FRIDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

NOT OF THIS WORLD!


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“The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written,” Joyce Carol Oates.

As screenwriters, we are the creators of worlds. We start with a blank page, and only using our imagination and 26 letters in various combinations, end up with a world and characters that an audience believes in for two hours. In the first 30 pages or so (Act One if you're a fan of Aristotle) we set up the rules of our world. We set the tone of the story, decide the level of "realism", introduce the important characters, introduce the central conflict, decide the basic locations, tell the audience what the genre will be, and set up any other information that will be important during the remaining two thirds to three quarters of the script. We create our world...

But then, we have to live in it. Once that world is created, it's "real" and the rest of our script must take place within the reality we've established. What is true on page 30 is also true on page 70. If we paint ourselves into a corner on page 53, we can't have the world we've created suddenly change in order to solve the problem... we must find a solution within that world we've created. If your hero is unarmed and cornered by the villain, you can't just have a gun materialize in his hand by magic (unless you've previously established that your hero is a warlock-cop). This can't be the one day your hero decided to wear his bullet proof vest - he either wears it all the time or not at all. Your hero can't suddenly become Superman, or dematerialize, or have a secret hidden gun that he seemed to forget about for a 10 page fight scene but suddenly remembers now that he's cornered and about to die. You have to use what you have previously established.

Whatever happens at the end is something that you have set up at the beginning. The world can’t suddenly change, the reality that you have established can’t suddenly change. Anything that is true at the end of your story is also true at the beginning of your story. Whatever happens in Act Three is something that has been set up in Act One. So you can’t really write your first sentence until you have figured out that final sentence...

Even “pantsers” who don’t outline usually know the ending of their stories, and every scene and line of dialogue and bit of action is always leading towards that ending. Those who are “headlight writers” (they only know as far in the story as they can see in their headlights) are stuck on the road that they are driving down, and can’t start in New York and end up in Hawaii - there are no roads that go there. They tend to build on the past to create the future of their stories. Both types of writers may not know their ending, but they are still heading towards it with every word... and not doing anything crazy that breaks the rules of the world that they have created.


WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

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But what is "reality"? Let's say you have a romantic triangle - your protagonist has to decide between a wealthy, handsome but unromantic man and a broke ugly guy who is the ultimate romantic. She spends the whole script trying to decide which man she likes best - and finally decides on a wealthy & handsome guy... but can't bring herself to tell the broke ugly guy they have no future together. He’s a nice guy, and she doesn’t want to ber the one who breaks his heart. This is her big decision, the big dramatic moment in the story... the whole story - from the beginning - has been headed towards this decision and the scene where she breaks up with one of these two guys. And now, on page 86, she has made her decision and goes to break this man’s heart... But on page 87, an old TelStar satellite from the 1960s falls out of orbit and kills the ugly guy as he waits to cross the street. Problem solved! She no longer has to break his heart, because that Telstar satellite did it for her.

You may argue that there really are TelStar satellites, and they really do fall out of orbit every once in a while, and if one fell in a populated area it might kill somebody. So this is a legitimate way to resolve your problem, right?

Wrong. It's not part of the "reality" you have created for this particular script.

Though you don't need to introduce every single detail of "your world" in the first 30 pages - your characters might hop a plane on page 67, but that doesn't mean you need to show an airplane in the first 30 pages or explain the theory of flight. But anything *unusual* that does directly impact the story needs to be set up in those first 30 or so pages. Being killed by a satellite that falls out of orbit is unusual... and not really part of the world you've created in this romantic triangle story.


OUT OF LEFT FIELD

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The first time I was on the jury for the Raindance Film Festival in London back in 2002, one of the films in competition was A MA SOEUR! (THE FAT GIRL) written and directed by Catherine Breillat. It's the candid story sibling jealousy and friendship between a beautiful 15 year old girl and her pudgy 13 year old sister. It’s a very personal and emotional story, and was one of the best films that I saw that year... until the ending.

Their parents takes them to a beach resort on vacation, where they talk of love and sex and loneliness. All of the elements of those difficult years between childhood and adulthood. This is the summer that will change their lives. The 15 year old meets an attractive older Italian boy, who seduces her in one of the most realistic scenes ever put on film. He’s pretty obviously just after sex, but the older sister is caught up in the romance of the moment. They have sex in the girls’ room, with the pudgy younger sister watching... jealous and alone. All of the sibling rivalry between the two sisters escalates as one becomes a woman and the other is left behind. The pudgy girl resents her beautiful sister - it isn’t fair that boys flock to her sister and completely ignore her. It isn’t fair that no matter how much she tries to be attractive, it never quite works... but her sister can do nothing at all and all of the boys flock to her. The sisters, who must share the same room for this holiday, grow further and further apart as time goes on. You want the older sister to console her, assure her that in time she will blossom. And the younger sister to realize that the older sister isn’t doing any of this out of spite or competition - that this is a big moment in her life and the younger sister should be happy for her. You hope that they will once again be giggling about boys together.

So, as a boy who was pudgy who had friends who were attractive to women when I was not, I completely understood this movie. But after 90 minutes of this coming of age sibling rivalry filled with raw emotions that were so real I was almost brought to tears, there is a sudden, shocking end.... that comes completely out of left field!

And it ruined the whole film that came before it. At least, for me.

A character is introduced in the last 3 minutes that directly impacts the story - a character who doesn't fit this story or genre at all! Not set up at all. Not of this world.


SPOILER

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As they return from the holiday, the tension between the two sisters having escalated to the breaking point, just when you know there will be that big scene between the girls where they hash out the problems between them and either become sisters again or forever are alienated from each other... One is a “happy” ending and one is not. Nothing requires that a story have a happy ending. The girls might be forever alienated from each other - I know plenty of people who are estranged from a family member for the rest of their lives. There’s no reason why a pair of teen sisters shouldn’t be estranged for the rest of their lives after and event like this. It’s a realistic resolution to the problem, and I would have been happy if that’s what have happened after they had their big emotional scene. But maybe they could split the difference and be estranged now but decide to put aside their differences as older women in some scene that takes place thirty years in the future.

But instead of any of those resolutions, a crazed killed murders them. This crazed killer was never set up in Act One - not even on some hacky news bulletin about his escape from an asylum or anything. There was no crazed killer possible in the story up until this ending. It still wouldn’t have worked with the hacky news bulletin - he still doesn’t belong in this story of the two sisters, in the world created so far - but at least it would have been something. It would have been poorly set up, but at least set up. But nope. He just shows up out of nowhere and kills everybody, the end.

I hated the movie.

I loved it right up until that ending, and then I hated it.

Instead if a resolution - happy or sad - we got this deus ex machina excuse that avoided any actual emotions and drama. A complete “cop out”. Instead of getting into the difficult emotions required by the conflict that has been simmering throughout the story, we get this excuse for an ending that resolves nothing.

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It's almost as if Breillat didn't know how to end this realistic emotional story, so she dropped in this shocking violent end from some other story - some other world. It's completely out of place - and a "cop out"! Instead of finding a solution within the world she created, she found an easy out. An end that doesn't fit the story that came before it. The story had been heading towards some sort of confrontation between the two sisters, that is where the conflict was and that is where the resolution needs to be. That resolution would have been emotionally difficult to write, and maybe that’s why she came up with this last minute excuse to end the story. One of the problems with personal emotional stories is that they are often too close to use - so we might be writing what we know, but it becomes too personal, too painful... and we want to avoid telling the story through some left field device like this killer. Instead of being honest, the story becomes extremely dishonest - a downright lie. It ruined the film for me.

There’s a theory that Breillat did all of this on purpose - that the film was meant to seduce us and then dump us, the way the Italian boy dumps the older sister after he gets what he wants... but even that could have been set up. And wasn’t. I suspect this theory is from someone like me, who loved this film right up until the end... and then tried to find some to make sense out of the nonsense ending. That same seduce and dump ending could have been done within the world created. But wasn’t.

Remember that every scene from the beginning of your story is leading to that ending. Every line of dialogue is leading to that ending. Every bit of action is leading to that ending. So that once we reach that ending, even if it is a twist ending like in THE SIXTH SENSE, it makes complete sense within the world of the story. Hey, Malcolm has a new kid patient who claims he can see dead people... and the twist ending is that the kid can see Malcolm and Malcolm is dead. We’ve been heading there since page 7 of the screenplay. When you watch that film again, you notice how all of these scenes are really about Malcolm being dead. The ending was completely part of the world of the story - there all along.

When you create the world of your story, you must find resolutions to the conflicts from within the realities of that world. Making up something at the end that conveniently resolves the problem (but hasn't been set up and isn't an organic part of the world you've created) is just lazy writing. Deus Ex Machina endings (or even Axe Murder Ex Machina endings) are bad writing, whether you're a famous French writer-director or a new screenwriter from Canton, Ohio. You create the "rules" of your world - you have to live with them!


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hcd

FINAL DRAFT SOFTWARE

Use your creative energy to focus on the content; let Final Draft take care of the style. Final Draft is the number-one selling application specifically designed for writing movie scripts, television episodics and stage plays. Its ease-of-use and time-saving features have attracted writers for almost two decades positioning Final Draft as the Professional Screenwriters Choice. Final Draft power users include Academy, Emmy and BAFTA award winning writers like Oliver Stone, Tom Hanks, Alan Ball, J.J. Abrams, James Cameron and more. * * * Buy It!

copyright 2020 by William C. Martell


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E BOOKS PAGE

bluebook E BOOKS: New Blue Books and Novelettes!
I am expanding all of the Blue Books from around 44 pages of text to around 200 pages! Some are over 250 pages! See what is availabale and what is coming soon!Also, I've been writing Novelletes and there will soon be novels.
E BOOKS: BLUE BOOKS & NOVELLETES

ONLINE CLASSES
Furious Action Class
MY OTHER SITES

B MOVIE WORLD
Cult Films, Exploitation, Bikers & Women In Prison, Monster Movies.

FIRST STRIKE PRODUCTIONS
Producing my own scripts, investment possibilities, pipe dreams.

NAKED SCREENWRITING MP3s

Naked Class The NAKED SCREENWRITING CLASS ON MP3! The 2001 London Class on 8 MP3s! Recorded *live* the morning after the Raindance Film Festival wrapped. The two day class on 8MP3s, plus a workbook, plus a bonus MP3 with PDFs.
The 2 Day Class on MP3!

BOOKSTORE

Every screenwriting book in the world!
SCREENWRITER'S BOOKSTORE
In Association With Amazon.com
From the latest screenwriting book to guides for finding agents and producers... all with at the Amazon.com discount!

BOOKLETS & PRODUCTS

bluebook FIRST STRIKE BLUE BOOKS
Each Blue Book is 48 pages and focuses on a different aspect of screenwriting. Dialogue. Visual Storytelling. Your First Ten Pages. Act 2 Booster. Protagonists. Great Endings.
Seventeen Blue Books now available!

THE SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING The Best Nuts & Bolts Screenwriting Book On The Market!

BILL'S CORNER

My nineteen produced films, interviews with me in magazines, several sample scripts, my available scripts list... And MORE!
...............................BILL'S CORNER


Available Scripts

CLASSES ON MP3

Class MP3s CLASSES ON MP3! Take a class on MP3! GUERRILLA MARKETING - NO AGENT? NO PROBLEM! and WRITING THRILLERS (2 Full length classes on MP3). Now Available: IDEAS & CREATIVITY, WRITING HORROR, WRITING INDIE FILMS, more!
Take classes on MP3!