Were you paying close attention for clues during last night’s anticipated series premiere of How to Get Away with Murder? Did you manage to catch writer/creator Peter Nowalk’s object lesson in the simple art of murder?
It was easy enough to overlook. After all, Nowalk skillfully introduced multiple characters and mysteries in short order, creating—and holding his viewers in—the kind of edge-of-your-seat suspense that is the hallmark of the Whydunit genre (so modified from “Whodunit” because who, per Blake Snyder, is merely a conventional formality and ephemeral revelation—it’s the why that gives us the lasting insight into the dark side of human nature we crave from these stories). But, for students of the craft of screenwriting, consider yourself enrolled in How to Create a Fertile, Provocative Premise 101.
I mean, you could’ve sold this show right off the pitch (and maybe they did): The soapy, legal-thriller intrigue of Scandal (Shonda Rhimes serves as an executive producer on How to Get Away with Murder) crossed with the in-over-our-heads, youth-centric mystery of Pretty Little Liars. You certainly don’t need Rhimes’ pedigree to sell that—it’s got the magic criterion to prick up the ears of any half-attentive creative exec: familiar-but-different. Once you land on that, from there it’s all about execution. And televisional storytelling—even the high-concept kind, as I’ve discussed—is predicated, above all, on character.
To that end, Nowalk and Rhimes have stuck to the playbook that’s served them so well on Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal by arranging their new series’ attractive ensemble cast around a magnetic, multidimensional lead: criminal-defense attorney and university professor Annalise Keating, portrayed by Oscar-nominated Viola Davis. Now, if you weren’t quite sure what to make of Annalise after last night’s formal introduction, be certain this was by deliberate design. More on that in a moment…
Here I am—intrepid screenwriter—gearing up to embark on a dizzying new adventure in my writing career: my first full-length novel—a work of historical fiction (with supernatural twist, of course—the change in venue isn’t indicative of revamped storytelling sensibilities on my part!). In a plot convenience straight out of a first-draft screenplay, Writer’s Digest recently hosted a novel-writing conference here in Los Angeles; among the seminars offered was a “Historical Fiction Boot Camp”—taught by no less than bestselling author David Morrell, who introduced the world to Rambo in his inaugural novel, First Blood (1972). I’d have likely attended the workshop regardless, but given that on my most recent vacation I lazed on the beach and read three Morrell novels in a row, the happenstance of it all seemed too providential to dismiss.
During both his seminar and keynote address, Mr. Morrell spoke with endearing candor about his life’s experiences and path to becoming a writer, much of which you can read about—if you haven’t had the pleasure to hear him speak in person—in his 2012 essay Rambo and Me: The Story Behind the Story. If the man feels in any way that he lives in the shadow of his first—and most iconic—creation, one wouldn’t suspect as much from chatting with him, which I was lucky enough to get a chance to do. As a child of the eighties, Rambo holds profound nostalgic significance for me; I went through a phase (as my dearest childhood friend can lamentably attest) in which a plastic jade Buddha amulet dangled totemically from my neck and I responded to any conversational overtures with nothing more eloquent than a sneering curl of my upper lip. Mr. Morrell was gracious enough to answer my Rambo-related inquiries—with a smile; not a sneer!—and recounted some of his experiences on the development of the third and fourth films of the franchise. The behind-the-scenes history of the storied movie series has been well-documented in the thirty-odd years since the first entry’s initial release, but to hear tales of the productions from the horse’s mouth was a thrill to rival any of Rambo’s breathless derring-do.
Given that this summer marks the thirtieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries, respectively, of Ghostbusters (enjoying a limited theatrical rerelease this week) and Ghostbusters II, I recently took an opportunity—the first since screenwriting on a professional basis—to re-watch them. This can be something of a perilous exercise—bringing my experienced analytical eye to a movie that carries such personal nostalgic weight for me—but I almost always walk away with an enhanced appreciation for the film in question, be it a newfound recognition of its merits or clearer grasp of its shortcomings.
Much has been written about Ghostbusters; much less about Ghostbusters II. In the years since its release, the latter has come to be considered the bastard, redheaded stepchild of the franchise, which includes the highly regarded animated series The Real Ghostbusters (1986–1991). When discussing Ghostbusters, the sequel typically merits an obligatory, passing mention, though often with a discernible tenor of embarrassment; even series director Ivan Reitman offered this vague and somewhat apologetic assessment of the follow-up in a recent retrospective published by Vanity Fair: “It didn’t all come together. We just sort of got off on the wrong foot story-wise on that film.”
Other appraisals of Ghostbusters II are equally nonspecific. Other than a general consensus that “it wasn’t as good as the original,” I’ve been hard-pressed to find a critique that adequately identifies why, as Vanity Fair notes, it “failed to generate the passionate enthusiasm spurred by the first film.”
I’m going to venture a suggestion that flies in the face of over eight decades of Hollywood tradition: Movie monsters are not fundamentally franchisable.
Did the sequels to Psycho or Silence of the Lambs inspire the sheer terror of the originals? The more we knew about Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter, the more comfortable, oddly enough, we became with them. What about Jaws and Child’s Play? Seems to me the shark got faker and Chucky got campier as those went along. Sure, the body counts were higher and the death scenes more elaborate (a provision of scary sequels so concisely articulated in Scream 2), but did any of that make the follow-ups scarier—or merely distract you from the fact that you weren’t as scared?
“Someone has taken their love of SEQUELS one step too far”
Caught myself up on the first season of House of Cards this past weekend. I know, I know. But, better late than never, right? After all, isn’t that the advantage of on-demand viewing? Nowadays, a good series is always available to be discovered.
Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood in “House of Cards”
There are shows that I tune into and consciously try to like, and then there are those that win me over midway through their pilot episode without any premeditated cooperation on my part. House of Cards falls squarely in the latter category. It’s a classic Institutionalized story, which Blake Snyder defines as any tale about the “crazy” or self-destructive group dynamics of an institution—in this case, Congress. Washington is well-represented in political television drama at present, but I certainly haven’t seen a series in which power plays are an end unto themselves: The movers and shakers that populate House of Cards make no attempt to justify their self-serving agendas with hollow allegiances of fealty to the Republic. And protagonist Frank Underwood’s stylized, Shakespearean asides to camera—a tough trick to pull off (Kevin Spacey makes it look so natural, hence his consecutive Emmy nominations for the first two seasons)—lend an intimacy that endears the audience to a character with which we might not otherwise be predisposed to empathize. (He works for Congress, after all, and have you seen their approval numbers of late?) Like most serialized protagonists, Frank is comprised of five key traits; I’m eager to get on with the second season, so let’s take a quick look at them:
This is the first in a series of posts on characterization, in which I reverse-engineer a psychological profile for an established fictional character.
Four years ago, the clock ran out on 24, the groundbreaking “real-time” television drama starring Kiefer Sutherland as indefatigable counterterrorism agent Jack Bauer. A writer on Lost once told me how much he loved 24 for being such an immersive entertainment experience: It made him completely forget, as he watched it, that he was both a television scribe and a liberal! Indeed, the series remained so reliably entertaining throughout its initial eight-season run that its often outlandish plot twists never seemed to irrevocably strain the audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief, nor did its occasionally controversial depictions of both Muslims and the use of torture overshadow its legacy as an evolutionary pioneer in serialized television.
A 21st-Century Superhero
From the outset, 24 was a bit of an anomaly: a high-concept television series in a medium predicated far less on concept than on character. Speaking broadly, feature films exploit a premise to elicit our interest; there’s an implicit What would you do? embedded in a movie’s central conceit that compels us to engage in its finite dilemma and vicariously explore the ramifications. Television, by design, isn’t finite—it’s open-ended; a foundational premise needs to be built to last—across multiple seasons, ideally—rather than burn through all of its permutations over the course of two hours. In TV, concept supports character: We come back week after week to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital to check in with Meredith and McDreamy, to Downton Abbey for a visit with the Crawleys. 24 is no exception. And the only character to have appeared in every episode—or even, more generally, every season—is Jack Bauer: He’s the common denominator—the reason we keep coming back. The innovative real-time format is why we came to 24 back in 2001; Jack is why we’ve stayed with it through 2014.
More than even its nonelliptical narrative, Jack is the show’s key component, as 24 fits firmly in the Superhero mold. For the uninitiated, a Superhero story need not be strictly about a costumed crime-fighter; Blake Snyder defines it as any tale about a character with a special power (Jack is the country’s foremost counterterrorism expert), a nemesis (in the case of 24, the literal villain du jour), and a curse (on account of the reliable efficacy of his superpower, Jack is solely and repeatedly called upon to do the dirty jobs and make the personal sacrifices to save the day, day after day). Jack is what Snyder defines as a “People’s Superhero,” like James Bond and Olivia Pope.
Jack’s Back
“Jack, simply getting your life back isn’t gonna change who you are… and you can’t walk away from it. You know that. You’ve tried it. Sooner or later, you’re gonna get back in the game.”
Secretary of Defense James Heller in “Day 6: 5:00 a.m.–6:00 a.m.”
Superheroes are routinely called back into service for the greater good—such is their calling and their curse—and Jack isn’t immune: He’s blazed back into action in this summer’s limited-run revival series 24: Live Another Day. Though the threats he faces have changed with the times—it’s drones and hacktivism now—all the time-honored tropes that made 24 such crackerjack entertainment are present and accounted for: Infiltrations! Exfiltrations! Mass-casualty detonations! Botched undercover operations! Presidential assassinations! Traitorous machinations! Everything we loved, just as before.
Also exactly as before: Jack Bauer. He has been one of the most consistent protagonists of any contemporary long-running series. Not predictable, mind you—an analysis of his five governing characteristics shows him to be a deceptively unconventional hero—but consistent. Let’s deconstruct him, a trait at a time.
In this, my very first post, I suggest a curriculum, compiled and customized from several different proven storytelling programs, that will teach any aspiring writer the fundamentals of narrativity: structure, genre, and characterization.
Welcome to the blog!
Though I hold bachelor’s degrees in both film and English, most of what I learned about screenwriting—and fiction writing in general—came in the form of a decade-long “crash course” at the School of Hard Knocks (admission is easy; tuition’s a killer). Reading and writing screenplays was the first critical step—I consciously studied formatting and unconsciously absorbed form—but gazing at a painting no more demystifies the esoteric art of illustration than listening repeatedly to a song uncloaks the “magic” of musical composition. Command of craft in any art form, writing included, demands discipline—the skilled use of tools that can be summoned at will—and for that, I turned to the many, many screenwriting how-to books that seem to have flooded the marketplace since the Nineties.
But, why spend time reading about writing when the best way to improve is “practice, practice, practice,” right? After all, many folks—including, in no small numbers, pro screenwriters—have dismissed the merits of so-called “screenwriting bibles” and “gurus,” and, indeed, few of them bring any new insights to the conversation. But, the practice of deconstructing the principles of literature and drama goes at least as far back as 335 BCE with Poetics—a respected and lasting treatise on literary theory by any metric—and, as Aristotle seems to have suspected, the meticulous study of narrative patterns and mythic archetypes offers a foundation for the codification of techniques—the building blocks of craft.
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