I received another book, ordering my next batch once I’ve posted this. The due dates keep shrinking, and I can tell that the library’s services are getting a little tired of me juggling the books they have to promise to keep safe to all of their sibling-establishments. Part of me wonders how low I can bring that deadline. If they made me read these things for just an hour and hand them back immediately afterward to be shipped away, it might make it easier to get things out of them.
(There’s also a little sticker on the paper strap it comes with, telling me DO NOT REMOVE THIS STRAP. I feel a little accused by that. It’s as if they’ve just now discovered I have a criminal record for mishandling my loans. I have a feeling sooner or later they’ll start leering at me, and I’ll find a cut-out of the horse’s head from the cover of Black Beauty in my bed.)
The book this time is Writing the Science Fiction Film by Robert Grant. It’s written largely for people who are making original offerings, but it covers all of its scriptwriting bases pretty strongly. Funny enough, there’s a section on writing aliens which complains about the proshetic-forehead school of extraterrestrials in much the same way I did last week. Aside from that, here’s what I took from it:
The first ten pages of any script, and of any movie, are the most important ones. There’s a lot of work to be done in them establishing everything the audience needs to know about the protagonist, world, rules, theme, and possibly the antagonists. Part of this is about writing for the people who’ll be accepting or rejecting your script, and that means paring down everything that isn’t completely necessary to the story. Grant puts it very bluntly (and very helpfully) as “[I]f there’s one single trick to better screenwriting, it’s this; [sic] reduce every sentence down to its absolute essence, and use the fewest possible words to make the greatest possible impact” (142); I already have a decent idea for an opening scene which mirrors one of the earlier scenes of the novel. There are also plenty of sections in the story in the main character’s past from which to establish a status quo.
But the writing should be clear, no vague verbs, no -ings, no “starts to”s, no adverbs. Exposition should be given to the audience only when they need it, and the pill should be hidden deep in some especially fun and engaging applesauce. Grant recommends a book on writing dialogue instead of going into it himself, a volume by Penny Penniston called Talk the Talk.
The part that I’m trying my hardest to chew on at present is the very simple question “What happens if the hero fails?” (159). This is very difficult because, in a sense, the hero does fail. He achieves a pyrrhic victory as the lone survivor of his ship, with the aliens kept away from the rest of humanity, but that doesn’t imply much achievement because I don’t think the aliens were that interested in Earth anyway. I’ll probably have to play up the horror of them to make them a broader threat, unless I’m just misremembering them.
And, separately, some bits I really enjoyed as a science fiction writer, but which I don’t have much to comment about in terms of this project.
- “No one will thank you if your script is bland in tone.” (152)
- “It doesn’t matter if the physics of your world aren’t real as long as they are consistent and you never break your own rules.” (86)
- “The main character in your story should be the only person this story could possibly happen to.” (38)
- “Despite the apocryphal nature of a lot of science fiction, there is usually a positive message. There’s a promise that... we can fight our way through any adversity and emerge on the other side with our humanity intact... moving on with a new measure of peace, understanding, and, above all, hope.” (73)
Work Cited
Grant, R. (2013) Writing the science fiction film. Michael Wiese Productions.
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