ENL 420: Creative Writing Workshop: Scriptwriting

CHARACTER – the Cheatsheet

The Art of Fiction – Henry James

The wise student will read all of James’ essay, and where you see “novel’ read “story” or “film.”

The characters, the situation, which strike one as real will be those that touch and interest one most, but the measure of reality is very difficult to fix. The reality of Don Quixote or of Mr. Micawber is a very delicate shade; it is a reality so coloured by the author's vision that, vivid as it may be, one would hesitate to propose it as a model; one would expose one's self to some very embarrassing questions on the part of a pupil. It goes without saying that you will not write a good novel unless you possess the sense of reality; but it will be difficult to give you a recipe for calling that sense into being. Humanity is immense and reality has a myriad forms; the most one can affirm is that some of the flowers of fiction have the odour of it, and others have not; as for telling you in advance how your nosegay should be composed, that is another affair. It is equally excellent and inconclusive to say that one must write from experience; to our supposititious aspirant such a declaration might savour of mockery. What kind of experience is intended, and where does it begin and end? Experience is never limited and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web, of the finest silken threads, suspended in the chamber of consciousness and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative--much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius--it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations….

The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life, in general, so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it--this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur in country and in town, and in the most differing stages of education. If experience consists of impressions, it may be said that impressions are experience, just as (have we not seen it?) they are the very air we breathe. Therefore, if I should certainly say to a novice, "Write from experience, and experience only," I should feel that this was a rather tantalising monition if I were not careful immediately to add, "Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!"

Does James believe you should “write what you know.”

We will discuss Field pp. 43-73.

Come to class with questions and insights.

How Characters React to Incident

Victimization
Denial
Passive aggression
Aggression

How Characters Are Illuminated

Gesture
Dialog
Action

We will practice all three modes of characterization.

Gesture:

Check out these two scenes, both from To Have and Have Not, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway, screenplay by William Faulkner, directed by Howard Hawks.

The first moment is almost free of dialog. What do you know about the characters and how do you know it?

Dialog:

Structurally, usually within the first 15-20minutes of a script, in act 1 of any play, a character should make an unequivocal statement of what they want. The do not have to be right—but the audience needs to know what makes them go forward.

Macbeth, 1, vii

Macbeth is reconsidering his plan to murder Duncan and tells his wife he is getting cold feet.

Macb. We will proceed no further in this business. / 32
He hath honour’d me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon. / 36
Lady M. Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time / 40
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, / 44
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,”
Like the poor cat i’ the adage?8
Macb.Prithee, peace! / 48
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
Lady M. What beast was’t, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me? / 52
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere,9 and yet you would make both. / 56
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me;
I would, while it was smiling in my face, / 60
Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums
And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.
Macb. If we should fail? / 64
Lady M. We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail.

Treat yourself: Turn Shakespeare’s dialog into modern speech.

How would you direct this moment to include gestures? What would they be?

Unequivocal Statements

Scarlet O’Hara has barely survived the devastation of the South:

Terry is a nobody with a one-way ticket to Palookaville; his brother, Charley, is a hoodlum. This is On the Waterfront, and note how the dialog reveals character and how the scene takes place in a single, enclosed space. Why is this dramatic?

What does Dorothy want? What must she do to get it? What does she learn from her journey?

What does Liza Doolittle want? What must she do to get it? What does she learn from her experience?

Action:

What does Achilles want?

What does Odysseus want?

How do we know?

Change:

About Schmidt:

Tootsie:

Pulp Fiction: