I would like some advises from this community.
I’m working on a screenplay which serves as a social critic. While I have created a story around my main protagonist to make the story interesting, I have difficulty inserting the theme and criticism organically. In a few occasion I created scenes (mostly conversation with friends) just for the purpose of flushing our the theme and criticism. The friends give a bit of advises to the main protagonist but really the scenes are for the theme not the story.
any advises?
Hi, Nicolas Lavoie. I start with the theme, then come up with scenes, dialogue, objects, etc. from the theme.
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thanks Maurice Vaughan
But How do you bring specific sub-subject of that theme which is pertinent for the social critic but not really to the story.
You're welcome, Nicolas Lavoie. I'm not sure. I've never written that kind of script.
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How on the nose you are regarding theme is up to you. Aaron Sorkin tends to put it there, right on the page. The theme is the plot. Some writer's voices are just theme heavy, because they know very much what they want to talk about and what they want to say. Some writers don't even know their theme, and thus it's rarely referenced but often demonstrated.
There is no right and wrong, just voice, tone, and taste.
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To better explain the theme of the story is about wealth and success. More specifically how in my society people tends to see it negatively and give value and merits to those who face hardship. The story is about a young athlete who become a professional and is drafted by his hometown team very high but fail to deliver for that team and retires a few years later.
So I’m trying as best as I can to introduce the theme in the script
Nicolas Lavoie You could show the theme through your characters (their personalities, habits, actions, and dialogue) and the scenes (like a scene where the athlete gets into a big argument with someone who sees being wealthy as negative).
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Allow theme to derive from story, character and their words. As posted, there's difficulty writing to theme, and story suffers. Trust that theme will emerge.
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My theme comes organically from the plot storyline itself. Sometimes the base theme isn't one I'm aware of until I finish writing. And the thing is-- it's OKAY to be like that. What I normally focus on is-- is the story I'm telling, does it make sense, does it move forward even when I'm at resting moments, and do the characters' actions move the plot forward through the end. Once you've got that-- you can sit back and decide what your theme is. CJ Walley is right in how Aaron Sorkin works his theme. Let me be honest- your logline should be reflecting your theme. If you've got your logline- you can see the trailer in your head for how your movie shows up for the first time on people's screens-- then you can see your theme in action.
Mind you, this is 23+ years of novel writing, comic book writing, editing coming into play here. I've only been scriptwriting for 6 months. But the core of how your theme comes through is the actions the characters take and sometimes-- what you THINK is the initial theme isn't when you're done. But your plot-- that's the key. Oftentimes my rewrites are based on keeping the theme I discovered active and moving in the direction it needs to go.
There's an article I read some time ago which helped me. Maybe it might give you a bit of support. https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/storys-theme/
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Not sure what tone you are going for, but I like to use satire whenever I can to drop thematic clues into my stories. Doesn't work for some genres, but these "weird" little scenes or plot points will tie in to a greater idea that the audience might not realize at first, but hopefully figure out by the end. "Oh, that's what that scene was about!" Gets your message across without slapping the audience in the face with it.
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Thanks everyone for your advices.