If you go to DePaul, it’s pretty likely you’re familiar with the film program. Recently listed in Variety Magazine as one of the top 25 film schools in the world, DePaul boasts some of the top professors and resources for aspiring filmmakers in the country. And where there are films, there are scripts.
Yes, scripts. The mysterious pieces of writing that seem to appear every so often in your written feedback appointments with the weird font and odd formatting. Chances are—unless you’ve taken courses on the subject—you’re not familiar with the conventions of the genre. And, unlike many genres of writing, screenwriting has very rigid and narrow guidelines when it comes to the formatting and style of the text. Does that mean you can’t deliver helpful feedback to the writers? Of course not. You just need to know what to look for. Here’s what you need to know about screenwriting:
Screenwriting is Visual.
Visual and Specific. These are the two traits of good action description within a screenplay. Because a screenplay is written with the intent of being used to make a film, everything on the page should be something that can be shown on the screen. For that reason, it’s often discouraged for writers to explore the inner thoughts of a character in a script. Instead, character should be revealed through dialogue and actions. So rather than:
Jim is nervous
You could write:
Jim rubs his hands together nervously
As you can see, the emphasis is on the action, rather than the inner feeling of the character. Similarly, action description should be written specifically. There should never be an action or dialogue that’s summarized rather than described. A screenwriter wouldn’t write:
Jim goes to the store
Instead, the writer would have to describe the journey to the store, describing what the audience sees as the character is driving or walking to the destination.
Screenwriting is in Present Tense.
Always. This is a rule that has no exception, and it’s an easy fix if you notice a writer is using other tenses. When a director is reading off action description to actors and crew, they need it to be in the correct tense because they are actively directing the movements and lines of the actors.
Start Late, Leave Early.
When you see a scene in a major film, you’ll notice the “pleasantries” of the scene are likely skipped. It’s encouraged that writers get to the meat of the scene as quickly as possible, so that’s generally how screenplays are written. If we’re looking at a scene of two characters having a serious conversation about their marriage, we don’t need to see each character come into the room, talk about their jobs, or change clothes before the conversation starts. Rather, the audience wants to see the conversation from the point it begins. Likewise, the audience doesn’t need to see what happens after the main action. So a scene would play out like this:
JIM Hey Gary, I’ll meet you outside the bank GARY Sounds good to me Jim.
Cut to:
Ext. Bank – NIGHT
And not like this:
JIM Hey Gary, I’ll meet you outside the bank GARY Sounds good to me Jim.
Gary walks away and gets in his car. Jim gets out his phone and writes down that he has to meet Gary at the bank. Jim walks away.
Obviously, this is an extreme example, but it should illustrate the point that you don’t need to include the events that unfold after the main action of a scene.
Now that you know some of the basics of the genre, you can start thinking about how to help screenwriters in your appointments. Let’s talk about some of the things you might do in an appointment to help writers with their screenplays:
Do a Table Read.
Tutors regularly ask their writers to read their project out loud so they can get a better perception of what their writing sounds like to a reader. In screenwriting, a similar tactic can be used. As a screenwriter, I find it helpful to do a table read, in which the writer and tutor each take parts in the script and read it out loud. This can be especially helpful if a writer is looking to work on having more natural-sounding dialogue.
Collaborate on an Outline.
If the writer is working on a longer project, they may want to work on outlining their script. An outline can be very helpful for writers who are afraid of getting lost in the first draft. Typically, writers rely on an outline that shows the major shifts in the plot before they start writing a script. This can be a great suggestion to make for writers attempting a feature or pilot-length screenplay for the first time.
The UCWbL should be a place where writers can get feedback on any kind of writing that they are passionate about, so it’s important for all of us peer writing tutors to be familiar with several different genres. Hopefully, some of these suggestions will be helpful for appointments in the future that deal with screenwriting.