VIII. Dialogue Effectivity Strategies

Three important methods for effectivizing dialogue (taken from two readings):

1. "Good dialogue gives us the sense that we are eavesdropping" on the characters: they're saying their own thoughts, not reciting canned speeches.
2. In writing dialogue, "You're not reproducing actual speech--you're translating the sound and rhythm of what a character says into words." You have to make sure the words flow naturally, rather than sounding forced (unless your character naturally talks like that).
3. Dialogue in scripts should either "reveal characters' relationships to one another" or "move the story forward." Otherwise, it's wasting space.

Quick Aside

You may have noticed that--again--I've taken a longer break from uploading WE's (I'm now all caught up with C-WE's, but there are a few more independent WE's left). Obvious reason: I've been busy (or "busy"), as before. Partly on The Escape, partly on other things... Point is, it may take a little longer for me to finally get those online.

Actually, I have an ulterior motive for explaining myself yet again. I'm about to write blog post VIII, yet another official post, and I want to break things up a bit so there aren't three Official posts in a row (if you count I and Ia as a single two-part post, I have never had three of the same type in a row--and I want to keep it that way). So if you enjoy variation, you're welcome.

VII. "Hollywood Formula" Fragments

Pieces of the Script Frenzy Official "Hollywood Formula" that can apply to my script, so I applied them (also partly so I could add a little more detail to the relatively bare middle section of my summary in Post VI. before I finally write the actual thing...)

• 50% Mark (where, "obviously", there can be no more change at all in the protagonists' situation, so obviously things immediately get worse): After Joe and Don conveniently stumbled on a nice deserted bunker, they can finally get some rest, and hope that after a few weeks hiding out underground with the ample provisions that were left there, they might even escape Dr. Nope's minions once and for all. After a brief conversation they fall into a well-deserved sleep--and that, of course, is when one of the minions releases a potent neurotoxin into the bunker's ventilation system. (Of course he/she forgot to bring his/her gas mask, so will stand well back--which allows Joe and Don to escape again, undetected, and with a nice lead on their pursuers.)
• 50-75% (where The Antagonist Returns! to crush those stupid protagonists once and for all): Some unfortunate minion is sent to tell Dr. Nope that Joe and Don escaped the gassing. After killing the messenger in a particularly bloody and cinematic way, Dr. Nope swears that from now on, he's serious. He's no longer going to send his minions to do this job; he needs certainty of success; he can't farm it out to underlings any more. He's going to start sending his henchmen/women/things.
• 75% Mark (where All Is Lost--for the first time, not the final time. That's right, all will be lost TWICE; this first time is just to fool you into thinking the movie is over when there's still several important plot twists to go. Obviously, all is not really lost, as the protagonists survive): In a spectacular aerial chase scene, our heroes are in the middle of the Pacific when one of Dr. Nope's top henchmen (not yet specified) catches up to them (or succeeds in ambushing them.) In addition to the threat from the outside, there is another minion inside the plane Joe and Don stole to get away from the previous attack, who's ready to cause them even more trouble. Of course, Joe and Don thwart the attack, but not without crippling their plane. It falls through the clouds and toward a deserted desert island. It crashes and there is a huge explosion. No survivors.*

* Just kidding. Of course Joe and Don survived (this is a movie, after all). They ejected from the plane at the last second and somehow survived the fall (I'll figure out how, or I can just never explain it. Hey, it's a [intentionally cheesy] movie [should that be "a" or "an"??!! Darn parenthetical edge case grammar!], not real life). But they survive and are washed up on the island same island as their plane.**

** In a rare twist, the plane exploded not because of physically unrealistic fuel explosions (i.e., blown up by the moviemakers using whatever the usual explosive for blowing up vehicles for cinematic effect is)--but because of the bomb planted in the toilet by the Dr. Nope minion. So by wrecking their own plane and forcing themselves to bail, Joe and Don in fact had yet another narrow escape from death at Dr. Nope's proxy hands.

VI. Script Outline

Script Outline for The Escape

1. Set-Up:  Montage: Without getting too in-depth, this shows mediocre reporter Joe in the late stages of his research into the devilish machinations of the fiendish Dr. Nope. We see his work about to produce fruit--then he disappears. Meanwhile, Don is fired from the CIA; he wanders a few days, then happens upon Joe's now deserted ramshackle house. Intrigued, he researches a bit and learns Joe was after Dr. Nope--which fits nicely with his plans to regain favor with his bosses by researching exactly that criminal mastermind. Back to Joe: he now sits in Dr. Nope's ultra-secret, ultra-high-security prison; currently he's just being isolated, but there is a distinct hint of torture in the future. Don comes closer and closer to tracking down the secret prison.
2. Inciting Incident:  As the opening credits end, Don finds himself outside the prison--and Joe is just being taken in for torture. Don must act fast, and he does; somehow he manages to break Joe out just before the gruesome torture begins. But now that they're out, they have another problem: how to stay out. Dr. Nope isn't just going to let them escape like that--he'll send all his minions to bring them back. It is as some of his minions report the escape that we first meet Dr. Nope in person. He is angry.
3. Rising Action:  The majority of the movie is in here. Ironically, this is also the part with the least substance: merely a classic conglomeration of chase scenes, fight scenes, explosions, and other intense action. Any tentative attempt at substantive plot (or the development of any secondary characters) is quickly squashed by yet another attack by Nope minions which forces Don and Joe to go back on the defense or the run.
4. Climax:  This comes as late as possible in the script, to keep suspense artificially high. Our two intrepid heroes, after all their running, have managed to run themselves right into Dr. Nope's main lair (and they didn't sneak in either: they're completely surrounded by all the firepower Dr. Nope has left--despite all the overblown use of resources in the chase sequences, the remainder is still considerable). All seems lost, but of course we know it can't end like that. And indeed, surprise, surprise, they manage to survive once again! How do they do it?!
5. Falling Action:  As short as possible: Dr. Nope gives an extended soliloquy whose gist is that they don't understand his true genius, they can't stop him, and even though they survived this time, they'll never escape. By this time, after all that has happened, this sounds pretty weak. And indeed, as soon as Dr. Nope finishes, Joe and Don immediately escape...
6. Resolution:  Only to meet a final plot twist in the resolution. Because I don't want to spoil the ending, this will have to remain classified information. Suffice it for now to say that, as this is an epic action movie, it's absolutely final for one side of the conflict.

WE #2: Citizens, Awake!

Written immediately after WE#1

From Take Ten #3-5, "A Forkful of Spoonerisms": Use a pair of spoonerisms--here in bold--to bookend your timed writing piece. I added the note that "the combination of time pressure and little space at the end of a page should serve as incentives to keep things brief" and cut down on my tendency to ramble. It worked--too well: I was told it was too short.

A crushing blow against freedom and democracy was dealt this day by enemies of the state. The state bird is, as everyone knows, a stately, regal raven; it is featured prominently on all government stationary and, lately, on all its websites. Now, hacker group Incognito has hacked the government's servers and replaced the graphic of the state seal with a bemused, hot pink version. To arms, citizens, against these evil perpetrators of vile and shameful deeds, not to mention blasphemers of our sacred emblem! We cannot let these miscreants go unpunished--how can we leave things as they are now? Shall we let our national symbol remain the mockery that this craven group has foisted on us--shall we tolerate their fiendish transmogrification of our stately raven into a blushing crow?

V. Final Script Logline

Final logline for The Escape:

A mediocre journalist and an incompetent ex-CIA agent who miraculously escape the nefarious Dr. Nope's ultra-high-security secret prison must now evade the disreputable minions straining to reincarcerate them. [Word count: still 28]

WE #1: Philosophical Speculations

Written February 27, 2012

Independent idea trigger: Philosophizing (gah! why? I really don't know) about the limits on our freedoms in writing exercises...

So I was wondering, how free are we in these writing assignments? I would think, as vehicles for our expression, practice for growth as a writer, etc. etc., there should be as few restrictions as possible, so we can best develop our craft, etc. etc. But then we run into difficulties related to taste: should we be allowed to include prejudices, stereotypes, sexism, racism, profanity, or even sexual content?! (These roughly in order of offensiveness.) Not that I'd particularly want to--I tend to avoid these things myself. But how far can (or could) we push it before our attempts to more farther in the development of our writing skills runs into the wall of censorship, aka keeping such improprieties out of student work? And if some are permitted (the first two especially spring to mind here, as denying prejudices would be tantamount to denying your writing voice), then why not the others? As so often we have an unresolvable (at least, and in my mind, not satisfactorily resolvable) dilemma between pragmatism and principle...

C-WE #3/4/5: The Psychobabble-meister

Written about a week after C-WE #2

Finally, after so many delays, from Take Ten #5-4, "Superwordacious": Blend a given prefix, root, and suffix into a brand new word to use in the story. [The word, as well as the famous first line to start the story (in this case from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens), are in bold.]

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. But since there's only one page here, I might as well say it right here and now: I am not that hero, and nobody else is either. I am merely a humble, self-contradictory, hypocritical, obscure, and just plain faking-it psychobabblemeister, and I make my living by appearing on talk shows to make weighty-seeming pronouncements on "the human condition" of the pitiful specimens that are my co-guests, which sound really deep and insightful but are actually rubbish and garbage, stuff and nonsense, all carefully screened from the naïve viewer's eye by a choking wall of jargon and, well, psychobabble, that just runs on and on and on and on and never really reaches a stopping place, just keeps on going and rolls over the critical thought of others through the crushing weight of its superior number of words and syllables in those words, sort of like this sentence. You see? I'm doing it to you too (although I'm dropping the jargon since I'm not on my usual subject of choice), without even trying! What can I say, I'm a natural--naturally long-winded, prolix, and generally given to say nothing or next to nothing in an incredibly long string of words, so that any real meaning, true thought, and sensible opinion is buried under a landslide of BS that just goes on and on and on and on and... Sorry, I did it again. As I said, I'm a natural--that's why the networks call so often on my services (that, and they love that kind of stuff; also they're lazy and don't want to spend the effort looking for someone new or better--frankly, though, there is none better than me--when they already have one, i.e. me; notice how even in my parenthetical comments I just ramble on and on into infinity... again I apologize for doing this to you when I'm trying as hard as I can, to tell you meaningful truths about myself. I can't help it, I'm sorry...)
So anyway, the point is--speaking really bluntly for once, which is hard on me and requires incredible amounts of effort and soul-searching and... see, I just can't stop! But I'll make a valiant effort......... Okay, here we go. I am merely a psychobabble-meister for TV talk shows (and radio too, occasionally), not a hero, and nobody wants to be a hero for a psychobabblemeister for TV talk shows, so as I said above (before I got so sidetracked--and it's taking me a huge effort no to go off on another tangent right now)--so anyway, the point is, I have no such thing as the "hero of my life", and it only took me a page (keeping my innate longwinded tendencies in check with supreme effort only) to demonstrate it. There. I've said it. Now I can finally give in to my natural urge and start analyzing the effects of this brief repression of my innate tendencies on my psyche and the devastating pain and autocatalyzing destruction of my soul, and the reasons for everything I do, and the reasons behind those reasons, and the reasons behind those, and how it all connects to my relationship with my mother, and hers with my grandfather, and his with my uncle, and ... ... . . . . . . . .

Note: When I first wrote this, I added an out-of-character, inconsequential, completely useless note at the bottom. I threw it out--and now replace it with this one. But I'll keep it brief. Two things: One, note how I avoid the difficulty of writing beautiful concise prose by making my narrator longwinded... and two, note the coincidence: the author of the famous first line was also known for writing long, complex sentences (and I hope he'd forgive me for the horrible way I treated his line...because I certainly wouldn't have!)
Oh, one more thing I had to say. As I uploaded this, my heart was broken when I had to hyphenate the title (to make it fit the sidebar)--because "psychobabblemeister" doesn't, and should never, repeat NEVER, take a hyphen! The pain you experience when you are forced to bend your erstwhile perfect, carefully constructed creation (so it seems to you, no matter its actual worth) to fit constraints... oh, it's the worst thing in the world, I tell you. The absolute worst. Okay, I'll shut up now.

Falling Behind On Catching Up

...is what I was doing the past few weeks. For all that I said "doing right now" and explained at great length my rationale for number (and left you wondering what that long #3/4/5 was), I didn't do anything after that explanatory post.

My excuse? I was busy. (Yeah, yeah, real convincing.) But I was; and then when I finally worked off my backlog of other classwork I had to catch up on (there's that phrase yet again) I no longer had access to the WE's I wanted to upload. So despite a three-week-long lapse, I didn't/couldn't do what I said I would.

But now I finally can! (I think.) I have the time, I have the WE's, I have the will--I can do this! However, seeing what happened the first time, I won't promise anything. I'll just say: let's see how far I get this time before something else gets in the way...

IV. Script Logline Draft

Provisional logline for the script I'm writing for Script Frenzy, titled The Escape:

A mediocre journalist and an incompetent ex-CIA agent who miraculously escaped the secret prison of the nefarious Dr. Nope must evade their pursuers to stay free... and alive. [Word count: 28]