The Screenwryter's Toolbox

by Steven Haas

  STAKES

  You've all heard of stakes and you all know what stakes are, which brings us to the natural question: what are stakes?

  Stakes are what is lost if your character fails. Maybe the main character owes a lot of money to a local gambling shark. Maybe if he doesn't pay back the shark he will be killed. Maybe he's a writer himself whose only hope is to sell copies of his book. Maybe you should tell your friends about the book he wrote.

  In this case, the main character's life is at stake. But what should be at stake for your character? In order to determine that we must ask the most important question about stakes:

  Can a story have too many stakes?

  The answer is it cannot. No one has ever seen a movie and said “it was good but there was too much on the line.”

  And with that in mind, let's re-ask the question: what should be at stake in your story?

  As much as possible.

  Consider the 'double down' rule. Go into one of your stories, identify what is at stake and double it.

  Example: The main character will lose his house if he doesn't make a big sale.

  Double Down: The main character will lose both his houses if he doesn't make two big sales. And he will be killed.

  Now you're cooking with gas.

  But wait, what if your main character's life is already at stake?

  Make his kid's life at stake as well. He doesn't have kids? Fuck it, send a skud missile flying towards New York. Now everyone's lives are at stake.

  The only thing you have to remember with stakes is to err on the side of caution. It is impossible to have a story with too much at stake so why risk having too little at stake?

  Is your main character a spy trying to stop a nuclear arms dealer from selling to North Korea? Fuck it, make the arms dealer an ambassador to an alien species who are going to blow up the entire galaxy.

  Are you writing a silly comedy about a yard sale? Make me give a shit. Add more stakes.

  Stakes are what intrigue the reader and there's no way to have too many. So where's the confusion?

  It is also important to have emotional stakes in your story. Emotional stakes are what the character stands to lose on the inside if they fail.

  What is going to happen to your main character EMOTIONALLY if they fail? Are they going to be mildly upset?

  Double down: Your character is going to become a drunken, empty shell of their former self with no one in their life and nothing to live for.

  Before you get too worried about writing such a heavy narrative, remember that stakes are nothing more than an illusion. They are not going to come to fruition. Your main character isn't going to lose his houses, or die, or watch the galaxy blow up.

  And why isn't your character going to fail?

  Because this is the ENTERTAINMENT industry. You are creating entertainment to be enjoyed. No blue-collar bigot or white-collar office drone is going to drive to a theater and spend money to watch a complete failure for 2 hours. They could do that at home for free with a mirror.

  RISING ACTION

  A popular topic for screenwriting books to cover is “rising action.” If you have ignored this concept in your writing because of its complex nature, do not fear, it is actually quite simple. Rising action is nothing more than action which is rising. Let's break it down.

  What is action? Action is what happens. Do not make the mistake of thinking only a character can cause an action. Actions can be caused by weather, the supernatural, space ships, etc...

  Stop reading this sentence right now and do something. That's an action. And you need to ensure that this action is rising which means it is going up. Like when your church's pastor says “please rise.” Or what yeast does. That's also rising. And that's what your action needs to do.

  But rising action doesn't refer to just one action. It refers to multiple actions. After all, one action is singular. Think of a single action as a point on a graph. It isn't going anywhere. And in order to make your action rise, you must take into consideration all of the actions in the story.

  Imagine a graph with an X and Y axis. Rising action is moving from point A to point B where point B is higher up the Y axis than point A.

  Imagine your story as a rollercoaster. As the rollercoaster moves along the track, so does your story progress. As the rollercoaster goes up the incline, so must the action in your story rise. Those clicks you hear as you go up the incline on a rollercoaster? That's rising action. The actions become more extreme, the stakes are raised, the audience's communal erection grows.

 

  Imagine a person riding an escalator. Is the person on the escalator going up? If they aren't, imagine the escalator is going the other way. As the escalator goes up, the person on it rises. That person is your action. And that action is rising.

 

  Discussing rollercoasters and escalators may suffice for the average screenwriter's guide, but let's elevate this discussion to the master level.

  Imagine your story as a tesseract. A 3-dimensional representation of a 4-dimensional space. Movement within this hypercube is a straightforward way to think of rising action. Take the points in the Euclidean 4-space and remember that the eight hyperplanes that are bound within the hypercube are visualizations of the edges of your story. As action occurs within this story, so must it rise.

  So that's what rising action is. It's like a rollercoaster. Or a diagram. Or a pastor in a church. Or the convex hull of a tesseract.

  SIDE NOTE: Rising action is also like train tracks. Or an internet search engine. Or a set of antique bowls. Or a dog that smells bad.

  RULES OF THE WORLD

  Every movie takes place in its own unique universe. And while most stories take place in a world very similar to our own that does not change the fact that upon opening your script, the reader is unfamiliar with the world you've created. Therefore, establishing the “rules of the world” your story takes place in is essential to creating an understandable experience for the reader.

  Let's dig deeper into this phrase, “rules of the world.” It's a strange phrase. After all, don't most worlds have the same rules? Gravity is probably an issue. There's usually light coming from somewhere. Maybe the Sun?

  Rules of the world does not only refer to rules of physics. Instead, the term is used in a broader sense, referring to character and setting.

  Look at your story and ask some general “rules of the world” questions: Is there any futuristic technology? Does the story take place in the present? If you answered “yes” to both of those questions, you've got some explaining to do.

  Remember that in order for a reader to enjoy a screenplay or for an audience member to enjoy a movie, they must suspend their disbelief to some degree. Some movies require the reader to suspend their disbelief more than other movies. And the degree to which you are able to suspend the audience's disbelief is based entirely on your ability to establish the rules of the world.

  It's not a matter of how much the disbelief is suspended but how WELL you suspend it. Examples of his can be seen in some famous movies:

  Pretty Woman: Millionaire Richard Gere falls in love with a hooker. Totally believable.

  Transformers: Talking alien car-robots fight other talking alien car-robots. No one bats an eye.

  The Lone Ranger: Johnny Depp plays a Native American. Completely unbelievable horseshit.

  In order to figure out the rules of the world you are creating, remember to start with the two most important questions:

  “What are the cultural norms and values in this world?”

  AND

  “How much is the audience expected to suspend their disbelief to enjoy the story?”

  Let's analyze a single story. How about a story that has fun suspending the audience's disbelief:

  Air Bud 3: World Pup

  Air Bud 3: World Pup opens with Josh's soccer team enjoying success thanks to Josh's dog playing on the team. At home, Josh deals with the stress of his mother marry
ing her veterinarian boyfriend, Patrick.

  Immediately the viewer is introduced to a world where:

  1.The culture favors animal rehabilitation by professionals known as “veterinarians” rather than simply slaughtering the creatures for food.

  2.Premarital conception is commonplace or, at the very least, accepted.

  3.The society's morality is not dictated by Sharia Law or any religious doctrine that would justify Jackie's execution.

  The story shows these characters existing in their everyday lives. It establishes the world early which allows the viewers to suspend their disbelief and believe veterinarian hunk Patrick would settle for Josh's homely mother in a small town instead of pursuing a career in modeling and/or acting.

  And this is what all writers must do with their stories. So how do you do this?

  The key is to determine the rules of the world prior to writing a single page of the screenplay. In writing a screenplay it is necessary to write pages outside of the screenplay. Pages on character, story, and most importantly: RULES OF THE WORLD.

  There is no way to write these pages wrong. Just write them. And when you're done writing them, write more.

  Figuring out the rules of your world requires generating pages and pages of unusable, esoteric nonsense. Your studio apartment should look like that of a paranoid schizophrenic whose hobbies include code breaking and paper mache.

  THEME

  All stories have a theme, AKA a message. All of them. Don't bother trying to come up with a counter example. If you only take away one sentence from this chapter, make it this one:

  If you don't decide on your movie's theme yourself, your audience is going to decide on one.

  As a writer that should terrify you. One misstep and your movie could end up at every anti-vaccination conference for the next 50 years. All because you tried to be coy about your film's message. Enjoy being harassed on Twitter and finding a pipe bomb in your mailbox.

  For an example of this let's look at the movie Scarface. It tells the story of Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant played by famous Cuban actor Al Pacino. The audience sees Tony rise to power, lose everything in life he cared for, and die a violent death. Unfortunately, Brian De Palma was a bit too coy when promoting the movie. He didn't state vocally that the movie is staunchly anti-Tony Montana and, as a result, every cholo, drug mule, and wannabe gangster from Los Angeles to the tip of South America owns an extra large t-shirt with a badass picture of Al Pacino on it.

  SIDE NOTE: This anecdote can also be a lesson in merchandising and the power of misconception.

  So what should your film's message be? Well it is different for every screenplay. Is your character a womanizer who learns that marriage can be fun too? Your film's message is “monogamy is the answer to happiness.” Or “you can't always get what you want.”

  Is your main character a cop who learns he has to go outside the law to protect that which he holds most dear? Your movie's message is about the dangers of limiting the second amendment.

  If the above examples have not made it clear, your screenplay's message is directly tied to the growth in your main character. Whatever lesson your main character learns is what you are teaching your audience.

  So what growth occurs in your main character? Does any growth occur? Did you even read the chapter on character arcs?

  Keep in mind that the theme of your story is going to be a major selling point. Investors have the mistaken belief that if a film's message is strong, it in some way means the film will be better. All writers know this is ridiculous but just let those idiots wearing the suits think whatever they want to think.

  SIDE NOTE: If you are one of those idiot suit-wearers with that mistaken belief, Google “highest grossing movies.” See Transformers? What about Transformers 2 through 4?

  Before you get to work, remember that when coming up with a theme, you are not trying to reinvent the wheel. You are not going to be teaching the audience anything they weren't told in grade school:

  Be a good person. Don't be greedy. Don't push Arnold's face in the urinal. Everyone's heard it before.

  With that in mind, what you're going to want to do is look at the 10 commandments and decide which one you'd like to reteach. For examples of this working in the past:

  1.Thou shalt not lie: Liar Liar

  2.Thou shalt not commit adultery: An Indecent Proposal

  3.Thou shalt not kill: Literally every movie where a bad guy kills people

  4.Thou shalt have no other gods: Zero Dark Thirty

  5.Thou shalt honor thy mother and father: Mommy Dearest

  6.Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain: Probably skip this one

  7.Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy: Maybe just stick to the well known commandments.

  Being aware that your story is not going to have some illuminating theme that will cause the reader to reevaluate their entire life should not feel confining. It should come as a relief.

  It's one less thing you have to create!

  HIGH CONCEPT

  The term “high concept” is a term that has grown in popularity in Hollywood. As expert level screenwriters looking to become masters, you may have heard the term. Perhaps you read about it in another screenwriting book or on an internet screenwriting forum. Maybe a development exec used the term when speaking with you about new projects. Just kidding, they don't take your calls.

  Let's start by looking at a couple conventional definitions of “high concept”:

  A type of artistic work that can be easily pitched with a succinctly stated premise.

  A pitch that has inherent appeal – just from the one line description.

  Okay, so what we can gather from those definitions is that a high concept idea is an idea that someone hears and immediately knows is good.

  But isn't the term “good” as it relates to premises and concepts extremely subjective?

  Yes. And for that reason, let's elevate our discussion of “high concept” to the master level.

  “High concept” is meaningless drivel. It is a term that has no value. The term “high concept” was created by the inarticulate to sidestep their inarticulance. The term exists because saying “bring me a good project” makes it apparent that a 9-year-old could be a movie executive.

  “High concept” doesn't just mean a project is “good” but that the project is “obviously good.” After all, God forbid a judgment call have to be made between tee times and coke lines.

  In the entertainment industry they say you need to fake it till you make it. Well whoever originated the term “high concept” faked it so well they accidentally made it. Despite the term's prevalence in the industry, “high concept” has no place in masterful discussions of screenwriting or storytelling. Referring to a project as “high concept” is akin to saying “I like this idea but don't have the necessary time/ability/sobriety to explain why.”

  To further make my point, let's look at prime examples of high concept:

  Planet of the Apes, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Toy Story, The Matrix, Shrek

  What a list. And what a coincidence that it is populated only by good films, each of which is good for different reasons.

  When given the task of creating something “high concept” or to make a pitch “higher concept,” your job as the writer is to stock your project full of clichés to the point of plagiarism.

  Why can't there be a love triangle? Or aliens? Or a nympho-maniacal school teacher? Why not all three?

  CLICHE

  “That's so cliché.” “It just seems a little cliché.” “Everything about it is a bit cliché.”

  You've all had these reactions to your hipster friend explaining the type of mustache he's trying to grow. And some of you have probably also felt it towards movies you've seen.

  It is a common problem. This problem of writing something cliché.

  But is it bad?

  The obvious response is yes. If the reader views your writing as cliché, you have done
something wrong. After all, if something is cliché that mean it has been done before.

  However that definition of cliché is missing a few words at the end...

  If something is cliché that means it has been done before AND IT WORKED.

  When you get down to it, cliché simply means that you're writing what was successful in the past. Your writing is industry standard. Nicely done!

  Do you want to write something completely original? Good luck with that.

  You are writing a screenplay to be used as a sales document. You aren't stapling a bag of almonds to a bust of Captain Planet and calling it abstract art. So don't be afraid of writing something cliché.

  Instead of being afraid of writing cliché, be afraid of writing something the reader will identify as cliché because, unfortunately, cliché is an insult in Hollywood. Your goal is NOT to completely avoid the cliché but to avoid it just enough so the reader doesn't label it as such.