"The singular image is what haunts us and becomes art"
Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
About six months ago I received a screenplay from a first time writer. It was sent to me by an agent with whom I consult.
He said that although he liked this comedy-drama, something was wrong with the script. He couldn't put his finger on the exact problem. He wanted to know what I thought. It was an easy script to get into; I could see why he thought it had potential. I found myself enjoying the read.
However, about half way through, it began to dawn on me what the problem was. Although the writing was delightful, I was no longer liking the heroine. I knew that this was a serious problem -- I mean you really need to like your protagonist. So I thought about the character. I realized that I had liked her (at first) because she was quirky and fresh and especially because she was uncompromising. She wouldn't sell out.
But then she did.
Her change of heart was subtle and her transition was camouflaged in nuggets of comedy but it happened nevertheless. And even though everything turned out well in the end, I knew that readers would have been disenchanted with her for almost 1/2 of the script; much too long! On a conscious or unconscious level our heroine would not have been forgiven. This would definitely affect the viability of this script.
I believe that many "experts" would have put this script in the out-box proclaiming that "it just didn't work." (This happens all the time). But I knew that this script was promising. In fact it only needed one fix -- one that was simple but yet profound -- she (the character) would have to find a way to tell us, at the time of her moral departure, that she needed to "play the game" (i.e. compromise) but that she still was very much who she always was.
The writer took the note. Now, when she "sells out", the reader feels like a co-conspirator. The script works.
Another script featured a fairly shaky premise.
Without spilling the beans, suffice to say that it was vaguely like that Robert Redford movie where he offers some poor guy a million bucks to sleep with his wife (not my favorite kind of idea). But guess what, after the setup (in act one), this script was stunningly effective.
But what to do? The premise itself was faulty. And because of this, the characters never really recovered from being tainted by a seemingly unworthy situation. How do you salvage an otherwise solid project? Would you declare it DOA? Some would. But what a waste.
I viewed this as a fairly familiar problem, one that writers and producers face all the time. How can you take a high concept notion which has a flaw and stretch it enough to serve as a worthy catalyst for an otherwise effective script?
The remedy was just that -- maximize the feasibility of the premise and invent sympathetic justification for the characters involved in this situation. (We needed to like them). The majority of my notes concentrated on "finessing" the original premise, actually the first 15 pages.
To be honest there was no perfect way to do it, but knowing that up front saved us a lot of struggle. Our energy was saved for what could be done. The notes helped the writer push the project "over the finish line" --it became very submitable. It was a good piece of surgical and strategic script-tweaking.
Another script also had real potential but the writer had sloppy work habits. It was very hard to read. She employed a kind of stylistic short-hand, thus the script was littered with things that were irritating to read and also confusing. The script would not have sold.
I could see that there was something of real value in her work obscured by what I considered to be more of a clerical problem than a problem with "art." So, in addition to a phone conference, I gave her very detailed notes (on audio tape; page by page). Cleaning up the script was an absolute necessity because I knew that every time someone has to stop reading in order to figure out something logistical, the magic is compromised.
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