Dale Kutzera.com

Those who check this blog may be thinking “It’s about time he wrote something new.”  In my own defense I have moved (and do you really need any other excuse?) and I worked feverishly to finish the first pass on a crime novel.

Both moving and writing prose made me think about the differences between prose and screenwriting and the biggest difference to me can be summed up in the one word: time.  It really is about time.  A screenplay is a blueprint for a story that will be told typically by someone else.  With a novel the writer is telling the story, and telling a story is about time.

Telling a story is about conveying bits of information and whoever tells the story has their own personal opinion on how fast or slow to feed the audience information, what bits are more important, and what bits can be glossed over.  There is a perhaps apocryphal story about “Casablanca” in which director Michael Curtiz staged the famous climactic scene without a pause.  Claude Raines’ Captain Renault says “Major Strasser has been shot.  Round up the usual suspects.”  Julius Epstein, one of the writers, stepped in to explain that the entire gag is based on a key pause between those sentences.  The first bit of information (the first sentence) is delivered, then a pause during which we cut to various characters as they wonder what will happen next.  They, and the audience, wonder if Renault will arrest Bogart’s Nick.  The next sentence releases the tension created by this expectation and we are both relieved that Nick is safe and heartened that Renault has taken a stand against the Nazis.

Writers can not always be on the set to ensure that the director will get the timing of the story right.  It can be agonizing and infuriating for writers to see how a director with lousy timing has wrecked the pacing of the story.  Perhaps just as frequently, a talented director has tweaked and altered a poorly paced script by dropping lines and turning labored action into a quick montage.  A relevant example of that might be “The Fugitive” where director Andrew Davis (perhaps after seeing a sluggish test screening ) turned the entire first act of the movie into an extended credit sequence montage.

Film directors and editors have tremendous control over time.  Not only can they edit the text, but they can coach the actors to speed up or slow down a performance.  Capra would rehearse a scene and time it, then tell the actors to cut that time in half.  Today’s directors and producers favor lots of coverage that provides total control to either tighten a scene, or let it breath.  There is a potential downside to this as both director and editor can become so familiar with the information being conveyed in a scene that they unconsciously speed up it’s presentation. Look up the word “velocitation” for more on becoming accustomed to traveling at fast speeds.

Pre-production is often where timing is worked out in the director’s mind, and there are ways a writer can influence the timing of a story.  Inserting a line of action between two lines of dialogue will hint that a pause should come there.  Some writers just write “beat” but specific actions are always better.  Care should be taken with such stage direction as some directors resent being told how to direct a scene, and often actors get bent out of shape with any attempt to dictate their performance.  Creating a rhythm to the dialogue as evident in the work of David Mamet or Aaron Sorkin can also guide actors and directors as to the timing of a scene.

If you want complete control over the timing of your story, however, write prose.  Actors may control the pacing in the theater, and directors and editors shape it in film, but in prose the writer is the storyteller, and it is important to develop the instinct for pacing and rhythm and time.

Everyone knows screenplays are based on a three-act structure.  That was chiseled into stone by Syd Field way back in the dark ages.  Well, at the risk of upsetting the screenwriting gods, I think Syd was wrong.  I proudly champion a four act structure.     You take that long marathon of a second act and divide it in two.  Look at many films and you’ll find a different tone and goals from the first half of Act II to the second half.  So why not recognize that reality and break that long mother of an act into two more bite-sized chunks?

For example, in “The Wizard of Oz” you could say all of Act II takes place in Oz so it’s all the same act.   But dig deeper and you’ll see that the first half of Act II (what I call Act II) involves a yellow brick road and meeting allies.   The second half of Act II (what I call Act III) involves going after the witches broom and fighting flying monkeys.

Every time I break a story, I look for a grand universal equation to help me structure that long mid-section.  One reliable component to that equation is that Act III is where things get worse for the hero, ending in the classic “Death Moment” where all hope seems lost.  What you need to create this peril is a FATAL FLAW inherent in your premise.  A lot of endeavors have a fatal flaw.  The founding of the United States was possible only by compromising on the issue of slavery, a compromise that led to the the Civil War.  Superman has powers because he’s from Krypton, but Kryptonite will weaken him.  “Tootsie” achieved success as an actor, but only by passing himself off as a woman.  You need to find the FATAL FLAW in your premise or make one up.

The film “Wedding Crashers” has a good example of a FATAL FLAW.  The hero is trying to win a woman, but is doing so by lying about his identity.  This lie will ultimately be revealed and cause his downfall in Act III.  It seems inevitable, but consider “Wedding Crashers” could have been written without the issue of false identity.  The two buddies could have crashed weddings without pretending to be other people.  It’s not like there were bouncers checking ID’s.  In fact, it would probably have been easier to crash wedding by not using a fake name.  That fake-name lie had little bearing on the execution of the first half of the film, but had the writers not included it, they would have found themselves high and dry in Act III.  It’s only by including that FATAL FLAW component to the premise of the movie that they had the complications needed to sustain the third act.

Lying and having that lie revealed in Act III is one of the all-time great FATAL FLAWS.  We are all taught from an early age that it’s wrong to lie.  Unmasking the hero as a liar is a great symbolic “death” moment and sets up a fourth act in which he/she must succeed honestly, without subterfuge.  “Working Girl,”  “Tootsie,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” and the recent “Rango” all involved heroes passing themselves off as something they are not.

When Billy Wilder said that the problems of Act III are solved in Act I, he was talking about the need to plant the seeds of the FATAL FLAW.