How determined is your hero or heroine to succeed?

There's a saying in Puerto Rico: "The bus always comes for those who wait."

I was reminded of the phrase reading this New York Times article.

Under a skylight in her tin-ceilinged loft near Union Square in Manhattan, the abstract painter Carmen Herrera, 94, nursed a flute of Champagne last week, sitting regally in the wheelchair she resents.

After six decades of very private painting, Ms. Herrera sold her first artwork five years ago, at 89.

As an exercise try to answer these questions:
How long would your character wait? Could answering these questions drastically improve your already good script? If your main character could achieve an artistic dream before dying what would it be?

This could be a whole new Act III you never thought of. Part of "The New Adventure" I talk about in The Four Magic Questions of Screenwriting is to have your old act III become Act II part, 2, and extend the story into the next phase of their life.

Garden State is a favorite example of how this idea works in practice, as is the wonderful animated film, Up.

Middle School Movies

This morning I had the pleasure of teaching a class about finding ideas for your stories for a group of middle school students via Skype. They were an incredibly attentive class full of enthusiasm for making movies and telling stories.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the class.

CLICK HERE for more information about my middle school system.

One Man's Trash pt. 2

One of my private students read my earlier post about trash and was reminded of the work of Tim Nobel and Sue Webster... in a good way. Enjoy.

Last Night

Last night I went to a new club to dance tango. As I danced I was struck with how different my life is compared to the life of my main character. Rather than dancing, the main character of my latest story would be home studying the Kabbalah, eating pastries and drinking milky tea.

As an exercise:
Take 5 minutes and write down what you did last night. Make sure to include as many details as possible. Then, spend another five minutes writing what the main character of your story did. Don't be surprised if you come up with a number of new things to use in your script.

The Movie Of Your Life

I was reading an article that said the best question to ask someone you'd like to know better is: If your life were a movie, what would it be called, and who would play you?

I would add, "right now" to that. Our lives change dramatically from moment to moment and year to year and we are not starring in the same movie we were ten years ago.

As an exercise:
Consider what your main character would call the movie they're starring in. Who would play them? Now do the same for your villain and other characters.

One Man's Trash

I passed these two chairs on the way home a few nights ago. They were from different furniture sets and I'm not even sure if they came from the same apartment but somehow I thought they had shared any interesting history together.

As an exercise:
Take note of what you see being thrown out by your neighbors and select one item. Write a brief history of where the item comes from and what it has seen. Has it passed from person to person and place to place like in The Red Violin or remained in one spot the whole time. What does the object "witness"?

Yuletide Log

We were discussing holiday traditions in the office today and Chris sent me this link for a Christmas skit produced by his friends a few years ago. Not only is it one of the funniest YouTube clips I've seen in a long time, it's also one of the best examples of what happens when you decide to live with a writer.

Happy Holidays!

It's A Wonderful Life (The Alternate Ending)

One of my favorite alternate endings for one of my favorite movies.

As an exercise:
What's your favorite holiday movie? How would you change the ending? Does Linus start his own ministry? Does Denis Leary's thief get caught in The Ref? Does Rudolph get revenge on the reindeer who originally snubbed him? Do the terrorists get away in Die Hard?

Spend 5 minutes writing (in paragraph form) an alternate ending for the Christmas classic of your choice. I'll feature my favorites on this blog.

Moving Pictures

My writing system was designed to help writers stop thinking of their scripts as the final product and consider it as nothing more than the blueprint for the movie they're making. This is, perhaps, why so many of my students have found success when it comes time for them to make the jump from page to screen.

Last night I taught my NYU students in a classroom of a high school. I loved the room because on one of the walls there were rough sketches done by the high school students of the characters in the books they were reading. It's so rare to see students at that level consider how words have the power to create pictures in one's head and it reminded me of the Creating Your Characters - Exercises in my own book How To Write a Screenplay in 10 Weeks.

As an exercise: Draw your character's family. Make sure you put your character in the drawing. Select a symbolic object for each member, such as a hat or a baseball bat for a little boy or a bone for the dog. This is not about drawing ability; it is to help you visualize better. Repeat for your other characters.

Whooshing

I taught the last class of the semester of my NYU screenwriting class last night. It's a mixed bag of emotions because on the one hand I no longer get to see my wonderful students each week but so happy they have their screenplays done. I've often thought that story ideas are like water banging against a dam and if you can just get that first story out of your head, the rest will whoosh out behind it.

Here's hoping they will continue to update me on all of their future whooshing.