The Hook

So I started to write the treatment last night, and I was quickly reminded of how hard this is. You think, “It’s only 120 pages, 50 scenes, that’s nothing.” etc… No, it’s not nothing, it’s fucking one hundred and twenty pages, fifty scenes! 10 in Act 1, 30 in Act 2, 10 in Act three, etc…. which leads me to my next problem. I NEED AN ACT TWO. This is why I gave up the first time around. Not this time.

I have an amazing hook, interesting characters, a location they can interact with. I know Act 1 like the back of my hand, the climax is all set.. parts of Act 3 are hazy but coming together overall… I will talk more about these in detail, but I was already getting ahead of myself in trying to write the treatment.

My favorite screenwriting book so far is “Crafty Screenwriting” by Alex Epstein. It’s concise, easy and fun to read, and perhaps most importantly, the author is masterful at walking the fine line between realistic and encouraging. At the risk of losing you, my single reader, I will refer you to his blog, aptly named Complications Ensue., for specific examples of effective hooks. He’s already relatively successful, though, and if you like to root for the underdog like I do, then you will stick with me.

Epstein says there are two tricks to coming up with a good hook. The first is obvious – to pay attention. The second – steal it. Stealing it requires using someone else’s story but making it more dramatic and cinematic, making it your own…

Paying attention is my preference. I love to people watch (sounds creepy when it’s written, doesn’t it?).. but what screenwriter doesn’t? It’s all about finding stories and painting them with words… The best part about writing is how the act itself is a complete inversion of those events… First you see something happen or someone interesting on the street. He/she/it, or more accurately, the fiction that you surround he/she/it with, elicits an emotion within you. The challenge is in finding the exact words and exact structure that will recreate that feeling that you’ve captured to your audience.

So, you SEE something happen, it makes you feel a certain way.

Find Words, put them down.

The film is a recreation of the event, dramatized in order to let the audience feel the exact same emotions that you had when witnessing it originally. Of course, the director can turn your Picasso into a Homer, or vice versa, but that interpretation is part of the beauty as well.

It’s like letting the audience inside your body, seeing through your eyes and hearing through your ears… except you can make up whatever the fuck you want, and if you do it well enough they might even give you the benefit of the doubt and believe your ridiculous story. Not only will they believe it, but they will almost certainly sit there for two plus hours and just take it in, no matter what it is. You can do anything, like give them the ability to read lips as with an extreme close up, or allow them to be invisible in the living room where Hank and Leticia are having sex, or put them in a public park and force them to watch Bill Maplewood go on a murderous rampage with an assault rifle. Granted, Todd Solondz probably didn’t see this happen and think, “I am going to turn this into a movie anc all it Happiness!”. Milo Addica and Will Rokos probably hadn’t seen Halle Berry naked before they saw it at the Monster’s Ball premier. Writing a movie takes imagination, but it shouldn’t be so hard to find irony or imagine Halle Berry naked… maybe I can have her be my bankable element? Epstein would be proud.

It’s time to use some of that imagination to iron out some of those kinks in Act II…

Side note: Exactly 1:48 into “You Get Yours” from Bright Eyes and Spoon’s collaboration, titled: Home, Vol. 4 =Amazing… Even better is the last song, “Let the Distance Keep Us Together”… just buy the album. Right now. Side, side note: By far, my favorite two bands to play randomly in the background while writing are My Morning Jacket (thanks Danielle) and Sigur Ros (thanks Alyssa).