I'm sorry, Kelly; I fell asleep during your question. Probably out of
boredom. It is a killer, isn't it? Just the word, itself:
"boredom." It can even take a long time to pronounce:
Boreeeeeeeeeedom. Sorry, I just fell asleep while pronouncing
"boredom." Maybe I got into writing and eventually studying and
assisting with screenplays because of my father. Whenever he'd start
watching a movie, almost inevitably, within the first few minutes of its
beginning, he'd designate it as a "piece of cheese." Now, I, as
a child, even though I understood generally that this meant there was a problem
with the movie I was watching, I never quite figured out what cheese had to do
with a film not being good. And causing me even more confusion was the
fact that I often saw my dad slicing into big chunks of Swiss and cheddar (both
mild and sharp) and actually having snacks consisting of only one item:
cheese. So, even though there seemed to be a contradiction regarding my
father's relationship with this diary product, I still somehow understood that a
movie that was a piece of cheese was not going to be a very good one (according
to my father, that is).
I think I would have had gone through a lot less confusion if my father had
simply said, "This movie is boring." That's what he meant.
He couldn't stand a boring film. His answer to a boring film was extremely
ingenious: He'd fall asleep. It didn't matter what the film was
about or how intense the action was at a given time. If my father found it
boring, he'd fall asleep. Or walk away from the television set, go into
the kitchen, and cut himself a nice slab of cheese.
So, Kelly, getting down to the basics and keeping with the dairy allusion
(and not "dairy illusion" because that would be like spectral
or evaporating milk -- which would definitely add to the confusion),
essentially, you want to write a screenplay that is not a piece of cheese (or a
"cheeseless" one). How does one go about writing a script
that keeps the audience's interest? I could throw out words like Intrigue,
compel, enthrall, entrance, stimulate, grab, hypnotize, captivate, etc.,
(although, "etcetera" -- "etc." -- isn't one of the words),
but those are only words. How does one create moments in screenplays that
create these attributes? (You didn't ask me that one.) One way of
looking at this is to think of guiding the mental and emotional world of your
viewers, taking them along on your unique, ever-altering, surprising,
sometimes-shocking, suspense-filled, twisting, tone-shifting, location-
transitioning, and anything-else-you-can-think-of-changing route and releasing
them at an emotionally-satisfying (or satisfyingly-disturbing)
destination. Be our Yoga instructor and stretch us (or somebody working
for the Spanish Inquisition); be an erotic dancer and tease us; be a cabbie and
drive us crazy; be a psychiatrist and restore our sanity (but not all of it),
and flip us upside down on a trapeze and make us wonder if the
flies-through-the-air trapeze artist on the other trapeze will be there in time
to (with the greatest of ease) to catch us (and you make us consider the
possibility that there may be no net below). How do you do that? (there's
that question again. This is getting boring.) And it's not an easy
question to answer unless you answer it for yourself. And you answer it
for yourself because:
you write for yourself
In other words, you
are your own yoga instructor, erotic dancer, cabbie,
psychiatrist and trapeze artist. You
must take yourself on that unique, ever-altering, surprising, sometimes-sho
-- (you get the picture). Take out all the stops, let yourself go
where no viewer has gone before. Write something that will knock yourself
out of your computer chair. Tear your emotions out of you (but don't
forget to put them back). Manifest a twist that surprises even you.
I'm not saying that this is always easy to
do. Good writing takes hard work. But it's always worth the
effort. And don't forget to reward yourself. And take a lot of
breaks. Take walks. Fix yourself a good meal.
And get yourself a nice piece of cheese.
DcH
