The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood (37 page)

Don’t Mist the Orchids

Don’t lay on the sentimentality too thickly.

“What’s wrong with sentimentality?” a reporter once asked William Faulkner.

“People are afraid of it,” he said.

Don’t use voice-over unless you absolutely have to
.

M
ost studio executives and directors view a voice-over as the kiss of death, to be used only if a movie’s structure doesn’t hang together.

If you hear a voice-over in a movie, it’s a possible sign that the movie was, and/or still is, in great creative trouble.

H
OW TO DEAL WITH WRITER’S
BLOCK … THE HOTEL
ROOM SOLUTION.

Screenwriter Jordan Roberts
(Around the Bend):
“I can only write in hotel surroundings. I like isolation, I like loneliness, and there’s nothing lonelier than a hotel. When I’m lonely, I write more intimately. I need to be away from everything, including family and friends, so that I’m so desperate I will actually bother to write.”

Each morning, reread what you wrote the day before
.

D
o this first thing in the morning, before you start writing for the day. Don’t edit any of what you wrote the day before; just read it a couple of times to put yourself back into it.

As you approach the ending, reread the entire script each morning before you start writing. I find that doing this inevitably leads me to my ending.

Don’t worry about writing too much in one day
.

B
en Hecht sometimes wrote entire scripts in three or four days.

I am not advocating that, but I have found that on occasion I’ve had banner writing days, where I’ve written twenty to thirty pages in a single day, barely able to keep up with my characters’ voices.

Just go with it, keep going, and when you are finished—
only then
—see how much of it works.

But, whatever you do, keep to your minimum—
six pages every day
.

If you feel you’re roaring along
…

Don’t take the weekends off. Just keep writing. Try to explain to your loved ones what is going on. But even if they don’t understand—even if they’re pissed off at you, ignore them: Keep writing.

If, on the other hand, you don’t feel like you’re roaring along, take the weekends off, spend time with your loved ones, and air your mind.

Don’t write on speed or cocaine
.

I
t will affect the rhythm of your scenes. You’re too wired or too zippy on either drug to get your rhythms right. I know; I’ve been there.

Don’t write on booze and cigarettes, either. I’ve been there, too. I used to love writing on black coffee, cognac, and endless cigarettes.

Since I like writing and always wrote a lot, I smoked lots and lots of cigarettes and drank lot and lots of cognac.

That’s one big reason 80 percent of my larynx is gone and I hack for an hour each morning until I get the phlegm off of what’s left of my throat.

Don’t think about the budget
.

I
n my experience, if you write something really good, they will somehow come up with the money to film it.

In other words, the budget shouldn’t shape your script; your script should shape the budget.

Let only your imagination limit you
.

D
on’t worry about how they will actually film something. With technical advances and computerization,
anything
can be filmed.

Don’t write camera angles into your script
.

A
nd don’t mention POV (point of view), either. Don’t do
all
of the director’s work for him. Let him earn his wage by doing
something
.

You don’t
have
to be rooting for anyone in your script
.

A
s much as some studio executives feel that it is, a script is not a football, baseball, or basketball game.

If the story is fascinating enough, if the world it depicts is seductive enough, if your characters are interesting and complex enough, you don’t need someone to wave the pom-poms every time he or she speaks.

I point to
Basic Instinct
as my best example. Its two central characters were both flawed and gray. The movie was the number-one movie of its year and made nearly half a billion dollars.

If you tell me that the reason it made so much money was because of that split-second beaver, I will tell you that even Sharon, who puts a very high price indeed on her beaver, would argue with you.

Structure your individual scenes the way you structure your script
.

A
scene should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The end of the scene should have the same kind of impact that the end of the script must have. So build your
scenes
to a climax.

H
OW TO DEAL WITH WRITER’S
BLOCK … THE ROBERT TOWNE
SOLUTION

If you can’t write it, and if nothing works, do what Robert Towne does. He goes out to lunch with agents and producers and tells them the details of the story that he is blocked on. They beg him to write the story instead of telling it, and Bob goes home and doesn’t write it; he abandons it. But at least he’s impressed agents and producers, sellers and buyers, about how creative he is
.

Each page of your script is a minute on screen
.

B
ut don’t worry about this in your first draft. My first draft of
F.I.S.T
. was almost three hundred pages and I had a monologue that went on for seven pages—seven minutes.

Old rule: If it’s there, you can always trim it. But if it’s not there, you’re in trouble.

Don’t show the script to anyone as you write it
.

D
on’t even tell anyone what you write each day. It is between you and your muse. Don’t confuse your muse with anyone else at this point—your director, producer, agent, or significant other.

Only when you are finished with your script should you show it to anyone.

The easier your script reads, the better
.

M
ost studio executives I’ve met think that if it takes them longer than forty-five minutes to read a script, then that script isn’t very good.

Considering that most studio executives I’ve met are, charitably, slow readers—they don’t
all
necessarily move their lips when they read—keep it simple, stupid … and readable.

A Good Set of Bones

A well-structured script with a strong “spine.
”

Don’t lock yourself into your ending
.

A
s you write, your ending will gradually become apparent to you … almost as though it were a ship coming out of the fog.

Keep it in mind, but don’t let it block you from considering other endings—the ship coming out of the fog may be the wrong ship.

William Wyler agrees with me
.

T
he director said, “A lot of people come to me with great openings. I don’t want a great opening. I want a great ending, because with most stories you can’t find a good ending.”

Take George Foreman’s literary advice
.

T
he former heavyweight champ said, “So many people, especially young people, think that everything now is about digital and television, but nothing will ever surpass the written word. Character has to be written about. Writers used to give us character but now too many writers have abandoned character.”

Take Mike Tyson’s literary advice, too
.

T
he people want to be lied to on a grand scale,” said former heavyweight champ Tyson. “They want heroic characters. The people don’t want to believe their idol is a freak; that he likes to get fellatio. They don’t want to believe that he might want somebody to stick their finger up his butt.”

Begin with your characters, not the plot
.

N
ovelist Flannery O’Connor: “In most good stories, it is the character’s personality that creates the action of the story. If you start with a real personality, a real character, then something is bound to happen.”

The Core of the Character

What is it that makes your character tick?

You can’t, of course, put it that simply when you are asked this question—What is the core of the character—by the producer, director, studio execs, and actors.

Be prepared to make up a whole bunch of fancy-sounding Freudian, Jungian, Shakespearean, Homeric
bullshit
about what makes your character tick.