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Educational Track Meeting
by Lou Hirsh
(October 2000) |
If they have any hope of protecting their individual artistic visions, aspiring screenwriters need to sharpen those visions long before their work gets tossed into the creative Cuisinart known as Hollywood. Noted script consultant Dara Marks offered up some proven techniques at the Oct. 21 Educational Track meeting of Scriptwriters Network.
To tell a story that is truly their own, yet resonates with a large audience, Marks said scriptwriters must present their version of "truth" -- including the insecurities and uncertainties about their own lives -- and show those conflicts being confronted and resolved. The audience will be emotionally drawn into stories where characters demonstrate a dramatic change in the way they view themselves and the world around them.
Marks, who was ranked the number-one script consultant in a 1998 review by Creative Screenwriting magazine, said it is possible to stay within the structural rules of screenwriting while still crafting a story that is unique to the writer. To this end, Marks has developed "The Inner Script (TM)," a structural technique designed to help writers maintain the artistic integrity of their vision throughout the development of their story.
Marks' analysis focuses on what she perceives as a story's "organic" nature -- the idea that the story has a central source from which all structure naturally wants to grow. When a writer taps into this central source, Marks said, story choices are no longer random and arbitrary. They are intentional, and this paves the way for the writer to achieve the intended results.
"If you don't have the tools that give you the organic origins of your story, you'll have trouble arriving at something that meets some kind of creative vision," Marks told her audience. While Marks' technique works within the structural boundaries of screenplays, using the method means going beyond the structural mandates. "You have to remind yourself that if you just write to structure, you're just filling out a form," she said, adding that writers too often use explosions and car chases instead of real human conflicts to raise the dramatic stakes, resulting in cliched, formulaic story-telling.
Despite structural concerns, it is possible for anyone to tell a unique story that has never been told. "Somewhere deep in this story is a true connection to yourself," Marks said. And the writer does not have to come up with pat answers to the questions being raised, since the drama or comedy flows from the protagonist's struggle to find the answers.
By diagramming their story arcs, Marks demonstrated how her technique can be used to examine many successful movies, including Lethal Weapon, Romancing the Stone and When Harry Met Sally.
The main narrative story of a movie -- the "A" plot -- shows the protagonist's physical experiences in the world, and contains the call to action that drives the overall story. But what really makes audiences care about that central character, Marks said, is the "B" story, the "internal subplot" that contains the protagonist's fatal flaw, and reveals something in that person's life that needs to be healed. This storyline expresses the theme of the film, and what happens in the "B" story (in reaction to the outer world) is what gives viewers an emotional attachment to what is happening.
Most good movies also have a "C" story, which Marks said is a "relationship subplot" that reflects the "B" storyline by showing how the main character's fatal flaw is manifested in his or her interpersonal relationships, and ultimately how it's resolved.
These elements are well integrated into Lethal Weapon, Marks said. After losing his wife, the Mel Gibson police character is reckless and afraid to live, while the Danny Glover character, nearing retirement, is afraid to die and has become too cautious in his life and his work. The two must work through their states of mind and come together to solve the problem at hand -- dealing with an evil drug kingpin (the film's "A" plot). "Something thematic runs through that story," Marks said, adding that when writers stay focused on the central theme of their "B" story, it becomes "a potent tool for the rewriting process."
Characters in turmoil are more interesting than those who have things going smoothly for them, Marks said, so the screenwriter must look for the fatal flaw of character that is keeping the protagonist from moving toward an authentic nature. Viewers must witness a real transformation for a story to be compelling. Marks cited Don Juan DeMarco as an example of a good film that could have been better had the main character undergone a more dramatic change. As it was, the psychiatrist (played by Marlon Brando) learned from a patient the importance of having passion in his own life in order to be truly happy, but he was already a fairly happy and popular person at the start of the film. This left no place for the character to develop much further, Marks said.
Marks said writers can often be most creative in times when they don't have everything figured out, when their lives are in a state of flux. They can use this state of unease and unknowing to work conflict and drama into their writing. "We must honor this vision of ourselves that is extremely chaotic," she said.
By emphasizing the organic center of their work, Marks said writers can overcome creative roadblocks and come up with many stories to tell with equal passion. She said she often hears of writers who did one screenplay that got themselves and others excited, but later weren't able to "go back to the well" and re-access the same inspiration. "Anyone capable of brilliance once can do it again," Marks asserted.
Marks has worked with development executives at companies attached to film projects at Disney and Columbia, and now runs her own Ojai-based script consulting business. Well-versed in the work of Jung and Campbell, she has long been interested in the psychological underpinnings of classical and modern heroes, and is currently working on a Ph.D. in mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara.
Marks has been involved in script writing and analysis for the past two decades, and has taught clinics and workshops around the world on story development. As a development consultant, her credits included projects at Tetragram Productions for Disney, SunRae Productions for Columbia, and the independent film company The Westgate Group. Her advice has been sought on a wide variety of films and TV programs, including Girl, Interrupted, Sundance award-winner Picture Bride and the recently released Dreamworks animated feature Joseph.
Marks can be reached at dara@ojai.net, or at (805) 640-1307.
Network member Lou Hirsh is a former journalist currently working at a Los Angeles-based Internet company.
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