September is Scene-Writing Month: Day 8
As noted in this post, September is Scene-Writing Month here at Go Into The Story. Every Monday-Friday at noon Eastern / 9AM Pacific, I will upload a post with a prompt for writing a script scene. Each day, write a scene per those guidelines. If you really want to get in the spirit of things, upload your scene here in the comments section of the original post. That way you can critique others’ pages and receive feedback on your scene as well.
Why scene-writing? Think about it: If the average scene is 1 1/2 to 2 pages long and a script is 100–120 pages, then a screenwriter writes between 50–80 scenes per screenplay. Thus in a very real way, screenwriting is scene-writing. The better we get at writing scenes, it stands to reason the better we get as a screenwriter.
Plus there’s this: If you are thinking about using the Go On Your Own Quest schedule to pound out a first draft of an original screenplay, FADE IN is fast approaching — October 21 to be precise. What better way to get your writing muscles moving than a series of scene-writing exercises.
A couple of logistical notes:
* Limit your scenes to 2 pages. First, most scenes are 2 pages or less in length. Second, out of fairness to everyone participating in the public scene-writing workshop, let’s not abuse anyone’s patience or time with really long scenes.
* I’m sure someone will post a way for you to write scenes and upload them so they maintain proper script format, but that isn’t a big deal to me. Rather the content and execution are the important thing. So as a default mode, do this: (1) Don’t worry about right-hand margins on scene description or dialogue, just keep typing until it manually shifts each line. (2) Don’t worry about character name position, rather do this:
SCARLETT: Rhett, Rhett... Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?RHETT: Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
Today’s prompt: Write a visual-to-visual transition between two scenes.
One item in a screenwriter’s bag of tricks is the visual-to-visual transition, whereby we end one scene with an image that has a correlated image at the beginning of the next scene. This can create a seamless segue and contribute to a reader’s sense of narrative flow.
A famous example of this is from the movie Lawrence of Arabia. In the first scene, Dryden (Claude Rains) informs Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) the soldier is being sent off to the desert to learn about the prospects of Prince Faisel in his revolt against the Turks. Their dialogue at the end of Scene 1:
Lawrence: This is going to be fun.
Dryden: Only two kinds of creatures have fun in the desert,
Bedouins and gods, and you’re neither. Take it from me. For
ordinary men, it’s a burning, fiery furnace.
Lawrence: No, Dryden. [lights match] It’s going to be fun.
Dryden: It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun.
CLOSE UP. LAWRENCE. He smiles and raises the flame to his lips.
He blows it out in the normal manner.
DISSOLVE TO:
SUNRISE IN THE DESERT:
Here are the two scenes. The conversation above begins at the :50 mark.
Now that is a visual-to-visual transition.
By the way, if you want to write an audio-to-audio transition, that’s fine, too.
So write two scenes up to 2 pages long with a visual-to-visual transition from one scene to the next.
Post your scenes in comments for feedback.
If you don’t feel comfortable uploading your scenes, that’s okay. I encourage you to do the exercise privately. Let’s face it: Any writing is better than no writing.
To learn more about Go On Your Own Quest, go here.
Also The Black Board is joining in with National Sketch Writing Month, so if you’re a comedy writer and want to check that out, you can go here.
Tomorrow: Come back for another scene-writing prompt.
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