STAKES MOTIVATION TURNS ESCALATION. It’s taped inelegantly to the office wall of Kaling’s three-bedroom West Hollywood home and printed in gigantic, 48-point type. Daniels once told her that those were the four pillars of every good comedy story, and, she says, “It really stuck with me.” She consults the sign like a checklist for every episode of television that she writes.
“There’s nothing to my story model that says you have to know your endings before you move on to the script, because third acts just need to sort of… surprise you.”
— Dan Harmon, Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking DVD commentary.
GQ: How hard has it been for you to make sure the characters are truly distinct?
Mike Schur: There's a general rule of thumb in comedy writing that if a line could be said by any other character on you show, it's not a good line.
Write your pilot before you know everything about these people. Let the story establish little pieces of them, don’t fill your script with facts about fictional strangers, fill your script with things happening to fictional strangers. Bring the atoms into collision and let your audience get glimpses of their nuclei as they repulse, neutralize and bond with each other. If you are capable of knowing exactly who these people are by the end of your pilot, you are probably writing a bad TV show. The good news being, I predict much success for you.
Someone told me once about this paradigm that exists: matriarch, patriarch, craftsman, and clown. It's this quartet that resonates through history and popular culture, and you can find it as a diagram in everything from The Beatles to Leave It To Beaver to Seinfeld.
Nerdist Writers Panel
See Kubrick’s Diary Brainstorm of Possible Dr. Stranglove Titles
Once, someone called me a genius, and it felt so good that I started looking for more opportunities to be called one. I would lock myself in a room and try to come up with good ideas all by myself. Without anyone else, though, there was only so far these ideas could go.
Notes on human character flaws.
Untitled, by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1984)
Every one of us has a fundamental flaw, a defect of character, an Achilles’ heel. This is known as the CHIEF FEATURE, since it tends to dominate the entire personality. To the extent that you can identify and handle your chief feature, you are doing well in your personal growth.
What is a Chief Feature?
Generally speaking, all personality traits (or overleaves) are neutral. They can be applied positively or negatively, but in themselves they are neither positive nor negative. Personality traits are merely different ways of being.
A chief feature [1] is different. A chief feature is negative by nature.
A chief feature is a dominant negative attitude — a defensive and potentially destructive pattern of thinking, feeling and acting.
We all have at least one. We create it during adolescence, and thereafter it manifests as a lifelong character flaw or personality defect.
We forge this bit of our personality initially as a weapon, or at least a shield, to “protect” us as we emerge into the adult world.
It seems like a good idea at the time but, as I will explain, it is based on a false premise and so serves no real purpose. Throughout adulthood it just interferes with our lives by blocking aspects of our true nature and stifling our true character, usually without us even knowing.
Your chief feature is your primary ego defence and your main stumbling block in life.
This article describes how the chief feature comes to have such a stranglehold on our personality. First, though, a general description of the seven possible chief features.
The seven chief features
In the Michael teachings there are seven types of chief feature (character flaw / ego defence / personality defect / stumbling block, whatever you prefer).
Here they are listed from the most introverted to the most extroverted:
- Self-Deprecation (belittling/diminishing/undervaluing oneself)
- Self-Destruction (sabotaging/punishing/harming oneself)
- Martyrdom (reacting as if persecuted/victimised/oppressed)
- Stubbornness (resisting change in one’s life)
- Greed (selfish overindulgence, over-consumption)
- Arrogance (inflating/exalting/overvaluing oneself)
- Impatience (reacting as though being sabotaged/obstructed)
Note how they can be arranged in pairs (plus one in the middle):
Impatience and martyrdom are both about our actions. It is as if there is a battle of wills going on between ourselves and others, or life, or even ourselves.
- In the case of impatience, we feel a need to act quickly — and hate it whenever anything interferes with our will or slows us down. “Why do people always stop me from doing what I need to do? Everybody should just get out of my way.”
- In the case of martyrdom, we feel a constant need to blame others for our own misfortune, as though we never had a will of our own. “Don’t blame me. Everybody else is imposing their will upon me.”
Greed and self-destruction are both about our personal relationship to life. In both cases, there is an underlying feeling about ourselves that prevents us from ever feeling OK in life.
- In the case of greed, there is an underlying feeling of lack, a hole inside oneself that needs to be filled, though it is actually a bottomless pit: “Life will never be OK until I have it all.”
- In the case of self-destruction, our very presence is already more than enough. There is a constant inner turmoil that makes us want to get away from ourselves: “Life will never be OK until I end it all.”
Arrogance and self-deprecation are both about personal esteem and self-esteem. The thought behind them is something like, “Who I really am will never be satisfactory in the eyes of others. So no-one must ever see the real me.”
- In the case of arrogance, we feel a need to be seen as flawless because exposing our flaws makes us feel unbearably vulnerable.
- In the case of self-deprecation, we just want to be seen as little as possible because we already feel hopelessly inadequate.
Stubbornness is simply about change in any form. We feel a need to keep things just as they are and resist any outside influence, even positive ones: “No, no, no! You can’t make me. I won’t have it.”
We all have, within us, elements of all seven of these negative attitudes. And we can be influenced by any of them from time to time. But whichever one of these patterns is always subconsciously pulling your strings, that is your chief feature, your primary obstacle, your Achille’s heel.
In terms of our psychological well-being, personal growth and spiritual development in later life, there is nothing good about any chief feature. In the extreme, they can develop into personality disorders and even mental illness.
Anatomy of a Character Flaw
Understanding the personality is like playing with Russian dolls — removing one layer reveals another layer underneath.
If we were to open up a chief feature, what would we find? Here is my understanding as a psychologist of the structure of the chief feature.
Persona
First of all, the outermost layer is what psychologists call the persona.
This layer is a mask, a pose, an act. It’s how we want others to see us … a false image designed to hide the “truth” about us.
(This layer is particularly dense for those with arrogance or self-deprecation.)
For example, someone might be in the habit of acting like they are perfect and superior in every way. Their mask of superiority is what their chief feature wants the world to see instead of the terrible truth within — an ordinary, flawed human being. This would be part of the chief feature of arrogance.
The persona layer of the chief features is a cover story, a decoy, a fabrication. And it is specifically crafted to hide what lies underneath …
Shadow
There is within each of us a hidden layer of negativity and denial, known in psychology as the shadow.
The shadow includes all the childish ways we would act out our negative feelings, were we to allow it. Such negativity may be directed either against the world outside or against the self — but it is single-minded and desperate, being driven by our worst fears, our inner demons.
The “demons” within us represent our personality at its most selfish, destructive and immature. These childish aspects of ourselves are obsessed with getting their own way, and terrified of getting it wrong.
We wear the persona as a mask to hide these ugly tendencies from public view. The outer image of ourselves portrayed by the persona is usually the exact opposite of the inner image we hold of our own shadow. If my suppressed urge (shadow) is to be nasty, for example, my public image (persona) may come across as unusually nice.
Note that very young souls (those in the earliest stage of reincarnation, known as Infant souls) do not develop a persona. They do not comprehend the social need to disguise their negative behaviour. Once triggered, their “demonic” side is expressed directly.
Older souls, however, are inclined to keep their negative potential hidden from public view—and in the case of repressed Baby and Young souls, from their own view as well.
Baby souls are likely to see their negative tendencies as the work of the Devil, for example.
Young souls are more likely to project their demons into the ‘real’ world, seeing for example much evil in the world which demands (justifies) a destructive response.
Mature souls are more sensitive and self-aware, and often come to recognise their own shadow tendencies. They are more likely to want to heal their inner demons — bring their negativity our of the shadows and into the light of conscious awareness. It can be a constant struggle.
Old souls are more likely to take a philosophical, self-accepting view of their own negativity. They are less likely to have a false persona at all, caring more about being true to themselves, but also having the wisdom not to “act out”.
Fear
Finally, if we lift away this negative reactive layer (the shadow), we find the emotional core of the chief feature. This is a core of fear — personified as the helpless young child within us who fears to repeat some sort of painful experience.
At the core of personality we have our emotional memory banks from early childhood, even from birth. There will also be emotional resonances with traumas from past lives. Here is where all experiences of loss, deprivation, abandonment, neglect, abuse and mistreatment have left their mark.
The tremendous fear of repeating such experiences is the emotional engine of our negative and destructive tendencies, and the driving force of the entire chief feature.
How we create our own stumbling-block
Every child is born with a list of needs and desires.
- Infants need nurturing, caring, attention, affection—in a word, love—in order to feel safe and secure.
- Toddlers need to assert themselves and discover their capabilities and limitations as independent physical beings.
- Schoolchildren need to form relationships and be accepted by their peers.
But life is never perfect. In some cases, there is deliberate abuse. Parents can be emotionally immature or insensitive, or too wrapped up in their own problems to care for the needs of a child. Even the best parents are imperfect in their love. Some are physically unable to give the child the optimum type or amount of love required. Sometimes, parents just die or disappear from life.
It isn’t all about the parents, of course. Siblings can also have a devastating an effect on the child, as can friends, neighbours and schoolteachers. Some research shows that parental influence on a child’s development is prominent only up to age five, after which peer groups become the greater influence.
Inevitably, a child carries his or her own version of suffering. There is always some degree, however small, of loss, deprivation, frustration, trauma, abandonment, neglect, abuse or mistreatment.
Fear
All chief features are based in fear, and fear is the driving force behind all the negative poles of the overleaves, and the cosmos for that matter.
MICHAEL
Having undergone negative experiences, the child now has a constant fear of the negative experiences recurring. “If life is out to get me, it could get me at any moment. I never know how it might get me next.”
The fear may be a terror of some specific bad experience happening again, or it could be more of a dread of some awful thing which is always threatening to get worse. Either way, it becomes the adult personality’s deeply held sense of insecurity.
The chief feature is a character structure designed to avoid or handle a particular kind of fear.
Chief features are all built around a basic fear, which is another way of saying a block. However, it is not the fear that is the cause of the chief feature. The chief feature operates because of the protection believed necessary from that fear. It is, in essence, the fear of fear; the belief that you cannot survive if you surrender and experience the fear and what is underlying the fear. The structure is built upon that foundation.
MICHAEL
There are, of course, seven fundamental fears: [2]
Misconceptions
The soul still “remembers” what perfect love and freedom and security feel like, so the harsh realities of incarnation can come as a shock.
Because of the negative experiences of childhood, especially if such experiences are repeated or if they are particularly traumatic, a child begins to construct a somewhat distorted worldview. In other words, the child puts together false beliefs or negative ideas about the self, about others or about life in general.
The nature of the child’s misconceptions depend upon the type and strength of the specific painful experiences. For example, if the child is regularly punished for no apparent reason, the child might conclude that “life is out to get me.”
Children tend to over-generalise, so this misconception becomes all-encompassing. It becomes a personal myth.
Negative behaviour
Driven by a deeply-held fear, and steered by a distorted worldview, the emerging chief feature springs into action. The child thinks for instance, “I will stop life from hurting by taking control of my pain. I will hurt myself more than anybody else can.”
The child’s chosen survival strategy involves some sort of conflict, a war against self, against others or against life.
It is a defensive behaviour pattern which looks irrational from the outside but from the child’s perspective is perfectly rational. It is this way of acting which make up the negativity of the emerging chief feature in childhood.
Chief feature is a survival device, and one of its strongest hooks into the personality is the instilled conviction that you cannot survive without it. The lure of the chief feature is that when there is much stress and the circumstances are difficult, it will in fact get you through.
MICHAEL
Distortion of the life goal
Your life’s goal is one of the overleaves chosen by your soul before incarnating. There are seven possible goals (Dominance, Growth, Acceptance, Surrender, Submission, Rejection and Retardation).
For the soul, the goal it chooses is a way to evolve through physical life. While we are incarnate, pursuing our goal offers a path to joy and fulfillment.
But for the chief feature, however, the urging of the goal is a threat to the personality’s survival strategy.
The life goal tends to seek greater love, truth and freedom, while the chief feature is like a parasite that feeds on fear, falsehood and self-limitation. Happiness itself is “part of the problem”— something to be feared and avoided as far as possible.
And so the chief feature, in its mindless, terrified way, convinces us that negativity is the only safe option. Higher principles such as truth, joy, freedom and love are incomprehensible to the chief feature and therefore not to be trusted.
The chief feature distorts the functioning of the goal as we make life choices. It mixes up our pure desire with our primitive fears. It interprets positive options as threats to our survival. It blinds us to the possibilities and makes our chances of fulfilment virtually impossible.
In attaching expectations and conditions to the goal, the chief feature “colors” it so that it cannot be recognized or it becomes acceptable only under certain very limited circumstances, often circumstances that are impractical at best, such as a young woman with genuine back problems who feels that the only way she can be worth anything in life is if she becomes a ballet dancer.
MICHAEL
In this way, the chief feature turns us away from the positive pole of our goal and towards its negative pole. For example:
- If your goal is dominance, your soul may be desiring to show great leadership (the positive pole of dominance) but your chief feature manifests as dictatorship.
- If your goal is acceptance, your soul’s desire is to learn how to accept others unconditionally but the effect of your chief feature will be ingratiation—begging to be accepted by others.
- If your goal is growth, your soul’s desire is to have the sort of contrasting experiences that lead to great insight and comprehension, but the influence of your chief feature will merely lead you into confusion.
Image management
Coming of age—the transition from adolescent to adult—is a major turning point in anyone’s life. The prospect of leaving the family home and operating as a free agent in adult society is, in some ways, like starting life all over again.
Emerging adults need to feel safe and secure, just like infants. They need to assert themselves and discover their limits, just like toddlers. They need to be accepted by their peers, just like schoolchildren.
All of this can trigger a terrible fear, buried deep in their psyche, of repeating the same sort of painful experiences that happened in the first few years of life. The defensive strategy is designed to prevent this from happening.
However, the emerging adult faces a dilemma: I want to be an adult, and be seen as an adult. But my normal survival strategy is socially unacceptable — it makes me look like a child. I have to protect myself, but I also have to manage how others see me.
The solution is to develop a “spilt personality” — the childish fears, attitudes and negativity become locked away inside (to become the shadow), while a carefully managed public image is presented to the world (the persona).
One final final step, which happens more often than not, is when the young adult actually identifies with their own image or persona. In other words, they believe their own lie. Now the chief feature is a closed system, an almost inescapable cycle.
Chief feature as a vicious circle
Like the symbolic serpent eating its own tail, the chief feature is a vicious circle that feeds on fear, illusion and falsehood.
I find it fascinating the way the chief feature works. Not only does it interfere with natural self-expression and self-fulfilment, it also attracts the very thing which the personality fears—and then uses this to justify its own existence!
For example, consider a young woman with a chief feature of arrogance.
Her innermost fear says to her, “My secret imperfections leave me vulnerable to unbearable criticism.” She fears exposing this vulnerability. Any such exposure is a no-no. So her behaviour becomes a message to the world: “I’m magnificent, folks. I am already complete. My life is as perfect as it can get. Don’t even bother looking for imperfections.”
Needless to say, however, going around acting all high and superior like this inevitably attracts criticism, the very thing she is seeking to avoid.
But when this happens, her chief feature simply notes the criticism, decides that her mask of perfect invulnerability needs to be reinforced, and ups its game! Instead of acting overtly superior and self-important, she may now do it more subtly by highlighting weaknesses in others, becoming very critical of others’ failings. This draws attention away from her own vulnerabilities and, by implication, gives the impression of her not having those same weaknesses. She might also learn subtle ways to invite praise from others, thereby keeping them focused on her better aspects and oblivious to her failings.
The chief feature is is like a black hole in the personality. Not only does it suck the joy out of life but it is also invisible, a psychological blind spot. People generally do not know what their greatest flaw is because they cannot see it.
It’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy: “The thing I fear the most just keeps happening to me.” The chief feature is oblivious to its own causal role in the process.
Getting rid of a chief feature therefore is a very difficult task precisely because it has such a seductive grip on the entire personality. Even if we become aware of it, we are not sure of we can survive without it. We can, however, become more conscious of it. We can feel it when it is trying to take over. And once we are aware of its ways of working, we have more choice. We can choose to ignore the fear that normally bosses us around, or at least accommodate it in a non-destructive way.
Positive and negative poles
Like all overleaves, each type of chief feature has its positive pole and its negative pole.
- The negative pole of a chief feature represents the state in which false beliefs and maladaptive behaviours are in total control of the personality. You are acting unconsciously, reacting to situations out of fear.
- The postive pole of a chief feature represents the state in which the grip of fear has loosened—the chief feature is no longer in control, though it is still making its presence felt. You are able to act more consciously from a position of power and choice. There is still some unnecessary influence, however.
The positive and negative poles of the chief features are shown below. For a more detailed explanation, see the individual pages on each type of chief feature.
Primary and Secondary
I have been talking about the chief feature, or the character flaw, but in fact people usually have two of them distorting their personality—a primary and a secondary. The primary is the one that distorts the goal overleaf. The secondary, however, distorts the attitude overleaf (how the personality perceives life). So while the effect of the primary flaw is outward, affecting overt behaviour, the effect of the secondary is inward, affecting how we think and feel.
In my case, for example, my primary obstacle is impatience — a tendency to rush and push, driven by a fear of missing out. This interferes with my life goal, which happens to be growth (the desire for intense and varied experiences). So having impatience as my chief feature means that I am frequently anxious about missing out on opportunities to experience life. I tend to rush from one activity to the next like a bull in a china shop, afraid that if I slow down I will miss out on some important experience.
My secondary obstacle is self-deprecation — a tendency to diminish oneself out of a fear of having one’s basic inadequacy exposed to the world. This distorts my life attitude, which happens to be idealism (focusing on positive possibilities, how life can be). So having self-deprecation interfering with my attitude means that I tend to think about how much better my life would be ideally, if it wasn’t for me and my inadequacies.
Does “chief feature” mean the same as “ego”?
Spiritual teachers often say that our main problem in life, the thing that leads to unhappiness and hampers our spiritual growth, is our own ego. So is “chief feature” just another name for ego, and vice versa?
Well, we have to be very careful with the word “ego”, as it has completely different meanings in different contexts.
To the general public, the word ego refers to that part of us which loves praise, fame, success, victory. It is the selfish part of us that wants to win the game of life, the big-headed part of us that likes to believe “I am the best”, the infantile part that wants us to have it all, now.
However, many psychiatrists since Freud have used the word “ego” to refer to what they regard as the most advanced function of the mind — namely, the ability to be rational, to make decisions, to resolve problems. They also regard this rational “ego” as synonymous with the “self”. (In other words, there is no spirit or soul, There is only the ego, which is a function of the human mind.)
So to the lay person, the ego summnarises all that is bad in human nature, while to the psychiatrist the ego is important and valuable — the basis of rational choice.
Spiritual teachings tend to combine both views. They regard the ego as both rational and self-serving. Being rational, it cannot grasp the ultimate unity of reality. Being self-serving, it blocks our spiritual nature and so prevents us from experiencing love, joy and fulfilment. And so spiritual teachers urge us to transcend the ego in order to become whole, to connect with all of life, and to discover our real meaning, value and purpose.
At the same time, most spiritual teachings make a definite distinction between the self and the ego. In the spiritual framework, the ego is a false or lower self, while the soul (or inner being, or true nature) is the real self, the higher self. The ego is simply a structure in the mind which claims to be oneself but isn’t.
It is in this sense that the chief feature may be identified with the ego. More exactly, the chief feature is the ego’s primary means for self-preservation.
Most people would readily identify the traits of arrogance, impatience and greed as obvious ego traits. Less obvious, though, are the more introverted chief features: self-deprecation, self-destruction, martyrdom, stubbornness. This is because of the general public’s view of the ego as being outwardly selfish, big-headed and infantile. But if we regard the ego simply as a false self then we soon find all these traits at work.
Read on
Ok, that’s the background on the seven chief features. Now click on the links below to learn about each one in detail and see if you can spot your own. But be warned: your chief feature is a blind spot! Many people cannot see their own biggest flaw.
Self-Deprecation | Self-Destruction | Martyrdom
| Stubbornness |
Greed | Arrogance | Impatience
Notes
[1] The name “chief feature” was originally coined by the spiritual teachers Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. They wanted to indicate how most people are psychologically dominated by something negative in their own personality structure. It is possible that their source of inspiration was the entity known here as Michael. Many of those involved in the original Michael channelling group also had a background in this teaching, so the term carried over.
[2] I have noticed that some online writers have the fears slightly differently: they have worthlessness as the underlying fear of self-destruction and loss of control as the underlying fear of martyrdom, rather than vice-versa. The list shown here is consistent with all of the channelled material I have seen in the various Michael books and elsewhere.
This site will be of plenty of interest to TV fans, but fundamentally it's for people who want to take their love of TV and transform it into something more practical: actually creating telly that people want to see.
These scripts are here because the only way to learn how to write a TV script is to read A LOT of other TV scripts, and there aren't many places you can do that.
So here you can study scripts for existing shows, some of your old favourites, and many that never even made it to air. Figure out what makes an episode work, how to format that spec, why a pilot failed and how to write in four, five or six acts.
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Latest Scripts
Characterisation is perhaps the main reason why so many scripts are turned down by the Comedy Development Unit.
The characters that force us to reject scripts are very often one dimensional or stereotypes. That means that the reader often finds the characters do not have any life to them, and if they do, they are pre-moulded, predictable cardboard cut-outs that we are all familiar with.
This article is a bit different from previous ones in the sense that I'm going to try and make it less philosophical and more "workshoppy" than usual. Writers may want to keep it handy to work from when creating characters for their sitcoms. It must be stressed, however, that this is not a religious set of ground rules that MUST be followed, but rather something that will hopefully lead writers in the right direction when thinking about how to create their "people".
Creating Characters
You've decided you want to write a sitcom. Perhaps you already know the setting - which is fine. Forget that for the moment. One of the first things to do is to think about who will appear in your series - your main character/s. So then it's perhaps a good idea to put everything aside for now and just concentrate on creating a great, funny and memorable sitcom character. We can always go back to your setting later. Maybe it won't be relevant anymore and you want to change it. That's all part of the creative process. The characters are going to be the most important part of your concept.
A house is not built by sticking a load of bricks onto some grass. If it was, it would collapse before it was even finished. But it does have several feet of foundation below the surface. Material that we do not see, and do not NEED to see, but is essential to that house's existence. It's what makes the house survive. A good, well-rounded fictional character is created in EXACTLY the same way. And it is something that a lot of new writers overlook.
For a character to really work, you must know him or her inside out. This can only happen by building a foundation - that is to say it is important to invent the character's lifestyle, childhood, background and basic personality before any part of your script can be written. What we see on screen is really only the tip of the iceberg and is the sum of everything that has happened to that character in the past.
The more background you create for your characters, the more believable they will appear in the script.
If you've done your work properly, writing the character will come easily. You'll know things like whether they say "hello" or "hiya", what they drink, what TV shows they like to watch, and so on. So a good way to start inventing a new person is to work on something like the following example checklist. This is by no means a complete list, and writers should feel at liberty to add other questions as they see fit, but it is a good place to start. For arguments sake, we're looking at developing a character for a sitcom.
- Describe your character's physical appearance. How does he or she dress?
- Describe your character's childhood in terms of family relationships, relationships with the key people in his or her youth, lifestyle whilst growing up and education.
- Describe the character's current relationship with family, friends and other key people.
4. Describe the character's romantic life and his or her moral beliefs.- What is the character's occupation, and summarise the relationship he or she has with the boss and work colleagues and the character's attitude towards the job.
- Describe the character's non-work activities in terms of hobbies, eating and drinking habits, favourite television shows or films, and favourite locations.
- Describe the character's philosophy on life.
- Sum up the main aspects of the character's personality. How is s/he larger than life (or "comically heightened") yet still rooted in reality, thus remaining believable?
- What is this character's main comic flaw? How is it related to the stories you will give the character and how does it get him/her into hot water in individual episodes and in the long term?
- Summarise the character's relationship to the other major characters in the script/series. Outline the potential for comic clashes between personalities and what will make these relationships funny.
- What is the character's lifetime goal or ambition and why does s/he want to achieve it?
- What would your character do if he or she won the lottery?
By writing a paragraph or two for each of these points, you'll get a pretty good idea of how your comedy character ticks and by now should be getting some ideas for the various situations and stories you are going to throw him or her into.
Paul Mayhew-Archer (writer, producer, script editor and all-round comedy genius) always says that it is extremely useful to try and give each of your characters a "handle" preceded by "Mr" or "Mrs" - like "Mr Fussy" or "Mrs Happy" etc. Try doing this. If you can't, maybe you should have another think about your character.
Naming Your Characters
In his book 'The Art of Fiction', David Lodge tells us that character names are just as important as creating the character itself. The name acts as a symbol. Choose your names wisely. They can help immensely to characterise your cast.
Charles Dickens is arguably the best author in literature to pull off this idea. Think about some of the names he came up with: Oliver Twist, Pecksniff, Tiny Tim and, of course, Scrooge. In fact, the name Scrooge has become so famous over the years that it now counts as a word to describe people who are tight with their money. Another example is to think of why the film title 'Monty Python's Life of Brian' wasn't called something like 'Monty Python's Life of Richard' (or some other name!). That's a tacky example, I know, and I'm not out to offend anyone called Richard, but it is something worth thinking about.
Writing a Character Summary
Now that you have reams and reams of details about your character's background, it may well be a worthwhile exercise to try and summarise it all into a paragraph. This is sort of the next step up from Paul Mayhew-Archer's "Mr and Mrs" exercise. Think about how you would describe your character to a mate in the pub using a few more details.
But here's the crunch: try and do it in no more than 200 words. Around 150 words is best. It is possible. Concentrate on what your character is like and why, focusing on primary traits and comic flaws, rather than physical make-up and career history - although it is important to include this information albeit briefly. Say more with less. Try to use a single word when describing elements of your character - and try to make it an entertaining word. What your character would do if s/he won the lottery or what his/her parents do for a living isn't necessarily relevant, but it is extremely important for you as the writer to know this.
Of course, this biography will be for your information only as it is not required as part of a script submission and probably wouldn't be read anyway - so to some it may seem like a complete waste of time! But refining your thoughts and writing a really good and concise biography can never go against you and the more you know your character, the better. And when you've done your biography, describe the character in one line: "My sitcom is about a... who is... but... because....". That sort of thing.
Tip: As a personal exercise, you may want to watch some episodes of a sitcom you enjoy and try writing a biography of the main character/s. Get to know what their primary traits and flaws are and how they get into hot water leading to the comic situations.
On a final note: creating characters should be fun. So above all else - enjoy it!
STAKES MOTIVATION TURNS ESCALATION. It’s taped inelegantly to the office wall of Kaling’s three-bedroom West Hollywood home and printed in gigantic, 48-point type. Daniels once told her that those were the four pillars of every good comedy story, and, she says, “It really stuck with me.” She consults the sign like a checklist for every episode of television that she writes.
28 SEPTEMBER, 2012 by Maria Popova“Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.”
In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman:
- Write
- Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
- Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
- Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
- Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
- Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
- Laugh at your own jokes.
- The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
For more timeless wisdom on writing, see Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.
Image by Kimberly Butler
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25 JULY, 2012 by Maria Popova“There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work.”
The newly released volume of Susan Sontag’s diaries, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 (public library), from whence Sontag’s thoughtful meditations on censorship and aphorisms came, is an absolute treasure trove of rare insight into one of the greatest minds in modern history. Among the tome’s greatest gifts are Sontag’s thoughts on the art, craft, and ideology of writing.
Unlike more prescriptive takes, like previously examined advice by Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck, and David Ogilvy, Sontag’s reflections are rather meditative — sometimes turned inward, with introspective curiosity, and other times outward, with a lens on the broader literary landscape — yet remarkably rich in cultural observation and universal wisdom on the writing process, somewhere between Henry Miller’s creative routine, Jack Kerouac’s beliefs and techniques, George Orwell’s four motives for writing, and E. B. White’s vision for the responsibility of the writer.
Gathered here are the most compelling and profound of Sontag’s thoughts on writing, arranged chronologically and each marked with the date of the respective diary entry.
I have a wider range as a human being than as a writer. (With some writers, it’s the opposite.) Only a fraction of me is available to be turned into art.
(8/8/64)Words have their own firmness. The word on the page may not reveal (may conceal) the flabbiness of the mind that conceived it. > All thoughts are upgrades — get more clarity, definition, authority, by being in print — that is, detached from the person who thinks them.
A potential fraud — at least potential — in all writing.
(8/20/64)Writing is a little door. Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won’t come through.
(8/30/64)If only I could feel about sex as I do about writing! That I’m the vehicle, the medium, the instrument of some force beyond myself.
(11/1/64)Science fiction —
Popular mythology for contemporary negative imagination about the impersonal
(11/1/64)Greatest subject: self seeking to transcend itself (Middlemarch, War and Peace)
Looking for self-transcendence (or metamorphosis) — the cloud of unknowing that allows perfect expressiveness (a secular myth for this)
(undated loose sheets, 1965)Kafka the last story-teller in ‘serious’ literature. Nobody has known where to go from there (except imitate him)
(undated loose sheets, 1965)John Dewey — ‘The ultimate function of literature is to appreciate the world, sometimes indignantly, sometimes sorrowfully, but best of all to praise when it is luckily possible.’
(1/25/65)I think I am ready to learn how to write. Think with words, not with ideas.
(3/5/70)‘Writing is only a substitute [sic] for living.’ — Florence Nightingale
(12/18/70)French, unlike English: a language that tends to break when you bend it.
(6/21/72)A writer, like an athlete, must ‘train’ every day. What did I do today to keep in ‘form’?
(7/5/72)In ‘life,’ I don’t want to be reduced to my work. In ‘work,’ I don’t want to be reduced to my life.
My work is too austere
My life is a brutal anecdote
(3/15/73)The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader’s heart
[…]
The story must strike a nerve — in me. My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head. I start trembling at the risk.
(6/27/73)I’m now writing out of rage — and I feel a kind of Nietzschean elation. It’s tonic. I roar with laughter. I want to denounce everybody, tell everybody off. I go to my typewriter as I might go to my machine gun. But I’m safe. I don’t have to face the consequences of ‘real’ aggressivity. I’m sending out colis piégés ['booby-trapped packages'] to the world.
(7/31/73)The solution to a problem — a story that you are unable to finish — is the problem. It isn’t as if the problem is one thing and the solution something else. The problem, properly understood = the solution. Instead of trying to hide or efface what limits the story, capitalize on that very limitation. State it, rail against it.
(7/31/73)Talking like touching
Writing like punching somebody
(8/14/73)To be a great writer:
know everything about adjectives and punctuation (rhythm)
have moral intelligence — which creates true authority in a writer
(2/6/74)‘Idea’ as method of instant transport away from direct experience, carrying a tiny suitcase.
‘Idea’ as a means of miniaturizing experience, rendering it portable. Someone who regularly has ideas is — by definition — homeless.
Intellectual is a refugee from experience. In Diaspora.
What’s wrong with direct experience? Why would one ever want to flee it, by transforming it — into a brick?
(7/25/74)Weakness of American poetry — it’s anti-intellectual. Great poetry has ideas.
(6/14/76)Not only must I summon the courage to be a bad writer — I must dare to be truly unhappy. Desperate. And not save myself, short-circuit the despair.
By refusing to be as unhappy as I truly am, I deprive myself of subjects. I’ve nothing to write about. Every topic burns.
(6/19/76)The function of writing is to explode one’s subject — transform it into something else. (Writing is a series of transformations.)
Writing means converting one’s liabilities (limitations) into advantages. For example, I don’t love what I’m writing. Okay, then — that’s also a way to write, a way that can produce interesting results.
(11/5/76)‘All art aspires to the condition of music’ — this utterly nihilistic statement rests at the foundation of every moving camera style in the history of the medium. But it is a cliché, a 19th c[entury] cliché, less an aesthetic than a projection of an exhausted state of mind, less a world view than a world weariness, less a statement of vital forms than an expression of sterile decadence. There is quite another pov [point of view] about what ‘all art aspires to’ — that was Goethe’s, who put the primary art, the most aristocratic one, + the one art that cannot be made by the plebes but only gaped at w[ith] awe, + that art is architecture. Really great directors have this sense of architecture in their work — always expressive of immense line of energy, unstable + vital conduits of force.
(undated, 1977)One can never be alone enough to write. To see better.
(7/19/77)Two kinds of writers. Those who think this life is all there is, and want to describe everything: the fall, the battle, the accouchement, the horse-race. That is, Tolstoy. And those who think this life is a kind of testing-ground (for what we don’t know — to see how much pleasure + pain we can bear or what pleasure + pain are?) and want to describe only the essentials. That is, Dostoyevsky. The two alternatives. How can one write like T. after D.? The task is to be as good as D. — as serious spiritually, + then go on from there.
(12/4/77)Only thing that counts are ideas. Behind ideas are [moral] principles. Either one is serious or one is not. Must be prepared to make sacrifices. I’m not a liberal.
(12/4/77)When there is no censorship the writer has no importance.
So it’s not so simple to be against censorship.
(12/7/77)Imagination: — having many voices in one’s head. The freedom for that.
(5/27/78)Language as a found object
(2/1/79)Last novelist to be influenced by, knowledgeable about science was [Aldous] Huxley
One reason [there are] no more novels — There are no exciting theories of relation of society to self (soc[iological], historical, philosophical)
Not SO — no one is doing it, that’s all
(undated, March 1979)There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work
(undated, March 1979)To write one must wear blinkers. I’ve lost my blinkers.
Don’t be afraid to be concise!
(3/10/79)A failure of nerve. About writing. (And about my life — but never mind.) I must write myself out of it.
If I am not able to write because I’m afraid of being a bad writer, then I must be a bad writer. At least I’ll be writing.
Then something else will happen. It always does.
I must write every day. Anything. Everything. Carry a notebook with me at all times, etc.
I read my bad reviews. I want to go to the bottom of it — this failure of nerve
(7/19/79)The writer does not have to write. She must imagine that she must. A great book: no one is addressed, it counts as cultural surplus, it comes from the will.
(3/10/80)Ordinary language is an accretion of lies. The language of literature must be, therefore, the language of transgression, a rupture of individual systems, a shattering of psychic oppression. The only function of literature lies in the uncovering of the self in history.
(3/15/80)The love of books. My library is an archive of longings.
(4/26/80)Making lists of words, to thicken my active vocabulary. To have puny, not just little, hoax, not just trick, mortifying, not just embarrassing, bogus, not just fake.
I could make a story out of puny, hoax, mortifying, bogus. They are a story.
(4/30/80)As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh is exquisite in its entirety — I couldn’t recommend it more heartily.
12 MARCH, 2012 by Maria PopovaOn the value of unconscious association, or why the best advice is no advice.
If this is indeed the year of reading more and writing better, we’ve been right on course with David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, and various invaluable advice from other great writers. Now comes John Steinbeck — Pulitzer Prize winner, Nobel laureate, love guru — with six tips on writing, culled from his altogether excellent interview it the Fall 1975 issue of The Paris Review.
- Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
- Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
- Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
- If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
- Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
- If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.
But perhaps most paradoxically yet poetically, twelve years prior — in 1963, immediately after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception” — Steinbeck issued a thoughtful disclaimer to all such advice:
If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.”
If you feel bold enough to discount Steinbeck’s anti-advice advice, you can do so with these 9 essential books on more and writing. Find more such gems in this collection of priceless interviews with literary icons from half a century of The Paris Review archives.
22 MARCH, 2012 by Maria Popova“No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge.”
In the year of reading more and writing better, we’ve absorbed David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and various invaluable advice from other great writers. Now comes Jack Kerouac — cultural icon, symbolism sage, exquisite idealist — with his 30-point list, entitled Belief and Technique for Modern Prose. With items like “No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge” and “Accept loss forever,” the list is as much a blueprint for writing as it is a meditation on life.
- Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
- Submissive to everything, open, listening
- Try never get drunk outside yr own house
- Be in love with yr life
- Something that you feel will find its own form
- Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
- Blow as deep as you want to blow
- Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
- The unspeakable visions of the individual
- No time for poetry but exactly what is
- Visionary tics shivering in the chest
- In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
- Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
- Like Proust be an old teahead of time
- Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
- The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
- Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
- Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
- Accept loss forever
- Believe in the holy contour of life
- Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
- Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
- Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
- No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
- Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
- Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
- In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
- Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
- You’re a Genius all the time
- Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
The list was allegedly tacked on the wall of Allen Ginsberg’s hotel room in North Beach a year before his iconic poem “Howl” was written — which is of little surprise, given Ginsberg readily admitted Kerouac’s influence and even noted in the dedication of Howl and Other Poems that he took the title from Kerouac.
As Charles Eames might say, “to be realistic one must always admit the influence of those who have gone before.”
22 FEBRUARY, 2012 by Maria Popova“When you can’t create you can work.”
After David Ogilvy’s wildly popular 10 tips on writing and a selection of advice from modernity’s greatest writers, here comes some from iconic writer and painter Henry Miller.
In 1932-1933, while working on what would become his first published novel, Tropic of Cancer, Miller devised and adhered to a stringent daily routine to propel his writing. Among it was this list of eleven commandments, found in Henry Miller on Writing — a fine addition to these 9 essential books on reading and writing, part of this year’s resolution to read more and write better.
COMMANDMENTS
- Work on one thing at a time until finished.
- Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’
- Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
- Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
- When you can’t create you can work.
- Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
- Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
- Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
- Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
- Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
- Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.
Under a part titled Daily Program, his routine also featured the following wonderful blueprint for productivity, inspiration, and mental health:
MORNINGS:
If groggy, type notes and allocate, as stimulus.If in fine fettle, write.
AFTERNOONS:
Work of section in hand, following plan of section scrupulously. No intrusions, no diversions. Write to finish one section at a time, for good and all.
EVENINGS:
See friends. Read in cafés.
Explore unfamiliar sections — on foot if wet, on bicycle if dry.
Write, if in mood, but only on Minor program.
Paint if empty or tired.
Make Notes. Make Charts, Plans. Make corrections of MS.
Note: Allow sufficient time during daylight to make an occasional visit to museums or an occasional sketch or an occasional bike ride. Sketch in cafés and trains and streets. Cut the movies! Library for references once a week.
For more of Miller’s obsessive recipes for creative rigor, dig into Henry Miller on Writing.
How is your new year’s resolution to read more and write better holding up? After tracing the fascinating story of the most influential writing style guide of all time and absorbing advice on writing from some of modern history’s most legendary writers, here comes some priceless and pricelessly uncompromising wisdom from a very different kind of cultural legend: iconic businessman and original “Mad Man” David Ogilvy. On September 7th, 1982, Ogilvy sent the following internal memo to all agency employees, titled “How to Write”:
The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well.
Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.
Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:
1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.
2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.
3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
6. Check your quotations.
7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.
8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.
David
03 APRIL, 2012 by Maria Popova“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.”
The year of reading more and writing better is well underway with writing advice the likes of David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and various invaluable insight from other great writers. Now comes Kurt Vonnegut — anarchist, Second Life dweller, imaginary interviewer of the dead, sad soul — with eight tips on how to write a good short story, narrated by the author himself.
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
- Start as close to the end as possible.
- Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
- Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
- Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
“There’s nothing to my story model that says you have to know your endings before you move on to the script, because third acts just need to sort of… surprise you.”
— Dan Harmon, Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking DVD commentary.
GQ: How hard has it been for you to make sure the characters are truly distinct?
Mike Schur: There's a general rule of thumb in comedy writing that if a line could be said by any other character on you show, it's not a good line.
Dan Harmon (creator of NBC's Community) on developing character depth.
Write your pilot before you know everything about these people. Let the story establish little pieces of them, don’t fill your script with facts about fictional strangers, fill your script with things happening to fictional strangers. Bring the atoms into collision and let your audience get glimpses of their nuclei as they repulse, neutralize and bond with each other. If you are capable of knowing exactly who these people are by the end of your pilot, you are probably writing a bad TV show. The good news being, I predict much success for you.
Breaking Bad season five in review! Showrunner/creator Vince Gilligan and writers Peter Gould, Sam Catlin, George Mastras, Gennifer Hutchison, Thomas Schnauz, Moira Walley-Beckett and Gordon Smith talk about their take on the AMC series’ fifth season. Spoilers contained herein!
Recorded September 5, 2012.
Aside from the fact that his name is right there at the top of the page, it’s always fairly obvious when a "Shouts and Murmurs" piece in The New Yorker is the product of Simon Rich. Telltale signs include the elegant skewering of adult human behavior, as glimpsed through the eyes of children, animals, spectral beings, or inanimate objects--and the fact that the reader is hunched over laughing. These short essays comprise just one of the many textual weapons at the writer’s disposal, however, and only one of the fields on which he regularly deploys them.
Rich’s just completed second novel, What in God’s Name? occupies shelf space right next to his previous effort, Elliot Allagash (for which Jason Reitman bought the movie rights), and two short story collections. You may have also seen some of the sketches Rich wrote during his four-year tenure at Saturday Night Live, or perhaps you’ll plan on checking out whatever top-secret movie he’s working on as a writer for Pixar. If there’s a respected forum where words can go, odds are that Rich has already deposited a few there.
Rarely is such range achieved in any writing career, let alone by the ripe old age of 28, but that’s what happens when prodigious talent meets ceaseless work ethic, and is fortified by some admitted neuroses. Rich says he’s accomplished all of this, though, on the strength of a pure love of writing. “I’m continually amazed that, as a professional writer, I get to do this every day,” he says. Below, the prolific author offers advice from his own experience on how to write for each specific medium he’s worked in, and how to decide which one is right for which idea.
At SNL, you produce your own sketches, so you have to really think about them as visual pieces, and I had no experience with that when I started. My earliest sketches at SNL were pretty much just people sitting around the room talking to each other. I didn’t know anything about how to visually tell a story. I’d done some writing for radio and magazines, and published a book of short pieces, but I’d never written for actors and for cameras and it was a real learning experience.
I learned so much from everyone there, and not just writers, but producers and crew and the people in props and sets and design—about how to actually put on a show. Writing a sketch is way more collaborative because you’re dealing with a director and actors and a bunch of other creative people, which is also a good thing at a place like SNL. I had a lot of sketches that were mediocre and made passable by talented actors bailing me out.
The key is to think visually. So many times I’d write a sketch set at, say, a marriage counselor’s office and I was so naïve and unsophisticated working in television that I would literally have the opening line of dialogue be, “Well, here we are at the marriage counseling center.” When you’re coming from the world of print, it’s not obvious that the characters can just walk by a sign that says “marriage counseling center.”
Every book is a little different. You’re always learning on the job. You’re always trying to tackle things you never have before. Every novel brings its own challenges. I sort of have been moving into this more surreal place for a couple of years now. I don’t know exactly why, but I started to write stranger pieces. It’s just a lot of fun and a lot more freeing.
With [first novel] Elliot Alagash, I tried to pick a character that was powerful enough to allow me to come up with as many fun premises as I could, so I made him limitlessly wealthy--that way he’d have the resources to go anywhere and do anything, which was freeing to me as a premise writer. For What In God’s Name?, I actually take it a step further by setting it in heaven, where there’s angels and God and magic. It really opened things up and really liberated me to throw in as much fun stuff as I could dream up.
You have to be a lot more economical with your storytelling in screenplay writing. You can’t digress really at all, unless you’re Quentin Tarantino. There’s a certain formula you have to stick to and it’s a formula I love working within, but it forces you to be incredibly concise and clean and elegant with your storytelling in a way you don’t have to be with novels. In a lot of ways, it’s a lot more challenging from a storytelling aspect. But there are similarities. At the end of the day, it’s still just coming up with interesting premises and interesting characters. And it’s a lot of dialogue writing, which I love.
I hadn’t intended to write [first short fiction collection] Ant Farm. A lot of those pieces had been for the Lampoon, and some had been in The New Yorker. One day I realized that all the pieces I’d written had been basically the same thing over and over again, so I might as well collect them into a single entity. The same thing happened with my next book, this collection of love stories called The Last Girlfriend on Earth [out in January.] I sort of found myself writing these bizarre high-premise love stories, like the one where the guy gets “traded” by his girlfriend or the one where God is distracted by his needy girlfriend. I’d just started writing these love stories and when I had enough of them, I saw the same rationale for collecting them together.
I find in general that if I don’t have any ideas on what to write about, I just research whatever at the moment I’m extremely interested in. I read a lot of nonfiction on subjects I’m interested in, and that usually knocks something loose. A few months ago, I was stuck and I wasn’t really sure which of my projects to work on, and I was kind of bored with some of the stuff I was doing, so I just spent a few days reading books about monkeys and sine language and teaching them how to talk. Nothing came of it really, but by the time I was finished reading about monkeys, I was ready to jump back into my novel. Reading a lot of nonfiction helps. Wikipedia is also a big help. There’s always something interesting on Wikipedia—the random article button is great. When I was writing Free Range Chickens, I had just discovered Wikipedia and one of the ways I came up with ideas was to just keep refreshing, and keep clicking the random article until a premise occurred to me.
Sometimes it’s really clear what to do with an idea, but usually it’s not. So I’ll just start writing it down. No matter what it is, I’ll start it as a Microsoft Word document, and just break down the most exciting aspects of whatever the idea is--the best jokes I can think of, the most interesting plot twists I can think of. Then I’ll stare at it and think about “Where does this belong?” And I’m often wrong. I’m usually wrong. Sometimes I’ll write a story and think, “This whole story can be told without any words and just 30 seconds of stage directions in a movie--why did I just waste a whole week on this horrible piece of short fiction?” I’m often completely wrong.
Sometimes there are multiple right answers. Sometimes you’ll start a novel and thinks to yourself “Oh, there’s a way for that to be a movie as well if you change certain things, and add certain things.” It’s really difficult to know, though. It’s something I’m trying to get better at as I get older, but it’s tough. I have a list of premises which I keep on my computer that’s like 50-100 pages long of just ideas and most of them I have no idea where they belong. Also, the larger issue is I have no idea if they’re any good.
I think all mediums have their pluses and minuses, and I feel really lucky I get to work in so many of them. The big advantage of a novel is you can do anything you want and not have to worry about budget costs. You can explode the Earth and all you have to do is type a few words and it’s done in the reader’s head. You don’t have to hire Jerry Bruckheimer to blow up the Earth in a novel. So that’s a big advantage. But sometimes I’ll write something and think this needs to be performed by actors in order for it to make any sense and be any good. I’m really lucky that I get to use all those other weapons too then.
Someone told me once about this paradigm that exists: matriarch, patriarch, craftsman, and clown. It's this quartet that resonates through history and popular culture, and you can find it as a diagram in everything from The Beatles to Leave It To Beaver to Seinfeld.
The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
If you require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it--wholeheartedly--and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.
ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH
The best rule for writing--as well as for speaking—is to use always the simplest words that will accurately convey your thought.
DAVID LAMBUTH
There are simple maxims . . . which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short one will do. Second: if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the readers to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss a work in progress. Never answer a critic.
RAYMOND CHANDLER
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
There is probably some long-standing “rule” among writers, journalists, and other word-mongers that says: “When you start stealing from your own work you’re in bad trouble.” And it may be true.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
If I were to advise new writers, if I were to advise the new writer in myself, going into the theater of the Absurd, the almost-Absurd, the theater of Ideas, the any-kind-of-theater-at-all, I would advise like this:
Tell me no pointless jokes.
I will laugh at your refusal to allow me laughter.
Build me no tension toward tears and refuse me my lamentations.
I will go find me better wailing walls.
Do not clench my fists for me and hide the target.
I might strike you, instead.
Above all, sicken me not unless you show me the way to the ship's rail.
RAY BRADBURY
Breslin’s Rule: Don’t trust a brilliant idea unless it survives the hangover.
JIMMY BRESLIN
One of the great rules of art: Do not linger.
ANDRE GIDE
Do not pay any attention to the rules other people make.... They make them for their own protection, and to Hell with them.
WILLIAM SAROYAN
Over the years, I’ve found one rule. It is the only one I give on those occasions when I talk about writing. A simple rule. If you tell yourself you are going to be at your desk tomorrow, you are by that declaration asking your unconscious to prepare the material. You are, in effect, contracting to pick up such valuables at a given time. Count on me, you are saying to a few forces below: I will be there to write.
NORMAN MAILER
I'll give you the sole secret of short-story writing, and here it is: Rule 1. Write stories that please yourself. There is no rule 2. The technical points you can get from Bliss Perry. If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.
O. HENRY
I’m your nerd host, Chris Hardwick
Nerdist is a place where we nerds come together and share the nerdery that we find. It's also my home to various elements of the Nerdist Empire. You might recognize me from TV. You don't realize that's where you know me from, but it is. You think you went to college with me or I look like your cousin's friend, but that is not the case. At one time or another you stumbled upon me on your moving picture box in such cerebral gems as MTV's "Singled Out" and Noam Chomsky's "Shipmates." and so much more...
You will create many different types of characters in order to flesh out your story. Obviously, the protagonist - hero or anti-hero - is your main character and deserves the most attention. However, most stories also include an antagonist, hopefully a villain that is complex and layered, and then there's the plethora of supporting characters - friends and rivals, even symbolic and nonhuman characters - that are essential to moving the story forward. When creating characters - main and supporting - it's helpful to explore them through writing exercises. These five character exercises are designed to help you develop and strengthen your characters. Give them a try; you never know what treasures you might discover.
"A movie, I think is really only four or five moments between two people; the rest of it exists to give those moments their impact and resonance. The script exists for that. Everything does." - Robert Towne
1. INCITING INCIDENT
Often called the point of attack, the inciting incident is the first premonition of impending trouble, dilemma, or circumstance that will create the main tension of the story. It usually falls at the end of the first sequence. But it can sometimes appear in the first few minutes of a film.
2. LOCK IN
The protagonist is locked into the predicament that is central to the story, which occurs at the end of Act One, This lock in, therefore, propels the protagonist into a new direction in order to accomplish his/her new objective throughout the second act
3. FIRST CULMINATION
The first culmination generally occurs around the midpoint of the second act and is a pivotal moment in the story but not as critical as the Lock In or Main Culmination. Consider the first culmination as the second highest or second lowest point in Act Two, the second highest hurdle to be faced.
4. MAIN CULMINATION
The final culmination occurs at the end of the second act and brings the main tension to a close while simultaneously helping to create a new tension for Act Three.
5. THIRD ACT TWIST
The twist is an unexpected turn of events in the third act. Without a twist, the third act can seem too linear and predictable. It can also be the last test of the hero.
AND NOW... that you understand the basics, check out some 5 Plot Point Breakdowns in action: from The Shawshank Redemption and Ghostbusters to Kick-Ass and How To Train Your Dragon, the 5 Plot Point Breakdown is the Gorilla Glue of screenwriting.
ACT I
SEQUENCE ONE - Status Quo & Point of Attack
Establishes the central character, his/her life, and the status quo and the world of the story. It usually ends with the POINT OF ATTACK or INCITING INCIDENT, but this plot point can sometimes appear earlier in the first few minutes of the film.
SEQUENCE TWO - Predicament & Lock In
Sets up the predicament that will be central to the story, with first intimations of possible obstacles. The main tension will be established at the end of the act. The sequence ends when the main character is LOCKED IN the predicament, propelling him/her into a new direction to obtain his/her goal.
ACT II
SEQUENCE THREE - First Obstacle & Raising the Stakes
The first OBSTACLE to the central character is faced, and the beginning of the elimination of the alternatives begins, often a time where EXPOSITION left over from ACT I is brought out. Since our character is locked into the situation and can’t simply walk away, the stakes are higher - there is a lot more to lose.
SEQUENCE FOUR - First Culmination/Midpoint
A higher OBSTACLE, the principle of RISING ACTION is brought in and builds to the FIRST CULMINATION, which usually parallels the RESOLUTION of the film. If the story is a tragedy and our hero dies, then the first culmination (or midpoint) should be a low point for our character. If, however, our hero wins in the end of the film, then sequence four should end with him winning in some way.
SEQUENCE FIVE - Subplot & Rising Action
The SECOND ACT SAG can set in at this point if we don’t have a strong SUBPLOT to take the ball for a while. We still want RISING ACTION, but we’re not ready for the MAIN CULMINATION yet.
SEQUENCE SIX - Main Culmination/End of Act Two
The build-up to the MAIN CULMINATION - back to the main story line with a vengeance. The highest obstacle, the last alternative, the highest or lowest moment and the end of our main tension come at this point. But we get the first inklings of the new tension that will carry us through the third act.
Note: Since the midpoint and ending are paralleled, the PLOT POINT at the end of act two must be at a polar opposite of those points. So if our hero wins at the midpoint and at the end of the film, then she must have her lowest point here.
ACT III
SEQUENCE SEVEN - New Tension & Twist
The full yet simple, brief establishment of the third act tension with its requisite exposition. Simpler, faster in nearly all ways, with rapid, short scenes and no real elaborate set-ups. The TWIST can end this sequence or come at the start of the eighth sequence.
SEQUENCE EIGHT
Hell-bent for the RESOLUTION. Clarity is important. If they turn left, all is well, if they go right, the world as we know it ends. Not that we don’t have complex emotions or ideas about what it all amounts to, but at this point we crave clarity. Will he get the girl, defuse the bomb, turn in his murderous brother and escape from the sinking boat surrounded by sharks?
This Sequence Outline is NOT an absolute formula or perfect recipe to building a feature script, but it is something to work from. Because each script is a prototype: new, unique, custom-made just for its own story.
ACT I
SEQUENCE ONE - Status Quo & Inciting Incident
Establishes the central character, his/her life, and the status quo and the world of the story. It usually ends with the POINT OF ATTACK or INCITING INCIDENT, but this plot point can sometimes appear earlier in the first few minutes of the film.
SEQUENCE TWO - Predicament & Lock In
Sets up the predicament that will be central to the story, with first intimations of possible obstacles. The main tension will be established at the end of the act. The sequence ends when the main character is LOCKED IN the predicament, propelling him/her into a new direction to obtain his/her goal.
ACT II
SEQUENCE THREE - First Obstacle & Raising the Stakes
The first OBSTACLE to the central character is faced, and the beginning of the elimination of the alternatives begins, often a time where EXPOSITION left over from ACT I is brought out. Since our character is locked into the situation and can’t simply walk away, the stakes are higher - there is a lot more to lose.
SEQUENCE FOUR - First Culmination/Midpoint
A higher OBSTACLE, the principle of RISING ACTION is brought in and builds to the FIRST CULMINATION, which usually parallels the RESOLUTION of the film. If the story is a tragedy and our hero dies, then the first culmination (or midpoint) should be a low point for our character. If, however, our hero wins in the end of the film, then sequence four should end with him winning in some way.
SEQUENCE FIVE - Subplot & Rising Action
The SECOND ACT SAG can set in at this point if we don’t have a strong SUBPLOT to take the ball for a while. We still want RISING ACTION, but we’re not ready for the MAIN CULMINATION yet.
SEQUENCE SIX - Main Culmination/End of Act Two
The build-up to the MAIN CULMINATION - back to the main story line with a vengeance. The highest obstacle, the last alternative, the highest or lowest moment and the end of our main tension come at this point. But we get the first inklings of the new tension that will carry us through the third act.
Note: Since most midpoints and endings are paralleled, the PLOT POINT at the end of act two is usually at a polar opposite of those points. So if our hero wins at the midpoint and at the end of the film, then she usually hs her lowest point here.
ACT III
SEQUENCE SEVEN - New Tension & Twist
The full yet simple, brief establishment of the third act tension with its requisite exposition. Simpler, faster in nearly all ways, with rapid, short scenes and no real elaborate set-ups. The TWIST can end this sequence or come at the start of the eighth sequence.
SEQUENCE EIGHT - Resolution
Hell-bent for the RESOLUTION. Clarity is important. If they turn left, all is well, if they go right, the world as we know it ends. Not that we don’t have complex emotions or ideas about what it all amounts to, but at this point we crave clarity. Will he get the girl, defuse the bomb, turn in his murderous brother and escape from the sinking boat surrounded by sharks?
1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have?
2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?
3. Brothers, sisters? Who do they like? Why? What do they despise about their siblings?
4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient?
5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered?
6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child?
7. What was the economic status of their family?
8. How does your character feel about religion?
9. What about political beliefs?
10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted?
11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated?
12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?
13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates?
14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they unconnected?
15. Did they graduate? High-School? College? Do they have a PHD? A GED?
16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike?
17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When?
18. What did they find abroad, and what did they remember?
19. What were your character's deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now?
20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national or international, events that they experienced?
21. What are your character's manners like? What is their type of hero? Whom do they hate?
22. Who are their friends? Lovers? 'Type' or 'ideal' partner?
23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex?
24. What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually?
25. What are their hobbies and interests?
26. What does your character's home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance?
27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their clothing? Style? Quality?
28. Who is your character's mate? How do they relate to him or her? How did they make their choice?
29. What is your character's weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling?
30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive?
31. Does your character have children? How do they feel about their parental role? About the children? How do the children relate?
32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively?
33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health?
34. Does your character feel self-righteous? Revengeful? Contemptuous?
35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures?
36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering?
37. How is your character's imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories?
38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious? Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic?
39. What do they like to ridicule? What do they find stupid?
40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one?
41. Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses? Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony?
42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain?
43. Does your character have any secrets? If so, are they holding them back?
44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them?
45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A visionary? Passionate? Quixotic?
46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture? How do they feel about their physical body?
47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Does they want to be visible or invisible?
48. How are your character's gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish?
49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent?
50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating?
1. Who is your main character? Hero? Anti-hero?
2. Why should we be interested in them?
3. What attracts you to your protagonist? Do you like them? Loathe them?
4. Why do you need to write about them?
5. Why should we be excited about them?
6. Why do you believe we will find your hero sympathetic? Empathetic?
7. What makes us curious about them? What is their "mystery"? What is their "magic"? Charisma? How do you show it?
8. What does the audience find in the main character's story that is relevant to them? Why do you believe they will identify with them?
9. What is the cherished secret desire of your main character?
10. Do we laugh at your hero, feel amused by them, or do we admire them?
11. What do we hope for?
12. What are we afraid of?
13. What is the worst thing that could (and hopefully will) happen to your hero?
14. What is the most favorable, brightest moment that they will experience in the story?
15. What are they going to lose if they don't find a way to overcome the adversities?
16. Why can't your characters get what they crave?
17. How can you make the obstacles – inner or exterior – more insurmountable?
18. How can you make the threat, the danger, more excruciating, agonizing, humiliating? Who can do that? Why should they?
19. Why can't your characters live at peace with their conscience, respect themselves if they don't get what they so passionately want?
20. And: what is it that your characters want (consciously and tangibly)?
21. On the other hand: what do your characters need (on the emotional, subconscious level)?
22. How can you make the temptations more irresistible and the stakes higher?
23. What can you do to eliminate the audience's disbelief in the initial situation or collision (willing suspension of disbelief)?
24. Is there a deadline (time pressure) for the action to come to a resolution? Could there be? Who can create it?
25. When and how do your main characters realize that they are in trouble and that they must extricate themselves?
26. What are the alternatives you can imagine? How can the problem be solved?
27. But why is it impossible? Who or what makes the solution unattainable?
28. Can the predicament be evaded? What would happen if it were? Who makes the evasion impossible?
29. Can the complication be ridiculed, ignored, forgotten? Make sure that it cannot!
30. Can it be solved peacefully on friendly terms? Who will impair it?
31. Who are the supporting characters your main character can rely upon?
32. Who are the supporting characters your protagonist hopes to get on their side?
33. What doesn't your hero anticipate, know about?
34. What does your hero – falsely – expect that won't happen?
35. Who are the supporting characters who are a threat, who try to humiliate, stop, ridicule, or destroy your hero's plans? Do they know about the secret desires that your hero cherishes?
36. What are their plans? What tactics do they use? What mimicry, what subterfuge? How do they try to mislead, misdirect, confuse the main character?
37. What are their hopes, desires, dreams? What do they want and need?
38. How do they rationalize their moves?
39. How can their stubbornness, hatred, rage, damaged self-esteem, ambition be fueled? What can help them to feel righteous in their actions?
40. Will the audience understand why your characters act as they do?
41. When does the audience get to know your characters' particular intentions, desires, hopes, and fears?
42. How can the next step that your protagonist makes lead to the unexpected result? What's the miscalculation?
43. What did the counter player do? How did the circumstances change?
44. How can the goal be made more desirable? Who can do that?
45. What can create the hesitations, doubts, or scruples in the character's mind?
46. Try to imagine all the places, locations, sites that your character can enter in pursuit of their objective or evasion of the danger. Aren't there some more interesting situations there? More contradictory?
47. How can the locales make the story and the specific scenes or sequences more dramatic, more complicated and difficult (therefore, more revealing) for the characters?
48. Make a list of possible events that can happen believably and plausibly in your chosen environment and a list of possible events that would be unusual, out of routine, and order. Do you see which ones will work best?
49. What are the emotions, conclusions, and decisions that result from the setback, failure, or complication?
50. What emotions does the insult, mistreat, injustice evolve? What danger, what abyss becomes visible for the viewer that the hero doesn't see?
51. What are our expectations now? What do we hope for? What do we wish the characters would do? Why can't they do it?
52. What doesn't the main character know? What is the error, intentional blunder?
53. Do the antagonists mobilize their forces? Do they set a trap? Do they try to confuse the main character?
54. What are the social reasons for their actions? Do they come with accusations? Direct lies? Do they outwit the main character? How?
55. Does the hero panic? Feel alarmed? Insecure? Horrified from the realization of what could happen?
56. And what happens that helps the protagonist? On the other hand, what can help the antagonist?
57. What characters can act as catalysts that can alter and increase the reactions of the antagonist or protagonist?
58. What character (or characters) can go through a similar plight and find a different solution – compromise, assimilation, rejection etc.?
59. What relationships become threatened, broken up, or suddenly transformed?
60. What consequences of the previous actions can aggravate the situation?
61. What are the places your characters don't want to go? Are afraid to go? How do you force them there?
62. What is the prevailing mood/tone of the whole story? Does the environment have a face, character, and temperament?
63. Does the time period reflect on the environment? How? What expresses it besides costumes, props, architecture and means of transportation and communication? How does it reflect our human attitudes, habits, customs, social events, rituals, and language?
64. Are the events sufficiently important and impressionable? Do they help to elucidate the life style, engagement, and involvement of your protagonist?
65. Does the main hero show naiveté, weakness? Disbelief? Re-evaluate everything?
66. Do your hero regret? Recriminate? Seek conciliation? Reject the original plans?
67. Did you exhaust all the possibilities of self-assurance, shrewdness, and foresightedness that your hero can possess?
68. Did you give your antagonists a chance to show their intelligence, vigilance, and alertness?
69. What precautions do your characters take? Do they look for advice? For help?
70. What new plans do they come up with? How do they acquire new courage? What or who can suggest a new stratagem for them?
71. How does your hero study the adversary? Does your protagonist discover the weakness of the antagonist? Or are they wrong in their assumption? What trap can both sides set?
72. How can they attack each other? How can your hero test the enemy?
73. How does inner turmoil grow in their minds? How does it embitter the antagonism?
74. What do you feel is the rhythm of the story? Does the tempo of the main action accelerate?
75. What can interrupt, temporarily stop, misdirect, or confuse the growing conflict?
76. Are the chances for the desired resolution and for the despised outcome equal?
77. What is the moment that the viewer becomes ultimately curious about?
78. What does the audience impatiently expect?
79. What doesn't the audience realize will happen when the moment comes?
80. Is the resolution becoming inevitable? What could reverse the course of the action? Did the hero try all the possible ways and means and find out what they inevitably lead to?
81. What hopes still remain for the main character?
82. What are the most feared confrontations that the protagonist tries – in vain, obviously – to avoid, postpone, deny?
83. What is the most humiliating, painful extremity your hero will experience?
84. What is the moment when your antagonist feels triumphant?
85. How can you increase the adversary's determination not to give up, not to show any restrain, to fight to the bitter end?
86. How can bad – or good – timing heighten the stakes (too early, too late, speeding up the plans, etc...)?
87. When does the hero realize the inevitability of the outcome? Can an appeal be made to the antagonist's better nature?
88. Can the fear of shame or disgrace of losing one's face be used?
89. How did the circumstances change to make the outcome more weighty, impressive, convincing?
90. Does anybody admit the errors?
91. Does anybody plead, beg forgiveness, or confess?
92. Is anybody willing to give up?
93. Is anybody trying to escape?
94. Does anybody feel shame, disgrace, insecurity, betraying one's most cherished principles?
95. Does anybody feel terror stricken of being exposed?
96. Is there a rescue for any of the adversaries? Is this possible? For what price?
97. Is there a moment when a conscience stricken character realizes the consequences of their actions, sees themselves truly and rightly, and tries to stop the inevitable?
98. What is the last thing the main character finds out about?
99. What does "victory" mean after the whole story is over?
100. How should the viewer/audience feel when the story ends?
“Nabokov wrote most his novels on 3” x 5” notecards, keeping blank cards under his pillow for whenever inspiration struck. Seen here: a draft of Lolita.”
1. Dialogue should be brief.
2. It should add to the reader’s present knowledge.
3. It should eliminate the routine exchanges of ordinary conversation.
4. It should convey a sense of spontaneity but eliminate the repetitiveness of real talk.
5. It should keep the story moving forward.
6. It should be revelatory of the speaker’s character, both directly and indirectly.
7. It should show the relationships among people.
ELIZABETH BOWEN
Don't worry, we won't post anything.
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