Alexandra Sokoloff's Blog - Posts Tagged "editing"
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors: THE MASTER LIST
by Alexandra Sokoloff
I’m very excited to be teaching one of the writing Master Classes for the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival next month, along with the brilliant Denise Mina, one of my all-time favorite authors and a major inspiration for my Huntress Moon thrillers.
I always like to give my workshop students some optional homework in the weeks before classes, so that we get the most out of our workshop time – and also so that those of you who can’t make the workshop can play along at home!
What I teach in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshops is basic film story structure: the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence structure.
USC film school teaches it, the screenwriting story structure gurus teach it, all film execs and producers are aware of it even if it’s only in a vague way, and even screenwriters who claim not to follow this structure pattern do it to some extent or another. And it translates beautifully to novel writing. Not only does it make writing novels much easier – this is a rhythm of storytelling that readers (and audiences) are so used to that if you aren't using it to your advantage, they’re going to feel like something’s missing! You don’t want that to happen.
But I want my students to analyze examples that are meaningful to them, so the first assignment I give my workshop students is THE MASTER LIST: a list of ten novels and films that are specific to the story and genre you’re working on, and more importantly, that have had the maximum emotional and intellectual effect on you.
> ASSIGNMENT: List ten books and films that are similar to your own story in structure and/or genre (at least five books and three movies if you’re writing a book, at least five movies if you’re writing a script.).
Or if you’re trying to decide on the right project for you to work on, then make a list of ten books and films that you wish you had written!
And you people who feel like you’ve done this for me already – remember that it’s good practice to make a master list for every new project you’re working on! Your lists will be different for different books.
It’s very simple: in order to write stories like the ones that move you, you need to look at the stories that affect you and figure out what those authors and filmmakers are doing to get the effect they do.
Every genre has its own structural patterns and its own tricks. Screenwriter Ryan Rowe says it perfectly: “Every genre has its own game that it’s playing with the audience.”
For example, with a mystery, the game is “Whodunit?” You are going to toy with a reader or audience’s expectations and lead them down all kinds of false paths with red herrings so that they are constantly in the shoes of the hero/ine, trying to figure the puzzle out.
But with a romantic comedy or classic romance, there’s no mystery involved. 99.99% of the time the hero and heroine are going to end up together. The game in that genre is often to show, through the hero and heroine, how we are almost always our own worst enemies in love, and how we throw up all kinds of obstacles in our own paths to keep ourselves from getting what we want.
So if you’re writing a story like It’s A Wonderful Life, it’s not going to help you much to study Apocalypse Now. A story that ends with a fallen hero/ine is not going to have the same story shape as one that ends with a transcended hero/ine. (Although if both kinds of films end up on your list of favorite stories, you might find one is the other in reverse. That’s why you need to make your own lists!)
Once you start looking at the games that genres play, you will also start to understand the games that you most love, and that you want to play with your readers and audience.
I’m primarily a thriller writer, and my personal favorite game is: “Is it supernatural or is it psychological?” I love to walk the line between the real and unreal, so I am constantly creating story situations in which there are multiple plausible explanations for the weird stuff that’s going on, including mental illness, drug-induced hallucinations, and outright fraud. That’s why my master list for any book or script I write will almost always include The Haunting of Hill House and The Shining, both classic books (and films) that walk the line between the supernatural and the psychological.
But what works for me structurally is not necessarily going to do it for you.
If you take the time to study and analyze the books and films that have had the greatest impact on you, personally, or that are structurally similar to the story you’re writing, or both, that’s when you really start to master your craft. Making the lists and analyzing those stories will help you brainstorm your own unique versions of scenes and meta-structures that work in the stories on your master list; it will help you figure out how your particular story will work. And doing this analysis will embed story structure in your head so that constructing a story becomes a fun and natural process for you.
Another great benefit of making the master list is that it helps you “brand” yourself as an author. Agents, editors, publishing houses, publicists, sales reps, bookstores, reviewers, media interviewers, librarians, and most importantly, your readers — all of these people want to be able to categorize you and your books. You need to be able to tell all of these people exactly what it is you write, what it’s similar to, and why it’s also unique. That’s part of your job as a professional author.
Remember, the list isn’t written in stone! You can change anything on it at any time. And honestly, when you’re doing these lists, it’s often most useful to write the first ten films and books that come to mind. Doing it fast and without thinking about it too consciously might show you something you never realized about what you’re writing.
And I encourage you to splurge on a nice big beautiful notebook to work in. We writers live so much in our heads it’s important to give ourselves toys and rewards to make the work feel less like work, and also to cut down on the drinking.
Do your list, and share it in the comments if you feel like it – next post we’ll be analyzing the lists!
- Alex
All the material from my workshops and on this blog, and much much more is available in my workbooks: $3.99 ebook, $14.99 print textbook:
Print book US
Print book all countries
e book
Enter to win a copy of the book!
You can sign up for my mailing list to get free breakdowns of The Silence of the Lambs, The Wizard of Oz, Chinatown, and other classic movies as I analyze them for my students and blog readers.
I’m very excited to be teaching one of the writing Master Classes for the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival next month, along with the brilliant Denise Mina, one of my all-time favorite authors and a major inspiration for my Huntress Moon thrillers.
I always like to give my workshop students some optional homework in the weeks before classes, so that we get the most out of our workshop time – and also so that those of you who can’t make the workshop can play along at home!
What I teach in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshops is basic film story structure: the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence structure.
USC film school teaches it, the screenwriting story structure gurus teach it, all film execs and producers are aware of it even if it’s only in a vague way, and even screenwriters who claim not to follow this structure pattern do it to some extent or another. And it translates beautifully to novel writing. Not only does it make writing novels much easier – this is a rhythm of storytelling that readers (and audiences) are so used to that if you aren't using it to your advantage, they’re going to feel like something’s missing! You don’t want that to happen.
But I want my students to analyze examples that are meaningful to them, so the first assignment I give my workshop students is THE MASTER LIST: a list of ten novels and films that are specific to the story and genre you’re working on, and more importantly, that have had the maximum emotional and intellectual effect on you.
> ASSIGNMENT: List ten books and films that are similar to your own story in structure and/or genre (at least five books and three movies if you’re writing a book, at least five movies if you’re writing a script.).
Or if you’re trying to decide on the right project for you to work on, then make a list of ten books and films that you wish you had written!
And you people who feel like you’ve done this for me already – remember that it’s good practice to make a master list for every new project you’re working on! Your lists will be different for different books.
It’s very simple: in order to write stories like the ones that move you, you need to look at the stories that affect you and figure out what those authors and filmmakers are doing to get the effect they do.
Every genre has its own structural patterns and its own tricks. Screenwriter Ryan Rowe says it perfectly: “Every genre has its own game that it’s playing with the audience.”
For example, with a mystery, the game is “Whodunit?” You are going to toy with a reader or audience’s expectations and lead them down all kinds of false paths with red herrings so that they are constantly in the shoes of the hero/ine, trying to figure the puzzle out.
But with a romantic comedy or classic romance, there’s no mystery involved. 99.99% of the time the hero and heroine are going to end up together. The game in that genre is often to show, through the hero and heroine, how we are almost always our own worst enemies in love, and how we throw up all kinds of obstacles in our own paths to keep ourselves from getting what we want.
So if you’re writing a story like It’s A Wonderful Life, it’s not going to help you much to study Apocalypse Now. A story that ends with a fallen hero/ine is not going to have the same story shape as one that ends with a transcended hero/ine. (Although if both kinds of films end up on your list of favorite stories, you might find one is the other in reverse. That’s why you need to make your own lists!)
Once you start looking at the games that genres play, you will also start to understand the games that you most love, and that you want to play with your readers and audience.
I’m primarily a thriller writer, and my personal favorite game is: “Is it supernatural or is it psychological?” I love to walk the line between the real and unreal, so I am constantly creating story situations in which there are multiple plausible explanations for the weird stuff that’s going on, including mental illness, drug-induced hallucinations, and outright fraud. That’s why my master list for any book or script I write will almost always include The Haunting of Hill House and The Shining, both classic books (and films) that walk the line between the supernatural and the psychological.
But what works for me structurally is not necessarily going to do it for you.
If you take the time to study and analyze the books and films that have had the greatest impact on you, personally, or that are structurally similar to the story you’re writing, or both, that’s when you really start to master your craft. Making the lists and analyzing those stories will help you brainstorm your own unique versions of scenes and meta-structures that work in the stories on your master list; it will help you figure out how your particular story will work. And doing this analysis will embed story structure in your head so that constructing a story becomes a fun and natural process for you.
Another great benefit of making the master list is that it helps you “brand” yourself as an author. Agents, editors, publishing houses, publicists, sales reps, bookstores, reviewers, media interviewers, librarians, and most importantly, your readers — all of these people want to be able to categorize you and your books. You need to be able to tell all of these people exactly what it is you write, what it’s similar to, and why it’s also unique. That’s part of your job as a professional author.
Remember, the list isn’t written in stone! You can change anything on it at any time. And honestly, when you’re doing these lists, it’s often most useful to write the first ten films and books that come to mind. Doing it fast and without thinking about it too consciously might show you something you never realized about what you’re writing.
And I encourage you to splurge on a nice big beautiful notebook to work in. We writers live so much in our heads it’s important to give ourselves toys and rewards to make the work feel less like work, and also to cut down on the drinking.
Do your list, and share it in the comments if you feel like it – next post we’ll be analyzing the lists!
- Alex
All the material from my workshops and on this blog, and much much more is available in my workbooks: $3.99 ebook, $14.99 print textbook:
Print book USPrint book all countries
e book
Enter to win a copy of the book!
You can sign up for my mailing list to get free breakdowns of The Silence of the Lambs, The Wizard of Oz, Chinatown, and other classic movies as I analyze them for my students and blog readers.
First Chapters
First Chapters are a very fraught subject. Writers agonize over them. I don’t have to tell you! The pressure is enormous, isn’t it? The first chapter sells your submission and it sells your book once it’s published. It carries the whole weight of the book with it. It has to convey mood, tone, genre, foreshadowing, stakes, urgency, main character need and desire, setting, theme (especially, especially, especially theme) and the absolute sense that this is a journey that we want to take. And a dozen other things beyond that. (Note that I didn't mention "a great first line." I am not one of the cult of the first line.)
So how do we approach writing—or rewriting one?
(And if you’re writing a script, same advice goes, throughout this post.)
The best advice I can give you here is: Don’t sweat this one on a first draft. Or even maybe on the second.
Seriously.
Despite that scene we’ve all seen in practically any Hollywood movie with a writer character in it, there is no law that says you have to start your book by sitting down at your keyboard, cracking your knuckles, and typing “Chapter One.”
Your opening chapter might be the last thing you end up writing. You may be reading a first of second or third draft and find a chapter halfway through the book that you realize needs to go first.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be thinking about it, keeping it cooking on the back burner. And maybe you’re down to the wire and need some inspiration.
So here’s an exercise to help.
I’m sure you all have TBR (“to be read”) piles. Around our house these are worse than average, because we’re a two-author household. We both have hundreds of books on our Kindles for our own research and pleasure, but we also get sent tons of physical books to blurb by publishers and friends, and to add to the chaos Craig programs two book festivals and consults on others—so you can only imagine the submissions by panel hopefuls! When I was a full-time screenwriter, I had similar stacks of scripts.
So make use of these treasures!
1. Take 10 books from your TBR pile or shelf that you might feel like reading. Read just the opening chapter of each. Separate them into piles, kind of like with Marie Kondo:
-- Not grabbing me.
-- Interesting, I could go further.
-- Never mind the homework, I’m reading THIS one. Now go away.
2. Make a list of the books in that third pile, and then add first chapters by your own favorite authors that just turn you inside out. Keep listing until you have a Master List of ten books.
There is no question that reading a bunch of — well, anything — in a row gives you a good idea of what to do and not to do in executing that particular thing. But it’s doing the next work that will really get you far.
Read more here
From Screenwriting Tricks for Authors:
Stealing Hollywood: Story Structure Secrets for Writing Your Best Book
So how do we approach writing—or rewriting one?
(And if you’re writing a script, same advice goes, throughout this post.)
The best advice I can give you here is: Don’t sweat this one on a first draft. Or even maybe on the second.
Seriously.
Despite that scene we’ve all seen in practically any Hollywood movie with a writer character in it, there is no law that says you have to start your book by sitting down at your keyboard, cracking your knuckles, and typing “Chapter One.”
Your opening chapter might be the last thing you end up writing. You may be reading a first of second or third draft and find a chapter halfway through the book that you realize needs to go first.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be thinking about it, keeping it cooking on the back burner. And maybe you’re down to the wire and need some inspiration.
So here’s an exercise to help.
I’m sure you all have TBR (“to be read”) piles. Around our house these are worse than average, because we’re a two-author household. We both have hundreds of books on our Kindles for our own research and pleasure, but we also get sent tons of physical books to blurb by publishers and friends, and to add to the chaos Craig programs two book festivals and consults on others—so you can only imagine the submissions by panel hopefuls! When I was a full-time screenwriter, I had similar stacks of scripts.
So make use of these treasures!
1. Take 10 books from your TBR pile or shelf that you might feel like reading. Read just the opening chapter of each. Separate them into piles, kind of like with Marie Kondo:
-- Not grabbing me.
-- Interesting, I could go further.
-- Never mind the homework, I’m reading THIS one. Now go away.
2. Make a list of the books in that third pile, and then add first chapters by your own favorite authors that just turn you inside out. Keep listing until you have a Master List of ten books.
There is no question that reading a bunch of — well, anything — in a row gives you a good idea of what to do and not to do in executing that particular thing. But it’s doing the next work that will really get you far.
Read more here
From Screenwriting Tricks for Authors:
Stealing Hollywood: Story Structure Secrets for Writing Your Best Book
