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@screenwritinginspiration
Not specifically about screenwriting, but a summit with talks on plotting, character building, different genres etc, running from October 18th to 22nd. Several days full of interesting and informative talks. More info here:
Dear amazing summit attendee, This is a welcome pack for the event. If you wish, you can download your copy of summit handbook AND enter a p
Currently trying to actually write the story i've been planning for years, but my characters feel flat. Any tips on how to fix this? Should I do some deeper character study on them? Practice more writing them?
Character Feels Flat
So often, when a character feels flat, there are two things missing:
1 - Unique Voice - "Character voice" isn't about the audible quality of their voice (though it can sometimes be part of it), but rather how their personality comes out through the things they say and the way they say them. So, it's important that you make sure to flesh out your character's personality, then make sure their personality is reflected in the things they say and think.
2 - Internal Conflict - Most stories these days are driven by both plot and character, so if you're trying to explore character development but your character still feels flat, it may be because they don't have an internal conflict, or the one they have is weak or poorly developed.
Here are some links to previous posts that will help with the above:
Recognizing a Flat Character Fleshing Out Characters Writing Realistic Characters Important Points of Character Personality Giving Your Characters a Unique Voice Plot Driven vs Character Driven Stories Understanding Goals and Conflict
Happy writing!
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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!
♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here
helpful sites for writers
i have a little collection of websites i tend to use for coming up with ideas, naming people or places, keeping clear visuals or logistics, writing basics about places i've never been to, and so on. i tend to do a lot of research, but sometimes you just need quick references, right? so i thought i'd share some of them!
Behind the Name; good for name meanings but also just random name ideas, regardless of meanings.
Fantasy Name Generator; this link goes to the town name generator, which i use most, but there are lots of silly/fun/good inspo generators on there!
Age Calculator; for remembering how old characters are in Y month in Z year. i use this constantly.
Height Comparison; i love this for the height visuals; does character A come up to character B's shoulder? are they a head taller? what does that look like, height-wise? the chart feature is great!
Child Development Guide; what can a (neurotypical, average) 5-year-old do at that age? this is a super handy quickguide for that, with the obviously huge caveat that children develop at different paces and this is not comprehensive or accurate for every child ever. i like it as a starting point, though!
Weather Spark; good for average temperatures and weather checking!
Green's Dictionary of Slang; good for looking up "would x say this?" or "what does this phrase mean in this context?" i love the timeline because it shows when the phrase was historically in use. this is english only, though; i dig a little harder for resources like this in other languages.
Character Backstory & How to Explore It
Anonymous asked: I keep seeing advice to "explore your character's backstory," but what does it even mean? It's not helpful when I'm already struggling to flesh a character out due to lacking ideas or not knowing what I want the character to be. Is there a guide on how I'm supposed to explore their backstory?
[Ask edited for length]
What is Character Backstory?
Your character's "backstory" is their past. It's the accumulation of places they've lived, places they've visited, who they've loved, who's loved them, situations and events they've experienced, skills and knowledge they've acquired... basically everything that has made them into the person they are at the start of the story.
Backstory and Internal Conflict
If you're writing a story that is fully or partly character-driven, meaning that who your characters are and what they do is important to driving the plot, you will want to make sure your protagonist and important main characters each have an internal conflict. An internal conflict is a problem in the character's heart and mind that must be resolved by the end of the story. In a story that is fully character-driven, this problem will serve as the story's main conflict. In a story that is partially character-driven and also partially plot-driven, this problem will coincide with the external conflict, which in this case is the main plot.
Fleshing Out the Backstory
We are who we are because of our lives so far, so you can look at who your character is (or who you think you want them to be) and start to look for things they might have experienced in their past that made them that way. For example, if you want your character to be a detail-oriented, goal-driven, ambitious person, can you think of what in their life so far has made them that way? Maybe they were raised by parents who struggled with details, goals, and ambition, and as a result the family was always broke, the house was always a mess, and bills were always unpaid. Growing up in that way was frustrating for your character, so they were driven to be different. They liked school because it was structured and wasn't home, and they strove to do well. This allowed them to get a scholarship to a top university where they did very well and graduated with top marks and a great job offer.
Figuring Out the Conflict, Emotional Wound, and Lie They Believe
If your character needs an internal conflict--which they do if you want your story to be partially or fully character-driven--you can look at your character's life and try to find something that, despite everything, isn't quite right.
For example,using the character from the earlier example, let's say because of the tumultuous situation, their parents had an awful relationship and eventually went through a messy divorce that was awful for the kids. Because this divorce had a profound negative effect on your character's view of relationships, this event caused an "emotional wound" that your character carries with them into adulthood. Ultimately, it gave them the mistaken belief that no relationship can withstand difficult challenges. This is the "lie they believe," and because of this mistaken belief, they can't let themselves get too serious in a relationship. If a relationship is going too well, they break it off before it can be ruined by difficult challenges.
Exploring the Backstory and Resolving the Conflict
Whatever else is happening in this story, part of it is going to be addressing this character's failed relationships as well as helping them to change before they self-sabotage the good relationship they're in now (or that they get into over the course of the story.)
You can do this by exploring the character's backstory, or in other words weaving in recalled memories, flashbacks, and explanations of what that childhood was like, what the divorce was like, and how it drove them to be ambitious and detail oriented. As they start to push their new love interest away, you can then examine the emotional wound of the divorce and the lie it led them to believe. You can illustrate ways in which they see that this thing they believe isn't actually true... maybe they see friends' relationships surviving difficult challenges just fine. Maybe eventually their own relationship survives an unexpected difficult challenge. As the story progresses and they see evidence that the thing they believe is actually a lie, their internal conflict resolves because they see that relationships can survive challenges--even difficult ones--and they can prove this change by staying in their relationship even if there are difficult challenges looming.
I hope that helps! :)
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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!
♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here
An online screenwriting course created to guide you towards a deadline for completing your first draft or elevate your rewriting skills.
The ISA's 30-Day Screenwriting Challenge 2024 starts tomorrow January 31!
I was on a plane this weekend, and I was chatting with the woman sitting next to me about an upcoming writer’s strike. “Do you really think you’re mistreated?” she asked me.
That’s not the issue at stake here. Let me tell you a little something about “minirooms.”
Minirooms are a way of television writing that is becoming more common. Basically, the studio will hire a small group of writers, 3-6 or so, and employ them for just a few weeks. In those few weeks (six weeks seem to be common), they have to hurriedly figure out as much about the show as they can – characters, plots, outlines for episodes. Then at the end of the six weeks, all the writers are fired except for the showrunner, who has to write the entire series themselves based on the outlines.
This is not a widespread practice, but it has become more common over the past couple of years. Studios like it because instead of paying for a full room for the full length of the show, they just pay a handful of writers for a fraction of the show. It’s not a huge problem now, but the WGA only gets the chance to make rules every three years – if we let this go for another three years and it becomes the norm? That would be DEVASTATING for the tv writing profession.
Do I feel like I’m mistreated? No. I LOVE my job! But in a world of minirooms, there is no place for someone like me – a mid-level writer who makes a decent living working on someone else’s show (I’d like to be a showrunner someday, but for now I feel like I still have a lot to learn, and my husband and I are trying to start a family so I like not being support rather than the leader for now). In a miniroom, there are only two levels – the handful of glorified idea people who are already scrambling to find their next show because you can’t make a decent living off of one six-week job (and since there are fewer people per room, there are fewer jobs overall, even at the six-week amount), and the overworked, stressed as fuck showrunner who is going to have to write the entire thing themselves. Besides being bad for me making a living, I also just think it’s plain bad for television as an art form – what I like about TV is how adaptable it is, how a whole group of people come together to tell a story better than what any of them could do on their own. Plus the showrunner can’t do their best work under all of that pressure, episode after episode, back to back. Minirooms just…fucking suck.
The WGA is proposing two things to fix this – a rule that writers have to be employed for the entire show, and a rule tying the number of writers in the room to the number of episodes you have per season. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. It’s the way shows have run since the advent of television. It’s only in the last couple of years that this has become a new thing. It’s exploitative. It squeezes out everyone except showrunners and people who have the financial means to work only a few months a year. It makes television worse. And that is the issue in this strike that means everything to me, and that is why I voted yes on the strike authorization vote.
Write as though nobody's watching because nobody's watching.
Dan Brown
First, set up a writing space. ...
Start each day by journaling. ...
Set a word count goal. ...
Set aside writing time every single day, without exception. ...
Don't start with a blank page if you can help it. ...
Include brainstorming sessions in your writing process.
Don’t discount thinking and planning.
Gamify your creative writing ritual.
Time your writing sessions.
Group goals and deadlines.
How I Wrote Knives Out — Writing Advice from Rian Johnson
[SPOILER WARNING] Rian Johnson explains his writing process for the modern whodunit, Knives Out (2019). In this video, we learn how Rian Johnson switched between the whodunit genre and the thriller genre, what the "Walter White Test" is, and the only filmmaking advice that he thinks is worth a damn.
“Get it all down. Let it pour out of you and onto the page. Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft. Then take out as many of the excesses as you can.”
— Anne Lamott
Don't Know How To Start A Screenplay? - Naomi Beaty
The Secrets of Story with Matt Bird // Bulletproof Screenwriting® Podcast
Listen to more at:
http://www.bulletproofscreenwriting.tv
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!
Ray Bradbury (via scriptwriters-network)
Redemption Arcs.
What is a redemption arc?
“Redemption: An act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake.” An act, implying action, which is created by choices, which just happens to be the basis of character development.
Some writers confuse redemption arcs with things they are not, and end up creating situations which aren’t redemption arcs at all, but rather bad writing, such as when:
The villainous character’s actions are never condemned by the heroic characters and the story, even when the villain is in the process of doing villainous things.
The villainous character is immediately forgiven for all the wrong they’ve done despite making no real effort to change their ways.
The villainous character suddenly becomes a genuinely good person without any notable character growth.
The villainous character is suddenly made unaccountable for their villainous actions because it’s revealed that someone else forced them to do it. Bonus bad writing: All blame is placed on the heroic characters for being unable to see how ‘traumatized’ the villainous character has been.
So now that we know what a redemption arc is not, how do we write a good one?
The four steps to a solid redemption arc:
Keep reading
Confused by all the contradictory out there on how to format a script? Here are two script formatting anomalies you should avoid if you want to sell a script in today's spec market.
You can’t think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.
John Rogers (via scriptwriters-network)
“Don’t give up. Keep going. There is always a chance that you will stumble onto something terrific. I have never heard of anyone stumbling over anything while he was sitting down.”
— Ann Landers
