TIPS TO SCREENPLAY STORY WRITING



STORY/PLOT
A story is the series of casual events as they occur in chronological order, presumed duration and frequency. The relationships are directly implied as a cause and effect relationship; and a temporal relationship. The natural order of a story is for the events that constitute it to run from the beginning, through the middle, to the end.


The plot, on the other hand, is the order in which the story events [i.e. the event that constitutes the story] are presented in the work. The plot orders need not to be the natural order of beginningàmiddleàend. More often than not, it could be any of

Beginning-->end--> middle.
Middle-->end-->beginning
Middle-->beginning-->end
End-->middle-->beginning
End-->beginning-->middle

In other words, story events are juggled out of their chorological order. From the plot order, we can always work out the natural/story order.

In structuring story/plot, the critical areas of focus are causality, temporal relations, motivations, parallelism, and patterns of development.

Causality; the agents of cause and effect are;
[a] human characters.
[b] The supernatural [wizards/witches, vampires. God, as in ten commandment; gods as in ose sango]
[c] The natural [earthquakes, landslides, tidal waves as in volcano]
[d] Animals [jaws, King Kong]; and
[e] Social causes [as in one flew over the cuckoo’s nest and economic depressions; in the grapes of wrath].


THE NARRATIVE
The narrative occurs immediately before or after the dialogue. For practical purposes, we can define it as what the camera or audience sees-as opposed to what the camera/audience hears. Thus, the narrative is the description of the action, the setting and the character. The narrative is to the screen play what the stage direction is to stage play. The format of the narrative has been standardized.
1. The narrative is always written in present tense “as though the writer were describing an action that is actually taking place”.
2. Phrases/incomplete sentences may be used in the narrative. In fiction writing, the writer can be as discursive and prolix as he desires. He can afford to characterize action by use of similes, tropes and poetic comparisons. But in screen play writing, the purpose of description is not to give reading pleasure but to impact information. There fore, all descriptions must be absolutely direct. The narrative should be brief and to the point; it needs not be a complete sentences.
3. The narrative should be confined to only what appeals to the eye not the ear or the mind. Whatever the camera cannot record has no place within the narrative. Thus, whereas the playwright in writing his directions could go into his character’s mind only where it is possible for such thoughts to be shown on the screen.
4. A character making his/her first appearance in the narrative should be briefly described. Such a description should of course, tap on his/her physical appearance and his character.


CHARACTERIZATION

We think of characters in a screen play in terms of their actions and the consequences of their actions, which is to say that we think of them as major or minor characters; as well developed or not. All this is from the point of view of the audience, i.e. when we encounter such characters on the screen. A different situation arises when the screen play writer builds up or packages the characters in his play. True action and character become indistinguishable, meaning, that for all practical purposes, the best way he can portray character is by illustrative action. However, he works essentially with character traits. When such traits are put in a cause-effect relationship with illustrative or revealing actions, a real and interesting character is born, a character with whom the audience can empathize.

The screen character is an aggregate of three broad traits; body, voice and motivation.
BODY VOICE MOTIVATION

Control accent age
Costume intensity education
Facial expressions pitch environment
Gestures range ethnic background
Hair style rhythm expertise
Make up singing habits handicaps
Walk speaking habits illness
Tempo physical size
Timbre religion
Self image

DIALOGUE
A writer should write a scene as the camera’s eye or audience will see it.

Every dialogue on the screen must do at least one of the following;
1 presents an immediate problem
2 reveal character
3 advance the plot and
4 provide exposition


SETTING
Setting has been graphically defined as a container for the action, which is to say that the story, the characters, their dialogue do not occur in a void. They occur in [specific] places, in a setting.
On the screen or stage, setting becomes much more than a mere container for the action. It becomes an indistinguishable part of the action. The human being is all important in the theatre. The drama on the screen can exist without actors. A banging door, a leaf in the wind, waves beating on a sea shore, can heighten the dramatic effect. Some film masterpiece use man only as an accessory, like an extra, or in counterpoint to nature, which is the true leading character

FUNCTION OF PLACE/SETTING;
Placed setting has four important functions;

[a] lends credibility to the story
[b] Creates the proper mood and atmosphere.
[c] Reinforces the significance of whatever is being said/done

In the film adaptation of Shakespeare’s merchant of Venice, Anthony and shylock contract of a pound of flesh is played out against a busy row of butchers’ stalls. The impact was simply stunning.
[d] Setting can be used to create props, perhaps the best example of this remains the murder scene in psycho, the shower curtain is at first an innocuous part of the setting but it serves as a scene for the murderer and as a wrap for the victim’s body.

UGWUJA GEORGE
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