July 2004 Edition

Begin with a Badda Boom!
"I call this the "Badda Boom". You must "Badda Boom" the audience right away and the clock is tick, tick, ticking. Women, with a 300 channel wireless cable remote, coursing through their digital cable systems possesses a less than 10 second attention span. Guys have 2.3 nano seconds. Take notes! If one page of screenplay equals one minute of run time, then lines 1 through 10 on the first page is going to represent the first 1/8th to 2/8th or 7 1/2 to 10 seconds of real screen time. Write something that hooks the viewer into staying a little longer…. 15 seconds…30seconds… like maybe until the first commercial break. Check out your script. Read it now. READ IT! I bet on line 6 or 7 of your very first page your still describing the weather, or your WGA registration number. Remember the remote clicker. Cut the fluff, "Badda Boom" to the Chase and Conquer!

Start Your Engines
Get unstuck and start your engines. The over description snail pacing crap has to go bye-bye. SAY GOOD BYE! Keep it short and go for the glory, or the severed head, legs, rolling eyeball bouncing down the stairs. No one really cares about the wood type of the flooring or the colors of the rainbow. Some description is very important for texture, setting and mood. Too much can kill the moment, kill your story. Your goal is keep the script pages turning and the viewer in place.

Turn, Turn, Turn
You hooked a live one, REAL THEM IN! 30 seconds, the clock is counting down, now it's turn, turn, turn. What happens in the middle of the page is of course important but not as important as what happens at the end. You have to get the viewer / reader to turn the page. It's time to re-bait the hook, and give them a little something-something or as you kids say, bling bling. How about this: The bouncing eye bounces from the stairs, rounding a corner. Off screen we hear a squish. Want to know what, where's and who squished? Turn the page.

Your in Gear
You have a page turn, not a turner, and even though your audience is in gear, at any time
the story can cluck out, forcing them off to an early exit and back onto the clicker expressway. Start the process over. Shift into second, punch into third, and glide it into fourth. What's with all the Power Shifting? It's the story. It's the roller coasting curve twister that's taking the reader through all the up's and downs, round-de-rounds, and screaming fast hairpin turns. Every good story has those elements that introduce, complicate, and resolve. Keep the scenes short and to the point. The scene intro is the first gear. Second gear is the set up, third is the complication that always clicks in at an igniting event (the moment of change). When it blows, and you'll feel it, glide into the resolution (fourth gear) and get out of the scene. GET OUT NOW! Keep those scenes short (no more than 3 1/2 to 4 pages max), to the point and keep shifting.

Now fill your self up with some badda booms, stick your butt in a chair and start your engines. Writing fundamentals are easy, it's crossing the finish line in one piece that's tough!