Dispatch from The Quest: Ben Odgren
Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the subject of style. As the screenwriting principle we started with is Style = Voice, the Questers spent a lot of time thinking about the importance of determining what their voice is in relation to the stories they write. Today: Ben Odgren talks about a recent discovery:
I was cleaning up some files on my computer the other day and started going through my folder of barely-started scripts. There are a lot of them. Some only have one page. Most of them hover around two or three. Maybe if I was feeling particularly charged up by the idea there would be six or seven pages.
Skimming through them, it was easy to remember why the scripts never went any farther than that. They were usually just cool opening scenes with no story to connect them to. Usually action scenes. Sometimes just two characters talking…and talking…and talking.
For all those pages, I remember writing them, and I remember being excited by them. The voice changes. The style definitely changes. But the barely containable “I’ve got something here!” of a new idea is always there. It’s like that feeling of being a kid and reeling in the fish that spits out the hook before you even get a look at it. You didn’t get the fish but that was an awesome 12 seconds anyway.
Once an idea hits that you know you’ve got to finish, how do you maintain that energy for the entire script? It’s not easy, and that’s where having a strong voice and strong grasp of style becomes important. Maybe that scene with all the exposition isn’t very fun to write, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to look, feel, and read just as easy as that scene with your killer twist on the Mexican stand-off that everybody’s going to remember.
It’s a balancing act of inspiration and craft, with one informing the other. Making sure your voice is distinct while fitting within the inherent restrictions of the screenplay format. Definitely something we all struggle with, and that I’m pretty sure there’s no easy way around except to write more.
This is an interesting point, how finding the Narrative Voice for a story can help us connect to the story, perhaps even get us excited to write it, and leave behind the days when we start scripts and don’t finish them.
Tomorrow: Another dispatch from The Quest.
About Ben: Maine writer with a love for pulpy genre movies, keeping library books out for a little too long, and strong coffee. Twitter: @benodgren.