In this week’s live session in my online community, we talked about the value of using older films as models for screenwriters looking to break in.
Specifically, early 70’s classics like The Last Picture Show, a favorite of mine, and other titles from the wave of young American auteurs working during that particular era such as Five Easy Pieces and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
Some of which seem to not have a “goal-driven” main character who is “punished” as they try to reach it. Which is what the industry and screenwriting experts tend to look for today.
I cautioned somewhat against using films as models if they are very much of a particular time, especially if they were the work of established or in vogue writer-directors who were already trusted filmmakers, and not trying to break into the industry for the first time with a script.
Then as now, movies get produced for all sorts of reasons and they sometimes don’t adhere to mainstream screenwriting conventions, and still end up being good. (Or not.)
There are two different kinds of criteria at work here that people understandably conflate. One is for what gets a movie greenlit. The other is for what gets a writer noticed and moving forward.
They overlap, but not entirely. The writer getting noticed is just about the script, typically. And while originality and a writer’s unique voice are highly valued, so are other established storytelling and genre criteria.
The movie getting greenlit is about a lot of ther things: stars, budgets, director’s track record, industry trends, marketability, etc. It’s not just about the script.
Does that mean one should never write outside the sometimes limiting-seeming criteria for good screenwriting that you can read about in books like mine or on this blog?
Not at all. But for a script to be most effective, there is one principle I suggest adhering to even if you throw all the others away.
And I would suggest most movies that seem outside of those criteria still do adhere to this.
I guess I gave it away with the title of this post.
When in doubt, focus on characters who are in pain and dramatize that pain.
In other words, make the reader feel it. Put the character in situations where it’s clear what they’re feeling and wanting. And make it hard on them.
Even if they don’t have a singular goal that drives a whole movie, for the audience to care about, that doesn’t mean they don’t need to care about them as a person. And the best way to get strangers to care about your character(s) is to put them in difficult situations.
As I’ve written about before, if they’re unlikable as in Succession, this is especially important. It’s also important in so-called “one act films” that don’t adhere to commercial 3-act structure, which is all about the big goal and passionate pursuit of it.
If you’re writing more of a character study, a tone poem, an exploration of someone’s life who isn’t passionately active in pursuit of something, but maybe just trying to get through, the one thing that’s most important, from scene to scene, is their pain.
Pain is at the root of so much that makes readers lean in. Believable, relatable, significant pain. In the most effective scripts, even critically lauded pieces like Fleabag, that tends to be balanced by entertaining elements such as humor or a smaller-scale use of compelling problems and goals that build and complicate with a lot at stake and focused conflicts.
But at the root of it all is pain.
It’s not enough that they have pain, though. It has to be pain the audience understands and identifies with. And ideally they’re in situations throughout the script where their pain is poked at, explored, and evolving. It’s front and center, and it’s driving them. It’s a problem.
So the audience emotionally connects, and experiences the story as if they were them.
On a scene level, this means they’re pursuing intentions and encountering obstacles, even if they aren’t chasing one big goal like the most commercial stories tend to have.
And of course you don’t want them just talking about their pain. You want to “show” it. Which means dramatize it. Which means most scenes depict them struggling, suffering, pushing against and getting pushed against. With strong emotion that is evident and is driving their actions.
When scenes don’t have emotion, conflict or desires (and a main character point-of-view) they tend to just lay there. And I would guess your favorite movies don’t do that, even if they’re outside the mainstream in terms of screenwriting conventions.
So if you want to operate from only one precept and not the countless other ones that you’ll see here and elsewhere as part of a screenwriter’s education, may I suggest this one.
Dramatize their pain.
Feel free to comment below with questions or pushback – I’ll be happy to respond.
Erik, this was the perfect post for this moment for me. It made me realize that having the protagonist related by blood to the victims would create more pain. Thank you!!
Glad to hear it, thanks Veleka!
In response to Matthew, I think it’s always pain. Life IS suffering.
Loved this article, Erik!!!
Thanks so much Kieran! And I don’t disagree. Especially in stories…
We find ourselves drawn more and more to older movies too. It makes me wonder whether they had more subtext or just better actors, lol. I’ve all too often had to shake my head at obvious reading comprehension problems I’ve seen these past years, even in notes from esteemed contests such as Nichols. Subtext seems even harder for many of them. But your article makes me want to read some of the old scripts more. I wonder how difficult they are to find? Thanks for this very interesting food for thought, Eric!
Old movies had writers who weren’t lazy and really understood dramatic structure and story. A lot of them were novelists like William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and playwrights like Eugene o’ Neill. These were actual storytellers. Plus you had directors like Billy Wilder who really knew how to use the camera to bring a scene to life. Today many screenwriters think simply knowing screenwriting structure is enough, it’s not.
Thanks Gail! I think you can find quite a few on the sites that have pdf’s of scripts, although it’s true more recent ones are more common.
Visually ) People are surrounded by pains – making story sticky to a number of them, ,would have is like octopus connections, releasing emotions energy from inside , like many bulbslight.
Should this pain be viewed only through the main hero point of view or reflected in actions of supporting characters- in 70/30 relation or smth? thanks
I think supporting characters and adversaries also tend to be driven by some sort of pain, some unmet need or want. We just usually don’t leave the main character’s point-of-view to explore that unless these other characters have subplots of their own, where they’re the main character of that subplot. My last blog post talked about this: https://www.flyingwrestler.com/2024/10/whose-story-is-it/
Ironically, A friend of mine made me watch “Django, Unchained” yesterday. After thinking about it for a while, we decided that Tarintino mocked a lot of “conventional” movie ideals, including the structure of it. But, we also realized that he could not have gotten that movie made had he not already been well established. (We decided he should do a “Cowboy” movie where the Indians win 🙂 ).
I wondered what you thought about the structure of “Django?”
Yes he’s a good example of someone who can get things made because of his track record. I don’t have super strong opinions on Django but what I have noticed is life-and-death stakes and action tend to drive most of his movies and you can get away with a lot when the audience feels a lot of tension about that and is leaning forward to watch do-or-die moments that have a primal visceral appeal because of violence. When he went outside of that in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD… (other than its ending), it really showed, for me… I blogged about that here.
Great post! Great to have something clear and simple to aim at when your head starts spinning.
Do you think pain is always (or almost always) the emotion to focus on dramatizing? I’m thinking about your five genres (action, horror, thriller, drama, comedy) and it seems like it’s more applicable to some (drama, thriller, horror) than others (action, comedy).
Thanks Matthew!
I wouldn’t say that pain is the emotion to focus on. It’s more that they HAVE pain and that’s driving them in the story.
Liz Lemon in 30 ROCK is in constant pain. But it’s portrayed comedically.
I just think main characters in all genres tend to be in a sort of “hell” throughout the story.
They might not be moaning about it and we might not be wallowing in it, but it’s there…
But certainly in terms of emotion, in horror/thriller we tend to focus more on fear, for instance.