For your consideration: my Writer Shrine
Someone asked me in the most recent live chat how to go about writing a script. They asked what kind of software to use and for a tutorial.
I gave him a brief run-down in the chat, but I’d like to give a more elaborate explanation here.
Simply put: just write.
In a world full of plasticine technocrap, it isn’t hard to think that if you have the right program for the job the rest will come naturally.
Ha Ha.
Writing is one of the oldest forms of expression man has utilized, and it takes no more than something to write on and something to write with. Words written on toilet paper with a concoction of feces and soot is just as valid as writing carved into the side of a mountain in forty-foot letters1. The meaning of the words should trump the medium it’s written on, not the other way around.
I find the real challenge is not locating tools to record your thoughts, but organizing your thoughts to work with your tools. It’s been said by some authors that the blank page is one of the most terrifying things they have ever come across. Anyone who has tried to write a story from scratch will understand all too well.
Yet the basic nature of writing is a truly miraculous and wonderful thing: the availability of writing instruments and paper is such that anyone can begin writing whatever they like, whenever they choose to start.
A good writer is seldom born. Like the painter, the singer and the actor, a writer must practice and hone their craft. Some would say it takes years for a writer to come to fruition and find their own voice on the page; to them I extend my longest finger, as they never take into account how much writing is being done in those years.
That being said, the best advice I can give (other than to practice) would be to read. Read fiction, nonfiction, blog posts, newspaper articles, slashfic… whatever catches your eye. This will expose you to the versatility in writing styles and voices, allowing you to get a better understanding of how to sculpt your own. Be wary, though, as it’s the fault of many people to mimic their favorite authors in lieu of writing with their own words.2
Then once you have your voice3, or perhaps while you are finding it, you should study the dynamics of Story. There’s a fantastically thick book with an incredibly unimaginative title called STORY by Robert McKee that details characterization, plot arc, scene dynamics and pitfalls to avoid when attempting to tell a story well. Entire college courses are taught around this book, and it is not to be underestimated.
After you grasp your particular style and understand just what it takes to make a story work, all you need to do is learn the small guidelines of writing a script. Most of these guidelines can be gleaned by simply reading scripts of movies you know well. Each page of a script is meant to play out as a minute of on-screen time, and everything else is just formatting.
Here’s hoping you write scripts 90x better than Hollywood will ever buy or produce, and that instead of dining on the finest things money can buy, you sup on your creative juices with your muse as a dinner guest.
1: Although let’s face it: the carving will certainly last longer, not to mention the affect poopscrawl on toilet paper might have on your Creative Writing 101 grade.
2: A sin I am guilty of lately as well…
3: Which will take a while, just so you know.
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Sounds like a simple explanation (with an exuberant amount of reading lol). Looks like a trip to the Library is in order.
Hey Benny Boy,
Doubt you care, and I am sure you already know this, but there is a really good FREE (I don’t know about you, but thats the magic word for me) script writing program you can get online called “Celtx” I’ve been using it for a while and I’m doing my own Twilight script with it as well as others and I would strongly recommend it. It’s easy, cheap, whats better than that?
All the best!
Veronica
I adore writing. My problem is that I do it all for fun, with little consideration as to what the end result will be. As a consequence, I tend not to finish things… I have so many awesome concepts, many without plots and most without conclusions.
But, y’know, when the day comes for me to yank from my very soul the book which we’re told is “in all of us,” I like to think I’ll have a voice already.
Actually, Ben…this blog didn’t sound like you..not much, anyway. I think this blog had a different sort of passion to it.
There’s a type of writing that doesn’t do anything for you, correct, Ben? I think it was free writing, just sitting and writing all of your thoughts. I think you should do that some time, and post it up on this website.
Also, do you have high lights in your hair? I know it’s an odd question, but your hair glows with an odd color. I doubt it’s the Head and Shoulders…I use it too.
Referring to footnote “2″, might i cheekily guess Tom Robbins?
Hahaha as if he’d spend good food money on highlights :(
OMG BEN!
BEN!
I just had a great idea. YOU SHOULD TOTALLY GROW A BEARD.
I know it’s your chin and all, but if you’ve been looking for an excuse to grow a beard, you can now blame me.
Anna, I’d spend good food money on high lights if Ally wanted it.
I need to know why his hair has such a strange brown color. It has a chocolate brown color on the bottom, but gets more of a…this is going to sound way worse than I mean it, but…it has more of a diarrhea brown to it. By that I mean it’s a lighter brown with a good shine to it. I want my hair the same color his is, I need to know if he’s doing something special to it.
ALLY DEMANDS IT (and the lady who cuts my hair thinks it would look good as well)!
… you passed the scary threshold a long time ago, Chef. I’m still just ‘intriguingly worrying.’
Oh I scare myself too, dear. But remember…I do whatever Ally asks…or I get hit…hard…a lot.
@joiywtj
Sounds like you may have a fondness of being thrashed about lol
I struggled for years to write the ultimate story. As soon as I learned how to type; I got a small, portable manual typewriter. I tried my untrained writing skills on short stories, poems, song lyrics, children stories (with illustrations), comic strips and the first chapter of my so-called full novel – every single project I attempted were incomplete and abandoned.
My writing style suffered from too much unnecessary detail, boring dialogues and zero plot. Over the years, I’ve learned to scale back the excess and make every sentence count – point-form style. It works for me in a non-fiction manner, but still nothing has materialized.
The best example how not to write a novel or script would be Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road”. The original manuscript is insane!
Oh my gosh. Oz, it’s beyond me how ANYONE could write novels before computers… absolute madness!
Ben, you have summed up the process of writing very well. With a completed novel under my belt and beginning a second one, I found myself nodding all the way through this read. However, there is one thing left out I’m afraid. Rejection, with a capital REJECTION. It’s the one thing writers will face more than writer’s block and while both are frustrating they have the opportunity to lead to the best writing of our lives. Good read!
Thiefree — You mentioned earlier that you don’t complete your work at the moment very often. I don’t necessarily think that not completing everything is bad. So often, as I writer, I feel compelled to finish that novel, to get published, etc. But, I went to a reading with Nino Ricci (he’s a Canadian writer, you’ve probably haven’t heard of him) where he said most writers try to publish too early. Try to finish their works too early. No offense to the kid who wrote Eragon, but I doubt he’s going to be proud that those stories were published when he turns thirty. Or forty. I think sometimes that, as long as you are writing, you have to trust that the process is taking you somewhere you want to go, even if you’re not quite sure how to arrive at that destination.
RedHerring: I loved Eragon, actually… I know it’s only a bog-standard coming of age fantasy story, but I hadn’t read any others at the time and I adored it. The writing style may lack finesse, but the books were successful for a reason, and not just the novelty value of a young author! Maybe he will feel that he could have done better, and maybe he will do better when he’s older, but he’ll get more attention because of the very fact that he was published so young. People know who he is now.
And think of the Carpet People by Terry Pratchett: he wrote it when he was 17, and rewrote it as an adult. The end result is something unique and wonderful.
So I hear what you’re saying about waiting until your style grows, but it will never be perfect – so why not work with what you’ve got?