"Characters are the heart of all fiction"

I recently watched a lengthy interview with George R. R. Martin, creator and author of "Game of Thrones" and the entire "Song of Ice and Fire" series. Martin expressed, in a brief moment, an idea that sums up the most important tenet of storytelling that I have ever heard, namely:

"Characters are the heart of all fiction."

It's a simple but powerful truth, and one that gets greatly glossed over, if not forgotten, in nearly all of the famous books and treatises on storytelling.

Reviewing the various websites containing quotes by famous authors and screenwriters on the art and process of storytelling, I could find almost no quotes that deal with character creation. Additionally, the many books in my personal library on screenwriting pay almost no attention to character creation or development; instead, most of these tomes tend to focus almost exclusively on structure and plot.

However, ruminating over the many movies that I have seen, and stories that I have read, throughout my entire life, I have found that there is pretty much no exception to this rule.

Let's take the example of Star Wars--one of the most popular and beloved series of all time. Do people really remember Star Wars for the space battles? For the aliens? For the presence of the mystical "Force?" I don't believe so. Because if you think about it, a large number of other less-popular movies have those same elements...they also contain space battles, aliens, and mystical energy fields.

However, here is what those other movies don't have:

• Luke Skywalker
• Darth Vader
• Han Solo
• Princess Leia
• C3PO
• R2D2
• Yoda
• Lando Calrissian
• Jabba the Hutt
• Wicket
• Chewbacca

These are the real reasons why the Star Wars series is so universally loved and remembered...its memorable characters. Creator George Lucas alluded to this concept briefly, or admitted is was at least half of the equation, when he said:

"Storytelling is about two things; it's about character and plot."

James Cameron, likewise, expounds:

"I think it’s always about the characters and about how those characters express something that the audience is feeling. So it has to have some universality to it, having to do with relationships, whether it’s male-female, parent-child, whatever it is. And then you have to take them on a journey — and then you have to make it excruciating somehow. Challenged, endangered, in pain. Fear, tension, and triumph. Some form of triumph — our values, our victory, something." (From an interview with Charlie Rose)

Some more examples from film and literature:

• Star Trek is remembered for Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhura, Picard, Data, Worf, etc...
• Game of Thrones is remembered for John Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and many more.
• Taxi Driver is remembered for Travis Bickle.
• Harry Potter is remembered for Harry Potter.
• Sherlock Holmes is remembered for Sherlock Holmes.

• The Terminator is remembered for the Terminator, Sarah Connor, and Reese.
• Aliens is remembered for Ripley.
• Batman is remembered for Batman.
• Superman is remembered for Superman.
• Every popular Superhero movie ever made is remembered for its title character.
• Every Disney classic ever made is remembered for its main characters.
• Schindler's List is remembered for Schindler and Stern.
• In the Heat of the Night is remembered for Mr. Tibbs.
• E.T. is remembered for E.T. and Elliot.
• Lord of the Rings is remembered for Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, etc..
• Treasure Island is remembered for Long John Silver.

• James Bond films are remembered for James Bond, as well as for his various loves and nemeses.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey, filled with dry and uninteresting human characters, is remembered for the very interesting mechanical character, HAL-9000.

On the other hand, who remembers even the names of the lead characters from Ishtar? Heaven's Gate? Cowboys and Aliens? Stealth? Sahara? Final Fantasy? The 13th Warrior? 47 Ronin? 

Take any example from the history of film and literature, and it is immediately clear that its success and enduring popularity rises or falls based on the degree of memorability of its main characters.

So why is character creation given such short shrift by famous writers as well as authors of books on writing?

I have two theories.

The first is that the answer, the idea that "characters are the heart of all fiction," is extremely simple. That the "secret" should be so simple is just not believable to the majority of people, and gives little to expound upon beyond the basic principle.

My second theory on why it is given short shrift is because there is no real "formula" for character creation. Even J.R.R. Tolkien, while writing Lord of the Rings, wasn't exactly sure where his characters came from:

"Strider sitting in the corner of the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo." (Letters, p. 216)

When creating characters, a writer often draws from everything he knows...from his or her own personality and beliefs, from the people he or she has met throughout his or her life, from pre-existing novels, from the news, and from the entire history of humanity. There are no "rules" when it comes to making a character memorable. James Cameron's advice on storytelling and the factor of character creation, for instance, is ridiculously simple:

"I think the future of storytelling is: You think of some good characters and you have them do some cool stuff that you can relate to and go through hell and come out the other side of it changed in some positive or negative way, and then it ends."

Source: http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683090/good-characters-and-cool-stuff-james-cameron-on-the-evolution-of-storytelling

It's a simple principle, but one, I think, that can't be emphasized enough.

The Greatness Principle

What makes a great film...great?

Is there a core attribute that all great films possess, which all non-great films lack? In short, can greatness in motion pictures be reduced or distilled to a single principle?

I believe that it can be.

The secret is this:

A great film provides a transformational, "religious" experience for the viewer, by allowing him or her to live vicariously through the transformational experience of a character (or characters) depicted in the film.

To understand precisely how this works, we have to start with this statement and work backwards.

To be clear, I do not intend the word "religious" to be taken in its strictest sense (hence the quotation marks). However, what is experienced by the viewer in all of the great films is a religious feeling, one of profound transformation, realization, and/or revelation, wherein life, reality, or the Universe is understood in a new and vastly different way. To take an actual religious example, we can examine Paul the Apostle's conversion from a zealous, pro-Roman torturer to a dedicated Christian, after receiving a spectacular, heavenly visit from Jesus himself.

This doesn't mean that in the context of a film, such a transformation has to be overtly religious in nature; quite often the case is to the contrary. As cinematic examples we may look to Rick's transformation from a world-weary cynic to an idealistic hero in Casablanca,  or Oskar Schindler's conversion from a self-interested, ruthless war profiteer to a courageous humanitarian in Schindler's List.

As exemplified in the examples of Casablanca and Schindler's List, typically, the more dramatic and extreme the transformation (that is, assuming it is convincingly executed), the more powerful the entire film.

Such a transformation typically has its fullest expression at the denouement, or climax, of a picture; however, it must be seeded and cultivated throughout the entire story. This was touched upon in a previous post, The Amazing Ending, in which we took note of the following observation by Robert McKee:

"The most satisfying, and therefore talked about, Story Climaxes tend to be those in which the writer has saved one last rush of insight that sends the audience's mind back through the entire story. In a sudden flash of insight the audience realizes a profound truth that was buried under the surface of character, world and event. The whole reality of the story is instantly reconfigured. This insight not only brings a flood of new understanding, but with that, a deeply satisfying emotion. As a recent example: the superb Climax of Gran Torino."

This "sudden flash of insight" or "flood of new understanding" comes about through the audience members as they witness the transformation of a character in the film, the experience of which the audience members are in a sense able to live as though they were the actual character themselves.

It is the protagonist or main character of the film that typically undergoes this transformation; however, sometimes multiple characters undergo transformations for especially powerful overall effects. An example of this "multiple-character conversion" can be seen in Star Wars: A New Hope, in which both:

Luke Skywalker learns to let go of his small-minded, worldly approach to reality, and embrace the higher power of the Force

and

Han Solo, who converts from a self-serving rogue to become a self-sacrificing hero.

Although, as McKee intimates, such transformations typically have their most vital moment, or greatest expression, during the final climax of the film, it is not always so. Dances With Wolves, for instance, takes a "slow burn" approach to character transformation. Kevin Costner's John Dunbar changes from a lost, world-weary Civil War veteran to a wise, rebellious mystic--but the change occurs gradually over the entire course of the three hour-plus film. However, the greatest expression of this transformation occurs close to the ending of the film, when Dunbar enthusiastically participates in a battle alongside his Indian friends, ultimately killing his Union Army captors--formerly his allies. Unlike Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, Dunbar has not experienced a climactic change of heart--rather, we are sudden witness to the vivid and dramatic culmination of what has been a long, gradual transformation.

This gradual, "slow-burn" transformation (which occurs in Dances with Wolves) also has its parallel in the Old Testament story of Moses, who begins his life as a powerful Egyptian prince, then trades that existence for one of humble spiritual development among the rural Hebrews, and finally emerges as one of the most powerful, mystical heroes of all time--literally, a man with the power of God at his fingertips.

Conventional wisdom might dictate that the main character is the one who must, at all costs, undergo such transformation in order for the film to be truly powerful. But this is not true either. In certain cases, a supporting character alone may be the one to undergo the primary climactic transformation.

To illustrate this principle, let's take the example of Braveheart. William Wallace's character undergoes his transformation during the first third of the film...when his father is killed, and when he avenges the death of his wife and becomes a rebellious military leader. After that, Wallace's personal transformation more or less ceases, and his story becomes one of overcoming and enduring certain trials. The greatest transformation is experienced, instead, by Robert the Bruce--a minor but important character in the film. Bruce is no hero; he is an ordinary man thrust into a position he seems unfit for; he is plagued by self-doubt and moral uncertainty. He is certainly not courageous, and allows himself to be shamefully manipulated by members of his own family. However, learning from the ideal example of William Wallace, Bruce completes a long-hoped for transformation in the final minute of the film, summoning the heart and courage to lead the victorious charge at the Battle of Bannockburn. Bruce is not a powerful, idealized figure, but an ordinary man that the audience can relate to, and for this reason, his conversion is especially powerful--even spectacular--despite the fact that he is not the chief protagonist of the film.

It should also be mentioned that the "religious" character transformation does not have to be a positive one. The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Revenge of the Sith, and Unforgiven are all examples of great films in which the protagonist experiences a profound transformation from the positive to the negative; from kindness to ruthlessness, from the humane to the heinous. Religious lore contains many parallels--the fall and transformation (both physical and spiritual) of Lucifer, for instance, as well as the betrayal and fall of Judas Iscariot.

 As Obi Wan Kenobi eloquently sums up in the climax of Star Wars: Episode III:

 "You have allowed this Dark Lord to twist your mind until now . . . you have become the very thing you swore to destroy."

The transformation from angel to demon is a powerful one, because it is all something that most of us have at a point in our life experienced to some degree, either in ourselves, or in someone we know.

So, in closing, we might ask: how does one construct or develop this transformation, from either positive to negative, or negative to positive?

My answer to that is: that's where the art really comes into play.

A writer's own tastes, values, sensibilities, life experiences, understanding of human character, and understanding of life itself, all play a part in making the transformation compelling. If these attributes are shallow and unrefined--in short, if a writer hasn't given much thought to life, psychology, and the human spirit, it will be exceedingly difficult to come up with a convincing (and powerful) transformation. In the case of amateur writers, who may be young and less-experienced, pre-existing movies are often the source of that knowledge, rather than life experience.

We, as writers, have to understand both the light and dark aspects of the human being; to know (and remember) what it's like to be both weak and strong, kind and cruel, noble and crude, foolhardy and wise.  That's why the aforementioned attributes are a critical part of the writer's own psyche and author's toolbox, and why it will never be enough to simply "plug in the plot points" per the standard screenwriter's workbook.

Well, maybe enough to make a good movie...

But not a great one.

The Nature of Imagination

Napoleon Hill, in his classic book of spiritual success, "Think and Get Rich", codified the imaginative process by dividing it into two distinct categories: Synthetic Imagination, and Creative Imagination. Following is Hill's description of the first category:

SYNTHETIC IMAGINATION:
Through this faculty one may arrange old concepts, ideas or plans into new combinations. This faculty creates nothing. It merely works with the material of experience, education and observation with which it is fed. It is the faculty used most by the inventor, with the exception of the "genius" who draws upon the creative imagination when they cannot solve a problem through synthetic imagination.

Synthetic imagination is probably the most common type of imagination used by writers and filmmakers. By their very nature, high-concept ideas and genre-benders draw from it, assembling plots, worlds and characters from pre-existing sources. Perhaps the best-known example of this is Star Wars, in which George Lucas combined elements from sources as diverse as:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Flash Gordon serials
E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman books
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy
Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz
John Ford's The Searchers
Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress
Fritz Lang's Metropolis
Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces

We can even see the process of synthetic imagination at work in the art design in Star Wars; for instance, Darth Vader's mask and head-gear are clearly influenced by Samurai helmets. The very fusion of the ancient and the futuristic can be considered synthetic. (Other elements of Vader's costume may or may not have been drawn from the villains of Norman Jewison's Jesus Christ Superstar.)


We can also look at The Matrix as an example, wherein elements from Japanese animation, Hong Kong action films, and 1980s science fiction movies can all be discerned.

The other type of imagination is described by Hill as follows:

CREATIVE IMAGINATION:
Through the faculty of creative imagination, the finite mind of humankind has direct communication with Infinite Intelligence. It is the faculty through which "hunches" and "inspirations" are received. It is through this faculty that all basic or new ideas are developed.

This description reminds me of something Jim Henson once wrote:

"I don't know exactly where ideas come from, but when I'm working well ideas just appear. I've heard other people say similar things--so it's one of the ways I know there's help and guidance out there. It's just a matter of our figuring out how to receive the ideas or information that are waiting to be heard." (It's Not Easy Being Green, and Other Things to Consider, p. 16)

I can attest to what Henson says here; intense creative work definitely seems to be a mechanism for producing flashes of inspiration. To wit: once, while writing under deadline (a script that had to be completed in two weeks), I spent so many waking hours writing, that about halfway into this marathon session, I began dreaming scenes in my sleep (some of which were coherent enough to include in the draft).

David Lynch also states that meditation can be a way to foster the creative imagination:

"An idea is a thought. It's a thought that holds more than you think it does when you recieve it. But in that first moment there is a spark. In a comic strip, if someone gets an idea, a lightbulb goes on. It happens in an instant, just as in life...

"Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful...Everything, anything that is a thing, comes up from the deepest level...The more your consciousness--your awareness--is expanded, the deeper you go toward this source, and the bigger the fish you can catch." (Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, p. 1, 23)

For numerous examples showing how famous writers and filmmakers have utilized the creative imagination, see this previous post, The Germ of an Idea.

The True "Spine" of the Story

Above: Elia Kazan directing Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront

Screenwriting gurus Robert McKee and Linda Seger have made much of the concept known as the "spine" of the story in their seminars and writings, variously likening it to a simple logline, or in McKee's words, the critical "deep desire and effort by the protagonist to restore the balance of life."

The term and concept of the "spine," however, did not originate with either of those gurus, but with the legendary director Elia Kazan, known primarily for "A Streetcar Named Desire," "On the Waterfront," "Death of a Salesman," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," and others.

Although Kazan was known for his skills as a director, not a writer, he defined the spine in a far better and more profound manner than those modern gurus have. To be fair, the concept may have not originated with him, but with his renowned mentors, Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, or with Konstantin Stanislavsky (known as the founder of the Method). Whatever the case, Kazan's voluminous notes, kept throughout the years, elucidate the concept in great detail, perhaps in a better and clearer manner than any who came before or after him. They have thankfully been transcribed and reprinted in the book Kazan on Directing (New York: Vintage Books, 2009).

To quote from his notes:

The [director's] first job is to find a "center" or "core" for the work and for the production. The more integrated this center is, the more integrated will be the production. Once it is established, the base direction has been made. All else devolves from this...

The study of the script should result in a simple formulation that sums up the play in one phrase, a phrase that will be a guide for everything the director does. He begins with the simple words: "For me, this play is about..." The phrase should delineate the essence of the action that transpires on the stage [or film], it should reflect what is happening, what the characters are doing. It must imply effort, progression, transition, MOVEMENT. The concept must suggest not only the events, but the [film's] mood and color, its emotional landscape and form. It is to serve as the key for the production, what will give it unity...

Kazan provides the following examples of spines from his and others' productions:

"Search for happiness among petty objects"
"Fight for achievement"
"To live with honor"

Some of my own spines for some popular Hollywood movies:

The Matrix - "Discover the true nature of reality"
Unforgiven - "Justify the use of violence"
Saving Private Ryan - "Find humanity in war"
The Exorcist - "Save innocence from darkest evil"
Spiderman 1, 2 & 3 - "Overcome the burdens of being a hero"
Titanic - "Fight for love against all human and natural forces"

In a future posting, we'll look at the spines of additional popular films and how that spine has informed the stories of those films.

Ten years of practice...Ten years of silence.

I just finished the book "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else" by Geoff Colvin. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in studying or emulating peak performers in any field, whether it be in the arts, business, athletics--and yes, screenwriting. Author Colvin pretty much proves that if there is such a thing as talent, its ultimate impact on one's success is negligible. Instead, the level of one's success is determined by how often and how well one engages in "deliberate practice," a very special type of practice which requires immense focus, discipline, concentration, and is unfortunately not often pleasant.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is a discussion of a principle referred to as the "Ten Year Rule." Young aspirants and film students who think that their talent will be enough to carry them to instant success should think again. In fact, as Colvin shows, greatness in any endeavor is typically achieved only after the aspirant has engaged in about ten years of very intense practice and skill-honing.

On the other hand, if you've been working hard at your craft for eight or ten years, and have little to show for it, take heart. Success may be just around the corner:

The evidence is strikingly consistent. A study of seventy six composers from many historical periods looked at when they produced their first notable works or masterworks, designations that were based on the number of recordings available. The researcher, Professor John K. Hayes of Carnegie Mellon University identified more than five hundred works. As Professor Robert W. Weisberg of Temple University summarized the findings: "Of these works, only three were composed before year ten of the composer's career, and those three works were composed in years eight and nine." During those first ten or so years, these creators weren't creating much of anything that the outside world noticed. Professor Hayes termed the long and absolutely typical preparatory period "ten years of silence," which seemed to be required before anything worthwhile could be produced.

In a similar study of 131 painters, he found the same pattern. The preparation period was shorter—six years—but still substantial and seemingly impossible to defy, even for supposed prodigies like Picasso. A study of sixty-six poets found a few who produced notable works in less than ten years, but none who managed it in less than five; fifty five of the sixty six needed ten years or more.

These findings remind us strongly of the ten year rule that researchers have found when they study outstanding performers in any domain. Other researchers, who weren't necessarily looking for evidence of this rule, have found it anyway. Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard wrote a book length study [Creating Minds) of seven of the greatest innovators of the early twentieth century: Albert Einstein, T. S. Eliot, Sigmund Freud, Mahatma Gandhi, Martha Graham, Pablo Picasso, and Igor Stravinsky. A more diverse group of subjects would be hard to imagine, and Gardner did not set out to prove or disprove anything about the amount of work required tor their achievements. But in summing up, he wrote, "I have been struck throughout this study by the operation of the ten year rule. Should one begin at age four, like Picasso, one can be a master by the teenage years; composers like Stravinsky and dancers like Graham, who did not begin their creative endeavors until later adolescence, did not hit their stride until their late twenties."



Not even the Beatles could escape the requirements of deep and broad preparation before producing important innovations. Professor Weisberg of Temple has studied the group's career and found that they spent thousands of hours performing together—sessions that closely matched the description of deliberate practice—before the world ever heard of them. In the early days they performed very few of their own songs, and those songs were undistinguished; we would never have known about them if they hadn't been dug up long after the group became successful. The group's first number 1 hit was "Please Please Me" (1963), written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney after they had been working together for five and a half years. One could certainly debate what kind of creative achievement that song represented; successful as it was, it was by no means a significant innovation in popular music. That had to wait until the group's so-called middle period, when they produced their albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Those albums, consisting entirely of original music, transformed the domain. By the time of Sgt. Pepper, Lennon and McCartney had been working together—extremely hard—for ten years.

As for what exactly is going on during those long periods of preparation, it looks a lot like the acquisition of domain knowledge that takes place during deliberate practice. It is certainly intensive and deep immersion in the domain, frequently under the direction of a teacher, but even when not, the innovator seems driven to learn as much as possible about the domain, to improve, to drive himself or herself beyond personal limits and eventually beyond the limits of the field. Gardner looked back on the stories of the seven great innovators he studied and saw so many common themes that he combined them into a story of a composite character, whom he dubbed Exemplary Creator, or E.C. At some point in adolescence or early adult life, "E.C. has already invested a decade of work in the mastery of the domain and is near the forefront; she has little in addition to learn from her family and from local experts, and she feels a quickened impulse to test herself against the other leading young people in the domain." As a result, "E.C. ventures toward the city that is seen as a center of vital activities for her domain."

The distinction between talent and skill-honing, as well as the time involved, also reminds me of something that Will Smith once said in an interview:

"Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft."

For video of this interview, along with clips from many others containing Smith's insights, check out the following:

The Art of Scary

Recently I've been examining the most fundamental, root principles that make a movie scary. By "scary" I don't mean suspenseful or surprising in the Hitchcockian sense, but rather: eerie, creepy, dreadful, spine-chilling, terrifying.

It turns out that several famous authors--indeed, veritable gurus of terror--have written short treatises on the subject. Let's examine these, and see how they might apply to modern-day movie making.

Edgar Allen Poe

One of the early masters of the terror tale, this author needs no introduction. Poe set forth his philosophy of writing in an obscure review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales," published in 1842 in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Poe explains:

A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents–-he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel.

Poe believed that this "single effect" was ideally suited to the short story form and could not be sustained for the duration of a novel. In this he has been proven wrong. But his notion of the "single effect" is a powerful one. In a sense, it is an organizing principle, dictating a "grand design" for a script or novel, much in the same sense that the movements of a symphony should all work in accordance towards a unified feeling or spirit. With such unification comes greater impact and power. An example of a film that accomplishes this masterfully is William Friedkin's The Exorcist, in which every scene--even the most innocuous archeology bits in the beginning--are designed and calculated to elicit a feeling of dread.

Movies that attempt to bring out multiple effects often fail. Examples of this include Spielberg's 1941, which tried to combine action and comedy. The sequels to Lethal Weapon and The Terminator also attempted to weave comedy into the action, with the overall result being a weaker, more diminished film compared to the original. Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow notably tried to combine terror with comedy. In this case, the "multiple effects" worked against each other, to the extent that the film produced little "effect" whatsoever. A character who acts goofy or nonchalant in the face of a terrifying event, and does not suffer the consequences of it, often divests the event of any fear (or even drama) that it might have inspired.

M. R. James

The famous English ghost story writer M. R. James summarized his "rules" for the eerie tale in his 1929 essay "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories." Some of his points can now be considered erroneous, such as number five: that the setting must be "Those of the Writer's (and Reader's) Own Day." This "rule" has been proven false by many successful movie examples, including those set in the past (The Others) and even some set in the future (Alien and Solaris). Some of James's rules, however, still apply (the following are summarized by Prof. Frank Coffman):

Rule 4: No "Explanation of the Machinery"
James writes, "the greatest successes have been scored by the authors who can make us envisage a definite time and place, and give us plenty of clear-cut and matter-of-fact detail, but who, when the climax is reached, allow us to be just a little in the dark as to the working of their machinery. We do not want to see the bones of [the] theory of the supernatural."

A very important point: mystery is crucial. A lack of knowledge and detail is often responsible for causing much of the fear...show too much, and it dissipates. The greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. The shark in Jaws was scariest when it was just a lone fin disappearing beneath the waves, or an obscured grayish-white mass moving beneath the surface of the water. The same goes for ghosts. When you show or explain too much about the apparition, it ceases to be scary. As soon as the Headless Horseman (in Burton's Sleepy Hollow) placed a skull on his head and transformed into a roaring Christopher Walken, all sense of fear went out the window.

Above: The shark from"Jaws"...scariest when you could barely glimpse it.

H. P. Lovecraft

Perhaps the best explication of the art of terror came from the eccentric writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft. In this regard he was lucky; he had the shoulders of giants to stand upon. In his lengthy essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," written between November 1925 and May 1927, Lovecraft accomplishes the mighty task of surveying more or less every specimen of the "weird tale" and piece of horror fiction ever written.

Lovecraft pretty much echoes all of the above points--especially the "fear of the unknown"--which also touches upon the explanation of the machinery. Following is the most pertinent section of Lovecraft's essay, and I will leave it as the final word on the subject for today:

THE OLDEST and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown...

Because we remember pain and the menace of death more vividly than pleasure, and because our feelings toward the beneficent aspects of the unknown have from the first been captured and formalised by conventional religious rituals, it has fallen to the lot of the darker and more maleficent side of cosmic mystery to figure chiefly in our popular supernatural folklore. This tendency, too, is naturally enhanced by the fact that uncertainty and danger are always closely allied; thus making any kind of an unknown world a world of peril and evil possibilities. When to this sense of fear and evil the inevitable fascination of wonder and curiosity is superadded, there is born a composite body of keen emotion and imaginative provocation whose vitality must of necessity endure as long as the human race itself. Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.

With this foundation, no one need wonder at the existence of a literature of cosmic fear. It has always existed, and always will exist; and no better evidence of its tenacious vigour can be cited than the impulse which now and then drives writers of totally opposite leanings to try their hands at it in isolated tales, as if to discharge from their minds certain phantasmal shapes which would otherwise haunt them...

This type of fear-literature must not be confounded with a type externally similar but psychologically widely different; the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome. Such writing, to be sure, has its place, as has the conventional or even whimsical or humorous ghost story where formalism or the author's knowing wink removes the true sense of the morbidly unnatural; but these things are not the literature of cosmic fear in its purest sense. The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain -- a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.

Naturally we cannot expect all weird tales to conform absolutely to any theoretical model. Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots. Moreover, much of the choicest weird work is unconscious; appearing in memorable fragments scattered through material whose massed effect may be of a very different cast. Atmosphere is the all-important thing, for the final criterion of authenticity is not the dovetailing of a plot but the creation of a given sensation. We may say, as a general thing, that a weird story whose intent is to teach or produce a social effect, or one in which the horrors are finally explained away by natural means, is not a genuine tale of cosmic fear; but it remains a fact that such narratives often possess, in isolated sections, atmospheric touches which fulfill every condition of true supernatural horror-literature. Therefore we must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point. If the proper sensations are excited, such a "high spot" must be admitted on its own merits as weird literature, no matter how prosaically it is later dragged down. The one test of the really weird is simply this -- whether of not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim. And of course, the more completely and unifiedly a story conveys this atmosphere the better it is as a work of art in the given medium.

Above: Ridley Scott's "Alien"...very Lovecraftian.

An Interview with Screenwriter Bryan Hill

I recently had the opportunity to interview a friend and former colleague of mine, Bryan Edward Hill. Bryan is a writer and filmmaker who has worked for Esquire, Playboy, and Warner Brothers. Currently, he is writing comics for Top Cow Productions.

Following is a transcript of our conversation, in which we discuss the art of story, the screenwriting process, and navigating the often labyrinthian path to success in the entertainment industry.

me: First, let's talk a little bit what you have been doing recently, and what you have on your plate at the moment.

Bryan: Currently, I'm finishing a mini-series for Top Cow Productions, BROKEN TRINITY: PANDORA'S BOX. I have another comic book, SEVEN DAYS FROM HELL due in October, both co-written with Rob Levin. I have a television project and a feature project in development, but I can't talk about those in detail.

me: Let's talk for a moment about your first produced screenwriting credit, "The Mechanik," starring Dolph Lundgren. How did that opportunity come about?

Bryan: Right. I had written a spec called "ROLAND'S BLUES" and a really great guy, Jay Tobin optioned it from me. Sometime after that it floated past Dolph Lundgren and he read it. Initially, he wanted to direct it, but after a conversation with me via phone (me in NYC him in Spain), he decided he wanted me to write a feature based on his original idea. So I quickly found myself on a Lufthansa flight to Spain and I was working with Dolph every day for about three weeks, writing the screenplay. I came back to NYC with a finished script and then a few months later, Dolph called me to say that he didn't want to use that script at all.

me: What happened with the film after that?

Bryan: Dolph wanted me to come to Bulgaria (where production was to begin) and work on another script. When I arrived there on Thursday, I found out that production needed a shooting draft on the following Monday. So I asked Dolph for a box of Red Bull, he and I worked out a basic story that day and I wrote the draft Friday to Sunday.


me: What was it like working with Dolph at that stage?

Bryan: He's really a brilliant man. Intensely disciplined. This was years ago so I'm sure I looked like a complete neophyte, but he was patient and we got a script done in three days, based on his story. I have to say, for a movie I wrote in 72 hours holed up in a hotel in Sofia, it's not nearly as bad as it should be. I learned something very important then, something about the difference between the "perfect" environment of writing on your own, and writing for a production. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about from EAGLE ONE.

me: Oh, yeah. Not to digress, but an anecdote--we were in Manila for two months before they even cast the leads. Literally twiddling our thumbs and living off of our stipends.

Bryan: Low budget action is all about managing discomfort.

me: Other than the grueling production conditions, did your experience on "The Mechanik" teach you anything enlightening about the business?

Bryan: I learned that when in doubt, trust classic archetypes. With a 72 hour deadline and a page one assignment, I had to leave nuance behind and think about Kurosawa and Leone. I had to remember basic story structure, clear archetypes, because there was a risk of having something unintelligible. Of course, what was shot was nothing close to that level of quality, but without a thorough understanding of basic mythological archetypes, I would have been lost.

me: Are you referring more to Joseph Campell archetypes, or classic film genre archetypes? Or both?

Bryan: Campell for the archetypes, classic films for the execution of those archetypes. Campell teaches you the archetypes and relationships, and all the cinema fused into my brain shows me how those archetypes were executed.

me: Got it. Let's move on to greener pastures now. How did you get the opportunity to write for Top Cow?

Bryan: My good friend and penciler Nelson Blake II started working for Top Cow and he introduced me to Rob Levin, who was editing at the time. He offered me a short story in an anthology book and when he wanted to write full time, we collaborated on our current work. For me, getting writing work has always been about talking to people, showing them my point of view and getting them interested in my work. It's just my opinion, but I think people engage the writer as much as his or her work. It can be a cult of personality, which is both a good and bad thing.

me: Could you elucidate...good and bad in what ways?

Bryan: Good in the sense that if you're a person who can market themselves in conversation, present your point of view, stay "on message" then you can likely move thought the white noise and get opportunities. Bad in the sense that people really don't like engaging work without context. Mailing things to people really gets you nowhere. Submissions without context generally never get engaged.
For instance...
Two young men, could each have brilliant screenplays, but if one of them has a blog with 40 pictures of beautiful women he's taken himself, then that little bit of chuztpah is likely to get him read first. The other writer, with nothing but a brilliant script might languish for years before someone engages the work.

me: Concerning what seems to be the developing relationship between Hollywood and the comic / graphic novel industry: in recent years, Hollywood seems to have developed an insatiable appetite for comic book and graphic novel properties. What is going on here, and is there a way for aspiring or up-and-coming screenwriters to make this relationship work for them?

Bryan: Hollywood prefers to not take the first step. Developing a film from a comic provides a studio the psychological assurance of knowing that someone else first accepted and published the intellectual property. I think it's an attempt to minimize risk. The lesson here for screenwriters is "Don't Let Your Project Look Like Just A Screenplay". Meaning, if you can get an artist to conceptualize your script, then do that. Anything you can do as a writer to turn your script into a fully fledged intellectual property is something you should do.

me: Okay, let's talk about process. Where do your ideas come from?

Bryan: I personally believe that if you don't have a philosophical idea in your story, then you're wasting people's time and money. So usually start with a theme, an idea that I want to explore through a story, something evocative that I think will stay with readers/viewers. To get stimulus, I consume EVERYTHING. Blogs. Newspapers. People watching. I try to live a life where I absorb as much as possible and from what I experience I try and form theses that will be the foundation of good storytelling.

me: What are the major things you consider when formulating the basic plot and structure of a script?

Bryan: The first is making sure that the story is the most important event in the life of the protagonist. Sometimes I'll start thinking through a story and then realize that the most important character arc is actually earlier or later in the life of that character, so I have to alter the story accordingly. Then I have what I call the "Pillars" of my structure. To me, the most important moments are the "Call to Adventure", the "Acceptance of the call" the "Midpoint", the "Darkest Moment" and finally the "Climax." Once those are in place, it's simply a matter of filling in the space between.

me: Do you find screenwriting gurus like Robert McKee and Blake Snyder helpful in that regard?

Bryan: I think any discourse on craft is helpful. Things get "trendy", and right now Blake Snyder is the common language of executives, but I think it's all helpful. The key isn't to cuddle up to one source, but to look for the common things between them. In most of these books you'll see the same narrative moments given different names. If you see something in 3-4 books, then you can have faith that it might be something to incorporate into your craft. Beware thinking any book or approach is a magic bullet, they're not.
Also, what you're doing on your blog is useful. Break down your favorite films and see how the various structural approaches apply to them. You'll never understand something as much as what you love, so use that love and take your favorite work, analyze the hell out of it and understand what makes it work for you. I've probably learned just as much from re-watching TRANSFORMERS: THE ANIMATED MOVIE as I have from reading Christopher Vogler, Campell or Snyder.

me: Me too! That is such a forgotten classic.

Bryan: It's GREAT. It's a textbook in character introduction. Look at how they introduce Megatron, Unicron and Optimus Prime.

me: Yep, it's masterful. Speaking of structure, by the way, George R. R. Martin has said that there are two kinds of writers...those who plan everything out before they begin writing, and those who "cast seeds" and let them grow, in other words, who begin writing and then allow the stories to take on a life of their own. Does your process fit into one or both of these paradigms, and which do you feel is more helpful?

Bryan: I think that through practice, you move from one to the other. If for no other reason than maximizing time, I suggest new writers work from outlines so they don't get lost. The thing is for every scene you write, you discard ten. Those scenes, those moments, they don't vanish. They're still in your head, waiting to take shape in something else. So I think the more stories you tell, the more outlining becomes reflex. It's still happening, but you're not as aware of it so the process feels more organic.

me: Let's talk for a moment about the business. In your experience, what are producers and development executives most looking for in a spec script or series? Are they looking for different qualities than they were, say, five ago?

Bryan: There's no way to ever be certain what an executive is looking for because every studio, every company has different mandates. Obviously, you want your script spell-checked, formatted properly. Bound with the standard brass and all of that. I tend to think that every year there are more screenwriters, so there's just more product out there now than there was five years ago. Software makes it easier to format scripts, more books are trying to make the form accessible so more people are writing scripts.
The fact is no one likes to read work from a new writer. I'll say that again....
...no one likes to read work from a new writer.
But there's a silver lining to that cloud.

me: Which is?

Bryan: There are so many free tools that you can use to market yourself. You can start a blog, start a twitter feed, you can engage people into your point of view. You can write a book of short stories and self-publish it through I-Tunes and draw attention to that. In today's global-digital market, if you're obscure, you're just not interested in being known.
It's almost like the 1940's.
In my opinion, we're in a redux of the age of Mailer and Hemingway and Capote, the age where a writer was a personality and the work. There are so many networking tools available for you to build a "brand", but I think most writers don't consider themselves a brand. They're still thinking in terms of "this is my script, please buy it and give me a career". That's antiquated thinking and it takes all of the power you have as a creative entity and hands it to agents, managers and executives. Why would you do that?

me: Exactly.

Bryan: The difficult thing is that writers have to study other disciplines too, disciplines that are tied into traditional business. If you're a writer, think of yourself as a company and a brand. Think about your "message". Ask yourself "why would someone want to work with me? What do I bring to the table in specifics". Everyone is a universe of experience and perspective, but most people hide that because they think they need validation to think of themselves differently. At some point, STAR WARS was just some scribbles on a notepad. NIKE was just the dream of a sprinter who wanted better shoes. If you wait for outside validation to believe in your specific talents, then you'll likely never get it. If executives and agents could generate scripts on their own, they would. Clearly they can't, so they still need you. Your job is to remind them of why they need you.

me: That reminds me of James Cameron's experience with THE TERMINATOR...initially almost everyone thought it was a bad idea, including his own agent. He had to go forward tenaciously with complete confidence until someone was finally willing to take a gamble. Which in the end, of course, paid large dividends.
Nevertheless, I think that in this business, we've both come across the occasional gatekeeper who is uneducated in terms of storytelling, and it's often difficult to get them to realize what is and is not a good idea, or what is and is not a good story, etc.. How do you overcome this obstacle?
In other words, to quote what you just said, how do you "remind them of why they need you?"

Bryan: First, I think you need to create an online identity and market the s#$t out of it. I have a blog @ www.bryanedwardhill.com, I have my @bryanedwardhill twitter feed, and I have a short fiction site @ www.veryshortfiction.com I try to give people plenty of ways to engage my perspective, and I love getting into conversations with readers, other bloggers etc. Second, it's very important to know what you DON'T want to do. Don't be a "one size fits all writer". I'm kinda funny in person, but I don't write comedy. Nothing about my communications says I'll do that. Because I won't. I do sexy, character driven action pieces. If you like those, then you'll like me, if you don't then you won't and I'm fine with that. Third, I don't think you get representation by sending people scripts. Not in this climate. I think you get representation by making waves, in whatever way you can. Find a filmmaker and collaborate on a cool short film. Upload it. There are so many low cost ways you can get exposure. Have a favorite blog? Contact them about writing for them for free. Do a ton of non-fiction posts for them and make contact through them. Agents and managers will find you because they're always looking for the next thing that can make them money.

me: In reading interviews with the great achievers and "peak performers" of the entertainment industry, they nearly always mention the quality of perseverance as critical to success. Will Smith in particular has mentioned the "delusional quality" and supreme faith that all successful people seem to have. What's your feeling about this?

Bryan: At the beginning of any non-traditional endeavor, people are going to doubt you. That's just a fact. No one is going to believe in you more than you believe in yourself, but it's also more than that. By saying, out loud to the world "I want to have an extraordinary life" you're challenging people's basic paradigm. You're saying "I can" when they believe they can't. No one wants to be a thirty-something feeling the glass ceiling in a middle-management job. When we're young we all want to do something irrational. Then adversity comes and most people quit. They justify quitting by calling it "pragmatism", but it's really fear. They quit because they're scared they won't succeed. You've seen that. I've seen it.
The cruelty in the whole thing is that people who quit are never happy. The initial grace and security that comes from doing something standard, something "pragmatic" quickly turns into feelings of deep regret.
This has not been an easy journey for me. I've lost a lot of things, but what I've gained has far outweighed that. I get to walk into the same comic shop where I spent my allowance growing up and see books with my name on the shelf. Here's my best story...
A few years ago I took a meeting on the 20th CENTURY FOX lot. Just a standard "Hey, I'm a screenwriter and I'm new to the business". While walking through the lot, I got passed on the right by a tour bus. I guess they were just tourists visiting a studio lot, scanning for celebrities. That's when I realized that despite the adversity, the first time I walked onto a studio lot, I did it as a professional, not a tourist. I realized that I'd never have to be on that tour bus. For a working class black kid from Saint Louis, that was a victory. At that moment I became intensely grateful for the opportunities I had, and I promised I would never quit. That's the one decision I'm sure I'll never regret.

me: Thanks for that. Are there any other personal or professional qualities that you feel must be cultivated in order to achieve success in the film industry?

Bryan: Humility and gratitude are your rod and your shield. It's really easy to get windswept into a life where you're constantly protecting your ego, but that's self-destructive. Be humble to the craft and remember that experience is your greatest ally. You and I went to NYU with kids that were the children of celebrities, if not that, then they were the princes and princesses of business titans and had limitless resources to assist them. A few of those people have succeeded, but a lot of them have just faded back into their lives. I would tell people not to worry about what other people have and focus on your originality, your point of view, your experience and how that informs your work...and just work harder than everyone else. If one year ago, to this day, someone wrote one page a day...that person could have a novel finished. Or three screenplays. Just from one page a day until now, no more than an hour of their time every day could have created something that could change their life. So the one quality I would tell people to keep in mind is the understanding that your career begins right now. Do something today. Do a little more tomorrow. Eventually you'll get to where you want to go.

me: That reminds me of something Eckhart Tolle said in his book A NEW EARTH: "What the world doesn't tell you--because it doesn't know--is that you cannot become successful. You can only be successful." James Cameron said something similar when asked to give advice to those wanting to be directors. He responded: "Be a director. Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee. So it's a state of mind is really the point, once you commit yourself to do it."
But to do that, of course, takes an enormous leap of faith, which most people aren't willing to make.
Last question: In the realm of story, either in terms of content or technique, do you feel that there are any frontiers still yet to be explored, i.e., that the industry has yet to make use of?

Bryan: I think youth market content is largely dim to the real experience of being in your teens, or even your early twenties. There's a real lack of understanding there. I also think that studios aren't realizing that we're in "I-Pod" culture, meaning that culturally people are all over the place, taking slices of things and blending traditionally disparate elements into their daily lives. It's time for a new John Hughes, a new Michael Mann, new filmmakers and writers can create things at the speed of culture.

me: Well, hopefully we'll get them. Thanks for your time, Bryan. It's been educational and inspiring.