THE ART OF SCRIPTWRITING

We haven’t made many films in Wales, nor have we established an international

reputation for our television drama. Our golden period was probably in the 50’s and
60’s - between 1957 and 1959 BBC Cardiff produced 37 network plays making it the
largest centre of drama production outside London. What this opportunity gave to
writers was an apprenticeship where they could learn their craft and find their voice.
Now, except for the annual season of half hour plays, there are not many opportunities
for writers to learn their craft through the medium of English. The overriding goal of
attracting large audiences and a misguided view that audiences wo’t accept studio
drama means that Tv drama is now very expensive and risky and therefore not the
place where new writing talent can cut its teeth. The situation is better in the Welsh
language, but we are a long way from having a list of names that everyone has heard
of. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that finding a good filmscript is a rare
experience.

Why should this concern us? Films and TV drama are a wonderful medium for
representing ourselves. A good writer can represent our culture, attitudes and pre-
occupations in a comic, tragic, or transcendent way. They can seize the moment or the
zetgeist and return to us and outsiders a different perception and understanding of who
we are and they can contribute to a present and futire sense of our idenity. Some of
our more recent impressions of Scotland and Ireland have emerged from seeing them
on film and TV and their films have challenged our prejudices and overhtrown many of
the prevailing stereotypes. Taking that step into telling a good story for film or tv
shouldn’t be that hard - writers just need more encouragement. There is nothing more
exhilarating then watching a challenging drama or film - Jimmy Mcgovern’s Cracker,
Hillsborogh or Priest, Flannery’s Our Friends in the North, Miek Leighs Secrets and
Lies Dennis Potter’s the Singing Detective, On the Edge of Darkness - all have a
lasting impact on us, become part of how we make sense of the world.

Film is not the most complex and sophisticated medium - Such a visual medium will
always require a certain simplicity to get the story across, but it also doesn’t have to be
as banal and formulaic as a lot of Hollywood films. Think of Chinatown, The
Conformist, Breaking the Waves, Don’t Look Now or 2001 - they all operate on an
extraordinary number of levels and stay in the minds eye years later. And think of the
audiences - you have the potential to reach 100’s of thousands if not millions. And the
chance of reflecting the world from the mythic to the domestic that connects with us
and re-makes us.

The Welsh tradition is more of a literary and poetic one - not easily translated to the
screen, but possible. Indian, Chinese or French cinema has drawn on a more literary
tradition and produced an impressive alternative cinema to the American model.
Perhaps it is more possible throughthe Welsh language, but if we are talking about
English language Welsh films then I think we have to return to the story described by
one American writer as the mythic structure for scriptwriters - mythic as in the Mabinogi
stories that even young children are familiar with. Mythic stories don’t have to be set in
the past however we need our contemporary ones as well as Ed Thomas has
articulated so well on a numer of occasions. Film is a good medium for such an
undertaking.

We need good scriptwriters so we need a sensible infrastructure emerging to sustain

them. Script writing is a long and time consuming process where the writer will have to
produce many drafts, so writers need to be paid. The Lottery can help here in that it will
now advance script development loans to production companies to enable them to pay
their writers a decent rate. You need good courses. You can’t teach people to write but
you can provide them with the teachnieues and inspiration to develop their skills and
particualr vision. We have plenty of poetry and writing courses in wales but hardly any
on scriptwriting. Ty Ffilm regulalry runs them and there is a big demand, but we need
more run by writers like Andrew Davies, Julian Mitchell, Meic povey, Sion Eirian and we
should import good writers from Ireland and Scotland. We also need good script editors
who can work on a free lance basis and are respected by film makers and writers alike.
And of course we need to see a lot more examples of good scriptwriting on the small
and big screen to give new writers encouragement

So how does anyioone set about writing a script? It helps to find a mentor. In Ireland a
number of writers act as mentors to new writers, giving them the benefit of their
expereince. Usually they get paid, but sometimes they will do it because they like the
ideaor believe in the writer. Here in Wales where there are not so many script writers
the good ones are usually overloaded with commissions that they might feel they have
no time, but there is still no harm in approaching them and some might think it is
important to encourgae new talent. Failing that - read the books. There are a number of
good books on scripwriting techniques, most of them american, they will take you
through the basic steps.

What I want to set out here are the basic principles of producing a script in order to
encourage writers out there to sit down and do it. I am not a scriptwriter myself
although I have two filmscripts at various stages of development. I am writing this more
from the point of view of a producer/director who receives and reads lots of scripts and
as someone who has taught scripwriting at the University of Glamorgan and is editing a
book on scripwritng. Everybody is always on the lookout for good writers and good
stories even thouogh there are hundreds written every week in the UK. This article is
an attempt to encourage people to know the basics before they start and to encorage a
new generation of talent to start thinking about film as a medium. What follows is
therefore focused on writing a film script but much of it applies to writing TV drama as
well.

Most films and television drama rely on the classic narrative structure (see diagram).
However there have also been many experiments in film language that have tried to
rebel against such formal restraints to create experimental, avant garde movies. These
avantgarde fexperimental films have often ifluenced mainstram cineama and become
incoroporated into the mainstram film form but it helps to know what you are rebelling
against so I am going to cover the basics in which the emphasis is very much on story
and character with a linear dramatic structure. Once you have got that, then you can
start to expereiemtn withit or completely ignore it!
To paraphrase John Hodge writer of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and the Grifters - A
screenplay should stand or fall by a bare description of what is happening and what is
said. A screenplay is about writing as little as possible. A good film comes out of a mix
of intellectual thought about the nature of life, mixed liberally with a determination to
create a pacy story.

Getting started
First you have to have a good idea or story. Many ideas for stories come from friends,
family, newspapers or inspired by a short stroy or novel. The recent press story of the
“lady in the lake” is a good example -a woman’s body is found at the bottom of the lake
21 years after she disappeared, her husband now remarried, has been
arrested........Leaving aside the problems of dramatising a real story and the ethics of
using a tragedy when most of the people involved are still alive, you could still take the
idea as a vehicle to explore the nature of revenge/retribution or the changes in
relationships between men and women, or the nature of guilt or anything esle that you
think is meaningful. An event like this can give you a ready made story but it won’t do
much for you or the audience if you don’t search for a meaning in it and bring to it your
own vision and interpretation, coloured by desire and danger which will produce the
tensions and therefore the drama in your story.. What has to happen in your story is
change propoelled by the desires and obstacles to that desire of your main character/s.
The husband’s story might be the obvious choice, but your story could be from the
children’s point of view or like “Sunset Boulevard’ from the point of view of the dead
woman. Whichever point of view you choose will create a different set of desires and
different obstacles. The idea and the angle you take has to excite you and propoel you
into the next stage of the creative process - developin and researching your idea.

Development and Research

A good question to ask to help you get going is the “what if ....” one. It could be what if
the act of murder isn’t detected or what if your had suspected you for all those years?
If you start with a question or a premise you can start to build out from there, asking
questions of yourself all the time. Then comes the [Link] can draw on your own
experience or knowledge or you might need to dig into peoples lives, talk to experts or
spend ages in the library. Obviously imagination plays a part, but even that will be
informed by your own experience or memories. Once that is done and you have got an
idea that is turning into a story with a plot and strong fleshed out characters, you can
get down to writing the treatment. You have gathered your information, given your
imagination free rein, now you have to find the form that will be the most compelling,
most interest - catching form. Even though you might not use half the information you
have collected the more you know your characters and what they would do in certain
situations the easier it will be to put words into their mouth.

Getting it accepted
Once you have come up with the story idea then what happens? There are a number of
different routes - you can either write the full film script in the standard format and
send it off to a production company or an agent. All companies get unsolicited scripts,
the bigger they are the more likely they might be to buy your script if they like it.
Otherwise they might encourage you to carry on and help you to send it to the
broadcasters or elsewehre, or they might buy the option on your script which allows
them to hold it for a year to see if they can raise money to make it. An agent would do
all of this for you, but they are difficult to get until you have established some sort of
repuattion unless they really like the script. Or you can send it straight to the drama
department or film units of the broadcasters, they sometimes take them up. If you think
you have got a good story you can write an outline or treatment and send that to the
above and if someone likes it they will give you the money or try and raise money for
you to write the script. It helps to find a producer who you think you can work with as
they will know the ropes, relevant people and sources of money.

The normal procedure is then to get a contract to provide a treatment which is like a
detailed description of the film and then once that is accepted to go on and write the
first draft A less experienced or known writer might also have to provide a treatment
which is a description of what happens in each scene and some character notes. You
should then get paid for that treatment and the production of the first draft. This will
then be read by the producer, script editor etc. who will all have their own criticisms and
suggestions to make. Then you go to draft 2 stage and then final draft.
treatment and step outline
This is in effect your developed story all your characters and the actions are described
in story form. It usually amounts to about 10-20 pages, sometimes it is more. It is
usually written in the present tense and should convey a strong visual sense. Short,
terse and descriptive sentences to describe the context, characters and action. Some
writers also include bits of dialogue to give a sense of character or dramatic moment..
Your treatment is where you begin to develop your story and give depth to your
charcaters where you begin to block out your story in enough detail that its strengths
and weaknesses become visible. You can describe far more of the emotional content in
this form as well as working out the rhythm of the story - what will be a good opening,
how you establish the story, what are the elemnts - characters, situations, moods,
where its peaks are and how it will be resolved. This can be a very painterly process, it
gives you the chance to paint in mood, charcter depth, atmosphere - most of which will
be stripped down to a minimum by the time you write your script.

Now you can move on to the step outline which breaks down your stroy into sequences
each one of which should be a step forward in the development of your story. Each
step should be described briefly. An easy way to approach this is by using index cards.
Each card can have a synopsis of the sequence/scene any any relevant character or
plot points. You then have the freedom to moves scenes to different parts of the story to
see how the structure might change. What happens if you put the last scene first?
What happens if you shift a dramatic conflict to another part? Is there character
development? Does a scene move easily into the next.? Where are the confrontations,
the twists in the plot.? Basically you shouldn’t attempt your first draft until you have
done all this preparatory work. Syd Field spends about a week playing with his cards,
getting to know his characters and scenes, familiarising himself with the way it runs,
digging himself into the world of his story. The more you know about your characters
and story the easier it will be to make them act and speak.
Once your treatment is finished you are ready to go onto writing your first draft.
The first draft
A few rudimentary principles are needed here. A script writer is not usually the director.
The writer’s job is to write a screenplay that the director can turn it into a film. So you
can leave out all the instructions for camera, referring to lens or camera action. Your
job is to set and describe the scene, the director and cinematographer will choose the
right set ups.

A screenplay is made up of sequences that create context, character and action such
as a funeral, a homecoming or a wedding. Within each sequence there will be a
number of scenes all helping to compose that sequence. Each sequence will have a
beginning middle and end - like a microcosm of the screenplay. Each scene will define
a time and place int/ext. day/night. Everytime the camera has to change position you
need a new scene. A scene is where you tell your story in moving pictures. With every
sequence and scene you should ask what its purpose is. Many of the scripts I read
have scnes which appear to have no purpose other than to house loads of dialogue.
The function of each sequence and scene is to move the story along. You can also
decide to show only a part of the scene. Many new writers give you it all - character
knocks on door, door opens, she walks down corridor, enters kitchen, talks, leaves
kitchen, walks down corridor, opens door and exits! You don’t need all this, nor does
the audience who are quite capable of filling in the gaps!

Write according to the screenplay form - there are slight deviations but they all look
similar to the example below. Each page is laid out to correspond to about one minute.
A feature length film will run to about 120 pages. Syd Field provides a basic storyline
model that fits into this:

beginning middle end

Act 1 Act 2 Act 3

setup confrontation resolution

pp 1-30 pp. 30-90 pp. 90-120

Plot Point 1 Plot Point 2

pp. 25-27 pp. 85-90

I love this model because it makes everything look so easy! The reality of course is
very different, but in terms of most films, this is what you could call a useful guide to
check your script against. Another rule of thumb is to have established something
interesting, provoking within the first ten pages/ten minutes. This doesn’t mena starting
your film with a big bang, but you do want to hook people in and give them some
reason for wanting to carry on watching. For people who read scripts for a living, they
might not even get past those ten pages unless you have hooked them. Look at the
way ‘China Town’ begins, its a great example of what can be conveyed in a couple of
pages. By the time you have got to page 30 you should have established who your
main characters are, what the premise of the story is and what the situation/problem is.
Field describes the plot points as an incident or event that hooks into the story and
spins it round into another direction setting your charcacetrs and situation into conflict
and which by now keeps us with them wanting to now how they will over come the
obstacles set in their path.. As far as he is concerned this usually happens between pp.
25-27 - just under 30 minutes into the film. This is the structure of your screen play into
which all your characters and drama is poured. Even a film like ‘Reservoir Dogs’ which
has flashbacks, still conforms to this pattern.

As you have now become so familiar with your story much of the actual writing
shouldn’t be that difficult. Get through your displacement activities and give yourself a
daily target - say three pages a day minimum. What you might have difficulty with is
dialogue - some people have an ear fro it others have to practise. The functions of
dialogue are to give information, the reveal emoton, to advance the plot and to
characterize the speaker and the person they are speaking to. Try and leave out long
discussions about weather or views on every situation. Not all your dialogue needs to
be scintillating, silence itself can be very powerful often conveying what is concealed or
mysterious. When you get to the end you can start refining until you are happy with it.

It’s at this point that you will have to release it to be read either by a producer who has
commissioned it or a script editor that has been selected by you or the commissioner.
This is where the collaborative process comes in as they will have questions and
comments which will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your script. They will
come to it with a different perspective and with a more experienced eye. They might
dismiss it because its not commercial enough or too commercial, or too bleak or too
arty. It is up to you to reject or incorporate their comments.

Then you carry on revising and re-presenting your script until you have reached your
final draft when hopefully money has been raised to take it into production bringing
pleasure to audiences at home and abroad hopefully! Every writer has their own
technique what I have described can be found in any book on scriptwriting but every
writer has to find their own method the important thing is to do it. There are a lot of
stories to be told in wales and many modern myths to make - which is another story.

___________________________