Writing screenplays that sell - Softcover

Michael Hauge is a story consultant, author, and lecturer who has consulted on projects for every major Hollywood studio, including films starring Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Kirsten Dunst, Robert Downey Jr., and Morgan Freeman. He is the author of Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds and has presented his lectures and workshops to more than 50,000 writers and filmmakers around the world.

Chapter OneThe Goal of theScreenwriter

People do not go to the movies so they can see the characters on the screen laugh, cry, get frightened, or get turned on.

They go to have those experiences themselves.

The reason that movies hold such a fascination for us, the reason the art form has been engrossing and involving audiences for close to a century, is because it provides an opportunity to experience emotion. Within the safety and isolation of a darkened theater or in the privacy or comfort of one's own home it is possible to leave the real world behind or at a safe distance and experience emotions, thoughts, feelings, and adventures that would not be encountered in everyday life. In watching a movie or television show, we can experience the love, the hate, the fear, the passion, the excitement, or the humor that elevates our lives, but in a safe, controlled setting.

All filmmakers, therefore, have a single goal: to elicit emotion in an audience. Every director, every actor, every gaffer, and every production assistant has as his ultimate objective to elicit an emotional response from the audience. On the most basic level, when the movie creates that emotion in an audience, it is successful; when it doesn't, it fails.

The Primary Goal of the Screenwriter

The primary goal for the screenwriter is even more specific: The screenwriter must elicit emotion in the person who reads the screenplay.

The effect of a screenplay on a reader must be the same as the effect of the movie on the audience: to create an emotional experience. All of the stated considerations of commerciality, big stars, hot topics, low budgets, high concepts, and strong demographics go out the window if this single objective is not achieved.

If the producer, executive, agent, or star who can get your movie made doesn't smile, laugh, cry, get scared, get excited, or get turned on while reading your screenplay, then your script will never reach a real audience.

In other words, for the screenwriter, the term reader and the term audience are synonymous.

This book is about how to elicit that emotional response in a reader with your screenplay. From now on, whenever the book employs the word audience, translate that to mean reader, and vice versa. Every page of this book is designed to increase your ability to elicit emotion in a reader and in an audience and to make money with that ability.

How to Write a Screenplay in One Easy Lesson

Understanding what a screenplay needs to accomplish is simple; I can tell it to you in one sentence: Enable a sympathetic character to overcome a series of increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable obstacles and achieve a compelling desire.

That, in about two dozen words, is what almost every successful feature film has ever done. The few exceptions are those films where the characterfails to achieve the compelling desire, as in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Out of Africa, or a film where the hero learns that his compelling desire is a mistake, as in Wall Street or Raising Arizona. But the essence of all successful movies is still the same.

The difficulty is not in understanding what you must accomplish as a writer. Obviously, the tough part is knowing how to per form each of the facets of that objective. How do you make a character sympathetic? How do you establish a compelling desire? How do you create and arrange the series of hurdles that must be overcome? How do you write this in such a way that the emotional involvement of the reader is ensured?

And finally (and probably the reason you bought this book), how do you make money doing all of this?

The Four Stages of Any Screenplay

Every aspect of writing your screenplay will be contained in one of the following four stages:

1. The Story Concept. This is the single sentence that tells who the hero of the story is and what he or she wants to accomplish.

2. The Characters. Obviously, these are the people who populate the story.

3. Plot Structure. This pertains to the events of the story and their relationship to one another. In other words, this stage in the process determines what happens in the story and when it happens.

4. The Individual Scenes. This stage pertains to the way the words are laid out on the page: how one puts the screenplay in proper format and how one writes the kind of action, description, and dialogue that will increase the reader's emotional involvement.
This book will outline each of those four facets in detail, in the above order. There are a couple reasons for doing this:

Beginning with a single-sentence story concept and developing that into a full, 115-page screenplay is one way to write your screenplay. It is very organized, logical, and left-brained. If you are a very organized, logical and left-brained writer, or strive to be one, it can be a very effective way of writing your own script. It is a building process which allows each expanded phase of the screenplay to grow out of the previous one.

Its big advantage is in its safety, so to speak. Since each step logically proceeds from the previous one and since the book provides detailed instructions on what to do at each step, then the fear of moving into unknown waters of creativity is lessened by the preparation and security of the previously completed stages.

However, this logical, step-by-step approach is not the only way to write a screenplay. Of equal value, depending on what works for you, is the more free-form, right-brained method of putting a piece of paper in the typewriter (or booting the computer), typing FADE IN, and then simply seeing where the story takes you. In other words, letting the story "write itself."

Like any other journey of unknown destination, what you...