THE STORY VAULT BLOG
REVERSE ENGINEERING...OR ENGINEERING REVERSALS?
I've read more than a dozen books on screen (and story) writing: everything from John Truby to Joseph Campbell to Robert McKee to Syd Field to the many variations of Save the Cat! - as well as books on structure (Cowgill) and plot (Tobias).
These tomes advocate a great variety of approaches to crafting an engaging screenplay - but they all do one thing in common: they support their conclusions using examples from highly regarded screenplays and movies.
The authors of these books have derived their conclusions by reverse engineering successful film projects. This sounds like a reasonable approach - and it is. There's only one small problem. And that problem is that not all successful screenplays and movies are built the same way.
We open a book and the author tells us that our main character must have an arc; he or she must change during the story. And here's a list of movies to support this conclusion. But I can easily produce examples of acclaimed (critically and/or in terms of box office receipts) that support the opposite conclusion. In "Plots and Characters" Millard Kaufman mentions Chili Palmer in "Get Shorty," and Vincent Hanna and Neil McCauley in "Heat." Forrest Gump is another character who never changes. In most of the Bond films, 007 is the same person at the end of the story as he in the beginning. The same for parody spy Austin Powers.
In "Casablance," Bogart's character, Rick Blaine, is massively transformed over the course of the film, but as Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon," it is imperative to the story that he does not change. So where does that leave us? This is not so important as where it leaves our main character.
I watch a lot of interviews with professional screenwriters. Some of them insist that writing an outline and determining your stories theme before you begin the script is imperative. And many reveal that they don't outline and that they discover theme through the process of writing their story. Who is right? They're both right. Trust your instinct and do what works for you.
Alfred Hitchcock was a proponent of revealing the identity of the murderer early and following that up with 90 minutes of suspense rather than having a late discovery and 2 minutes of surprise. "Knives Out," anyone? In "Knives Out" we get...roughly 120 minutes of suspense...but the suspense is not primarily focused on the identity of the murderer. There's nothing wrong with Hitchcock's advice, but there are multiple ways to achieve the same goal.
In screenwriting books exposition is often vilified. It's suggested that it should be avoided if at all possible. But exposition can be very useful. It can be a great time saver. The judicious use of exposition can preserve a story's pacing. Examples of movies that use exposition to great effect are "Jurassic Park," "The Godfather" and "Up." One of my favourite movies, "Amélie," doesn't shy away from exposition.
In general, exposition has developed a bad reputation because most writers don't do it well...but most writers are not good at crafting characters, dialogue or theme, but we don't endeavour to avoid these.
I enjoy Millard Kaufman's book "Plots and Characters" because it's not a book about screenwriting, it's a book about "writing for the screen." (If you understand what that means, please explain it to me.) In the final chapter he writes: "I fear that generously sprinkled among the preceding pages is an abundance of testimony that has brought me exceedingly close to contradicting myself, not once, but many times." This results from the fact that he is not, by and large, prescriptive. He provides examples of one thing working exceedingly well and it's opposite also working exceedingly well.
I get a fair bit of grief from other writers for saying that essentially there are no rules (other than "don't be boring"). I sense in my critics a fear of uncertainty. I get it. It would be great if there was a formula that worked every time without fail. But that's not writing. A writer needs to be prepared to think, to make judgements, to take risks sometimes. If we rely on formulas we don't have the Coen Brothers, Tarantino or Nolan. But thankfully there are artists like them who are prepared to do the very hard work of writing fiction. The human instinct is, of course, to make everything easier. As human beings we want to conserve energy and eliminate risk. This is the path to mediocrity. We need to find the energy and the courage and the freedom to explore new fertile ground.
Writing is hard. if it isn't hard you're probably not doing it well. So I should say, "good writing is hard." Great writing is even harder.
I made the mistake of saying (to a group of writers online) that "writing is a tyranny of decisions." I've learned over the years that most amateur screenwriters are incapable of abstract thought and don't have a poetic bone in their body. So why didn't I keep my mouth shut? A number of people seemed to take this as a personal affront to the art and craft of screenwriting. (As well, any challenge to dogma or convention is taken as a personal affront.) I was wrong because for them "writing is easy and fun." And it can be easy and fun. The first draft of a scene often is. Then comes the scrutiny: going over every line, every word and every punctuation mark to deliver the most in terms of story, tone, pacing, character, dialogue, atmosphere, theme, etc. Therein lies the real work. Therein lies the tyranny of decisions.
As Kaufman proposes, a writer should consider alternatives to the choices he or she has made. People are going to question your choices, so you may as well question them first.
Getting back to my original question, the title of this post: Reverse Engineering...or Engineering Reversals.
Do both. Find what works for a given story. Do the hard work of deciding for yourself. It might not feel safe or comfortable, but it can be very rewarding.