HOW TO PLEASE A SCREENPLAY READER: Proust or Hemingway--what goes into a narrative paragraph

My topic de jour is what exactly goes into a narrative paragraph. The answer actually resembles two phrases you may have encountered somewhere along the way. A story is made up of a beginning, middle and end. A person is born, lives and dies.

Both statements are deeply profound and incredibly insightful. The first one tells you everything you need to know about how to structure a story. The second tells you everything you need to know about the meaning of life.

At the same time, both statements tell you nothing at all. The first doesn’t tell you what goes into a beginning, middle or end, or how to use them to achieve your goal. The second doesn’t really tell you anything about how to live your life and falls short of explaining what the “meaning of” even means.

It’s the same for what goes into a narrative paragraph. The answer is that it is the least number of words necessary to introduce a character; establish a setting; or further a plot. Nothing more, nothing less.

I will eventually be getting into particulars of how to do all three, but right now, I want to continue in generalities.

The two main errors I see in how screenplay narrative is written (and as I said in my first column, I do believe it’s getting worse and worse) is first, overwritten narrative, especially those with a literary bent, and second, narrative that is storyboarded or written from a director’s viewpoint. I’ll deal first with overwritten narrative, saving the second for my next column.

Overwriters are those who approach their narrative like it’s a novel. They fill it with details and minutia , ideas and commentary, figures of speech and literary flourishes, all of which would be a joy to someone reading a book (it’s actually one of the joys of reading literature), but are a nightmare to someone reading a screenplay.

For example:

EXT. GARDEN DAY

Henrietta stands like a soldier in front of her easel as if ready to do battle. Then she suddenly drops her shoulders, relaxing into the excitement of what is to come.

She delicately grasps a brush and playfully twirls it in a glass of water, as if her artistic weapon were a ballerina. She thinks a moment, then carefully dips the brush in a reddish color that explodes off the palette.

She knits her brow as she deconstructs a vibrant red rose that almost seems to be blushing. Then she takes the brush and with delicate strokes, she applies color to canvass almost as if she is entering a trance.

In a way, I’m exaggerating. In a way, I’m not. I’ve actually gotten a few screenplays run riot with that much detail (the one above is a recreation of a page that actually went on for quite a few more paragraphs before the whole scene was over). Unfortunately, I had to inform the author that all she needed, believe it or not, was:

Henrietta stands in her garden painting a rose.

That’s it. End of story. That’s all she wrote, or should have.

At the same time, you’re right. I don’t get a screenplay that detailed very often (though more often than I or anyone should). However, it is not unusual to get a screenplay that reads something like:

John gets in his car like a thief in the night. He puts on his seat belt and adjusts the mirror. He starts the car. He listens attentively to a talk show on the radio for half a minute, trying to figure out if he wants to keep listening to it. He looks over his shoulder and pulls out of the driveway, calmly driving down the street.

When all that is needed:

John gets in his car and drives away.

I’m not sure why writers want to do this. For many it’s simply not knowing any better (the only acceptable excuse, though after reading this column, you can‘t use it anymore).

For many, I think they believe this is the way to create a visual image (it actually does the opposite as I‘ll go into in a future column).

For many, they think this is the way they can control what is shown on the screen and how it is shown (it won’t; first it has to get past a reader and this kind of overwriting will probably prompt a keeper of the gate to tell his boss that the screenplay is a slog to get through and moves at a snail’s pace; secondly, the director will just ignore all the details and storyboard the screenplay the way he feels he needs to in order to create his artistic vision).

One rider said he wrote in such detail in order to create a mood. I didn’t tell him, though I was tempted to, that the only mood he was creating was boredom. (Mood is not created through the literary details of narrative, but through action, character, setting and maybe, just maybe, every long once in awhile, a very carefully placed adjective or two--preferably no more than one if any at all).

I still have much to say here as I delve into such things as how to introduce a character and how to establish a setting. But first I want to deal with the idea of writers who storyboard a screenplay with their narrative.

In conclusion, I am going to make one last comment. When choosing a style for writing narrative, do not chose Proust or Faulkner as your literary model. They are two of the greatest writers that ever lived, and I relish their books. But if you write like them in a screenplay, it’s deadly.

Instead, take as your model Ernest Hemingway, especially the short story Ernest Hemingway. Simple, short, finely honed to the point declarative sentences with little to no literary flourishes.

Actually, there are times when I wish people would copy the style of their first grade reader: See Dick. See Dick run. See Jane. See Jane run. See Dick and Jane run. But Hemingway will more than suffice.

NEXT COLUMN: KNOW YOUR PLACE

HOW TO PLEASE A SCREENPLAY READER: Does Size Matter--how long should narrative paragraphs be

Another issue that comes up when I’m reading scripts is the length of narrative paragraphs. Sometimes it seems to me that writers either don’t know or just don’t care or think it’s irrelevant what the length of paragraphs should be. But I suggest that by not caring, it is so easy to create a screenplay that a reader has to slog through rather than breeze through. And believe me, I’ve done more than my fair share of slogging in my time.

One way to deslog one’s script is to find user friendly lengths to the paragraphs. Most writers tell me they are taught, or read in books, that narrative paragraphs should be no more than 3 ½ to 4 lines each. However, I wish to support a more reader friendly length. Narrative paragraphs should be no more than 2 ½ lines each. The exception here would be for action scenes, which I suggest be no more than 1 ½ lines each (a column on action scenes, on which I sometimes feel my opinion to be a lone voice in the wilderness, will be covered in a future column).

My preference for 2 ½ line paragraphs (or less) is not based on anything but experience; I can‘t point to anything empirical here, just a feeling based on reading script after script for years. It’s not unusual at my peak period to read four to five a day (not that unusual for people who read for a living). And based on this, I have found that paragraphs of 2 ½ lines each are easier to read than 3 ½ or longer. And there are times when even less than this is better.

Also, having a paragraph line that ends halfway through or sooner (and no more than 2/3rds of the way through) is psychologically easier to read than a paragraph in which the last line reaches the end of the margin. It’s the same thing as something costing 99 cents coming across as way cheaper that something costing a dollar on the dot.

In addition, the number of paragraphs you have in a row or in a scene is also a pertinent factor. There is little that is more dispiriting than for a reader to turn a page and see four or more paragraphs of 3 ½ lines or longer in a row. A reader’s usual reaction here is to sigh heavily, roll their eyes, then gird their loins and start on a painful journey through a mire of slogginess.

It is thus suggested that the more paragraphs you have in a row, the shorter the paragraphs should be. It is also suggested that if you have three or more paragraphs that you vary the length, say make one 2 ½, the next 1, the next 2 lines, etc. In addition,
my experience has been that if a writer has three or more paragraphs of 3 ½ lines each, most likely the paragraphs are overly written, filled with unnecessary details, and need to be ruthlessly edited.

This is where the concept of “white space” comes in. In the end, what the author is trying to achieve with his screenplay is having as much “white space” as possible, i.e. to have more white space than words.

The easiest way to check this out is to pull up a number of pages at a time and look at them (they don’t even have to be readable here; all you need to be able to do is to see at a glance how much white space there is). I agree that this sounds arbitrary; and it is, in a way. Shouldn’t the number of words parallel what Mozart said to the Archduke when the Archduke commented that there were two many notes in an opera Mozart had written--paraphrasing, Amadeus replied, only the exact number that is needed, no more and no less?

At the same time, the more I read scripts, the more the idea of white space does seem to correspond to a screenplay that is easy breezy to read. The less white space there is, the more likely again that the narrative is being overwritten. The more white space there is, the more likely that you will have the exact number of words you need, no less and certainly no more.

There are methods one can use to help with tightening paragraphs to within an inch of their lives, thus keeping paragraphs at a user friendly length and adding to the amount of white space. But first, I want to talk about what actually goes into narrative and what doesn‘t, which is the subject of my…

NEXT COLUMN: PROUST OR HEMINGWAY

HOW TO PLEASE A SCREENPLAY READER

In Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy opens his novel with the line “[a]ll happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. I’ve just finished reading for several screenplay competitions for the year, and Tolstoy’s observation can also be applied to screenplays, though in a vice versa manner: all good screenplays are good in their own way, but all mediocre to badly written screenplays resemble one another.

So I thought I would start a series of articles based on what are for me the most common errors I have run across in my years as a reader and script consultant, not just for contests, but for a production company as well as with my personal clients.

There was one area that was particularly frustrating this year, an area that seems to have actually been getting worse every time competition time comes around (if I had hair, I wouldn’t, because I would have torn it all out by now). For some reason, screenwriters often have little to no idea how to write effective narrative and formatting. In fact, I got so frustrated that at one point I publicly growled on my facebook page wondering whether writers were even being taught how to write narrative well, desperately wishing that someone, somewhere would devote a course to nothing but this topic.

First it should be noted what I mean by effective narrative and formatting. It’s not, as some people think, following a set of rules that if not followed, will automatically get an author a failing grade from a reader or production company or agency. The main reason to strive for effective narrative and formatting it to make the screenplay easy to read and understand; make the plot easy to follow; and make the characters come alive.

I even had to respond to a contestant who said that a professional script doctor was telling him to do things differently than I was and was curious which set of rules were correct. My response was that the screenwriter was approaching the idea of narrative/formatting from the wrong perspective. It’s not a matter of rules that have to be followed. It’s a matter of creating a use friendly screenplay that will be entertaining and exciting to read.

Usually there are two reasons writers give for why they write narrative and formatting the way they do (other than pure ignorance--writers who really have no idea). The first reason is that a book or teacher told them to. The second is that they read a script in which the writer did the same thing.

For example, one issue that continually pops up is writers who fully capitalize sounds and other objects the author wants to emphasize.

My suggestion is that it is more effective to only fully capitalize the names of characters when they first appear. The reason for this is that fully capitalized words are distracting to the eyes and can therefore interrupt the flow of the reading. In addition, fully capitalized words can throw off the rhythm of the lines, making me emphasize the capitalized word in the sentence rather than retain the natural rhythm of the sentence (“John throws the grenade” and “John throws the GRENADE” read very differently in the head).

When I ask a writer why he wants to capitalize these words, he often says that a book told him to. When I ask him why the book said to do it, he often says that the book said it was a rule. I suggest that that is usually an insufficient reason for doing something.

The only reason that ever made any sense to me in regard to capitalizing like this is that the writer wants to emphasize something for the director so that the director knows how to visually shoot the movie (in other words, the author is storyboarding the movie). But this is not the author’s job, it is the director’s. And the director isn’t going to care what you want to emphasize visually. They are going to storyboard the screenplay and shoot it the way they want to.

The second reason is that the author read a screenplay (one that has been made and/or lauded) and that that writer did something not normally done and therefore the screenwriter should be able to do it, too. Again, that’s not a reason to do something since you don’t know why this particular screenwriter did what he did.

Also, screenplays at different levels of development look different. Shooting scripts can look very different from spec scripts because there is often a lot of detail that has been contributed along the way, details that the director and producer asked the screenwriter to include. Also, sometimes these screenwriters are directors and include details for their own purposes. And sometimes these screenwriters have reached a level where they can do whatever the hell they want. Also, screenplays written for Hollywood studios do sometimes look different from spec scripts written for independent producers.

But in the end, I’m not here to tell you what you can get away with, like these writers have done. You can get away with anything. I’m here to suggest what is best for the screenplay and what makes it easier to read and understand, what works best for the screenplay. You can do anything you want and it’s possible that you might get the script bought. My purpose here is to make your screenplay more readable and more appealing to production companies, contests and others.

Next: length of narrative paragraphs.

THINGS THAT PISS SCREENPLAY READERS OFF, 3/1/09

Since I am doing coverage for various screenplay/teleplay competitions as well as production companies, I thought I would use this time to write down, on occasion, my reflections and talk about issues I run across as I read the myriads and myriads of submissions. Forgive me if the pomposity bleeds through every once in awhile, but I have to put something on this blog and pomposity has never stopped me from giving my opinion in the past.

There may not seem to be any rhyme or reason to the thoughts I put down; often something will just occur to me or I’ll run across something in a script that makes me break out in hives. I will often talk generally about a topic. There will also be departments of reoccurring comments (like do or don’t do this in a narrative; know your terms; etc.). But there will definitely be one constant theme: things that PISS US OFF (and by “us”, I mean readers and providers of coverage). And believe me, there is one thing you don’t want to do to a reader and that is PISS HIM OR HER OFF. And yes, we readers talk about these things when we get together, sometimes laughing as viciously as the popular high school students do when they make comments about the uncool kids.

I thought I would start with what is probably the most boring, yet still incredibly important, in many cases the most important, issue in writing screenplays: narrative and what is industry standard.

This is perhaps the most difficult issue to raise because, based on my private consultations with writers as well as discussion in writing groups, it is the main topic most writers simply don’t want to, or can’t accept, as being important. In fact, whenever I bring it up, you can always see that raise of the eyebrow and impatient smirk the author pretends he hopes is not noticed, but at the same time definitely wants me to have seen (it’s the same look English teachers get when teaching grammar). People simply refuse to believe that well written narrative is important and that badly written narrative can make or break a script.

What’s doubly annoying here is that industry standard narrative has nothing to do with one’s ability as a writer; it has little to do with whether one is any good or not. And on top of it, it is the easiest thing to fix or get right, so easy, that it makes me want to slap that smirking eyebrow off a writer’s face the minute it goes up like a theater curtain. It’s not unusual for a writer to take it all so personally. They act as if you’re Simon Callow on American Idol and they’ve been told that they have no chance of ever making it in the movies when all he’s really telling you is that your mike isn’t turned on; yeah, you look like an idiot, but it doesn’t make you a bad singer.

And actually I understand. Believe me, I do. Before I started doing coverage and script consultation, I also would semi-secretly ridicule any feedback on narrative. But once I started reading script after script, I discovered that industry standard narrative as well as properly punctuated and grammatically correct prose was not just the arbitrary rules of a group of old guys strutting their testosterone; it actually made a script much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much easier to read and follow (much). And believe me when I say on behalf of my tribe, the last thing you want is to give us a script that is hard to read or follow. It’s annoying, frustrating and frankly, it PISSES US OFF.

So to start, here are the first of an occasional listing of do’s and don’ts for narrative. Please keep in mind that occasionally breaking the rules or simply making a mistake is not going to piss us off. And there’s always the possibility that a great script will shine through (if you really want to take that chance). But a constant breaking of these rules will definitely PISS US OFF:

1. Narrative paragraphs should never be more than 2 to 3 lines long. Narrative paragraphs in actions sequences should be even shorter. Any longer than this, especially if you have several narrative paragraphs in a row, is hard to read. And hard to read narrative PISSES US OFF.

2. Narrative paragraphs should be to the point, describing action, keeping description to a minimum. They should not be literary or metaphorical (not “the horns start beeping like a flock of geese”, but “all the cars horns start beeping”). The reason for this is that if you don’t get that absolutely perfect metaphor or simile, then we as readers will have to stop and think, now just what did he mean by that clever turn of phrase? You never, never, never, never, never want the reader to have to stop and figure out what something means. I know, I know. Your literary turn of phrase is so brilliant that everyone will instantly understand what you’re talking about. Don’t kid yourself, kid. What you’re really doing is PISSING US OFF, royally. If you have to use a literary model for your narrative paragraphs, don’t look to Faulkner or Proust, look to Hemingway.

More of what PISSES US OFF to come.