Exciting News! Settle Stories; New Guest Blogger.

A good few months ago I liaised with Settle Stories, a traditional storytelling charity in the Yorkshire Dales about posting on their blog, and now my first post has been published.

Settle Stories are all about oral stories as once told around a camp-fire and look at how stories might be useful in all walks of life, from self-help to business. They're home of the W.R.Mitchell archive (a local magazine editor and author of many books on local Yorkshire history), run an annual storytelling festival, and have regular updates on twitter with many links to interesting articles.

My first post on personal storytelling looks at the range of stories you could tap into to inspire and entertain audiences, and how it's a good thing to share our experiences to each other. Take a look, here.

Finding your Character’s Voice: Angela Street's Role-Play Exercise

Last week at the Salisbury Playhouse, I went to the first summer term class of playwright and mentor Angela Street’s Emerging Writer’s Workshop, which aims to nurture new writers and provide a platform to discuss opportunities, successes and how to overcome physical writing problems. We looked at how to avoid on the nose dialogue and how to find and write the unique voice of characters by using an interactive role-play task.

It’s important to have each of your characters speak differently. A limp and an eye-patch as Blake Snyder liked to say. What you certainly don’t want is every character to sound like you. They are individuals, and you need to express their unique attributes on the page.

To get inside the head of our characters, Angela had us write a few pages of their interior monologue, then write a few interesting facts about them and what they’re afraid of.

The role-play needed two people to have a conversation, answering and speaking as their characters as if they were stuck in a lift together. We weren’t allowed to tell each other about our characters, everything had to come out of the dialogue. This presented a few problems, mainly gender and race; all the observable qualities of character. My role-play partner took a while to figure out my character, Fran, was a girl, and that changed the tone of dialogue considerably. It was interesting though, as my character is a bit of a tom-boy, so perhaps this is something that could happen to her, like Arya in Game of Thrones.

I did have a few surprises. The character in the lift with me was a drunken defeatist, and Fran told him off for swearing and drinking. When the lift started to smoke (an action given by Angela who was supervising the exercise) Fran sprang to life and tried to figure out a way to get them out the lift. So I learnt she’s morally strict, resourceful, and a natural leader.

Doing this exercise can show you how well you know your characters and indicate if you need to do more development. I found it hard to think of what to say, and most of the dialogue was simple hellos and Fran commenting on things going on around her. I think it showed I didn’t know her very well, which isn’t surprising as she’s a new character.

I think next time I would specify the setting a bit more. As the lift was just a random lift with no indication of the type of building, city, town, country. I found it hard to think of how she would react to things around her. It was hard also not really knowing why she was in the building in the first place, so perhaps a few useful things, such as, it’s a gratified lift in an apartment block, or it’s an immaculate shinny lift with a sofa, each indicating the type of building and person she might meet, enhancing dialogue with values, and possibly conflict.

It’s important to understand your characters personality if you want to capture their unique voice. This role-play can help you imagine what they’re like, what they value, what they desire and what they’re afraid of. I’ve never taken much stock in writing a character bio with every detail including favourite type of cereal and TV show (if they even like cereal or TV), but I suppose it is useful to try and think of more than the bare bones of story and spend a bit of time hanging-out with characters, learning as we do with a new friend what it is that makes them who they are.

The next Emerging Writer’s Workshop takes place on the 15th June, where Angela will be looking at a sample of our dialogue to give us useful tips. You can find more details on Angela Street and her upcoming courses (including a summer residential in Salisbury) on her website.

Witty Dialogue in Double Indemnity

Besides drafting a one page treatment for my new play, (which I realised is an ugly new-born baby) I’ve spent my spare time this week catching up on a few films. Firstly, Kiki’s Delivery Service from Studio Ghibli, a wonderfully uplifting story of a young witch coming of age when she trains away from home for a year to develop her powers. I highly recommend it. I also watched  Double Indemnity for the first time, and was really impressed with how the characters set up the story with only a few lines directly stating their intentions, creating dialogue with depth and intrigue. In this post I look at DI (okay yes a highly looked at film) but also talk about my experience of writing dialogue and how I’ve tried to improve it.

Alexander Mackendrick’s great film, the Sweet Smell of Success, is another example of great dialogue, and in his book, On Film-Making, Mackendrick says that dialogue works best when the emphasis isn’t on the words but the ‘real intentions and motivations of the characters.’ In this way, it might be better for a character to talk around what they want or mean to say, encouraging the audience to dig beneath the surface. 

The following extract is from the beginning of DI on the second visit that protagonist, Walter Neff, an avid insurance salesman, makes to client Phyllis Dietrichson, who is enquiring about accident insurance for her husband, but her dialogue creates the feeling that she's really talking about something else.

NEFF
Wait a minute. Why shouldn't he know?

PHYLLIS
Because I know he doesn't want accident insurance. He's superstitious about it.

NEFF
A lot of people are. Funny, isn't it?

And then a few lines later…

NEFF
Of course, it doesn't have to be a crown block. It can be a car backing over him, or he can fall out of an upstairs window. Any little thing like that, as long as it's a morgue job.

PHYLLIS
Are you crazy?

NEFF
Not that crazy. Goodbye, Mrs. Dietrichson.

PHYLLIS
What's the matter?

NEFF
Look, baby, you can't get away with it.

PHYLLIS
Get away with what?

NEFF
You want to knock him off, don't you, baby.

The dialogue is bouncy and witty mainly because we can tell something else is going on, and then we get that line at the end which acts as a dramatic full stop, a direct line to make her intentions crystal clear. Phyllis then visits Neff at his apartment to return his hat.

NEFF
How were you going to do it?

PHYLLIS
Do what?

NEFF
Kill him.

PHYLLIS
Walter, for the last time –

 “You want to knock him off,” and “Kill him,” are the only direct references in the entire set-up of the film. This scene is great because instead of saying, “you know how hard it’ll be,” he just reels off past examples where people have failed to fake a claim. She says how hard it is for her in her relationship, whilst still denying her intentions, and then finally, Neff, whose dialogue and voice-over has implied his desire for her, agrees to help.

NEFF
-- you're not going to hang, baby. Not ever. Because you're going to do it the smart way. Because I'm going to help you.

I can’t claim to have written anything nearly as exciting as that, but here’s an example of a line that came out very on the nose at first and had to be tweaked. It’s set in a diner where the protagonist, Steve, stops whilst on his way to a Native Indian Reservation, where he will discover lots of things he didn’t know about his recently deceased ex-wife, Justine. In this scene, he finds she became a great painter, and I thought it’d be cool to have someone make it clear these were painted by Justine and imply a few things about who she had become. 

WAITRESS
Yeah, by a real famous local artist. A saint of a woman. Sad story though. She died recently.

And later changed to…

WAITRESS
Yeah, Hounslow’s. We love ‘em. I saw her in Santa Fe. She’s a hippy volunteer type, but lovely though.

The first example was on the nose, as it heavily states, yes, we’re talking about your ex-wife who recently died, duh. The second is a bit more natural. It implies Santa Fe, a very arty place, and how wonderful (and different to Steve’s expectations) that Justine is.

It’s Justine, dead, but still looking beautiful. Steve studies her and notices a braid in her hair, turquoise earrings and a necklace, and native markings on her skin. Lisa takes Steve’s hand and squeezes.

Steve just stares at Justine’s body.

STEVE
She looks so...

LISA
Peaceful.

STEVE
Yeah. She looks peaceful.

That’s probably one of my favourite lines. I think it reveals Steve’s true reaction without actually saying it, though because of what we know about Steve, we understand what’s really going on.

Witty dialogue isn’t just people saying cool stuff all the time, like when Neff flirts with Phyllis (although this again is a fantastic example of talking around what you truly mean).

PHYLLIS
There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-Five miles an hour.

NEFF
How fast was I going, officer?

PHYLLIS
I'd say about ninety.

What it seems more about is having characters a little more indirect (remembering they are their own people, not just a device to get across the story), perhaps saying the opposite of what they truly mean whilst implying what they think. Mrs Dietrichson being concerned about her husband having accident insurance whilst her questions state otherwise, or Steve look like he’s about to say one thing, but says another. Doing this might draw an audience in by making them have to dig a little deeper beneath the surface, and it certainly does make for a more entertaining film.

Can you think of any more examples of films with witty dialogue, perhaps less well known ones than this? If you can (or disagree with my ranting), tell me in the comments section.

Read Double Indemnity script here

Check out Mackendrick's book, On Film-Making, here

Read the Sweet Smell of Success script here

When the Cool Character of Your Story Isn’t Your Hero

Sometimes you dream up an amazing character with a really gripping struggle, and then, as I’m sure as happened with the BBC’s latest zombie drama, In the Flesh, you realise they’re not your hero. This post analyses the first episode and looks at how to write a story about an interesting character through the eyes a character you might have overlooked.

Dominic Mitchell’s, In the Flesh, was developed after submission to the BBC Writer’s Room Northern Voices scheme. It became a three-part series, though I felt there needed to be a lot more episodes (unless there’s a season two?), but regardless, the first episode was bit of a gem. Spoilers follow, so if you like you can read the script here as it’s no longer on BBC iPlayer.

Episode one follows Kieren, a Partially Deceased Syndrome Sufferer (PDS), which basically means zombies walked the earth and were then treated with a special drug to restore brain function, controlling their rabid urges, and allowing them to reintegrate into society.

At least, that was the plan. Kieren is sent back to his home in Roarton, where, unlucky for him, the Human Volunteer Force (HVF) is determined to kill zombies, rabid or otherwise. Kieren is forced to hide in his bedroom for fear of his life. This is where Kieren’s sister, Jem, a metal loving teenage badass and respected member of the HVF, takes over the story.

Jem has a meeting with slightly crazed HFV leader, Bill, who states that he will kill any PDS zombie he finds, and as Jem’s family are planning Kieren’s arrival, we get a sense that she’s caught between the values of her HVF buddies and the love she once had for Kieren.

Jem’s goal isn’t very tangible, but she does interrogate Kieren for proof that he is her brother and not just a monster. I suppose she’d like him to be a monster, in a way, because then her HVF buddies were right and she can kill this monster and go back to life as normal.

There’s a fantastic moment when Kieren describes past events that only he could know, and Jem realises in a teary moment that he is her brother after all. Jem’s change is cemented in the climax where the HVF come to kill a PDS suffer on her street, and Jem stays at Kieren’s side with her gun loaded, ready to protect him at all costs, which proves her love for him.

It doesn’t end until the final twist (major spoiler) where Jem witnesses Bill kill a neighbour’s wife (a PDS sufferer) in cold blood, revealing they weren’t after Kieren after all. It is, however, a mirror to what could’ve happened to Kieren, and as we’ve just seen Jem ready to defend him, we know that when she sees Bill do this, she is thinking of him, and is the punch that switches her allegiance and ends the story. Jem changes from hating Kieren to loving him, and from supporting the HVF, to adamantly despising all they stand for.

It feels like it should be Kieren’s story, his struggle to survive when he goes home to possibly the worst place on earth for him to be, but once he goes into hiding, there isn't much else he can do. It’s a world change story, as now Kieren’s sister accepts him, and perhaps in time the rest of the world will too, but it isn’t Kieren driving the story. He does have his own struggle, the same as Jem, but is dealing with his own crisis of whether he is a man or a monster, and I think that’s what makes it work. Jem is the active character who discovers Kieren isn’t a monster, giving Kieren an insight into himself. “If Jem loves me, I can’t be a monster.”

If you have an interesting character you want to be the hero but seems passive, you could try and give them a goal, or follow In the Flesh, and pick another character whose struggle mirrors the interesting character, one that directly involves them, and allow this other character to become the hero and drive the story. Once this new hero has a revelation and changes, the interesting character might get a glimpse of change themselves, and the world might change to one where they can live, even if that change is a small as a sister’s love.

Getting an Idea Through Re-Writes

I spent the last few weeks writing a two-minute film, but gradually, through re-writes, I saw it morph into a longer, deeper, and hopefully more interesting piece. I had to rely on my own reactions to the script as my usual writing group were busy with their master’s scripts, but I did make some interesting observations, summarised as a sort of self-review guideline at the end of this post. It reminded me of the importance of re-writes, but also how not assuming you know what you’re writing at the start (ten-minute short, sixty-minute drama, feature) can give you the flexibility to develop the best possible story from your initial idea.

My film focused on a fussy guy at a new year’s party who struggles to find a girl to kiss before the countdown ends, and can't even get a kiss from a granny in the end, the joke being that the granny could’ve been good for him. I thought it was a fun idea, but once it was written, I found it really dull.

I wondered if I had too much going on, until after I had written an article about empathy, I realised it was boring because I had no empathy for the main character. He objectified women and got what he deserved; not a character I could follow or feel anything for.

For draft two, I made the hero insecure about the way he looked, which made him a bit of a cliché geek up against a handsome lad, but it did make for a more interesting read. This version came crashing down, however, because the story of a guy trying and failing to get a kiss became repetitive and unsurprising. I made him kiss the old woman in the end, but it didn’t mean anything. A guy struggles to get a kiss, and gets one, and that was about it.

I remedied this by focusing on what was interesting, which to me, was an older woman in a nightclub. I fleshed out her character, focusing on her strengths and weaknesses, and made the story about the hero (Chris) having a relationship with this older woman (Linda), but had Chris worried about being with her because of what his family and friends might think. Chris kissed another girl in an attempt to move on from Linda, and Linda saw him and ran into the bathroom, where Chris came in to apologise. It felt nice to set it in a small location after an event had occurred, and allowed me to surprise the audience when Linda opened the cubicle door and revealed her age.

Thanks to feedback from a trusted friend, I realised my theme was unsatisfying. Linda had to stop partying so hard, and in the end, became friends with Chris, which was basically saying when you get old you can’t act young or have a relationship with your true love if they’re too young for you.

My final version had Chris too afraid to reveal his true self to the world (and thus clubs to meet girls when he’d rather be out hiking and writing poems) and therefore is unable to accept being with Linda, and ends with a revelation that if he did have Linda, he wouldn’t be alone.

My final problem was even though Chris realises his true fear is being alone, he was still too afraid to choose Linda over friends and family. I ended up playing off the 'Linda-as-older' idea that she'd been clubbing so hard (in an attempt to not become what she perceived as a 'dull old-person') that she became exhausted and fainted. Chris realised he couldn't live without Linda and openly loved her at the end. It felt good, but I had trouble bringing in this new element without having set it up, and it made me wonder where to open the film.

It’s great to have flexibility, but there comes a time to decide upon the best path to take. I’m not sure how interesting it’d be if I began at the start of their relationship, and really I'm just starting to get the idea, but re-writing the script has shown me what has and hasn’t worked, and brought it to the point where I feel I have something to say. So if you feel you have an idea worth telling, tell it, but don’t be afraid to change and re-write.

Gareth’s Self-Review Check-list

• If your script is dull, perhaps it’s because we have no empathy for your hero.
• If your story feels unsurprising or unsatisfying, perhaps you’re being repetitive or aren’t expressing a theme.
• Perhaps you can find a theme by focusing on what is interesting in your story.
• Shorts work well with fewer locations, when they start after an event has occurred, and are really interesting with a ‘surprise’ at the end (although one organic to the story).
• Have you thought about the resolution of your story, and what it might mean?
• Have you introduced a rouge element half-way thorough? Perhaps it needs to be set-up to not confuse the audience and create anticipation e.g. if we knew Linda was suffering from exhaustion, it would play out the whole scene until she faints.