Mythbusters

In today's Screenwriter Carnival, I'm challenging my cohorts to think of one screenwriting myth they would love to correct.

My pick: Flashbacks.

New writers hear it all the time: Don't use flashbacks.in your screenplay. It's the death knell. NEVER EVER DO IT OR YOU WILL BE DESTROYED.

Balderdash, I say.

As an action writer, I love to start things in medias res, which is a literary term for starting right in the middle of the action. I don't usually do that "Three weeks earlier" thing made popular by Alias, but I do like to skip the boring shit and start with guns ablazin. The downside of that is that at some point I'm going to have to fill in the story I skipped over in order to start here. Flashbacks are excellent in that capacity.

I didn't set out to use flashback in every screenplay, but it has happened. My last three specs have all used them because I had to.

And there's the trick, really. Use them if you have to. Use them if they give us something we can't get from the linear storyline. It takes skill and practice to use them right, and that's why new writers are told not to use them. If you don't know what you're doing, just don't do it.

So how do you use flashbacks correctly? Let's go to my favorite example, In Bruges.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR IN BRUGES


The film starts off as a comedy. We don't know why Ray is in Bruges, but we know he did something stupid and now he's hiding out until the shit blows over. Ray is hilarious because he's an asshole, an asshole we can kind of relate to, but an asshole nonetheless.

Then, halfway through the film, we flash back to what Ray did. We learn that in the middle of completing a job he was paid to do, he also killed a little boy. And when we come out of that flashback, we're in a different film. Suddenly we realize that all this time, what we thought was funny asshole behavior was really Ray coping with what he did. And from this point on, the story is much more serious. We take his suicidal behavior not as a joke, but as a real possibility. We feel sad for him now, where before we felt humor.

That one flashback added information to our story. It told us something that completely changed our view of this world and our character. It changed the tone and the meaning of everything that had come before. Without that flashback, we'd be missing information.

So if you want to use flashbacks in your story, make them mean something. Make them more than just a cute little expositiony scene with information we could have gotten some other way. Make your flashback count for something. Make it necessary.

But don't go around your elbow to get to your thumb just because some guru somewhere said not to use flashbacks. Flashbacks can be awesome if you use them with care.

Participating blogs:
Red Right Hand

Criticism

 
This week's Scribosphere Carnival post topic, brought to us by Red Right Hand:

How we each take criticism, or how we don't, who do we seek out to provide it, and what do we do with it once we have it, how we give it, or, you know...whatever.

When I get notes I have two possible responses. 

Response number 1: If there's a lot of notes and a whole lot of structural stuff to do, I'm like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! This is impossible! I quit! I can't do this anymore! I'm never gonna be a writer ever! The world is ending! I want to just lie in bed all day and watch Doctor Who and eat cookies! There is no meaning to anything anymooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooore!

Pitching this fit is all part of my process. Beefcake is really good at quietly listening to me bitch and moan about the ridiculousness of life, the universe and everything, then go just as quietly back to his video game when I stop mid-sentence and run out of the room because I've figured out how to fix the problem I was bemoaning.

About three hours later you'll find me manic at my computer going "OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING!"

I'll probably have a draft two days later. Sometimes I hold onto it for a few days so everybody thinks I took longer. For some reason, when you work quickly, people don't think you've taken your work seriously. But I digress.

Response number 2: I only get a handful of notes with no major structural changes and only a few little adjustments to make. In that case I go right to my computer as soon as I can, put on my rewrite music and go to town.

Most of these notes come from my rep, who is amazing with notes. I often also send a draft to one person I trust, one of a few other screenwriters who are about at the same place in their careers as I am. I don't like multiple reads because of the way I like to leap into action immediately. But I don't use very many readers, and I never give it to someone I don't know. I get asked a lot, and a lot of times really well meaning people will offer to give me a read, but I just keep it to my tight circle because there's really no reason to step outside of it. I work in a very specific way: I get the notes, I make the changes.

After I've screamed and thrown things.

Other Participating blogs:
Shouting into the Wind
Jonathan Hardesty

Workflow

Time for Scribosphere Carnival #2. A bunch of us have decided to post once a week on the same topic. This week's topic is brought to us by Jon, and it is about workflow. Jon gives us the following prompt:

WORKFLOW – Everybody has one, and none are the same. Inspired by a post from John August, you should explain where and when you write, what hardware you use, what software you use, and what you would change about how you write. Have at it!

I write at my desk, facing the wall. If I faced the window I'd spend hours just staring out at the bougainvillea. As it is, I already have difficulty not staring at the Gollum figurine on my book shelf. Here's a picture. I've added a couple of things since I took it, but not too much has changed:

The very first thing I did when we moved into the house was paint the walls in this room that awesome color. I wanted something soothing and pleasant while I wrote. Just be glad I didn't turn the camera around and show you Beefcake's side of the room. His desk looks like a hoarder's storage unit.

When I write, I put a Do Not Disturb tag on the door. It features Bon Jovi, mostly naked. The dogs do not respect this sign.

I prefer to write first thing in the morning. Most of my jobs take place in the afternoon, so when I'm writing I like to get up and eat breakfast while watching the news. Then I water the yard. Then I sit in front of the computer and get to work. I'm pretty regimented that way. I write until lunch, then I go walk some dogs.

That's my old computer in the picture. I had it for a very very long time, and eventually keys stopped working and I ran out of memory and I decided a new computer was in order, so now I have an HP laptop that works great and has a huge memory for all the crap I throw on it. I am swimming in software. For screenwriting, I use Movie Magic. Back when I was a school teacher, they offered a good education discount. They also have free tech support, unlike some other programs. There are a few things it doesn't do as well - side-by-side dialogue, for one - but overall, it's a solid program and I've always been happy with it.

For me, it's more important to have an inspirational writing space than anything. There's not much wall space in here, so I don't have room for all the posters I'd love to put up, but I do tape up quotes I like and reminders of good writing technique. When I'm working on a new script, I tape the character bios to the shelf in front of me so that I always remember what everyone wants in every scene. That's probably the most useful technique I've discovered in the last year or so.

So what would I change? Whatever I need to in order to write a better script. It's tough to say until I discover it. I'd love my own space on a shed on our property where I could go and feel like I have a real office to myself, but that's not feasible at the moment. In the meantime I just have to hide in here and throw Bon Jovi on the door handle and get to work after breakfast - and try not to spend too much time staring at Gollum.


Other participating blogs:
Red Right Hand

Time Capsule

 Shawna Benson of Geekerati and Shouting into the Wind fame has started a thing. Ye olde scribosphere is going to participate in a weekly "carnival" of writing, starting this week. Somebody picks a topic and we all write our responses. I love nothing more than a group project, so of course I'm in. She may or may not have also bribed us with cookies.

So here's this week's topic:

TIME CAPSULE — This topic is actually a 3-parter. First, recount your journey in screenwriting up to this point in time.  Second, tell us where you are on your journey now.  Finally, for the really fun, creative part — blog as if it is one year from today.  What has the past year of your journey been like? What has changed? Be as realistic or not as you like — it’s your time capsule! One year from now, we will revisit our time capsules to see how we did with our predictions… Your post can be as long or as short as you like — the most important thing is to have fun with it!

I started writing stories in the womb to keep myself busy while I waited for Mom to shoot me out of her vagina. I was going to be a reporter who wrote novels on the side, but despite lots of school geared toward that purpose, I never did finish a novel, and I hated being a reporter. So I became a teacher. Then one day I read Bruce Campbell's If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor and I was like "Whoa. You mean people can just WRITE MOVIES? I'm fucking in."

Everybody said I had to move to Hollywood, so I moved to Hollywood and cranked out terrible scripts. I taught in a high school in South Central by day and wrote on the weekend. Then one day I wrote a script that was not terrible and I became a finalist in TrackingB. I got a manager at Circle of Confusion. I got agents at APA. I went wide. I wrote some more. I drank many bottles of meeting water.

I quit teaching, not because I had reps because that would be stupid, but because... well, I wrote about this already in part one and part two if you must know. I now walk dogs. Less money, but way less stress, and more time to write and hobnob with fancy Hollywood producers (call my agents!).

I've got more material about to go out soon and I am super excited because I love writing and meeting people and talking about movies. And I really want a house with a pool.

As for where I will be a year from now? Roll it:

Sept. 25, 2014

Dear Diary,

My huge studio assignment has just started production! I'm so excited. Today is the first day of shooting, and so far it looks like everything will be fantastic. It's amazing how great this experience has been and that everyone has listened to me and agreed with all my decisions. I am on set and ready for when they need new pages on the fly. Between this and the million dollar sale of my spec, the last year has been very good to me. After production wraps for the day, I'm heading up to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's house for a huge fancy party. I hope I still have time to go for a swim in my pool before I change into my BCBG dress. Also the web series I worked on is hugely successful. Also Emma Stone is my best friend. Also, cookies.

Gotta go! They need me on set! Thanks, Diary!

Love Always,

Emily Blake



Other Participating Blogs:
TV Calling
Red Right Hand
Jonathan Hardesty