Scriptwriting Basics - Ideas?

It sounds like Seger's book "Making a good script great" would be the kind of thing that would be useful.

Mac

First question, has he read any scripts? If he has not, he needs to read them, now. There's a sticky at the top of this forum with several sites that offer scripts for free that have been produced.

Has he studied films and scripts at all? It's one thing to read a script and watch a film, it's a whole other thing to analyze them, break them down. If not, he needs to do that, pronto.

Second question, does he know anything about the basics of writing. Breaking the film down into acts, dialog, character, and so forth? If not, he needs to learn them first. If he doesn't even have the basic tools of writing, how can he expect to write anything that resembles a professional product?

Third question, why do you say it keeps on ending up like a Disney product? Disney products, if it's actually written on that level, rake in the dough and are massively popular, and are extremely well written. Take the time to study a disney film and you'll see there's a lot of talent that goes into it, not just in the songs and the animation, or acting if it's a people film, but the writing as well.

Fourth question, what genre is he actually aiming for?

Fifth question, has he ever gotten his stuff critiqued?

Sixth question, how long has he been writing and haw many works has he gotten done in that time?

Well without having personally seen his work, I can't really give any recommendations on what he should do to it. The only thing I can recommend is that he continue to study, write, and get solid critiques who are not family or friends.

Alex Sokoloff knows her stuff.


See the sidebar.

I have a suggestion. It might not work for everyone, but here it is. Step away from writing only what he/she is interested in. Take a little break. Work on some loose script writing on subjects you're not really that into. It doesn't have to be a full script. It could be just a short one, or just a sketch piece. I think many of us, myself included, become emotionally attached to characters and so we tend to morph them into someone we like. This can be a habit which repeats itself. Again, this isn't for everyone, and take my advice with a grain of salt since I've never sold anything and don't have an agent.

Personally, I found my best writing has come about recently while writing something purely to entertain my wife. Yep. It was a (gulp) romantic comedy. She loved it, and I actually ended up really enjoying it as well. Another drill I did was to take a collection of the worst ideas I could think up and try to piece a script around it. The end result is something which would never ever land me work, but did help to break me out of a funk and made me laugh a lot.

Get him to do some mini-script excercises. For example, looking at a photograph and building from there, or perhaps giving him a situation or character. He can treat it as a short, using the techniques, but then you can give criticism quickly and he can hone his skills.

So he wants to do a PG-13/12A romantic comedy. Does he enjoy that genre? Get him to watch films in that genre and analyse bits he liked and bits he didn't.

I'm in a similar postion to your friend. I want to start learning about scriptwriting. I have worked on one script with a friend (who is learning about film making in general) and I have a website where I write what are essentially mini scripts.

I just wanted to say thanks for the tips..even though they weren't aimed at me. I'm looking at getting the book "Making a good script great" now.

He needs somebody like a mentor to read his material and not just anaylse it and critize it in the way that screenwriting books do, but he needs somebody who can work back and forth with him, reading his material and asking him questions like, "What did you mean here? And what did you intend here? And what is this about? And this ins't clear. I don't understand what you were getting at here, so why did I miss it?" Someone who can work back and forth with him in a dialectical fashion to help him sharpen his intent and find his style.

mentor that is the most exclusive person to find , I have more or less written my first draft and I am taking the help of friends and relatives in editing it , but still I cannot find anyone to beta read it .
padma

It is very hard to find. You need somebody you can trust and somebody whose taste and ideas about what type fo film you are determined to write are the same as yours.

You need somebody who is going to help you write what it is YOU are trying to write. Somebody who is conscious of not imposing their will and ideas on your script but someone who can give you ideas of different ways to go and different ways of looking at it. Someone who can say, "Well, you can do this. But this is what happens if you do that. This is what you lose. This is what you gain. And if you do that, you have to change this because..." and so on and so forth. You need someone who is dedicated to helping you find the script that you are trying to write.

The reason a mentor is hard to find.

It takes an enormous amount of time and effort on the part of a mentor, most people don't have that kind of time. Also on the flip side the person asking for a mentor needs to be open to learning and working very hard. If they are not willing to put in a massive amount of effort and dedication and actually listen to the mentor they will lose that mentor rather quickly. The more people they burn, the fewer there are to help. Also it can be very frustrating to try and mentor someone when that someone does not make the progress a mentor expects out of the efforts they are expending.

*This is not aimed at anyone in particular but rather a comment on mentoring in general.

Agreed. I've done it and it can consume an immense amount of time and effort with little gratitude. I've started out mentoring a script only to have to turn and say to someone, "Listen, it's your script. I'm not going to write it for you. I've got my own work to do."

Part of the problem with getting a mentor is some go for mentors far too soon. Just like the paid critiques. They're best applied when you need to go to the final level or close to it.

But if someone is struggling over a basic grasp of English, they should be mastering the language and taking classes not finding a mentor.

If someone is struggling over the basics of story elements, pace, plot, characters, structure, so on and so forth, they need to take classes and learn those elements.

A mentor is great at helping someone refine their skills. But without those skills and tools already in the toolbox it's like sending a preschooler to learn under DaVinche. It's a poor use of both of their time.

I dont think I need to know basic English , as my medium is English right from Lkg.
I learned my grammar from wren and Martin . I have done my graduation in Economics and completed my PG Diploma in Mass communciation from an esteemed university . In all these my medium is English However I admit my English is not like a native writer
Padma

padnar said:

I dont think I need to know basic English , as my medium is English right from Lkg.
I learned my grammar from wren and Martin . I have done my graduation in Economics and completed my PG Diploma in Mass communciation from an esteemed university . In all these my medium is English However I admit my English is not like a native writer
Padma

Click to expand...

And that's the problem. It's obvious your English is not Native. You won't get any kudos in the writing world from having sub par English even though it's a second language. Even though it's an amazing feat, in writing it is NOT enough. You are competing against native English speakers. Your English needs to be flawless and natural and it isn't there yet. You need to work ten times as hard as any native speaker if you hope to have any success writing in English. If the script sounds wrong they're going to pass. It's harsh, but it's true. The same would apply for me if I tried to write in any language other than English. I would have to work that hard to blend in.

You need to master English. It needs to have that natural gait. It needs to use all the right words in all the right places. The language is your toolbox in writing and you are using a faulty one. You need to make it better, you need to master it if you hope to go anywhere in writing. It's why I didn't volunteer to become your mentor because that's exactly what I would have told you. "Go master the language." You've learned it but you have not mastered it and it'll take a lot of effort to do so. You are a writer and should be a master of whatever language you are writing in. When you become a Master of the language, you then have to become a master of writing and all its various aspects.

On top of mastering the language, you also need to learn how to write dialogs in various dialects and voices. If you're writing about a new yorker, you need to be able to make it sound like a new yorker. A hick from Georgia is going to sound far different from a UK gent or a Austrailian outback guy. English has as many accents and way of being spoken as there are regions and classes. Once you have mastered English assimilating these become a lot easier.