FRENZY!!!! (or RomComs: A Discussion)

No, the frenzy isn't in reference to a zombie horde feasting on the masses. It's... 

 

I know I've posted about NaNoWriMo in the past, but truth be told that never works out because novel writing doesn't really seem to be my thing. However! Script Frenzy is this April and I will be writing my first feature length screenplay! (Yay!) Also, very surprising to me, I will be writing a RomCom. I've never really had intentions of writing one in the past but this story really seems the best choice for me for my first feature.

I've started plotting it out, and currently my plan is to have the story nicely set out in index cards before April. In addition to plotting, I think I need to examine a couple of the better romcoms to set me on the right foot, through both reading and watching. Hopefully, in the end I'd be able to produce a kind of stereotypically audience gender neutral one, like 40 Year Old Virgin or Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It seems like the key to that is to have a solid bro contingent with a healthy dose of sex and sex jokes. I wasn't really planning on adding a whole lot of sex to mine, but I won't be surprised if I make that decision further down the road, during rewrites. There's certainly room for it, character and story-wise. I do, however, have a good, humorfull, broscape that is central to the story.

Shake It Up, Bisques!

Here's the thing. I'm pretty certain knowing y'alls some o' that Shakey - that ol' Bard of Straford on Avon - will always serve you in some way, particularly in the entertainment industry. In screenwriting, it can bring you round to that oh, so coveted "same but different" screenplay, it is rife with characters and situations you can steal borrow, and isn't it just good to know where shit came from? Plus, most of the country isn't up on it's Troilus and Cressida, so as long as you aren't writing another Romeo and Juliet you're probably fine. No, strike that, there's a new Romeo and Juliet spin constantly. Besides, his stuff is just an awfully good place for reminders of basic story plots. Like the Star Crossed Lovers™ .

Step Outlines For the Win!

Totally purloined the image off some poor website in google images. Thanks ::checks link:: GlobalNerdy.com It's cute though, and I wanted it.

So, Step Outlines.

As I found in the last short screenplay I wrote, they can be a very helpful little monster, these outlines, and not just for screenplays. If you know what they are and haven't been using them, give them a whirl and see how it influences your work. I'm one to skive off of a lot of prep work, and generally think I don't need it, but boy howdy step outlines helped my mediocre "writing it because I need something to turn in" short.

If you do know and do use, well, I dunno, it's up to you whether or not you want to read this post (versus the rest of you who are supernaturally compelled, apparently, because only those who presently use step outlines are given the choice). However, before you click away from my page, I don't know how you do step outlines, but in the brief internet search I did, people's how to's (I don't think the apostrophe in the "to" of "how to" is appropriate, but it's easier to read) were different than the method I use, so you may want to stick around regardless. For those who do not know what a step outline is or how it might help you...

This is how they work:

A Quick Lesson from Mira Nair

I love Mira Nair. I admit, I don't know her work well at all. I've only seen Monsoon Wedding (which she directed and produced) and Vanity Fair (which she directed and I saw when it came out and I didn't like it). But my love comes all from Monsoon Wedding. It is one of my favorite movies (and there really aren't really many things I will right out call "favorites," I'm too loving to name names and too indecisive to commit) and I adore it whole heartedly. (Note to self: Put Mira Nair movies to top of Netflix list. Hurry and go see Amelia.)

Here is a quick lesson from Mira Nair, via Third World Girl over at Three Hole Punched, who attended the IFP's Independent Film Conference in New York where Mira Nair spoke (Bobby said, that Sally said, the Jimmy said... Yes, my through the grapevine/telephone game paraphrase lesson from Mira Nair). I looked for a direct quote on the internet for a couple minutes and came up with nothing helpful. So here is the he said/she said version of it. Thanks Third World Girl.

Don't "anthropoligize" or explain too much culturally. If you watch Monsoon Wedding you'll see how much you're thrust into the action. There's no expositional dialogue about why we dress this way or wear this henna, or sing this song. There's no outsider leading you through the action and the work is all the richer and more authentic for it.

Character Voice and Speech Patterns

I just read Woody Allen's Annie Hall screenplay and it was kind of weird. It was like the text was transcribed after someone had spoken the words. What I mean is, there were so many stuttered words in the dialogue, "ums," sentences starting over half way through, overlapping dialogue. Here's a piece of random dialogue:

Readin' Readin' Readin' and Doin'

One of the first screenwriting blogs I grew attached to was Scott Meyer's Go Into The Story. He updates many times a day and besides offering his opinions on what's going on in the film world he makes an effort to help any fledgling screenwriters that hop along his path by offering helpful hints. He teaches online courses for UCLA so it's a "thing" for him I guess, you know... being helpful.

Anyway, so one of the suggestions he makes is to read screenplays. Its a common thing students hear "If you want to write, read books, if you want to act, watch plays, if you want to do something else, engage as a spectator of someone else's something else." However, it's not only a tip people often ignore, with screenwriting maybe one decides watching movies is enough. Either way it's a common message.

Meyer goes farther than that though. He has what he calls 14 days of screenplays where he links to 14 screenplays of differing authors and styles. His hope, more or less, is that by reading a screenplay everyday for a time will force your brain into picking up something more quickly via osmosis. That, in reading many works in a short period, your brain will start playing connect-the-dots and see the patterns more clearly and quickly than it might otherwise. So I've been doing this.