Writer’s Style: Walter Hill

Sheridan who hosts the site myPDFscripts.com wrote this some time ago and I had intended to post something on it, but had — frankly — forgotten until I saw a Tweet yesterday from @MysteryExec in which he said this:

Dear every screenwriter, read this:

http://www.mypdfscripts.com/thelatest/writers-style-walter-hill

Here is an excerpt from Sheridan’s excellent post:

In my screenplay studies, I’ve noticed that, in regard to overall style, there are usually three different types of writers. Let’s take a closer look as I break them down for you:

EPIC: These are the writers who fill their scripts with so much description and detail that it’s wall-to-wall black on the page. Blocks of text so long you feel like you’re reading a novel rather than what’s supposed to be a screenplay. These writers detail for us the petals of a flower, the pollen on its surface, the minute size of it, how the pollen feels knowing it’s so small, and how it wants to be a towering mighty oak tree, but it’s really just this small, infinitesimal, microscopic bit of pollen with a dream, but maybe someday… someday… All this before we even get to FADE IN! And it becomes such a chore to turn a single page of their 220-pager that it’s like taking out the garbage, or mowing the lawn, or watching Reflections of Evil.

MODERATE: These are your writers who know and abide by the rules. Their flower is a flower and if it’s important they’ll let you know because they write by the book: they dot their i’s and cross their t’s, no more than four lines per action block, with a nice balance between action and dialogue. Their 110–120 page script looks pretty vertical and it’s a pleasant read.

LEAN: Zen masters. Fuck the flower. Short. Sparse. Terse. Haiku-like. Details? Just enough; move on. 100 pages, maybe.

There are those who linger and frolic about in the middle ground between two of the three styles, but given the current industry standards regarding formatting, etc., most writers are MODERATEs. Full on EPICs and LEANs are rare, but they do exist. I should make it known now that, all jokes aside, I don’t personally have a problem with any one type of screenwriter. If your scripts are well-written and engaging reads, then I’ll read them, but here’s my two cents: do not be an EPIC writer if you can absolutely help it because if you’re an EPIC writer, then, inevitably, a lot will be lost from script to screen because there’s just so much that has been written that can’t be shown visually. How do I know? Look at the scripts for Cleopatra or Doctor Zhivago and you may start to get an idea of what I’m talking about here.

If you’re a MODERATE writer, then some of what you write will be lost and there may be some additions too, but, for the most part, the majority of what you write will make it to the screen.

If you’re a LEAN writer, well, then, everything you write is making it to the screen, and then some, because you’ve engineered your script in such a way that almost nothing can be taken from it.

I have posted numerous times before about Alexander Jacobs (Point Blank), Walter Hill (Hard Times), even Andrew Stanton (Wall-E), and the so-called ‘haiku style’ of writing scene description. You can read posts here, here, and here among others.

But Sheridan has really dug into the subject, so go here for more.

And by the way, Sheridan and I are still looking for a draft of Jacobs’ script for Point Blank. Not a production draft, but the one Hill refers to reading and changing the way he approached writing.

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