Screenwriting Updated: New (And Conventional) Ways of Writing for the Screen

by Linda Aronson

Today's screenwriter must be adept at today's popular yet often complex and unconventional script forms, such as the parallel storytelling of Pulp Fiction and Magnolia, the multiple protagonist narrative of American Beauty, and the complex flashback forms of The Usual Suspects and The Sweet Hereafter. Becoming comfortable with and skilled in such modern script forms is the focus of Screenwriting Updated, which identifies basic parallel structures, clearly explains how and why they work (or fail to work), and establishes the basic principles of their construction. These modern forms are presented in tandem with and in relation to tried-and-true, traditional screenwriting forms, rendering unconventional structures as easily grasped as conventional ones. Unlike any other screenwriting book, Screenwriting Updated combines solid, basic screenwriting craft with a thorough presentation of very contemporary script structures. The result is a unique, wide-ranging, in-depth screenwriting text and do-it-yourself script-doctoring manual suitable for both seasoned and novice writers.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Film

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Linda Aronson is a working writer with awards as a scriptwriter, playwright and novelist. She has thirty years experience as a scriptwriter working for companies from Australia, UK, New Zealand and USA. As a scriptwriter, she has credits for feature film, TV series and serials, mini-series, children's TV, radio drama, stage plays, and TV drama-documentary. Her young adult fiction is published in many languages and her hit stage comedy Dinkum Assorted (about life in a World War II biscuit factory, written for a cast of fifteen women and a nanny goat,and for which she also wrote music and lyrics) has rarely been out of production somewhere since it premiered at the Sydney Opera House over twenty years ago. She has also published short stories and satirical journalism. Linda also works internationally as a script consultant.
--from the author's website

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really like four books in one. Firstly, it's an overview of traditional three-act structure screenplay writing. Secondly, it's a sort of 'creativity manual' on how to effectively use literal and lateral thinking in combination to come up with ideas that are "real but unusual." Thirdly, it's what it says in the title: a how-to on writing unconventional screenplay structures (with a focus on flashback, and to a somewhat lesser extent, parallel narratives and ensemble films). Lastly, it's a guide on how to identify structural problems within a screenplay, including in depth analyses of several films with such problems.

The first two aspects for the most part weave into each other. After identifying what literal and lateral thinking are, the problems caused by using the wrong skill for the wrong task, and how to use them effectively, she then applies this method to each step of writing a traditional three-act screenplay. This is an interesting, and I think fruitful approach. It'd be especially useful for those new to screenwriting, I imagine. Still, I felt this section was unnecessary. I'd much preferred if the book had ditched the parenthetical and stuck to the 'new,' 'updated,' and UNconventional side of things instead. There are oodles and oodles of books on three-act structure out there, and while Aronson's serious, intelligent, and relatively original take on the subject is miles above the sea of utter garbage that constitutes the screenwriting instruction industry, it still would have worked better as its own book.

The real heart of the book is the other stuff. The focus is almost entirely on narrative structure, so if you're looking for advice on experimenting with genre or character or whatever else, you might try looking elsewhere (though obviously you can't discuss structure without also discussing character, and issues of genre, tone, etc do get brief mention). But if you're attempting to write a film with flashbacks, multiple narratives, or an ensemble cast, this book will probably be a lifesaver to you. Aronson meticulously breaks down the structures of several films (successful, partially successful, and failures) and shows what makes them tick or not tick. I have to emphasize the word 'meticulous.' Some may complain that this book is overly complex or technical, but if you're interested in writing a film with a complex and unusual narrative structure, you're going to wind up with complex and unusual roadblocks and flaws. By giving detailed notes on a broad variety of possible structures, the problems that can potentially arise from each, and multiple ways of solving or compensating for each problem, Aronson's book is the only one I know of that can help point the way toward crafting an unconventional structure that WORKS.

Still, I wish it went further. Early in the first section, Aronson writes, "Some books on screenwriting actually specify the page number in the script where structural high points should happen. Many writers find this worryingly rigid. But if you think of it not as a matter of pages but of screen time, it makes sense, because what is actually being said is that a script needs a twist or turn every fifteen minutes, otherwise the audience will get bored - which is really just common sense." She writes this as a way of backing up traditional approaches to structure, but what she actually winds up saying is somewhat more profound. The 'rules' of screenwriting are actually incredibly simple: keep your audience interested; surprise them often but make the surprises convincing; make the surprises get bigger and save the biggest one for the end; someone or something needs to change over time; have a theme... and so on. (For a liberating and elegantly simple description of story form, I recommend Ursula K Le Guin: http://tinyurl.com/6u56y8g) Three act structure has become the standard simply because it's been proven, when done well, to 'work.' But by no means is it the only way to tell an engrossing story. Aronson knows this fact, but she steers clear of its most radical implications.

Pulp Fiction perhaps forms the central 'problem' which the book attempts to 'solve.' It breaks so many of the conventional rules of screenwriting, and has a structure so erratic, strange, and long, that by any estimation, it shouldn't work. Yet it does. Why? Aronson does a pretty good job attempting to answer that question, and her analysis certainly provides some insights for writers looking to use some of the same devices as Tarantino (especially if using those devices in combination). But it doesn't go deeper. Despite the dizzying array of potential structural models she covers, these still wind up as templates which the reader/writer is expected to be able to plug their story into. We are given innovative patterns to learn from, but aren't given the more fundamental tools needed to innovate our own effective patterns beyond those covered.

That's a tall task, I know, and maybe its not fair to expect that much. But even looking at the patterns that are provided, they're for the most part rather limited. Almost all the films discussed, positively or negatively, are Hollywood productions. It's interesting to me that so much of the book seems to be a response to a recent Hollywood interest in unconventional structures that was no doubt kicked off by the successes of Quentin Tarantino, when Tarantino himself learned so much of what makes his films interesting from European art film. Why not look to his inspiration? Or to any of the thousands of highly innovative narrative structures attempted in non-American cinema throughout the decades, successful or not? I want to know why the highly fragmentary films of Jean Luc Godard such as Tout va bien and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her can nonetheless feel like unified works. I want to know how Alain Resnais' Muriel can be not merely non-linear, but completely temporally disorienting, and yet still have satisfying character development. I want to know how Michelangelo Antonioni makes buildings and landscapes as important as his human characters, or why the glacial pacing of an Andrei Tarkovsky film can feel sublime rather than boring, or how the docufictions of Jean Rouche or Abbas Kiarostrami's Close-up weave scripted fiction with unscripted fact. I want to know where these films falter and why. And of course, most importantly, I want to know how to apply all of these insights to my own work.

I'm still waiting for a book that can do that, but in the meantime, this one is nice to have around.

[evangeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some useful information and resources, but largely convoluted and confusing to read.

[maha · Rating 5 out of 5]

لي عودة لتلخيص هذا الكاتب الرائع ان شاء الله،

الكتاب يضع الاساسيات الهيكلية المعقدة
structure of narrative
لعمل قصص غير تقليدية من نوع
parallel narrative
أي الفلم ذا القصص متعددة او الشخصيات المتعددة او الفلاش باك الى الماضي
وقسم هذه النوع من القصص الى اربع أقسام:

There are four types of parallel narrative:
1.Flashback
2.Tandem
3.Sequential
4.Multiple protagonist/antagonist


اهم تفرقة قامت بها الكاتبة، هي عمل خطين في القصة
الخط الأول هو خط الأحداث العاطفية
emotional / relationship line

والخط الثاني هو خط الأحداث الفعلية
action line


والأفضل أن تقوم بعمل توازن بين الخطين، وفي مجال القصة السينمائية يجب ان يكون خط الاكشن هو ما يدفع القصة الى الأمام، واما الخط العاطفي فيتغير نتيجة تغيرات الاحداث الفعلية

ان اكثرت من الاحداث العاطفية بدت القصة وكأنها تكرر نفسها وتصبح مملة لا تبارح مكانها

وان اكثرت من الاحداث الاكشن دون ان تصور التغيرات العاطفية لدى البطل فانه يصبح بطلا جامدا سطحيا لا نتعاطف معه، ومن الملاحظ ان اغلب افلام الاكشن تعتمد على الاحداث الفعلية ويخرج البطل غير متغير من بعد كل الاحداث التي مر بها

بينما الروايات غالبا ما تعتمد على الاحداث العاطفية، مما يجعل تحويل بعض الروايات الى فلم صعب جدا، وذلك لأن الرواية أغلب أحداثها يدور داخل عقل البطل، وفي الفلم نحتاج لأن نرى احداث في العالم الخارجي وليس داخل عقل البطل


انا اقيم اغلب قرائاتي على اساس هؤلاء الخطين
والاحظ ان اغلب الروايات السعودية ما تبارح الخط العاطفي واذا قمت بالنظر للخط العملي تجد الاحداث الفعلية فيه قليلة جدا، مما يجعل القصة تبدو وكأنها لا تبارح مكانها وتدور داخل مخيلة البطل بدلا من خارجه

كما من الضروري أخذ العناصر التالية في الاعتبار في القصة
Important aspects:
1. Unity
2. Pace
3. Closure


Strategies:
Real but unusual = comedy: silly + real (research) + unusual (original)


يحبذ قبل قراءة هذا الكاتب ان تكون ملما بأصول كتابة السيناريو السينمائي، ولذا أنصح بقراءة الكتب الاساسية التاليةأولا

Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
The Elements of Screenwriting by Irwin R. Blacker
Making a Good Script Great (Paperback) by Linda Seger

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

More academic.