So I was reading Joe Gazzam’s Blog a while back - specifically the post Movin’ on UP! - and it got me thinking. As much as any other screenwriter, I want to move up to the next level. There is always room for improvement. There are always people who are better than you. It’s what propels you forward (well, it’s what should propel you forward). I really, really, really want it. I want it so bad I would run from here to NYC if it meant that when I got there I would have a career as a screenwriter (and I’ve never been a strong runner). If it meant that I would get paid to write screenplays that actually got produced and released in theaters, I would fast from everything for a year and train myself in the disciplines of monkhood.
Of course, none of those things will get me a screenwriting career. None of those will move me up a level in this crazy industry (although the discipline and health they would produce certainly couldn’t hurt).
No, the only thing that I can do to move up in this industry is write.
Well, not exactly. Networking is as important as honing your craft as a screenwriter. If you are socially inept, it may be wise to take some classes on how to function in social situations. Let’s face it, if you’re not that strong in a standard social setting than you’re probably going to take a huge crap the moment that social setting becomes a deciding factor in the future of your writing career.
Of course, I’m not writing this blog about how to be proficient in social situations. Go read The Game for that.
I’m writing about writing. So, for sake of this discussion we are going to focus on writing, and how to give yourself the best chance of moving up in this industry.
That’s what this blog is about, Right? Well, in theory at least…
I’ve been talking about characters in my posts lately, and I want to continue with that theme. If you want to focus on structure, go to The Unknown Screenwriter. Unk has more wisdom on the subject than I can shake a stick at. There’s no use harping on a subject when a master is writing his thesis.
Why character? Why am I harping on character so damn much?
Because character is everything! Seriously. Ask anyone.
Well, not everyone… but what does that guy know? lol.
Okay, seriously… character isn’t everything, but I’d say it is a lot more important than Aristotle claimed. Especially in the realm of tragedy.
I don’t know about you, but I could give a fuck if some underdeveloped character who is clearly only there to be a victim of the plot gets killed. Why would I care? Why would you? If you’re not connected to the character, then you have no compassion. If you have no compassion, you feel no empathy. If you feel no empathy, you simply don’t care.
I guarantee that if you stop to think about the movies that you didn’t enjoy, I think it’s safe to say that most of them had flat characters. I just watched Eagle Eye at the dollar theater, and I feel like it falls into this category. The plot was engaging, the twists somewhat unexpected and the action relentless. So why did it fall so flat?
Characters.
The characters were flat and unrealistic. They just weren’t set up well. We watch Jerry Shaw go from acting like a slick-ass-motherfucker playing poker to working his shitty job and having insufficient funds in all of two minutes. Then, we watch him find out his twin brother is dead, followed by some more “hey, Jerry’s a fuckup” moments. Then it’s “hey Jerry, we’ve got you! Do what we say!”
Again, why doesn’t this work? I think a lot of it has to do with first impressions. We are introduced to Jerry as a slick dude who hustles is friends out of money by manipulating their fears of social ineptitude. That tells us two things:
1. He’s a smart guy who can figure shit out and use it to his advantage.
2. He’s not a very good guy. I mean, I don’t know about you but someone who hustles his friend for cash is kind of a lowlife. Sure, we find out later it’s because he’s flat-ass broke and needs to pay rent. Too bad that first impression has already been made.
Here’s the thing. If that was intentionally set up to throw us off, I could see it working. Like the character who we see begging for money only to find out he’s an undercover cop when he busts out his gun and arrests some bad guy. It’s a reveal that the initial first impression was false. It’s like a character intro mulligan. Of course, if the purpose behind this isn’t central to the plot (like it was in the first Mission: Impossible) then it still won’t work. In the opening sequence of M:I, we as an audience are told that anything can change - nothing can be trusted. As Danny Parker/Tom Van Allen says at the beginning of The Salton Sea (also directed by D.J. Caruso), “keep your eyes open, nothing is as it seems.”
Too bad the filmmakers weren’t using a similar plot device at the beginning of Eagle Eye. We just get this opening scene where Jerry is a slick, fast talking hipster that serves no purpose and really doesn’t relate to him as a character. The rest of the movie he is framed as a fuckup who will refuse to take orders even if it kills him.
Not only that, but as soon as we are shown the big emotional scenes with his brother and family (which are supposed to make us think he is human, and consequently become attached to him as a character) we are then thrown the scene where he gets all the money in his bank account and finds all the stuff in his house. I would say that his actions in these scenes betray who we know him to be as a character, but the problem is we don’t know who he is as a character. Is he a fast talking hipster? Is he a down-on-his-luck kindhearted kid? Is he a fuckup who disappointed his family? I honestly don’t know. He can’t be all three of those things, but that’s what we were given as an audience. Three different characters who were fairly unrelated to one another, and had no payoff through the rest of the story.
You may notice I haven’t really talked about the character Rachel Holloman yet. Yeah, the movie doesn’t either. She has a son and a dead-beat ex. Her son plays trumpet. She always forgets her keys somewhere, and finds them in the fridge when we first meet her. Too bad that had absolutely no fucking reason to be in the goddamn movie! Just like Jerry Shaw’s fast-talking ways, her key-forgetting scene had no payoff whatsoever. It had no point or purpose in the story. That is the kind of element that has an expected payoff. If you spend a minute or more focusing on how she forgets her keys and how she traces her steps with her son to remember where they are, you had better use that as a goddamn plot device somewhere in the movie!!
This is the overarching problem with Eagle Eye. The characters in the film are heavily underdeveloped, and exist merely to be victims of the plot. Jerry is a reactionary protagonist because of it.
“But wait!” you say. “Jerry was a developed character! Look at all the time they spent at the beginning of the movie on character development!”
Did they really? Did they really develop a character whose traits and beliefs and worldview were not only clearly stated but also a living piece of the organic plot?
Can you even remember what Jerry’s beliefs or worldview were?
Can you remember anything other than his personality traits?
Did you even remember those before I mentioned them, or did you just remember him yelling “who are you?” into a phone with a look of concern on his face?
***SPOILERS***
When Jerry was shot trying to save the world, did you really give a fuck? Would have you cared if he really died? Did that scene have any emotional impact on you whatsoever?
***END SPOILERS***
The filmmakers tried to make us connect with Jerry through his crappy job and his lack of money and his dead brother and disappointed father, but the character wasn’t tangible. The character wasn’t real, so we had no real way to connect with them. Once again, no connection = no compassion, which = no empathy, which = indifference. As an audience we simply didn’t care.
I rest my case. Lawyered.
So let’s bring this back to our world. The world of the aspiring screenwriter.
As clearly exhibited in Eagle Eye, it is not enough to have characters with a ton of nuances that make them special or “relatable”. You cannot simply throw together some personality traits and a backstory and call it a character. There is no semblance of truth in that. If your characters are not genuine characters with beliefs and feelings and thoughts and ideas and worldviews, then your audience will not buy into it. You cannot just shove these things in your characters’ mouths when the script calls for it. They must flow from the depths of who the characters are as people.
Yes. Your characters should be people, as deep and complex as any you know.
If you are incapable of creating such rich characters, you should be questioning your purpose as a writer.
It’s not easy for anyone, but great writing is defined by those who put forth the effort (read: the pain and the frustration and the time and the anguish) to produce real characters.
Screenwriting is two things. Familiar story and complex characters. If you have it the other way around, you need to take a step back and change your approach. Perhaps you need to relearn storytelling. It is not uncommon.
Whatever needs to be done, either do it or quit. Don’t continue to sludge through your screenwriting half-assed. All you will be doing is wasting your time.
If you want to climb the ladder of success in the world of the professional screenwriter, you need to be at the top of your game at all times. You cannot do anything half-assed. Based on everything that I read (from a good mix of professional and unpaid writers), there is one massive difference between the professional and the amateur.
Do you know what it is yet?
I’ve been talking about it a lot.
Yeah. It’s characters.
The n00b has many things to work on, but the one thing that separates them all from the professional is their characters. Stop half-assing your characters. Seriously. No one is gonna give a shit about your plot if your characters are cliche’ or (far more often) flat and piss-poor.
I will admit, my characters are usually flat in my first draft.
Not because I haven’t developed them. I develop the hell out of them before I start writing.
The reason is because the first draft is for me to lay out the structure and see how it all works on page. It also gives me an opportunity to see how my characters react to the situations I put them in.
Then I rewrite the fuck out of it, and my main focus in all of those rewrites is character. Making my characters and their relationships as real and tangible as the creepy guy you always see waiting for the bus and your best friend from college. Even the smallest characters have to be real. Your world has to seem real to your audience, and that rests 100% on your characters.
That’s a trick you’re probably not going to hear from any gurus. Rewriting is all about character. It’s not about making your action lines more crisp or meeting your page count or putting in one more twist.
Does all that stuff happen in rewrites? Yeah, it does.
Would any of that shit matter if your characters were flat, robotic and unrealistic?
Fuck no.
You need to be honest with yourself about how much your characters suck and get to work fixing them. Until you do, you are always going to be stuck at the bottom of the ladder.
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