by Greg DePaul
That’s the biggest advantage you have when creating a conceit—the audience is on your side. They want to believe.
How exactly did the bite of a radioactive spider give Peter Parker super powers? Who knows. Sounds fishy to me. But we do know radiation does whacky stuff to people, and we want to see Spiderman kick bad guys’ butts all over town, so … we go with it. We just need the writer to make a good-faith attempt at establishing the conceit early in the script. To satisfy us and to make us feel like the story is not arbitrary.
Of course you and I know that stories are created by arbitrary whim. I’ve never met the guys who wrote Old School, but I guarantee you they got the idea of a fraternity of middle-aged men before they came up with the paper-thin justification for how it could happen. It happened because they wanted it to happen. They may have thought up half the set pieces for that story before they ever considered how to introduce the conceit.
As I discuss in a previous chapter, you need not know the first act before you dream up the second act. You are well advised to reach for the stars when it comes to brainstorming premises. That’s because—no matter how off-the-wall the concept may be—you can always find a way to justify it. And if, upon re-reading your work, you later find that justification to be rickety, you can just find another one. Because you’re a writer. You make stuff up all the time.
To quote the great comic actor W. C. Fields: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”
Did I mention Fields was also a screenwriter?
Comedic Escalation
The screenwriters of Anchorman deserve an award for something that, until now, has gone largely unremarked upon—the award for Best Comedic Escalation.
Comedic escalation is an escalation in tone. Great comedy screenplays often feature bigger and more outrageous set pieces and jokes as they go on. The best and biggest, of course, are reserved for Act 3. It’s like a fireworks display with the expected grand finale. At the end, you throw in the kitchen sink.
In Anchorman, there is some mildly broad (and by “broad,” I mean hard-to-believe) comedy in the first act. In the second act, the tone broadens even more and we see a gang fight in which Brick kills a man with a trident and a man’s arm is hacked off—stuff that’s harder to believe than what we saw in Act 1. Since the movie is only half over and there is still a thin level of believability to maintain, we are then shown a scene in which Ron and his buddies discuss the gang fight and speculate about whether the police may be looking for Brick. It’s a fig leaf, delivered tongue-in-cheek, but it’s there to rein in the tone. In the third act, however, all bets are off. We see a man wrestle a bear (that can talk to a dog), and the one-armed man’s other arm is torn off. All pretense of believability is shed. The bubble has burst. The movie is over.
Seen Get Him to the Greek? The first half of the movie mines jokes and set pieces about sex and drugs in the world of celebrity rock stars. There’s some broad humor there, yes. But it all comes within the context of what we already know about rock stars and their wild, partying ways. Hardly difficult to believe. But as the story goes on, believability is stretched. You may remember the fight between rock star Aldous Snow’s father and his manager, which occurs late in the second act. They break objects over each other’s heads and fire a gun. Aaron overdoses on drugs and is given a shot of adrenaline in the heart.
I don’t think the screenwriters would have put those hard-to-believe moments in the beginning of the movie. After all, whatever happens in the first act must then sit in our minds—without suffering diverting critical examination—until the end of the film. No, I think those scenes are only acceptable if they occur deep into the story so that we won’t have to believe in them for very long; after all, the movie is almost over.
Comedic escalation rewards relentless screenwriters who view every new scene as an opportunity to outdo whatever they wrote ten pages ago. The trick is not to strain believability too much and to remember you can pretty much do anything at the end.
So remember: bend it, don’t break it.
Farce
Well, there you go—I used the F word.
Some of you will pass right over this section as soon as you see that word. Well, let me tell you something—most comedy, and most film comedy, is farce. Just like Shakespeare, just like Molière. And, by the way, just like pretty much all TV comedy.
Agents, producers, and executives, casting about for things to say to screenwriters, will constantly tell you that comedy should come from character. That’s because they have no idea what to say, but they know they must say something to you in order to preserve their perceived authority as judges of what is good on the page. What they should say is, “Make me laugh,” and let the screenwriter do the rest. We know how to do our jobs.
And part of doing our jobs is understanding that we are all practitioners of the fine art of farce.
Farce occurs when characters in a dramatic presentation pursue their individual goals—despite all obstacles—with such vigor that they do funny things that make us laugh. So the formula for farce is this:
Characters with Goals + Obstacles + Actions Taken to Overcome Obstacles = FUNNY
Just telling writers to create funny characters isn’t enough; it’s just the beginning. Those characters must also want to achieve their goals. The hotter they burn to achieve them, the more primed they are to enter the farcical situations you hope to create. So turn up their desire. Then beef up the obstacles to those desires. Then push your characters to achieve their goals anyway—despite the overwhelming obstacles.
Example: You’re writing a script about a woman who loves a man who doesn’t know she exists. Want to make it funny? Turn up her desire; take her from want to need. Make her mad for him. Make every pore in her body scream out for him.
Now increase the obstacles. Make him hate her. He should find her revolting. And make him in love with some other woman. Better yet—five other women. Or five men. Whatever makes her goal of winning him seem unobtainable. What we want to see is her jumping through incredibly high hoops to get what she wants.
High, flaming hoops. Hoops that will make her jump higher and faster so we’ll want to watch her all the more.
This draws on a principle as old as dramatic writing itself and that transcends screenwriting. Here it is: love your characters, but make everything tough on them. Their adversity is our pleasure.
I can’t tell you how many times writers have shown me a screenplay they are working on in which they’ve constructed a weak farce. The characters want certain things, but not enough. There are obstacles, but they aren’t difficult enough. The comic sparks that are produced are, as a result, not enough. Maybe I occasionally chuckle as I turn the page, but the fault in the writing is clear.
Again, your agent or a producer may tell you, The comedy is in the character. What they are referring to is all those little ticks, those little habits that make us laugh.
But remember—not all of those ticks and habits are written on the page. Will Farrell does lots of stuff in a movie that makes us laugh, not all of which is in the script. But that doesn’t help you, the aspiring screenwriter. You’ve still got to make the industry laugh when they turn the pages—long before Will Farrell is ever attached. So you’ve got to pump up your farce and make us laugh before actors get involved. Take nothing for granted, put the work on your shoulders, and expect no favorable assumptions.
Let’s look at some successful screen farces from the last handful of years and examine why they are farces. As you’ll see, protagonists usually have a single goal, but struggle with multiple obstacles.
21 Jump Street
Characters with Goals (CWG): Young cops who want to prove themselves
Obstacles (O): Vicious drug dealers / The cops’ own ineptitude / Each other
Neighbors
CWG: Young parents who want peace and quiet
O: Frat guys / The parents’ own repressed desire to party
&
nbsp; The Heat
CWG: An FBI agent pursuing career advancement / A cop who wants to bust bad guys and protect her family
O: Criminals / Competition from other agents and cops / One cop’s self-destructive family / Each other
We’re the Millers
CWG: Four people who need money
O: Bad guys / The police / Their conflicts with each other / The difficulty of posing as a family
Identity Thief
CWG: A guy who needs to restore his reputation to save his job / A thief who needs to pay her bills
O: His boss / The police / Bad guys / Her inner desire to cut and run when things get difficult
The next time somebody tells you, “Comedy comes from character,” correct that person—unless it’s a producer or a studio executive. In that case, just smile politely.
But if that person is not a producer or a studio executive, say: “Comedy comes from character plus goals plus obstacles.”
That’ll win you friends at your next Hollywood party.
Plotting
What’s the right number of scenes for your story?
If, in your rom-com, you’re showing the story of a lonely man who braves certain obstacles to win the love of his life, you’re starting with the establishment of his character and proceeding until the end, when he wins his love. The question is, how many scenes are there in between and what do they consist of?
The average romantic comedy screenplay is about one hundred pages. Yes, I know yours could be longer or shorter, but one hundred is, broadly speaking, the norm. And, in most cases, the scenes that are going to fill those one hundred pages are about one to four pages long; the rare five-pager would probably be either a master scene or some sort of set piece, both of which are discussed elsewhere.
So how may scenes do you need?
Could be as few as, say, thirty and as many as, say, sixty. And, assuming we’re working in a Syd Field world—as we usually are—half of those scenes would likely be first and third act scenes, which constitute about half the total story length. The other half of the scenes would constitute that all-important second act.
Let me throw in a new wrinkle.
Romantic comedies usually have short third acts. After all, there is usually no castle to storm, no demons to wrestle to save the hero’s paramour. Very often, the obstacles that seemed so formidable in Act 2 are quickly surmounted. That’s because the protagonist is often wrestling with some form of baggage that she or he needs to let go of, which often happens quickly.
In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Andy’s problem is that he’s scared of sex and intimacy. That’s what prevents him from consummating his love with his girlfriend once she is ready to get busy. When he finally gets over his fear, there isn’t a whole act worth of obstacles to overcome. That may be why Judd Apatow and Steve Carrell, the funny fellows who wrote the script, felt they could afford to throw in a superfluous, Bollywood-inspired dance sequence at the end of the movie.
In any event, your job—among others—is to fill your story with obstacles for your lead character to overcome. And you’ve got to build those obstacles higher as the story goes on so they escalate.
But let’s say your heroine meets her love interest at the beginning of her summer vacation and doesn’t “win” him until that big party on the Fourth of July. OK, I’m just riffing here, so go with me. That means that your overall story, including all the moments you don’t need onscreen, takes place over the course of maybe a month.
So you’re telling a screen story that starts on, say, June 1 and continues until the Fourth of July. And that brings up a big issue that writers rarely discuss (though we should) …
I call it the referential story. You could also call it the overall story, or the broader story. But no matter what you call it, screenwriters are almost always telling a story that—for the most part—isn’t seen. We’re juggling events—many of which are shown, and many of which happen off-screen and are not shown but must be implied.
How do you manage that? You pick and choose moments to show based upon their importance.
When you choose what moments to show—out of all the myriad possibilities—you must keep your eyes focused tightly on the prize, which is the story. Only show scenes that help tell the story.
And to do that, you will depend on a very important storytelling strategy …
Late Point of Attack
Start your story, and each scene within that story, as late as you can.
Note: this is a general strategy; there are exceptions. But, for the most part, honor this rule because it will shave years off your personal development curve as a screenwriter.
Writing a script about Napoleon and your climactic event is the Battle of Waterloo? Don’t show us Napoleon one week before the battle. Don’t show us Napoleon one day before the battle. Show us Napoleon ten minutes before the climax of the battle, when his generals come to his tent to beg him to retreat, only to be rebuffed by him.
Start your scene at its penultimate moment. And just in case you don’t feel like going to dictionary.com, I’ll define penultimate for you:
Penultimate: next to last. In other words, the thing that is right before the ultimate thing.
The penultimate moment is a great place to start just about any scene. That’s because the penultimate moment is usually when the obstacle is presented. And remember: it’s the obstacle that gives the scene conflict. Thus, if the scene is about how Napoleon blew off the counsel of his generals, then the penultimate moment—where the scene should start—may be his top aide telling him to retreat because he cannot possibly win.
And when you write that scene, skip what I call the boring beginning—don’t show the generals walking in, taking off their tri-cornered hats, saluting Napoleon, and saying their Hellos and How are yous.
Cut that. That’s fat. You want muscle.
So we might have a scene that reads this way:
INT. NAPOLEON’S TENT — MORNING
General Schmuckler stands opposite Napoleon with a map of Waterloo between them showing the various armies represented by little wooden soldiers.
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
We cannot win! We must pull back!
NAPOLEON
Bullshit! We attack!
As Napoleon sweeps his hand across the map, scattering the wooden soldiers, we …
CUT TO:
And there you have it—the reason I don’t write historical epics.
But you get the idea—the penultimate moment starts the scene. And that action presents the obstacle. The ultimate action—Napoleon overriding his aide and committing to battle—ends the scene.
Now, just to review some of the rules and strategies I discussed in earlier chapters, let’s have a little fun and re-write that scene with all the bells and whistles that can drag a good scene down and exhaust our reader.
In other words, let’s look at a bad—OK, much worse—version of that scene.
INT. NAPOLEON’S TENT — MORNING
The dawn’s light seeps in through the door flap. Napoleon’s lieutenants busy themselves preparing his breakfast in the background, placing little sausages on china dishes and filling a chalice with orange juice for their vaunted leader.
Napoleon peers outside through the open flap at his massive army, which awaits his command. His right hand is perched in his left vest pocket, as per portraits from the period. He is truly at his peak, the apex of his career. As he takes a deep, if troubled, breath, contemplating the epic struggle he embarked upon and how history will one day view him …
General Schmuckler strides into the tent, fuming. His grey mustache twitches as he speaks with venomous anger. He closes the flap behind him, waving all others out of the tent.
After they scurry off …
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
(saluting)
My emperor.
NAPOLEON
(picking his nose)
My second in command.
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
I greet you this morning.
NAPOLEON
(still picking)
I greet you back, General.
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
May I say that it’s a pleasure to serve you, my emperor.
NAPOLEON
You may, General. And I hope you received that basket of biscuits, jams, and fine cheeses I sent you last Christmas?
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
I did. My wife especially enjoyed the cheeses.
NAPOLEON
Splendid! And how’s the kids?
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
Well, they’re so-so. You know, the usual: Little Nappy, named after you, plays with his toy soldiers, and Marie does pretty much whatever early nineteenth-century girls do. Unfortunately my mother-in-law has been staying with us for some time and …
NAPOLEON
No need to go on, General. Perhaps we should get to the matter at hand.
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
Yes, indeed. The matter at hand.
There is a long pause, until …
GENERAL SCHMUCKLER
(breaking the silence)
Shall I start?
NAPOLEON
(annoyed)
Yes, by all means.
The General thinks, choosing his words carefully. Then, after mustering his courage, he just blurts it out …