, our 500-word article on piano playing (excerpt: “Place your fingers over the black and white things and press them musically”) was a tremendous success.

As writing is very easy, it may be most convenient to offer a comprehensive list of things NOT to do when sitting behind the keyboard.

Stephen NorringtonNoted auteur David Fincher once reportedly remarked that the Hollywood studio system's angle on creativity could be summed up thus: "It's great! Can you make it less great?" My experiences as a Hollywood writer/director certainly bear that out and my watchword for any writer hoping to get his or her screenplay produced is Tenacity. Or Determination. Grit. Make sure you have a very thick skin.

Here's how it goes down: you write a script. It's original, it's authentic. You get a bite. Why? Because your script is original and authentic. Then you get an agent and a meeting and the suits love your script because it's original and authentic. Then you make a deal. You sell your script for scale. You have another meeting. Now your script is too original and authentic. Someone high up in the corporation thinks it should be just a little... "safer."

Congratulations! You wrote 100 pages in 30 days. It's a great feat, but don't stop there. There is so much more to do!

We're here to help you get back on your writerly feet and take your script onward and upward!

1) Register

If you are planning on selling your script, sending it out to friends for feedback, or entering it in contests, it's a good idea to register it with the Writers Guild first. They have an extensive list of FAQs. This is a super-easy and not-too-expensive ($20.00) way to keep your ideas legally safe. It's definitely worth the effort to protect your newly written intellectual property.

We asked award-winning playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb for his tips on endings. Take it away, Peter!

I am the type of writer who usually begins a play not being exactly sure of the ending. That's part of the excitement for me of building a story: figuring out as I go along where the play needs to go. The discovery often has full structural ramifications, and I go backwards and forwards to further shape the play and its push towards the ending (which may or may not be conclusive. Let's just call it "the moment the audience is supposed to clap."). As an avid fan of the rewriting process, this "organic free love" ending-finding is a process that works well for me. Sometimes.

The particular moment when I've had the revelation of where my play may be ending has varied from project to project. It usually emerges somewhere around 1/2 to 2/3 of the way

We asked screenwriter, Lauren Miller, for her tips on writing a relatable romantic comedy. Take it away, Lauren!

Who doesn’t love to love a romantic comedy? No one, that’s who! But how often do you go to the theatre just dying to love the new girl-chases-guy, girl-loses-guy, guy-wins-back-girl movie and you leave the theatre just a little… well…not in love?

Unfortunately, I find that it happens a little more often than it doesn’t happen, and I thought of a few things that might make your romantic comedy the most lovable and relatable thing you’ve ever seen.

We asked Lisa Drostova, critic turned actor, her thoughts on great dialogue. Take it away, Lisa!

Write things that are exciting or powerful to say, things that make an actor hyperventilate with desire to speak your words out loud. Actors are sweet on writers who pay attention to this point. There are plays that get performed for years, decades, even centuries after they're written because actors want to do them . Not just because directors feel they're "important" or subscribers find them satisfying, but because actors agitate to get them staged. Hang around with actors for any length of time and you'll hear them delivering lines they love, even from plays they've never done. Last month I shared a dressing area with a woman who sings Gilbert and Sullivan's A Modern Major General between acts of a completely different show just because she loves lines like "I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes." Meanwhile out in the parking lot, other castmates were wandering around quoting each other's lines from shows

We asked award-winning director, Nathan Marshall, to break down the new rules of television writing. Take it away, Nathan!

Television writing used to be a pretty straight-forward affair. By the mid-1990s, the sitcom had reach the height of its form with shows like Seinfeld and Friends, and the hour-long drama had found an acceptable balance between soap opera plotlines and edgy camerawork in episodics such as ER and NYPD Blue. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Sitcoms used the decades-old double-line-space writing format, and dramas stuck to the tv/screenplay hybrid style that had been hammered out in the 1960s. It all made sense!

And then came HBO. Sure–we’d all wasted evenings watching the tired B-movie fare of the old Home Box Office. The movies you’d never rent at the video store were bound to show up on the afternoon schedule eventually, and there they’d play, over and over again, until bored viewers stood virtually no chance of

We asked screenwriter and story doctor, Jill Chamberlain, the secrets of great stories. Take it away, Jill!

If you find yourself blocked and can't figure out what to write next, the problem may lie not in the scene you're stuck on but in your story as a whole.

Take a look at these three secrets of great storytelling, and see if they help you reimagine your story in a fresh light. With a few tweaks, you can usually manipulate your tale to work within these three frameworks. Then, your story should be rock solid, and hopefully you'll never find yourself at a loss for words again

1. Every story is a version of "be careful what you wish for."

At the beginning of a screenplay, usually within the first 10 pages, the protagonist is introduced, and we find out what the protagonist wants.

Here at the middle of Script Frenzy 2008, we asked screenwriter and producer, Blake Snyder, for his advice on conquering the middle of any story. Take it away, Blake!

In both my Save The Cat! books and also the Save the Cat! Story Structure software, I have stressed the vital importance of figuring out what the midpoint of a screenplay is. I like to say that if you can crack the midpoint, you can crack the story. And it may not be until you do that you truly know what your story is really about!

To me, the day I discovered there is a secret to what happens at the midpoint in EVERY story, I was rocketed into a whole new dimension in my abilities as a writer.

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