Hello, screenwriters. As you’re well aware, my one real guiding principal in doing these posts is to provide insights that you wouldn’t normally hear in your typical screenwriting workshop, screenwriting classes or screenwriting course.  This certainly fits that bill.

It’s another overcast morning here in L.A. so it’s the perfect setting to talk a little bit about “Twilight,” the vastly popular series of movies and books. The novel was written by Stephenie Meyer, the screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, one of my former screenwriting students who went on to great fame and fortune.

Ms. Meyer had a dream about a young girl falling in love with a vampire and that launched 4 incredibly successful books and a series of highly successful movies. When my daughter was 14-years-old she saw the first movie 3 times and it was all she and her friends could talk about.

Artistically, it’s not the greatest achievement in the world but it resonated with a certain audience – adolescent girls. What made it so popular?

In the case of Twilight, Stephenie Meyer was working with a very iconic and deep seated myth – the beauty and the beast. Bella Swan, the 17-year-old protagonist, is a young vulnerable girl who goes to Washington to live with her Dad.

She is a true fish out of water who knows no one but quickly encounters Edward Cullen. He seems revolted by her at first and then quickly shows interest – we don’t know why he’s so ambivalent and neither does the confused Bella until we discover he’s a vampire; and he’s actually so intoxicated by Bella’s smell that it’s hard for him not to attack her. So he’s incredibly attracted to her and he’s also compelled to take her life – nice contradictions there, I’d say.

What is Bella’s compelling emotional conflict? – a topic I’m going to discuss at length in my upcoming webinar on July 22^nd.

Bella has fallen for this vampire but he’s dangerous.  Being with him will alienate her from the “normal” world of her father and her friends.  It will put her in danger.  So what should she do?  Should she follow her heart and seek out Edward’s love or push him away so she will be accepted by family and friends?

There is no easy answer here.  This is a classic dilemma.  Every choice the protagonist has is fraught with adversity.

This dilemma makes us care about Bella.  Edward is the classic “bad boy” in spades. He’s a mysterious stranger who Bella yearns for desperately and yet knows she’s way out of her depth. He wants her yet pushes her away, he protects her and yet doesn’t think they have a future together. He is gorgeous and yet calls himself a monster. As soon as Bella gets involved with him, her life is in danger from a group of bad vampires who want to kill her.

Find the heart of your movie (the compelling emotional conflict) and then mine every ounce of gold you can from it. That is what makes a good movie – don’t get waylaid by clever plot twists or convoluted story telling. Good movies are very simple. They just go deeper – we want to feel more than anything else!

Come join my webinar at 1:00 pm on July 22^nd.  It will be archived for a year so you watch it at anytime:  http://bit.ly/Conflict_Benest

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, screenwriters.  As you have all guessed by now, my mission statement is to provide information you wouldn’t normally get in most screenwriting classes, screenwriting courses or screenwriting workshops.  This definitely fits that bill.

I’m doing a webinar July 22 at 1:00 pm on this exact topic and thought I’d give you a little taste of what I’m teaching by discussing “3 Days To Kill,” an action film that recently got released on Netflix.  It stars Kevin Costner, a burnt-out C.I.A assassin who just discovered he’s got cancer of the brain and will die in 3 months or less.

A good situation to be sure but the screenwriters ratchet up the emotional stakes even more.  BTW, one of those writers is Luc Bressson (The Professional) – one of the greatest action writers and directors of all time.  Costner realizes his time is running out so he reconnects with his alienated wife and daughter who haven’t seen him in years.

Just as he does so, the C.I.A. have a job for him.  He wants nothing more to do with this line of work as it’s exactly what drove a wedge between him and his family – but his handler tells him if he takes the job she’ll provide him with a new drug that can prolong his life – maybe cure him.

So Costner goes back to work, finding and killing lots of criminals who are trying to sell a highly toxic nerve gas that has the potential of taking thousands of lives.

This is what I mean by finding compelling emotional conflicts that will make your audience connect deeply with your protagonist.  Costner now has to juggle winning back the love of his wife and child while at the same time assassinating a horde of bad guys – the exact thing that alienated him from his loved ones in the first place.

This is a great dilemma – the thing we’ve discussed in the past.  There is no black and white here.  If Costner refuses to get back into the killing game, he’ll only be alive for a few more months.  If he accepts the new job, he very well may jeopardize the thing he wants most in the world right now – regaining the love of his family.

This has high emotional stakes and the screenwriters mine every possible moment to make us care.  It’s not just another action movie – it’s an action movie with heart – like Lethal Weapon or The Professional – films that became great because we cared so deeply for the heroes or heroines involved.

On top of this, Bresson and his fellow screenwriter found great rooting interest techniques to make us care even more.  For example, when Costner comes back to his apartment that he hasn’t used for many months, an African family is squatting there and the daughter is about to have a baby.  He finds out he can’t evict them for months so he allows the family to stay and of course becomes deeply connected to them in the process.

This is absolute screenwriting genius.

Watch this movie and see what I mean.  And join my webinar on July 22 at 1:00 pm.  It’s archived for a year so you can view it any time.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, everyone. As you all know, my purpose in this blog is to provide information you wouldn’t normally get in a screenwriting course, screenwriting class or even a screenwriting workshop.  That could not be more germaine than this post today.

BTW, I’m doing a webinar on July 22 at 1:00 pm: CREATING COMPELLING EMOTIONAL CONFLICT.  This to me is the heart of why an audience will connect (or not connect) with your protagonist.  You don’t have to hear the webinar live but can watch it anytime for the next year.  One of the topics I’m going to get take up is the best conflict you can possibly devise:  the dilemma.

Let’s explore this idea using a film written and directed by Judd Apatow (who also did 40 Year Old Virgin). It stars Katherine Heigl (who plays Allison Scott) and Seth Rogen (who plays the slacker Ben Stone).

Allison is extremely ambitious, gorgeous, smart and savvy. She gets knocked up in one drunken night of revelry with Ben, who is her opposite. He’s going nowhere, has no real prospects, and gets stoned all the time. He lives with other slackers who also don’t do much but get high and work on a website that turns out to be a complete fiasco.

So Allison’s dilemma is this – should she end up with Ben – the father of her child even though in normal circumstances he would never even be on her radar? Despite his sweetness and good sense of humor, he’s not close to being in her league.

But he is the father of her child after all and he does seem to care about her. If she breaks up with him – which she does at one point – she’ll raise this child alone. If she stays with him, she’ll be with a man for the rest of her life who will never come close to being on her level of accomplishment or maturity.

It’s a good dilemma. There are no clear cut black and white answers here. Unfortunately for the believability of this movie, the author clearly wants you to fall in love with Ben as she is supposed to and root for them to end up together. That is the ideal romantic comedy ending. And that is what they try and pull off at the end.

Unfortunately, you never really believe it. At least I didn’t. A girl like Allison would never ultimately be satisfied with Ben. He’s a guy who’s been living on a few thousand dollars from a civil judgment for the last 3 or 4 years – he’s lovable but has no real ambition – it’s hard to see him doing much in life but making fun of those that do.

Once the novelty of having a child wears off, will this couple actually survive? I don’t think so.

So the very thing that makes this a good dilemma is what hurts the believability of the film into question. Especially in our world where many women have children on their own and the onus of doing so is practically nonexistent, not the way it was 20 or so years ago.

So here is the challenge to all screenwriters – giving us a great dilemma, one which is not cut and dry, where there are only shades of grey and yet making the protagonist’s choice as satisfying as possible. And realistic.

If you want to hear a lot more about how you create a strong and memorable bond between the protagonist and your reader or audience, join my webinar by clicking on:  http://bit.ly/Conflict_Benest

Until next week then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, screenwriters.  I provide these posts so I can offer writers information they won’t normally get in your typical screenwriting class, screenwriting course or screenwriting workshop. As you must know by now, I spend lots of time breaking down movies and screenplays to discover exactly what makes the difference between a great film and a mediocre one.  What is the real ingredient to a successful and memorable film experience?

Is it the dialogue?  Or the scene construction?  Or the structure?  Or the great narrative writing?  All of these things are important of course but are they really the core thing we need to achieve?  Or is it something else?

Well, the something else has to do with the characters – most importantly the protagonist.  When we think back to movies we love, do we remember  most the great dialogue?  Or the actual scenes?  Or do we really remember how connected we were to the hero or heroine of the film?

For my money, it’s the compelling characters that most sticks in our minds and how deeply we bond with them.  So, how does that connection occur?

This will be series of posts about what is most important in your writing – the central emotional conflicts of your protagonists.

First off – that connection we so strongly want to create between the audience and our protagonists occurs because of the conflict they are facing.  This is what will force them to change.

And most of all take this into consideration: nobody wants to change.  We all resist change as ardently as we can.  Our natural tendency is to deny those things that make us face our fears – what David Freeman calls the FLBW (the flaw, limitation block or wound) that we all suffer from.

And so we must force our protagonist to confront the very thing he or she most desperately wants to suppress.  How do we do that?  Through the plot.  The plot is nothing more than a device to force the characters to face the very things they’ve been trying their whole life to keep hidden.  Because it’s painful to face those things and we all run from pain.

This is the most important thing to learn at this point in the discussion.  The plot is a device.  It’s not a thing in itself, it’s simply there to achieve something else – character growth.

If you look at your story and you see that your plot is really what the story is about you know you have a problem.  What the story should really be about is the hero’s journey and that is an emotional one.

I’m giving a webinar on this very topic on July 22 at 1:00 pm.  The webinar is archived for a year so you can watch it at any time.  To join the webinar and learn the specific technical skills in excelling at this, please click on this link and join me:  http://bit.ly/Conflict_Benest

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, screenwriters. As you all know, I try to contribute information that you wouldn’t normally hear in a screenwriting course, screenwriting class or even screenwriting workshop.  This week I wanted to touch on a subject I have been telling my students for as long as I’ve taught screenwriting. That talent is by and large a myth and that what really matters in the long run is your determination in learning your craft and succeeding in your field of interest.

I’ve taught many screenwriters during my life and it wasn’t the ones with the greatest talent who had the most success. Of course you need a modicum of talent but the real deciding factor was the unbridled zeal of those who would do anything to succeed in this business.

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Hello, screenwriters.  As you’re well aware, I do everything I can in this blog to provide information that isn’t normally gleaned in your typical screenwriting course, screenwriting class or screenwriting workshop.  This certainly fits that bill.

I used to think that certain aspects of screenwriting could not be taught.  I knew one could learn structure — because I was terrible at story structure when I began to write screenplays.

But after a number of years of hard work, I mastered what screenplay structure is all about.  How did I do this?  I studied films by analyzing screenplays, then watching them on the screen and wrote down each scene, trying to figure out why one scene came after another.  I read books by people like Syd Fields.

I finally got it by simply working hard at studying the subject.  I did the same by learning about scene construction and developing dynamic characters.  All that can be learned by studying great screenplays and analyzing memorable films.

But one aspect of screenwriting I didn’t believe could be taught – and that was writing snappy, convincing dialogue that came off the page.  Great dialogue has a rhythm to it and a music and I believed that was an inherent talent you were either born with or you weren’t.  But I was wrong.

There are techniques to improving your skills in writing dialogue and these skills can be taught.  I learned that when I went to David Freeman’s Beyond Structure Seminar.  He laid down one technique after another that laid out the elements of what makes great verbal exchanges between characters.

I was astounded when I learned this.  How memorable conversation is often broken up – people interrupting each other, for example, or starting one line of conversation on a particular topic, then abruptly jumping to another topic and finally returning to the original one.  These are just two examples of how you can create original and convincing ways for your characters to converse that will grab the reader and make your dialogue not only realistic but original.

These techniques are something that you can literally take home and start using immediately to bring new life and originality to your dialogue.If you possibly can, listen in on David’s Advanced Techniques For Writing Better Dialogue tomorrow (Saturday) at 10:30 a.m.  It’s a precursor to his two-day seminar which is coming up in June.  I tell all my students to go to this two-day event as it will make you a better writer.

The teleconference is free for anyone who goes to:

www.beyondstructure.com

You simply give you name and email address and you’ll get all the information you need.  I know it will work for you as it did for me.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, everyone. As you all know, I try and provide insights into screenwriting no normally discussed in your typical screenwriting class, screenwriting course or screenwriting workshop.  This clearly fits that bill.

So, let’s talk about dilemmas.  And we will discuss this topic by using the tentpole films everyone in the world recognizes as as the “Twilight” movies.

The novel was written by Stephanie Meyer – the script by Melissa Rosenberg – who by the way, studied in my private workshops for years. She has become my greatest success story – having written Step Up – and now Twilight. She was also a co-executive producer of Dexter.

Is she the most talented writer I ever had – no – what made her so successful? What I keep talking about – her unbelievable will and determination to succeed.

But that is not the subject of our current discussion. I want to continue to talk about the protagonist’s dilemma and Twilight offers a great example of that.

The protagonist of the movie is Bella Swan, played woodenly by by Kristen Stewart. It doesn’t really matter how bad an actress she is because she has a great part.  She comes to a foggy coastal town in the Northwest, a fish out of water, to join her father after her parent’s divorce. She falls in love with a strange young man who is extremely pale and he is of course a vampire.

At first the young man – Edward Cullen (played by Robert Pattinson) ignores her, is rude to her, does everything to push her away. Why? Because he knows he’s dangerous and doesn’t want her in any way to be hurt because of him.

The author of the book was recently interviewed and talked about Edward’s appeal. She claimed it was because he seemed so interested and caring towards Bella – not the normal teenage boy who’s intensely self centered and selfish.

She’s clearly onto something here. We discover Edward is a very sensitive vampire, one who’s fallen in love with the equally vulnerable and poetic girl, and he can’t be responsible for her being harmed by him or what he’s become.

And naturally, he’s incredibly good looking and can do some amazing things.

What is Bella’s dilemma? Well, it’s clear. She can either stay clear of this vampire – which of course is not a good choice because he’s gorgeous and sensitive and her soul mate.

Or she can become involved with him which might very well lead to her death or transformation into the undead herself. What’s a teen girl to do? There are no easy answers here, are there?

In fact, at one point Bella begs him to turn her into a vampire as well and he adamantly refuses. He doesn’t want her to suffer his fate. What a guy!

Dilemmas are what make great stories. Dilemmas are what life has in store for us. There are no easy answers – black and white decisions to make.

Do we go out with him? He’s popular but he’s mean – do we marry that guy? He’s rich but he has a checkered past – because he cheated on his last girlfriend – does that mean he’ll cheat on me too?

All of these complex areas of gray – that makes great drama – great comedy – great movies.

Think about your protagonists’ dilemmas and see if you’re also in that wonderful area of gray.

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, everyone. All my posts are calculated to provide information you wouldn’t normally hear in your typical screenwriting course, screenwriting workshop or screenwriting class.

We have been speaking about creating great characters and I realized we have not touched on the most basic aspect of creating memorable protagonists – and that is – is your character worthy of being a protagonist in the first place?

Classically, from Aristotle on to Shakespeare and to this day, there is the classic image of the hero or heroine. In olden times, they were almost always of royal personage and were born of high blood.

And we still have this notion playing out today – Russell Crowe as Maximus in Gladiator – a man who rose to great rank in the Roman Legions, he acted in every way like a great and noble hero.

Think of Bruce Willis in all the Die Hard movies as John McClane, another heroic character who never shied away from danger, who was courage personified, he has a smart remark to situations that would scare most of us to death. Obvious hero material.

But in our modern day, heroes can easily be made of the common man. Take Dustin Hoffman as Ted Kramer in Kramer vs. Kramer. He is a normal guy, he’s not a cop or detective or someone who does a dangerous job. He’s a normal advertising guy who’s thrust into greatness of sorts when his wife leaves him and he has to take care of his son.

What makes Ted a hero is that he doesn’t shirk from this responsibility. He now has a little boy to take care of and he knows if he doesn’t do the job no one else will. So his deeper and more courageous instincts kick in and he struggles to be the best dad he can. Before this, he was a poor excuse of a father – but circumstances forced him to rise to the challenge.

These are often the heroes we see today. They are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. They are just like you and me. What makes them heroes is that they are tested and they rise to the challenge. They don’t give up. That doesn’t mean that they don’t consider giving up at times, in fact, it’s better that they do have their moments of doubt.

Because those moments of doubt is what makes them real. We all have our moments of doubt. But hopefully, those moments don’t crush our spirits and we get up the next morning and go back at it.

A true protagonist doesn’t ever turn and run or give up the struggle. They have dark moments of pain and loss of faith but their greater instincts to prevail always wins out.

They can be janitors or teachers or bus drivers – take the protagonist of “The Dallas Buyers Club” – a drug taking homophobic womanizer who ends up fighting the government to bring life saving drugs to those who have AIDS.

As I mentioned in my webinar, oftentimes anti-heroes make the best protagonists.  They aren’t at first glance hero material, but they are underdogs, they have huge wounds and psychic scars and because they are so low in the beginning of the movie, they have the furthest to rise.  This makes their character arc more delineated and more interesting.  Anti-heroes are really like us – ordinary people who hopefully have the ability to change and grow and thus become heroic

Is your protagonist a victim or do they rise to the challenge and become self determined? It doesn’t mean they can’t ultimately lose the great battle either – for that is tragedy. But they will not give in – they will not capitulate.

And hopefully – no matter our doubts and confusions and moments of despair – hopefully, neither shall we!

More in this vein for the future…

Until then – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, everyone. As you can imagine, I’m going to post something here that you won’t normally hear in your typical screenwriting class, screenwriting workshop or screenwriting course.  It’s something I hope you will enjoy.

As I’ve already posted on our site, I’m giving a webinar for the Writers Store this Thursday on May 1^st.  It’s all about creating a greater emotional bond between your characters and the audience.  How does one do that?  Well, you can find out by joining the webinar at:

http://bit.ly/TWSBenest

The webinar goes live at 1:00 pm but you can watch it anytime as it’s archived for year.

Here is one of the subjects I’m going to speak about:

In many successful movies, you will notice that there is something very compelling and emotional about the central dramatic situation that the protagonist is involved in. In other words, putting your protagonist in a highly charged and emotionally compelling situation seems central to our emotional response to your story and also makes the story itself extremely marketable.

Let’s take a couple of examples:

The Sixth Sense. A child psychologist (Dr. Malcolm Crowe) is attacked by one of his former patients who he was unable to help. He gets a second chance to help a boy who also is damaged. He discovers this boy can see dead people – a secret he cannot tell anyone. Only the psychologist can help him come to terms with this terrible “gift.”

The Verdict. Frank Galvin is an alcoholic lawyer who is given a case because the Catholic Church knows he will settle it quickly just to get his fee. But when Galvin sees a young girl in a vegetative state because of a botched medical procedure – he decides to take on the church and its team of lawyers to help the girl and redeem himself.

40 Year Old Virgin – Andy Stitzer is a 40 year old man who has never really grown up. He rides a bicycle to work and has never had sex. His friends make it their project to help Andy get laid and when he falls in love with an adorable divorcee with two children, his sexual and emotional fears reach an all time high.

One of these is in the thriller/horror genre, the other a straight drama, the third a comedy.

But in all three, you notice that there is something very emotionally compelling about the heart of these movies. Just from hearing these short loglines, it’s clear why we will care about these protagonists and the journey they are compelled to take.

So the notion of high concept, which is really a marketing tool – in that it tells you a compelling story in a short amount of time and is extremely desirable by studios for obvious reasons – is also something that relates to successful story telling.

We want to find emotional hooks for our protagonists. We want to put them in highly charged emotional situations that anyone would find relatable and compelling. This makes for great protagonists. Many such protagonists are really just ordinary people who are put in extraordinary situations —

A man who works too much and neglects his family is abandoned by his wife and is given his son to raise (Kramer vs Kramer)…

Two seemingly random young people are told by a computer voice if they don’t follow instructions they or their loved ones will be killed (Eagle Eye)…

A woman is abandoned by her actor fiance only to learn he subletted their apartment to another actor and now she has to share her living space and her life with him – (Goodbye Girl)…

So creating great protagonists is in great part about putting them in emotionally charged and compelling situations. Finding those great situations is what helps us create high concept ideas. Commerciality and artistry is this instance seems to go hand in hand.

Let’s all look for these great story hooks, finding unique emotional situations to put our protagonists in, knowing that if we’ve done it correctly all our hard work will pay off because we’ve got a movie that will not only deliver emotionally but will be appealing in a commercial sense as well.

Until next week – KEEP WRITING!

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Hello, everyone. As you know my deepest desire is to provide information and encouragement a beginning writer wouldn’t normally receive in your typical screenwriting class, screenwriting course or screenwriting workshop.  Here is a great example of that.

Despite the wealth of material we have already covered, we have barely scratched the surface of all the intricacies of this craft. If there are areas of screenwriting I haven’t touched on yet, and you’re eager to learn about – please let me know.

We will continue to delve deeper and deeper – for this journey is also my own continuing self education about an art form that I continue to study and learn more about.

Despite the obvious frustrations and obstacles the physical world places in our path, the rewards are great. I would like to share with you a recent one.

For some of you this will be extremely inspiring. For others it will be daunting. I hope it is the former and not the latter for I must at times come clean with you – this business of screenwriting is not for the faint hearted. If you’re not willing to give your all – consider a career less challenging.

Brackish Water – A screenplay written in my Monday night screenwriting workshop has now been acquired by InkCrayon Productions.  They have set up a production fund to hire a name actor and then go to investors to make the film.

The writer is Noah Harald, a writer/director whose film won the audience award at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin Texas.  Brackish Water is a gritty, violent film noire screenplay with lots of attitude and texture.  It was written with great intensity and the writer was willing to do as many rewrites as necessary to make it as good as it could possibly be.  I couldn’t have asked more.We’ve been talking lately about the benefit of high concept ideas and yet this film is not one that fits that mold, but it has great characters and lots of style.  It will certainly attract name actors and that in itself will hopefully get this film produced.

I have been asked many times from the writers who work with me if I think they have the necessary talent to become a success in this tough business and my answer is always the same – it doesn’t have a lot to do with talent.

It has to do with desire and what you are willing to sacrifice to get your film produced or your career launched.

Noah has one crucial quality that allowed him to prosper and make this story come to life – hopefully reaching many millions of people. It wasn’t his vast film connections (for he had few) it wasn’t his private wealth or family connections (for he is no different in that respect from many of you).

The one thing he did have though was his unrelenting belief in what he was writing – and he was willing to do whatever it took to make his script great. There was no Plan B. it just had to happen. And he was more than willing to work his butt off to see it through.

He was also smart enough to realize that her first draft was not going to be good enough to get his film produced – neither was his 2nd or 3rd draft.

We worked on this film tirelessly in my private workshop for many sessions, making the script better and more honed – cutting away the extraneous and getting more and more into the true heart of what this film was about. Not just my input but the input of the group contributed to coming up with the best ideas possible.

I have been toiling in these fields for more years than I care to remember and my first drafts are no different than yours – they stink. Nobody gets it on the first draft. Hemingway has a famous quote about how every first draft is crap. And he couldn’t be more right.

So the real question is – Are you willing to face tough feedback – to really dig deeper – to start from scratch if that’s what it takes?

Like I said in the beginning of this post, I hope this is inspiring because I want nothing more than to help you find success in this field. But it comes with a strong dose of reality – for those of you who have the stomach for this – Camus had a great line for you – HATS OFF GENTLEMEN!

Until next week – KEEP WRITING!

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