External and Internal Worlds

In the character archetype class I’m currently teaching online, a student commented about some ideas from another of my courses: “Screenplay Universe: The External and Internal Worlds”. Here’s my response:

The idea of External World and Internal World is critical. It extends to everything in a screenplay — from macro stuff (Plotline and Themeline) to micro (dialogue / External = subtext / Internal). 

A key part of the understanding related to this core idea is that what happens in the External World impacts characters in terms of their psychological / emotional / spiritual transformation in their Internal World. This in turn shapes how they act in the External World. Which again impacts their Internal World. Which again shapes their actions in the External World. And on and on. 

It’s like this one long dance extending throughout the entire script, and at least as it relates to most Protagonist stories, one tied directly and intimately to their transformation arc.

As I read or heard or thought of myself somewhere along the line: In any given scene, something happens. And something else happens. 

Something happens = External World
Something else happens = Internal World

This is how to think about screenwriting so you can write scenes that have layers of meaning to them. 

In the movie Witness, when John Book [Harrison Ford] hands over his gun to Rachel [Kelly McGillis], it’s about the gun (External World). But it’s also about what the gun means, what Book is feeling at that moment, what relinquishing the gun means to him, what Rachel is feeling at the moment, what Book relinquishing the gun means to Rachel — all of that happening in the Internal World with the single act of him handing over his gun to her. 

The External World and Internal World exists in every moment of a moment, on every page of a screenplay. 

It’s up to us as writers to dig for the layers of meaning in each event, each line, each action.

One of the biggest problems in scripts by pre-pro writers is that scenes play out ‘up top.’ That means everything is on the surface: The dialogue is on the nose, the intentions behind a character’s action are obvious, there’s little or no depth to what’s going on. One key to avoiding this and creating richer scenes is by exploring what goes on in both the External World and the Internal World.
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