Blueprint for Screenwriting

A Complete Writer's Guide to Story Structure and Character Development

Rachel Ballon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781135613846
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Estudios de comunicación

Blueprint for Screenwriting demystifies the writing process by developing a "blueprint" for writers to follow for each new screenplay--from original concept to completed script. Author and international script consultant Dr. Rachel Ballon explores the writing craft and emphasizes creativity in the writing process. She blends her expertise in script analysis and writing coaching with her personal experience as a screenwriter to help writers construct their stories and characters.Starting with the story's framework, Dr. Ballon helps readers to understand the key "building blocks" of story structure and character development, including characters' emotional and psychological states, story conflicts, and scene and act structure. She also covers the essential components in the script writing process, such as outlines, script treatments, synopses, and formats. Dr. Ballon devotes a chapter to overcoming writer's block--the writer's greatest obstacle--and offers guidance for taking the next steps once a script is completed.A practical tool for any writer, this distinctive resource:
*offers a blueprint for writers to follow, breaking the writing process down into specific, easy-to-follow steps;
*stresses the psychology of the characters as well as that of the writer; and
*offers first-hand knowledge of the screenwriting process and gives practical advice for completing and marketing scripts.With its unique and insightful approach to the writing process, this book will be indispensable for scriptwriters, fiction writers, and professional writers, and it will serve as a useful text in screenwriting courses.

Chapter 1
Creativity: Your Blueprint for Ideas

“Ideas we don’t know we have, have us.”

—James Hill

Story structure and character development are the architecture for building your blueprint. Without a solid structure your characters will be transparent. And without multidimensional characters your structure will collapse. You may ask as thousands of writers do: “Which comes first the structure or the character?” My response to that question is, “Neither.”

To me character is structure and structure is character. How can you possibly separate the two? This is like saying which came first, the chicken or the egg? It is through a character’s choices, decisions and actions that a plot or structure is created. Plot is character and character is plot. They are synergistic and just go together.

However, before learning about plot and character, you need to have ideas about what you want to write. And believe it or not many writers aren’t able to access any ideas for their screenplay. Why? They aren’t able to reach their own creativity or imagination, because they’re not allowing the creativity to flow since they’re too analytical too soon in the writing process.

On the other hand, I’ve worked with writers who had many ideas they wanted to write and yet had trouble developing a story for their ideas. In other cases, writers had the story they wanted to write, but had no idea how to develop the characters needed for their story.

Creativity and Imagination

So how do you get ideas for your screenplay? Where do ideas for your screenplay come from? Well, it has to do with your own imagination and from your creativity. What is creativity? Creativity is free-flowing energy and when you are connected to your own inner world, where your creativity resides, you will find a myriad of ideas for your screenplays.

Creativity has to be available to you at the beginning of your writing because without creative ideas, concepts, or thoughts you have nothing to write about and can’t start any writing project.

Creativity is where all poetry, art, drama, music and ideas come from that touch people on a deep emotional level. Creativity is made up of two parts. First there is Primary Creativity which comes from your unconscious and the right hemisphere of your brain, the source of all new ideas and insights. It’s where your inspiration comes from and makes up only 10% of the creative process. Then, there is Secondary Creativity, which comes from the left hemisphere and is the 90% that involves editing, discipline, logic, structure, rewriting, and order.

Creativity includes both inspiration and perspiration and as a writer you need to discover how to combine the elements of art or primary creativity, with the elements of craft or secondary creativity. Both components are necessary to be a fully creative writer and you need to strike a balance between the two. For example, if an automobile is to run smoothly you must have all the parts working together. If the engine breaks down, a tire goes flat or you run out of gas, your car won’t run. Each part depends upon the other.

The same is true for writing. If you can access your creativity and come up with more ideas than you know what to do with, but you don’t know how to put them into a craft or a structure, your writing will break down, too. If you know craft, but have blocked your creativity your writing will be flat and your characters will be weak and run out of gas. And finally, you must have respect for structure which is necessary to transform your shapeless inner world into a concrete blueprint or your writing will stall.

To be a productive and successful screenwriter you must write from both your heart and from your head, the basis of all great writing. Writing from your heart enables you to increase your creative output and allows you to reveal who you truly are and put it in your writing. When you write from your heart the writing is passionate, original, and honest. It has greater intensity and depth of emotions, which enables your audience to identify with your screenplay.

To be a more creative writer is to have the courage to return to your childhood memories, where you were freer and less self-conscious, than you probably are now. When you first begin to write allow that spontaneous creative side of you to emerge through your words without criticizing or analyzing your writing.

Abraham H. Maslow, author of The Farther Reaches of the Human Nature said in an October, 1962 lecture:

The creative attitude requires both courage and strength and most studies of creative people have reported one or another version of courage … that becoming more courageous makes it easier to let oneself be attracted by mystery, by the unfamiliar by the ambiguous and contradictory, by the universal and unexpected.

In childhood the fusion of primary and secondary creativity is found in us, but unfortunately lost in most of us as we grow up and as adults learn to hide our true self behind the many masks we wear. To become more creative is to allow yourself the opportunity to become a playful, joyous child, to be courageous and not afraid, to let go and have fun with your writing. By allowing your child to come out and play when you first begin to write, you’ll be less judgmental, constricted, and rigid about your writing, and hopefully the words will flow.

Writing From Your Heart

I have worked with all level of writers, from rank beginners to experienced professionals, who were too into the results of their writing, before they even had written their script. This attitude stopped them in their creative process before they ever got started.

You need to be in the moment when you write and not into the results. When you first begin to develop your blueprint for screen-writing, you mustn’t block yourself with criticisms and judgments before you get your ideas down on the page. If you do, you will stop yourself too soon in the writing process and not finish writing your script. It’s important to suspend your judgment until after you’ve written down your ideas, your story, or your concept. Otherwise, you will not be able to start writing your screenplay let alone complete it.

When you begin to develop your screenplay, concentrate on the writing process itself and not on the technique. Write down your ideas without worrying whether or not they’re good enough. By writing in the moment you’ll lose your past and future and your ideas will flow. This way of writing from your heart is the first burst of creative imagination that comes to you in a moment of insight or a burst of inspiration.

Have you ever started to write and when you looked at the clock hours had gone by when you thought you’d only been working for minutes? That’s because you were being in the moment, totally immersed and absorbed in the present. You were involved in the process of writing, rather than worrying about the product or results.

To be a productive and successful writer you must write from both your heart and your head, the basis of all great writing. This type of writing enables you to increase your creative output and allows you to reveal who you truly are and put it into your writing. To be a fully creative writer you must be open to all aspects of yourself, since repression of your feelings works against your creativity. If you avoid looking inside yourself, you’ll lose parts of yourself and your past experiences and you won’t be able or willing to put those fertile ideas and feelings into your writing. This will prevent you from reconnecting to your inner self.

Journals

An excellent way for reconnecting with your inner self is to write in a journal. I tell both writing students and therapy clients to start writing in a journal. It doesn’t have to be one of those fancy notebooks or one of those expensive handmade books. Just buy a simple notebook, preferably one you can carry around with you at all times. A journal is a wonderful tool for helping you monitor yourself— what you’re thinking, feeling, and dreaming about throughout the day and night. Get into the habit of writing in your journal every day. Record your thoughts, feelings, ideas, and even your dreams (both the day and the night ones).

Some writers who’ve consulted with me have kept many different journals for specific reasons. One woman had a dream journal, a daily journal, and a journal for childhood stories. Another writer had an idea journal recording dialogue, concepts, and plots from his daily life for use in his scripts.

I wholly recommend journals for non-writers, too. They are a wonderful bridge between your external and internal selves. The only caution is not to write in your journal just when you’re feeling depressed. Many people use a journal to dump their feelings and it gets to be a bad habit. To counteract this habit I suggest that you buy a journal and call it your “Joyful Journal,” and write about only those situations that make you feel good.

Another type of journal you might want to create is a writer’s journal. In this type of journal you can make different headings and sections according to dialogue, plot, ideas, characters, settings, and atmosphere. Keep this journal with you and you’ll be surprised how much more observant you’ll become of people, places, and events throughout your day. Writers need to be keen observers of human behavior. What better way to heighten your ability to record human nature than to write in your journal. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how many ideas you’ll get for your future screenplays just from being aware of your surroundings and the people in them. You’ll see how much material you’ll discover at work, from friends, family, and in your personal relationships.

A young man who was working on his masters degree in film school asked me to consult with him on his final project before graduation—a short film. He couldn’t think of anything to write until we had a session in which he told me about a couple of his dreams. I suggested that he begin to record his dreams in a dream journal and then read them to me. From writing down his dreams as soon as he awakened, so not to forget them, he discovered a dream which he could use as the basis for his short film. He wrote his short film from his dream and when he completed it, his film won several awards at film festivals. He would never have achieved writing about something that came from the inside out and was meaningful to him without first creating his dream journal and making the commitment to use it as a writing resource. His short film stood out from the rest because it was personal and passionate to the writer and therefore to the audience.

Another client, an experienced professional had already sold several screenplays. She came to see me because she felt her writing was shallow and wanted to write with more emotional intensity. We began working on her childhood experiences which she recorded in her personal journal. One day she brought in a particular traumatic event and we discussed how it related to her childhood. She took the germ of her painful childhood experience and wrote a screenplay from it. The script emerged from her passion, her childhood, her truth and her emotions. She wrote about something that came from the inside out and was meaningful to her. Her screenplay was made into an award winning film which stands out from other films, because it’s personal, passionate and honest.

I have consulted with many experienced professionals who have already had success yet when starting a new script become blocked and unable to write, because they’re afraid to connect to their inner world. Although they know craft they avoid tapping their inner feelings and resist getting in touch with their emotions. Their writing remains stilted, their characters cliched and they’ll have problems selling their script, until they’re willing to express themselves and reveal who they are through their characters.

Visualization and Free Writing

To enable you to reach your inner depths, and a well-spring of new ideas, I will lead you in a writing exercise. You will begin the journey to travel beneath your mask and mine your childhood stories, memories, intention, and emotions, through using visualization and free writing.

Visualization is the technique of imagining visual pictures. It closes off the left hemisphere of your brain and lets the right hemisphere express insights and inspirations without criticisms. Visualization also involves the exploration of pictures that come to your mind allowing you to experience a kind of waking dream.

Before you begin your visualization, first get comfortable, close your eyes and begin to relax by breathing deeply. If you wish you may listen to relaxing music, such as Yoga or mediation tapes. Continue breathing until you feel the muscles in your body relax completely. After you are totally relaxed, visualize yourself as a small child. Picture yourself in a natural setting such as in a meadow, a park, the woods, or by the ocean. As you visualize, become part of the scene with all of your senses. Smell the sea air, listen to the birds singing, hear the wind rustling through the leaves, see the myriad colors of the ocean and taste the salty water. Really get into the scene and imagine yourself being there with all of your senses. What are you wearing? How does you hair look? What expression do you have on your face? Are you alone or with a friend? Take a few more moments and visualize what you’re feeling in this wonderful childhood place. Are you happy? Sad? Lonely? Playful? Free?

Now take your pen and start writing about the experience. Using first person (I), present tense (am), write with all your senses, describing the visual pictures you experienced. Do not stop writing until you’ve written for twenty minutes. Do not take your pen from the page and don’t read over anything you’ve written until you’re finished. It’s important for you to be free when you write and not to worry about grammar, spelling or punctuation.

If you get stuck and can’t think of anything else to write, then write about feeling stuck and not being able to write. No matter what—don’t stop writing until at least twenty minutes have passed. If you want, you could set a timer and not stop until it goes off. Writing about this waking dream without any type of structure or rules, enables you to access powerfully dramatic stories and memories from your past.

This type of writing, which is known as free or automatic writing, when combined with visualization offers a direct path to the unconscious and to your buried treasures—emotions, feelings, memories.

Writing from the Heart, Writing from the Head

In my Writing From the Heart, Writing From the Head workshops, I spend the first day showing writers how to tap into their inner world by doing these specific writing exercises. By going on this visual journey many writers come up with extraordinary images they record through the written word, describing all the details through their sense of smell, sight, sound, taste and touch. Afterwards, they take their childhood memories and stories and transform them into fictional characters and plots.

Many writers were surprised at both the quality and power of this type of free writing. Others never approached writing from this perspective of dealing first with creativity and found this technique allowed them to write with greater ease and intensity. Stories that they needed to write became accessible to them through free writing.

My main objective for having you write this way is to get you to write your truth, to write your passion, by taking your memories and transforming them into well-structured, stories that emotionally move others. After you’ve completed writing about your childhood memory, see if you can put it into a story or a scene. When you write from this powerful source you will be able to create fresh stories and original characters who come alive.

A tool for self-knowledge and self-discovery, free writing allows you to self-explore your unconscious. Not only will your writing improve, but through writing your childhood stories you will be on the path of healing unfinished business. By dealing with your past through writing, will make ...