Fiction Writer's Workshop (18 page)

It's hard for me to understand why screenplays aren't studied as great literature. It's as if the act of creating the movie, of putting it on celluloid, flipped some switch that took the screenplay itself out of commission. Read the best screenplays of the century—
Mildred Pierce, Chinatown, The Big Sleep, Citizen Kane
(make your own list, but read the ones on it)—and go figure what makes them so different in value from great fiction. Many of the best fiction writers of the last seventy-five years spent some part of their careers writing movies. William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman wrote them. Today writers such as Paul Auster are doing some of their best work in screenplay form. And many young directors think of themselves as writers first. So what are you? Too good for that lower form? Hey. You're a writer. Writers read. Wouldn't you read candy wrappers if you thought there was a story in it? I sure would. (I just checked a Powerhouse though. No story as of yet.) So if you haven't already, you should read a movie. Not see a movie. Not rent a movie.
Read
one.

And screenplays are hellacious things, designed to suggest rather than determine the interpretation of a scene, to call up the imagination of the reader (primary reader: the producer and director, rather than you or me) to provide a minimal framework upon which the actor (another designated reader) creates character. Look at that—suggestion, imagination, minimalism and character. That stuff is right up the good fiction writer's dialogue alley.

What to Expect When You Read a Movie

Read a good novel and the screenplay of the movie made from it at the same time. Look at specific moments that are common to each. Look, preferably, for a movie like
The Player,
which was adapted by Michael Tolkin from a novel he wrote. As you're reading, try to answer certain key questions: How does the screenwriter work differently to elicit tension from a scene than the novelist would? What does the extra attention to scenic detail, to voice, to internal narration add to the dialogue of the novel? What does the sheer economy and straightforward quality of the screenplay offer the same scene? If we assume the novel is the point of origin, what is lost in translation into screenplay?

If we examine a key scene from Tolkin's
The Player,
we begin to see some answers.
The Player
is the story of Griffin Mill, a top studio executive struggling to save his job in the cutthroat movie business. It's his job to decide which movies get made and which don't for his studio. He is reviled by the writers who "pitch" stories at him throughout the day and envied by those around him. The book, and the movie made from it, is a dark, sardonic look at the world of Hollywood executives. At the start of the story, Mill is receiving anonymous postcards from a disgruntled writer. Caught in the middle of a change of power at work, in danger of losing his job, his standing in the industry, Mill feels threatened by the postcards and paws through his daily planner to find the writer who might be behind the mysterious messages. From the dozens of possibilities, he settles on David

Kahane, with whom he canceled an appointment and never made a follow-up call. He goes to get a look at Kahane, whose idea he can't remember, at a movie theater in Pasadena. Kahane is surprised and somewhat threatened that Mill has tracked him down after all these months. He agrees to have a drink with Mill at a karaoke bar.

The dialogue below is taken from the scene in the bar. It is interesting to compare the novelist's treatment of this scene and the screenwriter's, particularly because in this case the two are one in the same: Michael Tolkin.

"Have you ever been to Japan?" asked Kahane.

"No, actually." Why actually?

"I lived there for a year. I was a foreign exchange student when I was in high school."

"It must have been fun."

"It was. I think about it all the time."

"Have you written about it?"

"No, I told you. You were right, I decided it would have made a good script, but who would care?" No wonder Kahane hated Griffin. The hatred was deserved. He had pitched a story that came from his life, and Griffin had dismissed it. Griffin wanted to defend himself, if the story was so good Kahane should have written it, anyway.

When the waitress brought the drinks, Griffin reached for his wallet for cash instead of a credit card, so Kahane wouldn't think he was generous only with the studio's money, but she wasn't asking for money yet. He fumbled with his wallet and hoped that Kahane hadn't noticed the awkward gesture. Kahane drank his beer and watched the room. Griffin couldn't tell if Kahane also knew that Griffin had forgotten the story. Was he thinking, Why did I let this stranger tell me my life's best story wasn't worth writing about? Kahane turned to him.

"You called my home at seven o'clock. You couldn't have seen the whole movie. You came to the theater looking for me. I called home when I got to the theater. I thought I'd lost my briefcase, but it was in my car. I wanted to let my girlfriend know, so she'd stop looking for it. Why did you call? What are you doing here?"

"I'm apologizing."

"For what? All your shitty movies?" "I said I'd get back to you."

"If I believed everyone in Hollywood who says that, I'd be crazy."

Now read that comparable scene from the movie. Notice the differences in setting and pace. But notice too how much higher the tension is when it's revealed that Griffin does not remember the idea Kahane had pitched him.

INTERIOR: KARAOKE BAR, NIGHT

GRIFFIN and KAHANE are at a table. There are Asian men in suits, a slew of hostesses and a karaoke machine. A drunk Japanese man holds a microphone and sings.

KAHANE You ever been to Japan?

GRIFFIN

Yeah, once, on a location scout with Stephen . . . Spielberg.

KAHANE

I lived there for a year. Student year abroad.

GRIFFIN Great. I wish, I wish I'd done that.

KAHANE

I think about it a lot. I'll never forget it.

GRIFFIN You should write about it.

KAHANE I did. Don't you remember?

GRIFFIN

What?
The drinks arrive.

KAHANE

Aregato.
My idea. About an American student who

goes to Japan. That was my pitch. The one you were supposed to get back to me on.

GRIFFIN is confused.

KAHANE

You don't remember, do you?

The song is over. GRIFFIN applauds briefly.

GRIFFIN Of course, I remember.

KAHANE You never got back to me.

GRIFFIN

Listen, I was an asshole, all right? It comes with the job. I'm sorry. I really am. I know how angry it must have made you. I'll make it up to you, that's what I'm here for. I'm gonna give you a deal, David. I'm not going to guarantee I'll make the movie, but I'm gonna give you a shot. Let's just stop all this postcard shit, all right? I'm here to say that I would like to start over. Friends?

GRIFFIN offers him his hand, but KAHANE doesn't shake. KAHANE watches him, and finally GRIFFIN puts his hand down without saying a word.

KAHANE Fuck you, Mill. You're a liar.

GRIFFIN You're stepping over the line, David.

KAHANE

You didn't come out here to see
The Bicycle Thief.
You came in five minutes before the picture ended. You nearly tripped over my feet. What'd you do, call my house? Speak to the ice queen? You'd like her, Mill. She's a lot like you. All heart. You're on my list, pal, and nothing's going to change that.

KAHANE gets up and walks.

KAHANE See you in the next reel, asshole.

KAHANE leaves.

It's senseless to compare the dialogues if all you're trying to do is decide which one is better. Again, donuts and bagels. Examine each one to discover differences between the needs of the form.
The Player
is a good book and a fine movie. You decide which you like better. My point here is that as a writer, you should be watching how other writers deal with the same issues that concern you. In dialogue writing, these issues might be pace, believability, tension and tone.

The movie script works faster. It brings the entire meeting full circle within sixteen exchanges. The novel's dialogue might seem more languidly paced, but only by comparison. There, it takes three pages before Kahane reveals his anger and walks out of the bar. Not much time really, in a sense of what a novel is, but in "movie-think" pages equal minutes (literally one page of a screenplay equals one minute of screen time), that scene might take a lifetime. The screenplay is forced to reveal things through words that serve as exposition (Griffin's arrogance and tendency to name-drop is established in the second line; Kahane tells the audience that Griffin can't remember the pitch; the gesture of the handshake, along with the dialogue that precedes it, is a visible statement of Griffin's intent). I've been saying all along that exposition does not belong in dialogue, at least not in large doses. A good screenplay is invaluable in showing the fiction writer models for dealing with issues of exposition.

The dialogue from the novel, which ends in a parking lot outside the bar, in much the same sort of exchange (Griffin's apology, Kahane's angry retort) as the screenplay's treatment of the scene, is more prone to lean on the things that fiction does well. Griffin's character is revealed consistently throughout, in the narrative asides (in which his sympathies, his anger, his fears and his intent are brought into play). Very little of the tension between them, including the key piece—the fact that Griffin is hiding things from Kahane—needs to be stated by the characters themselves. To my mind, this is what makes fiction the superior form. We are able, even in this small snippet

from the book, to see Griffin as arrogant, but confused; somewhat mean, but likable. He is a complex character, rife with contradiction, struggling internally—the sort that doesn't populate the screens of many movies. And Tim Robbins, who plays Mill in the movie, struggles to make him stand as more than a bloodless hatchet man. His success is a matter of his work, the director's work, the cinematogra-pher, the editor, the lighting man, the wardrobe guy, the actors around him and dozens of others. My point here is not that it's better or worse; it's more like the words themselves bear less weight than they do in a novel. The words here are about interpretation and pace.

The obligation of the character's words is wholly different in a movie than it is in fiction. They should not be aped blindly, but studied, read and, when appropriate, admired for what they do well.

ANTS AND BEARS

One final word on these people: actors, directors, editors, producers, grips. Think about how they work. They are like a colony of ants. That's how they work. Ants—limitless in their numbers, each performing a task for the benefit of the colony, operating efficiently, with a sense of almost military precision, circling around a generally indifferent queen. Now, I admire ants greatly. But in general ants are

1. everywhere

2. hard to get rid of

3. important to the ecosystem.

That's truly the case with movie people. They are everywhere and our culture tends to champion them. But remember, fiction writers and screen writers alike:
You are the writer.
You are the bear. You work alone. You travel great distances. Bears are messy and dangerous. Bears are scary! You see many things. They—producers and the rest—they are ants. To them, what a bear does is fairly unimportant, though they do eat a bear's scat, so there is something to be said for their relationship. Remember! Bears are bigger, stronger and more awesome than ants (except when taken in toto). Don't get your sense of value from what movies can do. You are the bear! One bear can do so much more than one ant. Bears rock! Ants bring home the dead bees and make sure the tunnels are wide enough. They tend to be rich ants, true. But still—ants.

EXERCISES

1. Stand with another person. Set up a tape recorder on the table between you. Start feeding each other dialogue. "Hi, I'm home" kinda stuff. Do not set anything up. Not circumstance. Not tension. Not setting. Let the dialogue do the work. Each of you should be pretending you are in a television show. Find the tension. Deliver the setups. Hit the punch lines. On the other hand, speak quickly. Don't hesitate. If you give yourself five minutes, can you find a plot line? If so, back up and start over. Compress. Make the improvisation move toward the tension as fast as possible. If you are able to get to the tension faster, then work to compress it even more. Compare the first version, in which you were searching out a plot line, to the last version, in which the plot line was propelling the dialogue. Type them. Which sounds more natural? Examine the ways the tension and conflict are brought to bear more quickly in the final version.

2. Grab your clicker and turn on the box! Watch one channel until you hear one intelligible sentence. Write that down. Now, before you get into the show, change channels and listen again. Pick up another line. Click again. Write until you have ten separate sentences from ten separate channels. Now reread them. If you have time, put them away for a week or two, until you aren't clear which one came from which channel. Then take the list and, using these random lines as triggers, try to craft mini-scenes around each one. Start with the line you overheard. Strip away the original context and use the line as a starting point to build a new one. Work hard to make these news words suit the context and character you create. Even if you are using a line from a commercial for a butcher shop, try to use the line in a way that makes the words sound like someone speaking. Remember, tone is everything.