Someone posted a logline about a serial killer on a cruise ship and it got me thinking. I'm a believer that the best ideas for scripts are an intersection of two things: Your own personal interests, passions and life experience AND something universal and exciting that can attract a wide audience. You need both. You see a lot of scripts that are either only the first thing - for example, when a writer writes about coming of age, their life story which is personal to them but not that interesting or high stakes, OR, they've come up with a movie idea that's got nothing to do with them but they could see it making money because it's about the CIA or mercenaries or it's about [insert subject] which is hot right now. My thing is this - if you're going to write "Liar Liar" then you should be the perfect person to write Liar Liar, because either you had a workaholic father who you can make the character just like, and that can inform the relationship of the characters and make them real or because you can put lots of satire of law firms in there because you yourself worked at law firms for years. There's got to be a personal connection to the big idea. I think this might be the reason why a lot of high-concept films are bad - they don't have any real connection to one person. Thoughts? Are you guilty of being too much on one side of the coin? I know I have...but I'm learning not to be.
Screenwriting : Concepts need to have You in them by Dave McCrea
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I love writing about superpowers and people getting their heads chopped off. I've never personally experienced either of them. But what you're saying is that I should somehow relate to my protagonist even if they are going through a hell I've never experienced? Yeah, I can see that. I guess...
Dave's post is the opposite of what I do. I am a journalist, an historian, a poet. I want my writing to take me deep inside a skin I have never known. Here is my short story "Cocktail" - - and I have never been a trans-gender person nor a foreign-born cocktail waitress, and I've never stepped inside a karaoke bar. But read the story (fiction) - - http://mrbellersneighborhood.com/2003/01/cocktail - - - - and then tell me. Did I nail it?
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My short story "Cocktail" - - - it will be continued on the second page -- http://mrbellersneighborhood.com/2003/01/cocktail#nextcolumn
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I've just finished a script about a female contract killer in Miami and no, I haven't done that job (although I think I'd be suited to it),, and I don't think I have to have had that job to feel it. Similarly Tarantino says he's had no connections to organized crime and other frequent elements in his movies, but he has watched movies - that's his education. All that counts is that you do a great job.
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Its not always about you connecting with the concept or the profession or action, sometimes its just about finding a personal in-road connection to the character or their personality or speech or motivation. I think the mistake most writers make is "writing what you know" the wrong way or being too literal with that. What you know should shape what you write or who you write but not always on a conceptual level..
Lauran, what I'm saying is more what Danny is saying - no of course you don't have to be a hit woman to write a movie about a hit woman, but the script will be much better if you imbue the script (that's my new favorite word lol) with something that is uniquely you. For example, maybe the hit woman has a best friend who is exactly like your best friend.
I thought that Horrible Bosses was pretty good - and what made it good I thought was because of the 3 main characters - they felt real. The scene where they're having drinks and bitching about their jobs sounded like how the writer of the script probably got drinks with his friends and complained about studio notes.
Snakes On A Plane on the other hand has no connection to a person - it's just a poster and a bunch of big moments.
Another example, Thelma and Louise is a movie I really like, but the writer Callie Khouri put a lot of her anger/resentment towards men into that concept. If I was to come up with the concept of two women going on the run, I'd be the wrong person to write that. I haven't had a trucker flick his tongue at me recently. On the other hand, Callie could have written a movie about two bored housewives complaining about their husbands being jerks for 2 hours and it wouldn't be compelling enough for a wide audience. So this is a good example of combining the personal with the big concept I think.
Also Tarantino actually is a bad example because no screenwriter around puts more of himself in his scripts than QT - he puts as much of his near-fetishistic love of dialogue into what would otherwise be fairly standard B-movie concepts.
Just something to think about. Your script might be awesome all the same and good luck with it!
P.S. Thanks Joey for saying that
Totally agree. I made the mistake once of trying to write what I thought someone else would be interested in reading, instead of what I had a personal passion towards -- it came out terrible. In the end, you've got to write your soul, because it's the most you can offer. Great post, Dave.
I too try to step into the character’s shoes and try to feel what they might be feeling. Kind of like how would I personally feel if I had the psychological make-up of this character and was under the pressure they are under. My characters may be braver or stupider or whatever than me, but I try to see the situation from their perspective and feel what they might be feeling and write that. Like an actor would, which I have at least some experience at.