In David Mamet’s On Directing Film, he explains that a director’s job is to make a film by putting together a series of uninflected shots. Using straightforward images alone, you tell the story. He suggests that if you try to make a silent film, you should be able to make a great film because you’ll be forced to make sure each image you use means something, each shot furthers the scene.
Think about that. It’s a great guide for the visual storyteller—Comics very much included in that. Make sure every scene/image works toward telling your story.
On Directing Film was recommended to me by longtime Dark Horse Comics editors Randy Stradley and Scott Allie, and now I’m now recommending it to you. Throughout the book, Mamet outlines a logical breakdown of what makes visual storytelling work and how you can tell if what you’re doing works. It’s got Sherlock level deduction reasoning that continually stresses the idea that if you peel things back, if you boil them down to their basics, you can determine whether a scene works. Apply this to every scene, and you can see if your movie, or comic, works.
I love when you can pick apart a story, see how it works, and understand how each individual piece of the puzzle contributes to the whole. And I especially love when a smart guy like Mamet explains how you can better that skill. It’s like a course of detective work, but investigation and understanding as it relates to stories instead of crime. It’s something that I think every writer can apply to his or her own work, and something that I think every editor should apply to each book. Break it down, peel it back, and look at the basics. Do they work?
A while back, Randy Stradley sent around a letter that David Mamet sent to his writing staff on The Unit. It’s a fantastic read that insists that his writers ask themselves some basic questions about each scene they write. He provides, as he calls it, a litmus test for a dramatic scene. That test is something I keep on hand now and apply to scenes as I edit.
To the writers of The Unit
Greetings.
As we learn how to write this show, a recurring problem becomes clear. The problem is this: to differentiate between *drama* and non-drama. Let me break-it-down-now.
Everyone in creation is screaming at us to make the show clear. We are tasked with, it seems, cramming a shitload of *information* into a little bit of time.
Our friends, the Penguins, think that we, therefore, are employed to communicate *information* — and, so, at times, it seems to us. But note: the audience will not tune in to watch information. You wouldn’t, I wouldn’t. No one would or will. The audience will only tune in and stay tuned to watch drama.
Question: What is drama? Drama, again, is the quest of the hero to overcome those things which prevent him from achieving a specific, *acute* goal.
So: we, the writers, must ask ourselves *of every scene* these three questions.
1) Who wants what?
2) What happens if her don’t get it?
3) Why now?The answers to these questions are litmus paper. Apply them, and their answer will tell you if the scene is dramatic or not. If the scene is not dramatically written, it will not be dramatically acted. There is no magic fairy dust which will make a boring, useless, redundant, or merely informative scene dramatic after it leaves your typewriter.
*You* the writers, are in charge of making sure *every* scene is dramatic.
This means all the “little” expositional scenes of two people talking about a third, this bushwah (and we all tend to write it on the first draft), is less than useless, should it finally, god forbid, get filmed.
If the scene bores you when you read it, rest assured it *will* bore the actors, and will, then, bore the audience, and we’re all going to be back in the breadline.Someone has to make the scene dramatic. It is not the actors job (the actors job is to be truthful). It is not the director’s job. His or her job is to film it straightforwardly and remind the actors to talk fast. It is *your* job.
Every scene must be dramatic. That means: the main character must have a simple, straightforward, pressing need which impels him or her to show up in the scene.
This need is why they *came*. It is what the scene is about. Their attempt to get this need met *will* lead, at the end of the scene,to *failure* – this is how the scene is *over*. It, this failure, will, then, of necessity, propel us into the *next* scene.
All these attempts, taken together, will, over the course of the episode, constitute the *plot*.
Any scene, thus, which does not both advance the plot, and standalone (that is, dramatically, by itself, on its own merits) is either superfluous, or incorrectly written.
Yes but yes but yes but, you say: What about the necessity of writing in all that “information?”
And I respond “*figure it out.*” Any dickhead with a blue suit can be (and is) taught to say “make it clearer,” and “I want to know more *about* him.”
When you’ve made it so clear that even this blue-suited Penguin is happy, both you and he or she *will* be out of a job.
The job of the dramatist is to make the audience wonder what happens next — *not* to explain to them what just happened, or to*suggest* to them what happens next. Any dickhead, as above, can write, “But, Jim, if we don’t assassinate the prime minister in the next scene, all Europe will be engulfed in flame.”
We are not getting paid to *realize* that the audience needs this information to understand the next scene, but to figure out how to write the scene before us such that the audience will be interested in what happens next.
Yes but, yes but yes *but* you reiterate.
And I respond *figure it out.*
*How* does one strike the balance between withholding and vouchsafing information? *That* is the essential task of the dramatist. And the ability to *do* that is what separates you from the lesser species in their blue suits.
Figure it out.
Start, every time, with this inviolable rule: The *scene must be dramatic.* It must start because the hero has a problem, and it must culminate with the hero finding him or herself either thwarted or educated that another way exists.
Look at your log lines. Any logline reading “Bob and Sue discuss…” is not describing a dramatic scene.
Please note that our outlines are, generally, spectacular. The drama flows out between the outline and the first draft.
Think like a filmmaker rather than a functionary, because, in truth, *you* are making the film. What you write, they will shoot.
Here are the danger signals:
• Any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of shit.
• Any time any character is saying to another “as you know,” that is, telling another character what you, the writer, need the audience to know, the scene is a crock of shit.
Do *not* write a crock of shit. Write a ripping three, four, seven minute scene which moves the story along, and you can, very soon, buy a house in Bel Air *and* hire someone to live there for you.
Remember you are writing for a visual medium. *Most* television writing, ours included, sounds like *radio.* The *camera* can do the explaining for you. *Let* it. What are the characters *doing* -*literally*? What are they handling, what are they reading? What are they watching on television, what are they *seeing*?
If you pretend the characters can’t speak, and write a silent movie, you will be writing great drama.
If you deprive yourself of the crutch of narration, exposition, indeed, of *speech,* you will be forced to work in a new medium — telling the story in pictures (also known as screenwriting).
This is a new skill. No one does it naturally. You can train yourselves to do it, but you need to *start.*
I close with the one thought: Look at the *scene* and ask yourself “Is it dramatic? Is it *essential*? Does it advance the plot?”
Answer truthfully.
If the answer is “no,” write it again or throw it out. If you’ve got any questions, call me up.
Love,
Dave Mamet
Santa Monica
19 Oct 05(It is *not* your responsibility to know the answers, but it is your, and my, responsibility to know and to *ask the right questions* over and over. Until it becomes second nature. I believe they are listed above.)
I think those three questions—”Who wants what? What happens if her don’t get it? Why now?”—are indeed a great scene test to make sure you’re not writing or editing a “crock of shit.” Write those down on a post-it and slap it to your desk.
Now, is this the only litmus test for writing good drama? Absolutely not. But it’s a darn good one. My recommendation: Use this and find others. Write them down and paste them to your desk as well. The more litmus tests you can check your work against, the better it will be.
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