Webshow: "Don't Be Lazy"

If there's one thing I really hate seeing in scripts, it's laziness.  Today's video discusses a bit of lazy writing that I've seen turn up in too many romantic comedies over the years.

Lazy writer shorthand

You know what really annoys me when I read a script? Laziness. Every now and then a writer might need to take a shortcut in order to get the story going, but there are limits. I'd explain all this in greater depth, but it would take too much time.

Annnywaaay... one shortcut that almost always earns a script a PASS from me comes in the form of this simple phrase in the description: "They instantly fall in love."

I pause because I hope that 99% of you are able to tell where I'm going with this just by being presented with this evidence. Are you all at least half a rant ahead of me? Good.

For the slower kids in the class (Hi Robotard and Paul Haggis!), the reason this is lazy screenwriting is that it doesn't require any work on the part of the writer to do any of the following:

1) create believable chemistry between the characters.

2) show the growth of a romance through several stages: attraction, infatuation, and so on.

3) develop the characters and their dynamic through that growth.

4) reveal things about the characters through the ways their feelings become known. (i.e. what is it that turns them on initially? Do they try to hide their feelings from the other or do they boldly declare them? Why does this attraction exist? How do they attempt to figure out the other partner is interested in them?)

See all the great things a writer misses out on by typing "They instantly fall in love?" No, check that, see all the great things the audience misses out on through that shortcut?

Try to avoid taking the easy way out - at least when it's as blatant as this bit of corner-cutting is.

Be aware of the rating

Just a quick tip today - when writing your screenplay, it might help to keep in mind the rating of the movie when working on your dialogue. Certain words will automatically get you a certain rating.

For instance: you can say "hell," "damn," "ass" and "shit," in a PG film, but "Son of a Bitch" will usually get you PG-13.

In PG-13, you can say every swear word but "fuck." You're allowed one instance of "fuck," usually, but as long as it's not in a sexual context. In other words, a character can say, "Fuck you!" in anger, but he can't leer at a girl and say, "I want to fuck you." I have to admit, I'm not sure what the rules are on "the C word," but that seems to earn a film an R as well.

Graphic sex will earn you an R faster than graphic violence, so be especially careful when writing scenes that make heavy use of anal and/or oral sex. I see these a lot in script that seem like they'd be aimed at a teen audience - which means that PG-13 would be the desired rating. Yes, occasionally there'll be a successful R-rated teen sex comedy, and the success of The Hangover earlier this year (to say nothing of Judd Apatow's oeuvre) means that R-rated comedies in general might be on their way back in - but for a long time, studios were aiming for that PG-13 sweet spot. If the primary audience for your film is teenagers, you should aim there too.

So don't over use "fuck," and a word to the wise - anal sex scenes are never as edgy and clever as most writers seem to think they are. There was one week where it seemed like every other script I read had a particularly gratuitous example of such a scene. Without them, the scripts would have been soft PG-13, easily. Because of that, not only did the scene feel like a writer's indulgence, but it stuck out like a sore thumb.

So know the audience you're writing for, and don't step over certain lines just for the sake of doing so. Yes, language can always be cut back, but if the word "fuck" appears more often in your script than the word "the," it might be time to do some trimming.

Cliches I'm Tired of Seeing - Part Five - Racing to the airport...

There are some tropes that are so overused that it's pretty much impossible to use them effectively unless they are intended ironically. Recently, I read a script that used one of these and immediately tripped my "HACK ALERT." In the script, the central couple had experienced rocky times, and when the last straw came, the woman decided to pursue a job opportunity in Paris, which naturally meant she was flying out that very night.

I think you can guess where this is going - her ex-boyfriend, having realized the error of his ways is forced to race to the airport at the eleventh hour. With time ticking away as the woman is about to get on the plane he has to push his way past security, buy a ticket, and then race to the gate and deliver a big speech, winning her back.

Gag.

For me, this particular gimmick passed its expiration date immediately after Not Another Teen Movie so brilliantly made fun of this sort of scene. Off the top of my head, I can't come up with where I saw this sort of scene first, but I know variations of it have been used in Love, Actually, Dawson's Creek, Three Men & a Baby.... where else? (Readers, that's your cue to comment below.) Unless the point of the scene is to make a joke of how cliched the plot twist is, steer clear of this.

And if you MUST do this, for the love of William Goldman, please don't make Paris the destination! That's about as unoriginal as you can get.

Clichés I’m tired of seeing – Part I

Screenwriters are often advised to “Show, don’t tell” and I’m a big believer in that advice. Film is a visual medium, and it’s always best to take advantage of that rather than simply spelling something out through dialogue. Still, when doing this, show some imagination in your “showing.” If you come up with the same visual cue as a hundred other screenwriters, you run the risk of the reader reacting “Not again!”

I wish I had kept a running tally of how many times I’ve seen some version of the following scene. It usually happens in a romantic comedy, though often it pops up in dramas centered on relationships. Usually, the core romance has landed on the rocks at the end of Act Two, thus forcing the protagonist to fight to save the relationship in Act Three. The penultimate scene typically plays out one of two ways – the characters confront each other and the relationship is either explicitly mended, or there’s an emotional catharsis that ends ambiguously. Are the couple still together or aren’t they?

And then comes “the scene.” Four times out of five it will be a montage without dialogue, and almost always is set “One Year Later.” Carefully, each character is revealed in this coda, culminating with….

Come on now, dear reader… surely I’ve given enough set up for you to guess?

… the woman of the couple. And guess what?

Please, people. This isn’t hard. Speak up, now.

That’s right! She’s pregnant! The guy and the girl are going to live happily ever after and the proof is in the belly! And the scene is totally showing, not telling! Isn’t that cool?

To be blunt, not really. Too often I’ve seen writers use this as an out to show that the couple’s together without doing any of the work to really make it feel like the couple is together. It’s a cheap “out.” I admire what the writers are going for, but the next time you have the urge to end your movie this way, take another day or two and see if there’s a more original way of showing the couple is going to turn out all right.