That Time of the Night

Posted By Iain Coleman on April 3, 2010

William Goldman’s The Princess Bride is a corker of a script, and an endlessly delightful movie. Which might strike some people as a bit odd, given its blatant subversion of one of the most long-established principles of dramatic structure.

If a pistol is fired in the third act, it should be hanging on the wall in the first act. If a pistol is hanging on the wall in the first act, it should be fired on the third act.

That’s one version of Chekov’s famous dictum about foreshadowing and economy, and it’s drummed in to any student of dramatic writing at an early stage.

So what does Goldman think he’s playing at? The Holocaust cloak comes out of nowhere to save the day in the last act, Miracle Max conveniently appears in time to save our hero even though we’ve had no indication that miracles happen in this world, least of all in pill form, and all of a sudden Inigo can track down Westley by asking his father’s spirit to guide his sword, despite a lack of any supernatural elements anywhere else in the story?

Jesus, what an amateur.

And yet, it works. No, it doesn’t just work, it sings. Why?

I’m reminded of one of the most telling passages in Russell T Davies’ recent book, The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter [pp 678-679].

I can watch my stuff and get this disconcerting draught of… well, of how it must look to other people sometimes. Of how unplanned it all seems. Like I’m making it up as I go along. I’m refusing, on screen, to do all those normal things that would make an episode more coherent, with a beginning-middle-end wholeness…

…I can see how annoying that looks. I can see how maddening it must be, for some people. Especially if you’re imposing really classical script structures, and templates, and expectations on that episode, even unconsciously. I must look like a vandal, a kid or an amateur. No wonder some people hate what I write. Of course, I’m going to win this argument. (Did you guess?) Because the simple fact is: all those things were planned. All of them were my choice. They’re not lazy, clumsy, or desperate. They’re chosen. I can see more traditional ways of telling those stories, but I’m not interested. I think the stuff you gain from writing in this way - the shock, the whirlwind, the freedom, the exhilaration - is worth the world. I’ve got this sort of tumbling, freewheeling style that somersaults along, with everything happening now - not later, not before, but now, now, now. I’ve made a Doctor Who that exists in the present tense. And I think that’s exactly like the experience of watching Doctor Who. It’s happening now, right in front of your eyes! If you don’t like it, if you don’t join in with it, then… blimey, these episodes must be nonsensical.But those classical structures can be seen in Primeval, in Demons, in Merlin, in all of them - and yet we stand with millions more viewers And I think that’s partly why. So, ha!

The Princess Bride and Doctor Who are pitched at the same sort of level - children’s stories that adults can enjoy - and the same approach seems to work in both. So, can we just abandon all that boring structure stuff and have ourselves a laff riot?

Not quite.

Goldman might pull plot elements out of his hat, but that’s because plot isn’t terribly interesting. Story is interesting: the desires of the characters, the struggle they go through to fulfil those needs. And in that, Goldman couldn’t be more direct and conventional. All the major characters have an explicit goal, that they state up-front early in the story, and that they remain consistent to through all the twists and turns of the plot. We might not have been able to anticipate Miracle Max, but from the moment Inigo Montoya reveals his quest to kill the six-fingered man, we can be sure he will fight a mighty duel with that very man in the last act. Prince Humperdinck will purse his plot to kill Buttercup until he is foiled at last, while Westley and Buttercup will remain impelled by True Love until the final scene.

And with Davies on Doctor Who, the Doctor will always want to save the Earth, Rose will always want to be with the Doctor, and the Daleks will always want to exterminate everything that isn’t Dalek. These motivations, these central points of character, are made clear at the beginning and pay off at the end.

So perhaps we should be applying Chekov’s Gun, not to plot devices, but to characters. If nothing else, at least Goldman and Davies demonstrate that the end result is a hell of a lot of fun.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on March 18, 2010

I’ve been rereading William Goldman’s masterful script for The Princess Bride, and before I do a meatier post on the story as a whole, I’d like to quickly mention one lovely piece of technique that I noticed.

Spoilers follow. If you haven’t seen The Princess Bride yet, stop reading this and go and watch it.

We’re in the last act, and Princess Buttercup has decided to kill herself rather than spend her life married to the villainous Prince Humperdink. So here’s a technical question: how do you get across to the audience the fact that a character has decided to commit suicide?

Here’s how Goldman does it:

Buttercup makes this declaration to someone who doesn’t hear it. Why? Because if she tells someone who understands what she’s saying, that person will have to react in some significant way - to restrain her, raise the alarm, or whatever - and that would derail the story. And if she doesn’t tell anyone, how will the audience know what she’s thinking? Oh, she could make a big deal out of preparing for suicide, nearly going through with it, breaking down then resolving herself… but that wouldn’t really fit the fairy tale tone.

Goldman uses this technique for comic effect, with the sweet, doddery old king, but the same principle could be used for darker dramatic purposes: a woman tries to tell her best friend she’s going to kill herself, but the mobile phone signal drops out at the crucial moment, or she screams it at her husband who is too wrapped up in listening to music on his headphones to notice. Telling someone who doesn’t hear may not be a tool you use often, but it’s nice to have it in the toolbox.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on January 28, 2010

I’m polishing up a short script. A very short script. It’s for the Scottish Book Trust’s Screen Lab 2010, and they want something no more than three minutes long.

Three minutes! That’s just three pages to tell your whole story. So every word counts. That’s true of all screenwriting of course, but here it’s especially pronounced - as is the sheer joy of realising that you can cut two whole lines of dialogue.

So I wrote a pretty solid story in an hour or so, and now I’m just trying to hone those precious words. The bit I’m working on most is the first page - actually the second half of the first page - where I have about ten lines to sketch in the two characters and their relationships to each other.

Russell T Davies is the master of this, of course. Here’s an example I read the other day, from his Doctor Who story “Midnight”:

In just five lines we understand this family: not just their relationships with one another, but their social class, aspirations and attitudes to the world. And Davies makes it look so easy.

But of course it’s a hell of a hard thing to get right. Encoding so much meaning into so few words takes great dramatic skill. It’s something that’s a lot easier to analyse - and, hopefully, to learn - by reading scripts than by watching performances. Davies has made a lot of his Who scripts available online for free, and if you haven’t read them yet, go and download them now. I can’t recommend them too highly.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on October 21, 2009

I’m off to Cheltenham next week for the Screenwriters’ Festival. If it’s anything like last year, it should be great. There’s one big difference, though - at least, for me. This year, as well as all the nattering, drinking and going to talks, I have some scheduled meetings that I need to prepare for. On Wednesday, a nice person from Euroscript is going to help me improve one of my scripts, and on Thursday I have “Speed Dating” sessions - rapid-fire pitches, basically - with a selection of producers and agents.

So, lots to prepare in advance if I want to make the most of the festival. But there’s more.

As if that lot wasn’t enough, I’m also entering the BBC’s “Scotland Writes” competition. The deadline for this is Monday 2nd November - which realistically means I have to post my entry off on the Friday before I head down to Cheltenham, as there won’t be time when I get back. This is a bit annoying, as it means I won’t be able to put into my script anything that I learn at Cheltenham, but it can’t be helped. (I did have a cunning plan involving hand-delivering my entry to BBC Scotland on the 2nd - until I read the small print and realised the competition address is in London.)

And even more pressing than all this, I have to get this year’s Annual Report printed and delivered in time for the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting in December. It’s a big document, and although I’m only credited as “Editor”, in practice I write 90% of it myself. Fortunately the copy is now with the designers, but I’ve got a room in Cheltenham with WiFi so I can deal with corrections while I’m at the festival.

This is why, for the past couple of months, my friends and family have hardly seen me and my wife has had to put up with me being little more than a grumbling presence on the sofa tapping away at a laptop. I look forward to re-entering the world of humanity in November.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on October 13, 2009

I was reading the script for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - not just the best Star Trek film, but a fine movie in its own right - and something leapt out at me. The sexual tension between Kirk and Saavik.

If you’re saying “the what now?”, then I quite sympathise. I’ve seen that film I don’t know how many times, and never detected anything between these two characters beyond Kirk’s occasional mentoring of Saavik, and her negotiating the balance between proper procedure and Kirk’s freewheeling improvisation.

But on the page, it’s a different story. Literally.

Take this scene:

INT. ENTERPRISE CORRIDOR 52
Kirk waits for the Turbo Lift, which opens at last. As
he gets in –
SAAVIK’S VOICE
Hold please — !
Kirk holds and Saavik dashes in. She is surprised to
see him.
SAAVIK
(continuing)
Thank you, sir.
Kirk nods, the doors close. There is an uneasy forced
intimacy between them.
KIRK
Lieutenant, are you wearing your
hair differently?
SAAVIK
It is still regulation, Admiral.
She reaches out and touches a button. The lift stops.
SAAVIK
(continuing)
May I speak, sir?
KIRK
Lieutenant, self-expression does not
seem to be one of your problems.
SAAVIK
I wish to thank you for the high
efficiency rating.
KIRK
You earned it.
SAAVIK
I did not think so.
KIRK
You’re bothered by your performance
on the Kobayashi Maru.
SAAVIK
I failed to resolve the situation.
KIRK
There is no correct resolution.
It is a test of character.
SAAVIK
May I ask how you dealt with the
test?
KIRK
(amused)
You may ask, Lieutenant.
She stares.
KIRK
(continuing)
That was a little joke.
SAAVIK
Humor… that is a difficult concept
… it is not logical…
KIRK
We learn by doing, Lieutenant.
She’s a laugh a minute. Kirk pushes the button; the
elevator starts.
KIRK
(continuing)
You want my advice?
She studies him, considering. No doubt about it, the
attraction is mutual and she has no idea how to handle
it.
SAAVIK
Yes.
KIRK
Take the test again.
The lift stops and the doors open.
BONES
Who’s been holding up the damn
elevator?
He reacts to them. Saavik exits demurely.
SAAVIK
Thank you, sir.
Bones enters and the doors close. Kirk studies the
ceiling.
BONES
Has she changed her hairstyle?
Kirk says nothing.
BONES
(finally)
Wonderful stuff, that Romulan
ale –
UHURA’S VOICE
Admiral Kirk –
KIRK
Kirk here.
UHURA’S VOICE
I have an urgent CommPic from Space
Lab Regula I for the Admiral. Dr.
Carol Marcus.
KIRK
In my quarters, Uhura.
UHURA’S VOICE
Yes, sir.
Awkward silence.
BONES
It never rains but when it pours –
KIRK
As a physician you of all people
should appreciate the danger of
re-opening old wounds.
The elevator stops. Kirk leaves. The doors close.
BONES
(annoyed with
himself)
Sorry.

The story of this scene is that Saavik shows Kirk the first signs that she is a sexual being as well as a dedicated officer, by turning up with a new hairdo (the traditional signifier of such things in Hollywood drama). Kirk, ever the ladies’ man, sees the opening and indulges in a little flirtation. Saavik responds, and it looks like something may happen - then in bursts the gooseberry, Bones. And as if that wasn’t enough cold water poured on the proceedings, who should call but Kirk’s ex! Jim Kirk won’t be getting his end away today, that’s for damn sure.

None of that appears on screen - at least, not that I’ve ever seen. Instead, the Kirk-Saavik relationship is much more that of a mentor and a somewhat reluctant student. Kirk encourages Saavik to break with hidebound convention, but Saavik’s attention to proper procedures is nonetheless vindicated on occasion. In that reading, this lift scene has Saavik’s new hairdo showing that she may indeed be willing to break with convention, albeit to a limited extent, and Kirk offers her encouragement and reassurance in doing so.

Playing it ths way, the scene is less coherent, with the interventions by Bones and Dr Marcus appearing simply as incidents rather than having any wider importance to Kirk’s relationship to Saavik. So why do it this way?

It could simply be down to a complete lack of screen chemistry between William Shatner and Kirstie Alley, but I think there’s a deeper reason. This movie is all about aging. Kirk is too old to command a starship, wasting away as a decrepit desk-jockey until events give him back his command. The story is all about Kirk coming to terms with age, vulnerability and death. In that context, successfully flirting with a beautiful young officer just doesn’t fit. The mentor-student relationship fits better with the theme.

An alternative, that could have worked, would have been for Kirk to try to get it on with Saavik and receive a polite but humiliating rebuffal. We would see Kirkforced to come to terms with the fact that he’s too old and podgy to play the dashing ladykiller any longer. That could have been a nice scene. Dangerous, though, in a heroic drama, to undercut the protagonist to quite that extent. Perhaps that’s why the film ultimately didn’t go down that path.

So, two lessons from this scene. The first: stay true to the theme of the story. Second: drama is about performance and direction as well as writing, and what ends up on screen can be quite different from what is on the page, even if all the words are exactly the same.

[Download screenplay for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan by Harve Bennett, with Jack B Sowards and Samuel A Peeples, here]

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Posted By Iain Coleman on September 20, 2009

I had some back trouble lately, which left me unable to do pretty much anything except sit up straight in front of the television. Not so good in terms of doing any kind of writing, but they say every problem is also an opportunity…

…so we finally got round to watching all four Alien movies back-to-back. Special Editions / Directors’ Cuts in all cases, naturally. And it was in the course of this that I came to a surprising realisation:

I don’t like Aliens.

Mainly it’s the script. It’s just so grimly efficient, like a C-list porn actress setting a gangbang record: sure, it gets the money shots, but it’s a joyless mechanical process devoid of meaning, emotion or humanity. The dialogue is so unremittingly on the nose, every word, every action serves only to set up the next plot point, bang bang bang bang bang THE END. The characters are stock types, and the “subtext” about Ripley dealing with the loss of her daughter is so heavily highlighted and triple-underlined that they might as well have a bloke wander on with a sandwich board reading RIPLEY IS TRYING TO CREATE A REPLACEMENT FAMILY. Compared to the understated realism of Dan O’Bannon’s characters in Alien, and the credibility of their fumbling, all-too-human attempts to come to terms with the truly alien, this seems crude and simplistic.

The acting is also inferior to the earlier film. Oh, Sigourney Weaver is as excellent as you would expect, but for the most part the actors around her fail to give any sense of their characters having an inner life beyond their scripted lines and actions. Admittedly they aren’t given much to work with, but here only Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen go beyond the “remember your lines and don’t trip over the furniture” school of performance.

But what is really surprising is how poor the special effects look. Yes, these things date, but the effects work in Alien still holds up thirty years on, while much of the later film looks plasticky and false. Fundamentally this is because Ridley Scott is just a better director than James Cameron, more skilled at disguising the limitations of model work and sound stages. Cameron’s film looked great in its day, but now its artificiality is all too often apparent, while Scott’s film continues to impress even after you’ve watched all the “making of” documentaries and know exactly how it was all done.

Look, I get that Cameron’s working in a different genre. He’s not making a horror film, he’s making a war movie. Specifically, a Vietnam war movie. But that’s no excuse for these failures. There are, after all, plenty of actual Vietnam war movies which manage to have credible dialogue, rounded characters, convincing special effects and genuine layers of subtext, allusion and meaning. Mainly they do this by being about real people in a real conflict. Watching Aliens, it’s hard to shake the suspicion that Cameron made this movie because if he had made the Vietnam movie he wanted to make with human enemies, rather than implacably nasty aliens, it would have come across as horribly racist.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on April 24, 2009

I’ve just received the printed copies of my most recent annual report, and flipping through it made me appreciate the importance of paragraphs in this kind of scientific writing.

A 66-page report like this isn’t really designed to be read all the way through like a novel. It’s for dipping in, seeing an interesting picture or an eye-catching heading, grazing on a few morsels of knowledge. In this case, well-structured paragraphs are absolutely critical.

Each paragraph should be as far as possible understandable on its own. It should open with some interesting piece of information that can also stand on its own, and should then develop that thought in more detail. I won’t claim that every paragraph in the whole report lives up to this ideal, but I think enough of them do.

It’s all about how we skim a page. We look for a visual hook - and a paragraph break is a very strong one - then we read the first line-and-a-half or so. If we’re sufficiently interested, we might continue reading: if not, we’ll scan on to another visual break and skim the top of it in the same way.

If your paragraph is well-formed, the reader will get something useful and interesting out of it whether they read it all in context, read it in isolation, or just skim the top. If you have enough paragraphs that work this way, even a long technical report will seem lively and interesting to the casual reader. If you don’t, then all your finely-wrought arguments will congeal like lukewarm porridge into one  indigestible lump.

You can have great sentences and great structure - but for scientific reports, the paragraph is king.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on April 14, 2009

There’s a useful repository of TV pilot scripts (British and American) at TV Writing Pilot School.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on March 13, 2009

If you put the name of any type of firearm into the search box on YouTube, you will almost certainly find a bunch of video clips of enthusiasts firing these weapons off. These are quite remarkably dull, but they can be an excellent tool for research. For example, I’ve just written an action scene in which our heroes have to defend themselves using rifles they have hired on Svalbard. A bit of googling established that these would be Mauser M98s (in a 30-06 calibre variant), but it was this video that gave me a clear idea of the use and limitations of this particular weapon. It’s good to get these details right, particularly when they constrain the characters’ actions, and thanks to the curious video posting practices of firearm enthusiasts you can now do it without having to so much as chamber a round.

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Posted By Iain Coleman on February 27, 2009

I sent three sample sketches off today to the new topical radio sketch show 7 on 7 (and thanks to Piers for the heads-up on the open call). It’s a kind of writing I’ve never done before. Sure, I’ve written and performed comedy sketches on stage, but there’s a whole extra discipline to topical skits. They don’t just need to be done to a deadline - you can’t even start them till the deadline’s nearly upon you, or the sketch will be out of date. I found myself scanning the news yesterday morning, searching for a story that would fit into the end of one of my sketches. I was immensly relieved to find something that worked, and leapt upon it hungry and slavering.

I guess regular writers of topical comedy must go through this routinely - the terrible worry that the news won’t give you any good material, the joy and relief when it does. At an intellectual level I’ve long known how demanding this kind of writing is, but now having done it my understanding is all the more visceral.

Whether the producers want to use my stuff or not is something I should find out next week. Whatever their decision, I feel I wrote some decent stuff - and at least I now know that I can do it under the real pressures of topical sketch writing.

(Of course, I must mention the important contribution of my lovely wife, who read one of my sketches, told me it wasn’t at all funny, and made me write something else instead in the wee hours of the morning.)

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