Dispatch From The Quest: Waka Brown
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Waka Brown incorporates elements of the Four Themeline Movements while discussing Hook, Concept, Resonance:
Disunity
My first foray into screenwriting was a 5-week continuing studies class I took over one summer. It was very basic. I still remember, “When you start a screenplay, you write these two words: ‘FADE IN.’” We didn’t talk about hook or concept or what would make someone want to actually read your screenplay. So, for several years, I wrote what I wanted, I hadn’t even heard of the term, “high concept.” I was happy just to write away, dreaming that I’d win that contest I entered (never did) and be plucked from obscurity.
Deconstruction
I didn’t understand how fully business was a component of screenwriting until I attended a local writers’ conference a few years ago where I actually met some LA managers/execs/agents/producers (from hereon I will refer to them as MEAPs), and omigod, was that a wake-up call. I had written a couple scripts with loglines that I don’t mind sharing with you because I understand they are never going to see the light of day:
A Week in Topeka: The teenage prince of a fictional totalitarian Asian regime escapes during a diplomatic visit to the U.S. and befriends a disgruntled Japanese American teenage girl as he masquerades as her exchange student in Topeka, Kansas.
The Expat: When his mother falls seriously ill, an all-American guy on the verge of mini-series stardom in Japan is forced to return to the place he despises most: home.
Guess how many reads I got? ONE. One read out of who knows how many pitches. I was floored that these two screenplays, screenplays I had loved and toiled over, and spent the bulk of my free time on for the past year/year and a half weren’t even going to get read! Granted, the one manager who read Topeka liked it enough to send it to his contact at The Disney Channel (it was a pass), but even afterwards, no amount of querying could get anyone else to read these. One thing I couldn’t really change about Topeka were these four words I was told repeatedly: “Asian leads, tough sell.” And even though The Expat was a story that resonated with me, I look at the logline now with HOOK and CONCEPT in mind, and you know, it’s not high concept. It’s not commercial. There’s no antagonist in there (in the logline, anyway. There is a dweeby dentist fiancé in the script who is somewhat of an obstacle) and I get it. I understand why MEAPs with heaps of scripts to read weren’t adding a non-high-concept, non-commercial script from an unknown writer to their already huge reading pile.
So now with this little bit of enlightenment, I tried to go high-concept with the following:
Unfriended: While on a business trip with a reluctant coworker, a young woman seeks to track down and confront people who have unfriended her on Facebook.
A little better, right? This was something I wrote three years ago and so it was a little more timely as well. So again, at our local writers’ conference, I pitched to 7 MEAPs, and this time I got 6 reads. The one person who wouldn’t read it wasn’t reading anyone’s stuff and all of the conference participants were referring to her as “The Hammer.” Never to her face, of course, because, well, she scared us). I sent my script out and then… nada. When I wrote Unfriended, did I prep like I’m doing in the Quest? No. Did it really resonate with me as much as The Expat? Not really. And the end result? Opportunities lost in a black hole of silence. One agent was kind enough to write back and his advice was basically, “Keep it relatable. Chasing down people who have unfriended you is not a universal experience. Try writing about something more relatable.”
In an effort to write HIGH CONCEPT and to have a HOOK, in writing Unfriended, I forgot about RESONANCE with myself to an extent and for others — while lots of people are on Facebook, the agent was right, not many people chase down their unfriends. In last week’s Quest, two points in particular stood out to me:
1. We must get in touch with all aspects of our psyche, even the dark aspects (shadow). If we don’t the universe creates circumstances where we must.
2. Why does this story have to happen to this character at this time?
I thought about this for a long time. Regarding the first point, I thought, “Wow, that’s like Lost in a nutshell” (a show that I miss terribly. Granted, there were a lot of loose strings, and I wasn’t a big fan of the time-traveling story line, but I liked the ending, damnit!). Regarding Point 2, in addition to asking, “Why does this story have to happen to this character at this time?” we have to ask (as described in our lectures for Week 2), “Why do I need to write this story at this time?” In essence, how does this story resonate with me?
Reconstruction
So, with HIGH CONCEPT, HOOK, and RESONANCE all in mind, I wrote my favorite screenplay to date:
Afterbirth: Getting “Knocked Up” is easy. It’s the ugly truth about the first year after birth that no one ever tells you about. Until now.
Maybe it’s not as high concept as Unfriended. But, I think resonates with more people. It certainly resonated with me — after popping out three babies in less than 4.5 years, I was ready to tell that story. I needed to tell that story.
Now, I wish I could tell you that Afterbirth sold for a million dollars and all was hunky-dory after that. Not quite. One MEAP I queried via email wouldn’t even read it because he thought the title was icky. I thought about telling him I’d change the title to Metaphorical Placenta if that would get him to read it, but I was afraid he’d think I was a smart ass (which I am, but I try to keep this under wraps for the most part. Gets me in trouble). Aforementioned Kind Agent read it, but didn’t like it. But I did receive 7 reads from 7 pitches at our annual local conference. And I was not met with silence and restraining orders afterwards. I had two meetings, and a request for more scripts (and then was met with silence — damn it!). It also made it into the semifinals of the 2012 PAGE contest — the best I’d ever done in any contest. My then 7 year-old son wanted to know what all the fuss was about so my husband said, “Mommy is a very good writer. Something she wrote is in the top 25 of all the stories submitted for that category.” Of course, my son decided to keep it real, “Mommy, if you were in the top three, I would think you’re a very good writer. But top twenty-five? Um, I think that makes you, like, good. Maybe pretty good. But not very good.” Although my first instinct was to take away his iPad privileges for a week, I had to acknowledge the kid was right. I was not quite there yet.
Unity?
Now that I’m on the Quest, I’m hoping that I’ll get everything right at the same time. High concept logline? I think so. Prep? Better believe it. Heart and a story that resonates not only with me, but with other people? Well, I have to write it first, but I’m definitely planning on it. So will this quest result in a happy ending? Or will it end with me sitting Social Network-like, repeatedly sending “Friend” requests to MEAPs who are like, “Uh, we’re into Reddit now.” We shall see. But, I’m enjoying the hilarious/thought-provoking/educational/inspiring journey the Quest has been thus far!
Waka gets a virtual gold star this week for clever in drawing a comparison between a Protagonist’s metamorphosis and her own writer’s journey. For a vast majority of mainstream Hollywood movies feature a Protagonist going through a positive transformation arc, one which can be described in four movements: Disunity, Deconstruction, Reconstruction, Unity. But in truth, writers can go through a similar trajectory. On each individual writing project, mirroring our immersion and eventual understanding of the story, to — as Waka suggests — a more meta perspective, how we grow from project to project.
In terms of Hook, Concept and Resonance, that’s all part of our Week 2 discussion, the core principle Concept = Hook, and the importance of Resonance, both how a script reader might connect with the material and perhaps more importantly how a writer does.
One thing is certain: We learn more about the craft and our Writer’s Self with each script we write. That knowledge feeds our creative metamorphosis.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Waka: Kansan turned Californian turned Oregonian. Fan of Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, Richard Curtis, Tina Fey (who isn’t?), & I still use a $30 Tracfone @wakatb.
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