Note: The winner of the Sci-Fi Showdown Tournament will be reviewed on the Friday AFTER the 2 Week Screenplay Challenge
If you’re late to the party, we’re writing a screenplay in two weeks starting this Monday. Here are the previous links: Day 1 – Get ready. Day 2 – Pick a concept. Day 3 – Checkpoints.
California just closed down.
I know that’s freaking some of you out. But I’m a cup half full guy and the way I see it is THAT’S MORE TIME TO WRITE. All this time, the world seemed confused by the writer’s lifestyle. We’re introverted. We stay at home as much as possible. We get lost in a world we’ve created for hours at a time. Finally, our lifestyle has become an asset. This is what we do! Which is why the 2 Week Screenplay Challenge rages on.
Okay, we’ve got a LOT of work to do before we start Monday so let’s not waste any more time. Today we have TWO tasks. The first is to finish our final five checkpoints. If you don’t know what a checkpoint is, I explain it in yesterday’s article. My main concern is that you won’t be prepared for the second half of your screenplay. That’s the part that’s least shaped in your head and, for that reason, it’s where a lot of writers give up. They get to that post mid-point section and because they’ve thought so little about it, they feel lost and eventually lose confidence that they have enough story to finish.
So here are a couple of things to remember. An active protagonist will solve many of your plot problems because an active protagonist will need to pursue their goal/objective/solution. However, if your hero is less active, it can be hard to come up with ideas, since you have to come up with things that happen TO your hero as opposed to things your hero does TO the environment.
For example, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a tough movie to write because the characters aren’t pursuing any overt goal. They’re going about their day and reacting to the elements as they come in. Contrast that with something like, say, “I Am Legend,” where our protagonist, a doctor, is trying to come up with a cure. This ensures that he always has a goal, a task that must be accomplished. This allows for a lot more plot ideas.
So unless your story dictates a passive or reactive protagonist, I strongly recommend your hero be active. You’ll thank me later.
Okay now let’s talk about the second half of the movie in general. The second half of your second act (roughly pages 51-75 in a 100 page script) is the section of the script where things should be getting REALLY HARD for your hero. The obstacles will get much bigger than they were in the first half of the second act (in Invisible Man, our heroine gets thrown in a mental hospital). The things that are taken from your hero will be much more significant (the end of a relationship, the death of a friend).
What you’re trying to do with the second half of the second act is create a scenario under which success seems impossible for your hero. So whatever you can put in front of them, whatever you can take away from them, do it. This is the section where your hero is tested beyond anything they’ve ever endured before. Remember that that’s what all scripts are about – testing the characters – seeing if they’re strong enough to obtain the prize, whether it be mentally, physically, or (preferably) both.
If you want to watch a movie that exemplifies escalation throughout its second act, go rent Uncut Gems now. Every five minutes is more intense than the previous five minutes because the writers throw bigger and tougher issues at the hero.
Hopefully, that helps you come up with five more checkpoints.
Your second objective for today is to write down a 1-2 page “essence sheet” for your hero. I use the term “essence sheet” as opposed to “character biography” because I don’t want to know that daddy touched Jimmy when he was five. I’m more interested in how your character moves through the world today. What is their job? Are they married? What does their day-to-day life look like? What’s important to them? For some people peace and happiness is what’s important. For others, it’s having that pint of ice cream at the end of the day.
Of specific importance is the lens through which they approach life. I was just watching the Pauly Shore podcast with Adam Corolla and Pauly asked him if he was scared of getting the coronavirus. Corolla said, “I’m an Atheist, I’m either going to get it or I’m not, so in the meantime, I’m going to do whatever the hell I want.” That’s the perfect kind of thing to put in a character essence sheet. That sentence tells us so much about who Adam Corolla is. Try to find mantras like that that define your own hero.
And, finally, the most important thing of all is how you see your hero’s internal STARTING POINT and ENDING POINT in the movie. This is how your hero changes over the course of the story. Or, a better way to look at it may be, how the story changes your hero. In The Invisible Man, Cecilia starts off as a meek victim. Yet she ends up decisive and confident. In the film “Yesterday,” all our hero wants is to be famous. Then by the end of the story, he realizes that fame is a lot more complicated than he realized. Just like your plot has a starting point and an ending point that are different, your main character should have a starting point and ending point that are different.
You probably won’t ever want to look at this document again. Nor do you need to. Just the act of writing it is going to help you understand the character better. It also helps you understand what you need to establish early on in the script. You have to convey the essence of your character in those first few scenes. That then sets up how your character needs to transform by the end of the film.
Of course, there’s no law that states a character needs to arc in a story. But I find that trying to add a character arc is better than not trying to. If the arc doesn’t work, you can always eliminate it or downplay it in future drafts. But it’s hard to add a character transformation after the dye has been cast on the rest of the story.
So there we go. Five more checkpoints and a 1-2 page essence sheet for your hero. Get to it and I’ll be back tomorrow to help you outline!
