MONDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
PLANNED UNPREDICTABILITY
I outline to PREVENT my script from being predictable. I find that if I just write the first thing that comes into my head I'd be writing the obvious.
My outlining method is weird - I don't use 3x5 cards or anything like that. I start by coming up with a "slag-menu": every idea for a scene I can come up with for the script. Bad ideas, good ideas, great ideas. Every scene that's required to tell the story. Then I look at those ideas, and try to mine the better ideas below the surface... to find a weird spin on a scene.
In VIRTUAL COMBAT I had the cliche scene where the lead cop has to tell his partner's wife that he's dead. I thought: What if she's ENRAGED? What if her sadness turns to anger directed at the lead cop? What if she blames him for the partner's death? What if she beats the hell out of him? I'd never seen that before... yet it seemed very true to character. That wasn't the first scene idea I came up with... it was one I had to dig for.
All of these scenes will move the story forward, reflect the theme, and explore the character. You don't come up with scenes like that off the top of your head - you have to THINK about what scene tells the story best.
I construct my outline from the best scene ideas. I read somewhere that the average script has 45-60 scenes, and I'm usually in that ballpark.
This is where Structure Is Everything, and I make sure the skeleton is strong enough to support the scenes. Also, I make sure that each scene leads logically to the next. That the best scenes are saved for last. You don't want the big emotional moment to happen five minutes into the movie! You want to BUILD to the big emotional scenes.
Here, in the outline, I also design my plot twists, reversals, rugpulls... I figure out the false trails characters will take... the mistakes they make. These are the things that make the PLOT unpredictable.
A good plot is like a Chinese box puzzle - every time you figure out how to open the box, you find ANOTHER box inside. We reveal new things as we peel back the layers... getting closer to the core.
I PLAN the unpredictability. I have a mystery script called THE KILLING ANGLE that is filled with plot twists. Characters believe things that are later proven false.... causing them to get deeper into trouble. I have to know what the twist on page 87 is going to be BEFORE I start writing the script. That twist is a truth, and if it's the truth on page 87 it's the truth on page 1. I have to know ALL of my plot twists ahead of time, and keep them true on every page on the script. That takes planning!
Once I have all of my scenes 'in order' I write the script. But I often will outline each SCENE before I write it. Again, I'm trying to find the unusual way to do something. Find the cool details that make the scene work. I wrote a fight scene in a moving car, once, and catalogued all of the things you could use as weapons - cigarette lighter, seat belt, etc. The details made that fight exciting and unusual... I couldn't just write it - I had to think about it THEN write it. It's two creative steps rather than one... resulting in even MORE creativity on the page.
Without an outline you end up writing the first thing that pops into your head... and that's usually the most obvious and predictable thing.
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