Screenwriting : How Inserting a Time Clock Can Elevate Your Story by Danny Manus

Finally, something to debate with you, Danny. It's boring agreeing with someone all the time. :) Not that this article is generally wrong. As usual, it's thoughtful and well-written... I'm glad it allows for the idea that not every story has a ticking clock. But this "ticking clock" thing is a sore point for me. In a recent project, the producers asked me to add in a ticking clock where I believed it wasn't necessary. I had constructed a steel trap of a thriller, with ever-increasing stakes and every-dwindling options. I believe they had this idea that a thriller MUST have a ticking clock, and so they crammed one in unnecessarily. (I allow for the possibility that they were right and I was wrong... I've been around long enough to realize that I'm not ALWAYS smarter than the reader, and they had plenty of other good ideas -- they're not stupid. That said, I still think I was right.) Of course, in your article you don't say every story needs a ticking clock (you say the opposite) so I'm not arguing with you so much as using your article as a jumping off point to say that I think the important thing to understand about "ticking clocks" is that what a stakes-based story needs is not so much a ticking clock as a DWINDLING RESOURCE. Yes, that resource is often TIME, but it doesn't have to be. OPTIONS is the obvious other resource that might be dwindling. Dramatica is 80% baffling to me, but they make a lovely distinction in this area: they talk about a "time lock" vs. an "option lock". If your character is running out of options, this can be a fine story driver. One great example is a movie you misidentify (sorry) as having a ticking clock: Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day does make use of the concept of time, but there's no ticking clock at the story level. If we assume that Phil Connor's objective is to live the perfect day, then what we're really seeing is a dwindling set of OPTIONS, not time (he has an infinite amount of that!). He keeps trying one strategy after another to solve his problem and meets failure with every strategy until just one option remains: being Zen, kicking back and making the most of it. That's all. You're right that a ticking clock is a great tool, and a writer needs to be aware of that tool to take their writing to the next level. But to take their writing to the level after that, I find the more abstract concept of the "dwindling resource" to be more useful.

Good point about a dwindling resource, Kerry.

I include dwindling resources under ticking clock, as well as other things that don't have an actual time lock. In my Action Screenwriting book I use MAGNOLIA as an example, where Tom Cruise's father is terminally ill and Cruise's character is a terminal ahole and is putting off seeing his father. Will he get his head out of his butt before his father dies so that he can make peace with him? Another example I use are the bottle of champagne in NOTORIOUS... and the ammo in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. These all create ticking clocks of sorts. The main idea is to create a deadline with consequences. That can be anything. I wish someone would explain why bombs in movies have those big red led clocks on them... so that people who are going to be blown up can worry more?

Running out of ammo! Great real-world example. I would call a ticking clock a form of dwindling resource (and not the other way around) but I guess the exact taxonomy doesn't matter. Either way, it sounds like I need to read your book. :)

I actually agree with you Kerry (sorry!). I think dwindling options and resources is just as important and can create just as much tension and stakes. Perhaps time could fall under that, though I like making the distinction between them. but I actually really like your point. If Stage 32 was filled with more Kerrys and Williams...well, it would be nice but I'd be out of a job lol.

"Why now" is a huge question for story tellers. after reading this article I tried to stick a time clock in for the screenplay I am working on. It didn't work. There are two time elements, one for the protagonist and one that he created for the antagonist, but they are not really clocks in the sense that no one could say "We're running out of time" like Jack Bauer and be taken seriously. I just tried to put as much pressure on both sides as possible without going overboard. Resources can be time, personnel, financial, equipment, and organizational. Exploiting weaknesses (internal) and threats (external) on all of these adds tension, especially below the surface.

Last night, when I read Kerry's reply I was all ready to point out I felt a dwindling resource was a ticking clock. But then, when I went to reply, I changed my mind and felt a ticking clock was a dwindling resource. So I chickened out of voicing an opinion, gave back pats all round and went to bed. Thinking about this now, I feel the important thing here is to focus on what Danny is encouraging us to consider bringing into our scripts, and that's immediacy. Now I don't think a dwindling resource automatically brings immediacy. I feel that, to do so, the dwindling resource must imply a clock is ticking. In the case of Groundhog Day, I feel there are actually a few dwindling resources that work as ticking clocks. The underlying one is Phil's sanity, there's how long he can survive what's becoming a nightmare. This actually runs out, he goes crazy, and tries to commit suicide, only to learn this restarts the loop. Now, the story could potentially lose pace here but then I believe a new ticking clock starts, where he decides to try and stop anybody dying on "his day". In some cases I feel the ticking clock is implied by heightened peril. In Jurassic Park I don't recall there being any specific ticking clock in terms of how soon they should leave the island, just that, as the dwindling resource of security fails around them, peril is elevated, it will only be a matter of time before they are eaten. When I first read Danny's list I felt The Shawshank Redemption had a ticking clock. That being Andy's life. He needs to get out before he dies. However I don't feel this brings a sense of immediacy, even given the timescale of the film. Anyway, I better get writing before the battery runs out on this keyboard. If I don't get five pages done by six I wont be able to get to the prom. Oh boy, oh boy!

I like the "ticking clock/deadline" device - dramatically increases the tension when done properly - good recent example is Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal - clever use of the device.

Well, CJ, I guess that's that taxonomical difference I was talking about: if you say ANY dwindling resource (sanity, for example) is a "ticking clock" then you're really just saying that the so-called ticking clock is an abstract concept unrelated to the actual resource of time. I like abstraction sometimes, but sometimes abstraction leads to confusion. (Like when a "clock" is not a clock.) Remember this about ticking clocks: they don't add immediacy on their own. You also need STAKES (what will happen when the time/options/ammunition runs out) and PRESSURE. Now pressure can be bad guys forcing us to use our ammo, or cosmic forces demonstrating that we're out of options (even when Phil commits suicide, the day just restarts). One upside of a literal ticking clock is that the pressure is inherent in the laws of physics: time marches inexorably forward no matter what we do. But as writers, we even control TIME, don't we? I mean, here are two identical ticking clocks: SCENE VERSION 1: DANNY: We only have ten minutes to diffuse the bomb! CJ: Oh no! Our bomb robot is broken and the part I need to fix it is way on the other side of Deadly Scorpion Cave!! SCENE VERSION 2: DANNY: We only have ten minutes to diffuse the bomb! CJ: Phew. Pull up a chair. I just need to whip out my Swiss Army Knife and snip that red wire. No sweat. Know what I mean? Ticking clock [not equal to] immediacy. I don't mean to suggest I'm anti-ticking clock. Far from it. But it's one of those Terms (like Hero's Journey) that too often get trotted out as must-haves without understanding the underlying PURPOSE of the device. What it gives us, how to use it, why we need it. This is no knock on Danny: his article was plenty nuanced for a short piece. I don't expect him to provide the level of deep dive that William Martell spent an entire book chapter (or chapters) on. But as I said, I just had a run-in with producers forcing me to overlay a pointless ticking clock where none was needed. So I am now a converted evangelist for this idea: ticking clocks are good. Understand them fully. Proceed with caution.

I hear you, Kerry. I know what you mean about immediacy. At one point of my thought process over this I felt like a ticking clock was a certainty, but then, as writers, we can buy more time if we want it, and I feel the audience know that. What you say about stakes and pressure is a much better explanation of what I was trying to say when I touched upon peril. That leads into something I was thinking about in terms of having to gamble with dwindling resources. For example where they use the last of the fighter jets for the final battle in Independence Day. Now, does anybody need anything from the other side of Deadly Scorpion Cave? Because I'll damned if I'm making two journeys in these cargo shorts.

Another Heineken, if you can find a cold one.

It's not too often comments in a thread makes me think of things even more deeply. So, I thank you all for that.