Well, goodness, not even a word of sympathy for my poor thumb?
That's okay, I'm not a fan of sympathy anyway - sympathy is what you do when you can't do anything else for the person, and you can almost always do something more useful.
This is just a quickie really: I did some writing stuff. Yes! Not a lot and it was just getting slightly more solid ideas together for Traitor - the TV-related thing.
The important thing is the use of the 36 Dramatic Situations. I scanned through them and using them as a starting point developed some pretty meaty ideas, and I think quite original too.
I need to do some more of that.
What's on the turntable? "Prelude" by The Decemberists from "Tha Hazards of Love" (courtesy of Spotify)
Showing posts with label 36 dramatic situations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 36 dramatic situations. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Friday, August 07, 2009
Epiphany
There I was this evening doing research, some people call it watching TV. Hard work either way. And there was a re-run of a Pie in the Sky episode and I was thinking about the feedback I'd had on Tec. The thing about Pie in the Sky is that, although the protagonist has an official police position, he's effectively no longer in the Force but does the odd (in all definitions) jobs that no one else wants to do.
As mentioned in the last post the biggest problem with Tec is that, as a private investigator (well, a PI's PA really), the protagonist is not really in a position to investigate important crimes, like murder. But it's necessary to make a show that's half decent.
And then it came to me. The solution.
It'll involve a page 1 re-write, the main characters remain pretty much intact and so does the crime but the protagonist's situation changes fairly dramatically. It'll work. It's good.
Trouble is that it's all happening at once.
I just received some necessary documents and instructions in regard to pitching for some audio story work for an existing TV property - I have until the end of September to come up with some story ideas. I'll have to do a ton of research, and the parameters on length and number of cast are quite restrictive, but I realised that this situation is perfect for using the 36 Dramatic Situations to pull out some unusual conflicts.
I have a meeting on the morrow with my Clones collaborator hopefully we'll move that along a bit. We've narrowed down the audition applications for Monsters and will be holding the auditions next weekend? (When I say "we" I mean the producer and director - they ran them past me for comment.)
As you may have heard Blake Snyder died unexpectedly a few days ago. Curiously I'd never read his book Save the Cat! though he does come under the heading of someone who's written and sold scripts in Hollywood so probably has something worthwhile to say. I've just finished going through Running but wasn't 100% sure where to go from there - my attention has been a bit dispersed - I thought what better test of the book than to see if it can help. So I bought it.
I'm just 10 pages in and I definitely learned one thing - the Save the Cat! thing - good.
The family sans moi is off to Edinburgh on Monday. I dunno, how many families have almost 12-year-old boys that come into the house singing "A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox"? Must be doing something right. The good thing about them going off, and the dog going into kennels (I'll be out for 11 hours each day) is that I'll have to time for writing.
Yippee.
What's on the turntable? "Hello" by Evanescence from "Fallen" - if you like Evanescence you should try Lacuna Coil
As mentioned in the last post the biggest problem with Tec is that, as a private investigator (well, a PI's PA really), the protagonist is not really in a position to investigate important crimes, like murder. But it's necessary to make a show that's half decent.
And then it came to me. The solution.
It'll involve a page 1 re-write, the main characters remain pretty much intact and so does the crime but the protagonist's situation changes fairly dramatically. It'll work. It's good.
Trouble is that it's all happening at once.
I just received some necessary documents and instructions in regard to pitching for some audio story work for an existing TV property - I have until the end of September to come up with some story ideas. I'll have to do a ton of research, and the parameters on length and number of cast are quite restrictive, but I realised that this situation is perfect for using the 36 Dramatic Situations to pull out some unusual conflicts.
I have a meeting on the morrow with my Clones collaborator hopefully we'll move that along a bit. We've narrowed down the audition applications for Monsters and will be holding the auditions next weekend? (When I say "we" I mean the producer and director - they ran them past me for comment.)
As you may have heard Blake Snyder died unexpectedly a few days ago. Curiously I'd never read his book Save the Cat! though he does come under the heading of someone who's written and sold scripts in Hollywood so probably has something worthwhile to say. I've just finished going through Running but wasn't 100% sure where to go from there - my attention has been a bit dispersed - I thought what better test of the book than to see if it can help. So I bought it.
I'm just 10 pages in and I definitely learned one thing - the Save the Cat! thing - good.
The family sans moi is off to Edinburgh on Monday. I dunno, how many families have almost 12-year-old boys that come into the house singing "A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox"? Must be doing something right. The good thing about them going off, and the dog going into kennels (I'll be out for 11 hours each day) is that I'll have to time for writing.
Yippee.
What's on the turntable? "Hello" by Evanescence from "Fallen" - if you like Evanescence you should try Lacuna Coil
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Totally plot-tastic
Yo.
I had got as far as I could with the characters and needed to do some more plot for the first episode of Tec.
Tricky things pilots, all that exposition that needs to be seamlessly melded into the plot, but first you need a plot. Up to this point I had the memory of the plot as figured out by myself and the Teacher all those years ago (I've been saying two years, but I suspect it's more like five or six).
Stories are driven by the antagonist - and in the case of of crime stories, by the crime as committed by the antagonist (or -ists, as it may be). Since I'd really like to experiment with writing a scene or two tomorrow on the train home I needed to get a deeper understanding of the crime to be investigated.
The 36 dramatic situations are helpful here, though I just used them from memory. There are five main characters intimately connected with the crime: Two of them have become brother and sister, because that adds a nice dramatic dynamic.
There is murder involved, but not just anyone will commit a murder - it has to be believable that the murderer really could do it. So there are lots of things to consider but I think I have it sorted - murder, jealousy, blackmail, fraud, greed, illicit sex, more blackmail, more murder. All the fun of the fair.
Now I just have to get my protagonist involved.
What's on the turntable? "Robin (The Hooded Man)" by Clannad from "Pastpresent". Many moons ago the Teacher and I went to a Clannad gig, it was a very civilised affair at the Opera House in Manchester. (We also saw Paul Nicholas as the Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance" there 5 times.)
I had got as far as I could with the characters and needed to do some more plot for the first episode of Tec.
Tricky things pilots, all that exposition that needs to be seamlessly melded into the plot, but first you need a plot. Up to this point I had the memory of the plot as figured out by myself and the Teacher all those years ago (I've been saying two years, but I suspect it's more like five or six).
Stories are driven by the antagonist - and in the case of of crime stories, by the crime as committed by the antagonist (or -ists, as it may be). Since I'd really like to experiment with writing a scene or two tomorrow on the train home I needed to get a deeper understanding of the crime to be investigated.
The 36 dramatic situations are helpful here, though I just used them from memory. There are five main characters intimately connected with the crime: Two of them have become brother and sister, because that adds a nice dramatic dynamic.
There is murder involved, but not just anyone will commit a murder - it has to be believable that the murderer really could do it. So there are lots of things to consider but I think I have it sorted - murder, jealousy, blackmail, fraud, greed, illicit sex, more blackmail, more murder. All the fun of the fair.
Now I just have to get my protagonist involved.
What's on the turntable? "Robin (The Hooded Man)" by Clannad from "Pastpresent". Many moons ago the Teacher and I went to a Clannad gig, it was a very civilised affair at the Opera House in Manchester. (We also saw Paul Nicholas as the Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance" there 5 times.)
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
An Alien in a Suit
This blog will have something about screenwriting nearer the end, so you can skip all this other stuff if you want. (Perhaps I should colour-code the various bits.)
So the Comedy Central launch went off mostly okay although if you decided to watch the countdown you will have seen the glitch. For reasons I won't go into - none of them my fault, or indeed the fault of the internal team - the site arrived 15 minutes late. Which was slightly embarrassing but not seriously.
My next contract is getting lined up, hopefully, according to the agency the company are so desperate they are willing to pay a lot of money for someone to work over Easter. I explained that as I hadn't been home for 3 weeks the answer, though tempting, was no. Anyway the agent is going to arrange an interview on Thursday. So I said, okay as long as they don't expect me to wear a suit. He said "They'd think you were an alien if you did" and I said "that's good because I look like an alien in a suit".
Silence.
You see the problem with that line. It's really not as funny as it's supposed to be. I defused it with "that line was supposed to be a lot funnier than the way it came out". The agent guy paused then laughed. Phew, good save.
Screenwriting bit
I really can't decide whether or not to do ScriptFrenzy this year - yes, I know, it's already the 7th, but the words and the pages don't scare me, if I chose to do it I could fill the pages. It would help me get the first draft of Running out the way.
I did some "Thirty Six Dramatic Situations" work on Running partly as an experiment. Starting from "Situation I: Supplication" I looked to see if there were opportunities for a version of that situation in the story - which there were, so I made a note of it - and it helped to clarify the ending. Then Situation II, and so on. I got up to VIII. I have to say this is good stuff.
This is the story where I have to bring in Parkour (like Free Running but not exactly the same) and although I wanted to make it integral I was having problems with what to do with the Parkour practitioner. To be honest I could rip him out of the script (well, outline) and the script would remain pretty much intact. Not good, because if you can take something out of a script without affecting it, then you should.
But then I would lose the entire point.
The 36DS (it's quicker to type that), even though I've only looked at a few, gave me a way of making the character integral to the plot and giving him his very own dilemma. Not bad for half an hour's work.
Here's a thought: Let's suppose you wanted to mount a picture on a brick wall. If you had a hammer and nails, you could do it, probably - though you might end up with a bent nail and a large useless hole. Or maybe you've got a hand-drill (with a masonry bit) plus a screwdriver, rawlplugs and a proper hook. It would take a lot of elbow grease but eventually you could get a decent hole, and have the hook properly secured. Or, you have a power drill/screwdriver plus rawlplugs and hook, you get a good result in a fraction of the time.
With the proper writing tools you can get your picture mounted on the wall in a fraction of the time, and people will come around and admire how nice the picture is.
It's a thought.
What's on the turntable? "The Look of Love" by Dusty Springfield. I love Dusty though she is no longer with us. Burt Bacharach wrote this song for her.
So the Comedy Central launch went off mostly okay although if you decided to watch the countdown you will have seen the glitch. For reasons I won't go into - none of them my fault, or indeed the fault of the internal team - the site arrived 15 minutes late. Which was slightly embarrassing but not seriously.
My next contract is getting lined up, hopefully, according to the agency the company are so desperate they are willing to pay a lot of money for someone to work over Easter. I explained that as I hadn't been home for 3 weeks the answer, though tempting, was no. Anyway the agent is going to arrange an interview on Thursday. So I said, okay as long as they don't expect me to wear a suit. He said "They'd think you were an alien if you did" and I said "that's good because I look like an alien in a suit".
Silence.
You see the problem with that line. It's really not as funny as it's supposed to be. I defused it with "that line was supposed to be a lot funnier than the way it came out". The agent guy paused then laughed. Phew, good save.
Screenwriting bit
I really can't decide whether or not to do ScriptFrenzy this year - yes, I know, it's already the 7th, but the words and the pages don't scare me, if I chose to do it I could fill the pages. It would help me get the first draft of Running out the way.
I did some "Thirty Six Dramatic Situations" work on Running partly as an experiment. Starting from "Situation I: Supplication" I looked to see if there were opportunities for a version of that situation in the story - which there were, so I made a note of it - and it helped to clarify the ending. Then Situation II, and so on. I got up to VIII. I have to say this is good stuff.
This is the story where I have to bring in Parkour (like Free Running but not exactly the same) and although I wanted to make it integral I was having problems with what to do with the Parkour practitioner. To be honest I could rip him out of the script (well, outline) and the script would remain pretty much intact. Not good, because if you can take something out of a script without affecting it, then you should.
But then I would lose the entire point.
The 36DS (it's quicker to type that), even though I've only looked at a few, gave me a way of making the character integral to the plot and giving him his very own dilemma. Not bad for half an hour's work.
Here's a thought: Let's suppose you wanted to mount a picture on a brick wall. If you had a hammer and nails, you could do it, probably - though you might end up with a bent nail and a large useless hole. Or maybe you've got a hand-drill (with a masonry bit) plus a screwdriver, rawlplugs and a proper hook. It would take a lot of elbow grease but eventually you could get a decent hole, and have the hook properly secured. Or, you have a power drill/screwdriver plus rawlplugs and hook, you get a good result in a fraction of the time.
With the proper writing tools you can get your picture mounted on the wall in a fraction of the time, and people will come around and admire how nice the picture is.
It's a thought.
What's on the turntable? "The Look of Love" by Dusty Springfield. I love Dusty though she is no longer with us. Burt Bacharach wrote this song for her.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Only 36?
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations is a book by Georges Polti written in 1868, available free in its 1916 translation by Lucile Ray (published 1924).
It was written by surveying a huge body of literature and classifying the dramas that Polti found therein. Apparently there was an attempt to disprove that there could be so few, but that only yielded 24 situations.
Jeff Kitchen includes the 36 Dramatic Situations in his book “Writing a Great Movie” as one of the techniques you can use to improve the drama in your work. As regular readers will know this is one of my favourite books on writing screenplays. Though most of it applies to any form of dramatic writing, not just movies.
The biggest mistake people make with the 36DS is thinking it is somehow proscriptive – by which I mean it is limiting. Or prescriptive - you must use one of these. Nothing is further from the truth. The people who make these criticisms obviously haven't read the source material.
Yes there are 36 major divisions, there are at least 3 subdivisions of each one, and some have sub-subdivisions. And you can combine two or more dramatic situations. Which makes the number of possible permutations a very big number indeed – far more than you’ll ever write.
So, to suggest it is somehow limiting is silly.
You can read any of the abbreviated versions of Polti’s work, but it’s worth reading the full translation, partly for Polti’s sense of humour and partly to gain a much better of understanding of his thinking behind the work.
Let’s take an example picked at random:
“Enmity of Kinsmen”, each situation lists the elements which make it up, in this case “a malevolent kinsman and a hated or reciprocally hating kinsman”. This is a dramatic situation which we’re all familiar with. He chooses several subdivisions: Hatred of Brothers sub-subdivided into one-to-one, several-to-one, and so on. (Not explicitly listed are all the different brother/sister combinations.)
Then there’s father-son (and all the versions between one generation, not explicitly listed); between two generations; between in-laws, he explicitly mentions mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict; and then there’s infanticide.
But here’s the key: he doesn’t list them all and points out in his introduction that this is a survey of dramatic situations that he found. He states that this survey shows areas that have not yet been touched by drama.
In other words you could go through his lists and come up with something completely new and original that has never been done before. He wouldn’t mind.
There are some situations that seem a little odd, like 31: Conflict with a God. It’s important to understand that the “God” can be interpreted as anything that, compared to the individual is godlike – it could the State, for example: immortal and untouchable (effectively).
So what value does this have? Well, it’s a tool for the toolbox. If your story is lacking drama you pull out the 36 dramatic situations and see what you can add to the mix. Your overall story will be one (or more) of the 36 but, since every scene should contain drama, every scene will also have something from the 36, and if it doesn’t you can add it.
What's on the turntable? "Go! Spastic" by Squarepusher from "Go Plastic", as I've said before my tastes are eclectic
It was written by surveying a huge body of literature and classifying the dramas that Polti found therein. Apparently there was an attempt to disprove that there could be so few, but that only yielded 24 situations.
Jeff Kitchen includes the 36 Dramatic Situations in his book “Writing a Great Movie” as one of the techniques you can use to improve the drama in your work. As regular readers will know this is one of my favourite books on writing screenplays. Though most of it applies to any form of dramatic writing, not just movies.
The biggest mistake people make with the 36DS is thinking it is somehow proscriptive – by which I mean it is limiting. Or prescriptive - you must use one of these. Nothing is further from the truth. The people who make these criticisms obviously haven't read the source material.
Yes there are 36 major divisions, there are at least 3 subdivisions of each one, and some have sub-subdivisions. And you can combine two or more dramatic situations. Which makes the number of possible permutations a very big number indeed – far more than you’ll ever write.
So, to suggest it is somehow limiting is silly.
You can read any of the abbreviated versions of Polti’s work, but it’s worth reading the full translation, partly for Polti’s sense of humour and partly to gain a much better of understanding of his thinking behind the work.
Let’s take an example picked at random:
“Enmity of Kinsmen”, each situation lists the elements which make it up, in this case “a malevolent kinsman and a hated or reciprocally hating kinsman”. This is a dramatic situation which we’re all familiar with. He chooses several subdivisions: Hatred of Brothers sub-subdivided into one-to-one, several-to-one, and so on. (Not explicitly listed are all the different brother/sister combinations.)
Then there’s father-son (and all the versions between one generation, not explicitly listed); between two generations; between in-laws, he explicitly mentions mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict; and then there’s infanticide.
But here’s the key: he doesn’t list them all and points out in his introduction that this is a survey of dramatic situations that he found. He states that this survey shows areas that have not yet been touched by drama.
In other words you could go through his lists and come up with something completely new and original that has never been done before. He wouldn’t mind.
There are some situations that seem a little odd, like 31: Conflict with a God. It’s important to understand that the “God” can be interpreted as anything that, compared to the individual is godlike – it could the State, for example: immortal and untouchable (effectively).
So what value does this have? Well, it’s a tool for the toolbox. If your story is lacking drama you pull out the 36 dramatic situations and see what you can add to the mix. Your overall story will be one (or more) of the 36 but, since every scene should contain drama, every scene will also have something from the 36, and if it doesn’t you can add it.
What's on the turntable? "Go! Spastic" by Squarepusher from "Go Plastic", as I've said before my tastes are eclectic
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