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What is the Time Frame of Your Screenplay?

Filed under: Dan Bronzite's Script Tips by Dan @ 2:45 pm on December 26, 2011

When you first get the idea for a story it will probably focus around an interesting character, event, act three plot twist, high concept or thrilling action sequence, but one thing we do not normally consider at the start of the creative writing process is the time frame of the piece. Is your story set in a single day?  During the course of a week?  A month? Or even over several years?  The time frame you choose will have a significant impact on how you tell your story and the pacing of the narrative.

Clarifying the timeline of your story right from the start will save you a great deal of time and effort in rewrites further down the road when you ultimately discover that you have either tried to squeeze too much information into your script or conversely need more scenes to pad it out.  But even if we put the technicalities of the time frame aside, choosing a time frame to suit the genre or story can actually enhance the drama.

Think of a film like John Badham’s Nick of Time in which Johnny Depp has only ninety minutes to save his six-year-old daughter.  And then there’s the excellent TV series 24 which not only uses the time frame of a single day to heighten the tension and suspense but also as a stylistic device by presenting multiple events that are happening in various locations simultaneously through split-screen.

When you plan your script, consider what will be the best time frame for your story.  There’s nothing wrong with having a drama take place over many years.  This will of course slow the overall pacing of the piece but that may be appropriate to your story choice and help an audience identify with your characters as they develop.  However, would the same time frame work for an action movie?  It may, so long as you have given it some thought at the start, understand the possible obstacles your chosen time frame may introduce and create some innovative solutions to these hurdles.

Remember, there are no hard and fast rules and every story is different, principally because every screenwriter has their own voice.  This is what makes screenwriting so interesting.  Just be aware of how important time frame is to storytelling and how the wrong choice at the start could create a mountain of problems either for you as a writer or for an audience trying to engage with your tale.

Avoid Coincidence In Storytelling

Filed under: Dan Bronzite's Script Tips by Dan @ 2:41 pm on December 16, 2011

Constructing an original, entertaining and intelligent plot is hard work, but that should not mean you should settle for the easy option when writing a screenplay.  In fact, the opposite should apply.  If it’s difficult to come up with something original then push yourself as a screenwriter that much harder.  Force yourself to be innovative because if you do you will undoubtedly produce something much more engaging and satisfying for an audience in the process.

Many writers of fiction, especially crime fiction, use a MacGuffin in complicated plots to drive a story forward, and Alfred Hitchcock (who coined the term) was one of them.  The whole point of the MacGuffin is that it is irrelevant. As Hitchcock himself explained, the MacGuffin is: “the device, the gimmick, if you will, or the papers the spies are after… The only thing that really matters is that in the picture the plans, documents or secrets must seem to be of vital importance to the characters. To me, the narrator, they’re of no importance whatsoever.”

In the golden era of Hollywood, writers and directors were never always as concerned as their modern day counterparts to get all the facts straight.  So long as the women looked sexy, the men looked rugged and there were guns and chases the Hollywood Execs were happy.  To illustrate the point, you may have heard about the classic Howard Hawkes movie The Big Sleep with Bogart and Bacall, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler.

In the story there was confusion surrounding the death of the Sternwood family chauffeur, a character named Owen Taylor. Apparently somebody sent a telegram to Raymond Chandler asking him “Who killed the chauffeur?”.  He replied “Damned if I know.”  It’s an amusing anecdote but I know that from my experience when developing a screenplay with producers and development executives that you must have an answer for everything and that nobody would be impressed with a reply like that.

So to avoid such professional faux pas and to make  sure the logic of your crime thriller is coherent I suggest you do your utmost as a writer to iron out all the creases in your plot BEFORE you present it to anyone.  And most importantly, do not rely on coincidence to be the solution.  If you hero just happens to find a gun under the bed during a frantic struggle with his nemesis then that’s poor penmanship.  If your heroine loses her job and then just happens to bump into someone who offers her another, that’s lazy.

As always, there are exceptions to the rule and sometimes a particular story or genre can get away with it so long as it’s an intentional screenwriting choice and clear to the audience as such.  But generally you should set up events so they do not seem coincidental.  If it strikes you as obvious then try to figure out another way around revealing a crucial piece of information or engineering a chance meeting without it being too contrived.  If that fails, you could always try to conceal your coincidence behind a powerful moment of action or drama and hope the audience don’t notice!

Change Is Good For Screenwriters

Filed under: Dan Bronzite's Script Tips by Dan @ 2:38 pm on December 6, 2011

Whether it’s a daily routine of meals, a weekly routine of phone calls, or going to your typical vacation destination, we are all creatures of habit, some more than others.  We create comfort zones in our everyday lives, sometimes for fear of change and other times simply because we no what we like and we want an easy life.

This is also true for screenwriting.  We may start out not knowing what kind of writers we are and what stories we want to tell and then discover our own voice, style and preferences along the way.  Or we may know right from the get-go that we love thrillers and only want to right for this genre.  Whichever camp you fall into habit can prove to be a good thing and a bad thing.  Just because you like one kind of genre, doesn’t mean you won’t be good at writing another.  Similarly, just because you THINK you’re good at writing one type of story, doesn’t mean you won’t be better at writing a different kind.

Script writing should be viewed as another form of exercise – so long as we overlook the fact that we’re normally slouched in a chair in front of the computer during most of the process. Sometimes it’s good to stretch your creative muscles, try new things and experiment.  But stay off the drugs!  Seriously though, writers become lazy, writing what they know and not pushing themselves to be innovative except within the constraints of their chosen genre.  Instead, you should constantly challenge yourself and throw yourself in at the deep end once in a while.

If you enjoy writing horrors, why not have a stab (pardon the pun) at writing a comedy?  Who knows, it may produce a great script.  Or, you may find out that you do have a good sensibility for humorous scenes but not enough for creating a full script in the genre.  If that is the case, at least you know your boundaries and you may even be able to apply some of the lessons learned to your regular script and write a comedy horror.

Try to imagine your story as a visual landscape and keep it interesting.  If you’re always writing similar stories and characters, expand your palette.  Add more color.  Mix up your ingredients and make full use of your cinematic canvas.  The process will at the very least teach you things about your approach to screenwriting and the experience will always help you no matter what kind of story you tell.  Sometimes the lessons we learn through life are never immediately apparent but ultimately influence us in one way or another – screenwriting is no different.

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