Behind the Scenes

What these underlying layers of information suggest to screenwriters is that they need to create and maintain a deep awareness of information and events that lie just outside, or beneath, the directly visible realm of the story. A few questions to ask yourself when preparing to create the world in which the story takes place are:

• What events happened directly before the story takes place? How did these events lead to the present story? What is the history of the society, realm, or universe in which the characters live?
• What might happen after the story is over? How are the characters or the realm that they inhabit irrevocably changed by the events of the story? Where do the characters go or what do they become as a result of the story?
• How does the society in which the characters live operate? What are its rules or codes, especially in the ways that they apply to the characters? If the story takes the characters into a new realm, how is this realm different from their everyday lives?
• How does the main character's struggle set them apart from their society or environment? How do others respond to the main character before, during, and after the story's events?
• In what ways are the characters uniquely suited to deal with the story's problems? In what ways do they find themselves challenged or overcome by the new conditions imposed by the story?

All of these are questions that you should be able to answer before you have begun your script. This information will help you define and refine the world of your story and the characters within it, and will give you amazing, insightful ideas that will add needed depth to your work.

I once saw an interview with one of the head writers of the television show "Murphy Brown," in which he mentioned that for each half-hour show, the writers would create a forty-five minute script which they would edit down to thirty minutes. He described this missing fifteen minutes as a kind of residue that permeated and informed the final script. He felt that the absent information still left its traces upon the final work, and gave it layers that the audience sensed.

A Final Suggestion

I highly recommend acting classes for screenwriters. At minimum, a crash course in stage improvisation will help hone and energize your creative process, and is of enormous help in writing dialogue that flows naturally.

Acting will give you a whole new perspective on character and its place in dramatic narrative. And in the process of learning acting skills, you will learn about yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, and come to terms with parts of yourself that you have forgotten, denied, or ignored; and it's much more fun than therapy. The emotional and psychological revelations gained through acting will greatly help you to become a stronger, deeper, and more realistic writer of human experience for screen or stage.

Related Links:

Breaking Down the Script
From Amanda Gray, actress, a nice page that lays out the basics of how an actor needs to approach a script for performance. She also discusses on her Site many other elements of acting technique.

Screenplay: "Jerry Maguire"
An undated draft, but it looks like the final version.

Screenplay: "Shawshank Redemption"
Basically a copy of the Newmarket Press Edition (which I cannot recommend enough!), but free, and chopped into small, annoying segments. One of my favorite screenplays.