QnA August 2020 - Starting as a writer, character descriptions and what is good enough?
Hello,
Hope you’re all doing well. I had a few questions come in but these are 5 I picked by closing my eyes and moving a pen up and down. This is a trial to see if this QnA thing works so let me know in the comments if it’s worth carrying on with or if my answers are nonsense. We can start a conversation here so it’s useful to others too. My answers are opinion based on what’s worked for me. That doesn’t mean they’re right for you. Only you can judge that and more often than not, I am wrong.
Hope it’s useful.
Question 1: Once you've written something, how would you gauge whether it's good enough to persevere or best to say, "I don't think I'm good enough for this"?
I think once you finish something you know how happy you are with it, and if you’re happy it’s turned out how you like, then to me that’s good enough. The other judges of what’s good enough are audiences, producers and publishers. We can only judge whether we’re happy and proud of what we’ve created.
If you ever think ‘I don’t think I’m good enough for this’ and stop, then you’re not going to learn and improve. If you think ‘I don’t think I’m good enough for this’, and then look at what you can work on, then you have a chance. I have a folder of scripts that will never see the light of day, but they’ve all made me better at writing and one day I might have the ability to fix them. It’s all about practice.
I tend to do a lot of prep before writing. Such as character development, and structure outlining, so I know the story is dramatic and makes sense before I’ve written a word. Then when I’m done writing I ignore it for two weeks so I can come at it with fresh eyes. I send it to two or three trusted readers in that time. Not loved ones unless you can trust them to be brutal. Send your story to people who understand writing or people who like the kind of genre you’re trying to write. There’s no point sending a sci-fi to a horror fan who hates sci-fi, they’ll hate it. Tell whoever you send it to that you want to know what doesn’t work.
I have a rule. If one person flags something and I disagree, I’ll think about it and do what I think is right for the character and story. If two people flag the same thing, change something even if you don’t agree.
Once you have the feedback, read the story back, then see what changes you want to make. Redraft as many times as you need, and then once you’re happy with it, it’s good enough. It’s really about mindset. I regularly think I’m not good enough, so it’s about perseverance and learning. There’s a bizarre belief that people are either good writers straight away, or useless. It’s total nonsense. Practice is what makes you good and chances are the first script you write will be one you look back on with some degree of shame!
Question 2: Where's the line between defining your character/s so they have depth and not starting to direct?
Only define what’s important if it impacts their character. If it’s important to you that your character is tall, highlight it. If it doesn’t matter, don’t. You should know all those things, but unless it is relevant or impacts your character’s worldview, then don’t bother stating it. Also, aim for more characterful descriptions that leave things open to interpretation but still highlight key characteristics that are deep. Look at this example in The Big Lebowski of the Dude:
‘We are tracking in on a fortyish man in Bermuda shorts and sunglasses at the dairy case. He is the Dude. his rumpled look and relaxed manner suggest a man in whom casualness runs deep. He is feeling quarts of milk for coldness and examining their expiration date.’
This defines characteristics by matching them to physicality. His look is only important because of what it suggests about him as a human. It’s really down to you how far you go. But less is more and you don’t want to info dump because it just slows things down.
The main thing is to make sure whatever you do flag is important. Also, the Dude example is written by directors hence the ‘We are tracking…’ Writers shouldn’t direct in the writing so wanted to flag that in case I mislead anyone!
Question 3: I define race as well as age, gender, build when first introducing a character. I then panic that if the character is bad or does something wrong people will assume I have assigned race because of it. But, equally, I don't want to not define race as I don't want an all white cast :-) Any tips?
I wouldn’t panic. Characters do good or bad things based on their goal and situations, so as long as motivation is clear you won’t have a problem. If someone does something because it’s racially motivated, then that’s a character choice again and that’s when you might enter that territory.
If my character is black and pushes a white person because the white person pushes in front of her in a queue, it’s nothing to do with race. It’s to do with feeling annoyed at someone being an arsehole and reacting as the character would react. Depending on who she is she could react by doing nothing, pushing him, telling the doorperson, or pouring some water in his bag.
If my character is black and pushes the white queue jumper because she dislikes white people or believes the white person is pushing in because of racial prejudice, then people can safely assume I assigned race because I’m addressing race in my work.
It’s all about why characters do things. If you can make motivation clear you’ll be fine.
Question 4: What is your favourite screenwriting book?
By far, Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias. I love this book and it reminds you of the importance of engaging your audience. I’d recommend it to anyone at any level of writing.
Question 5: If you were to start as a writer now, what would be the top 4 things you would do and in what order.
If I decided I want to be a writer now, I’d:
Get a part-time job - I worked full-time and it ruined my hours and killed my productivity
Study - I’d read three books. The one mentioned above - Writing for Emotional Impact. Plus Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, and The Idea, by Erik Bork. That will cover the concept, the characters, and the structure. I’d then watch a show that is in my genre and make a note of all the dramatic beats
Develop - Spend more time developing character and story before jumping into it. Do character questionnaires, write log lines, and do a scene by scene outline of the script
Write and redraft - The process is: Write, Write, write, write, cry, write, cry, write, hate self, keep crying, write more, feel good for 3 seconds, send story out, cry more, write, sleep
Basically, I’d build in positive writing habits that teach me patience and in the long run they’ll help increase my productivity so I don’t rush into a script without being well prepared. The main thing though is I would commit by not wasting time on jobs that aren’t contributing to my goal.
Thanks for all the questions. Hope this wasn’t awful.