November 14, 2014

Crafting Truth

This blog post is my attempt to answer a question a student of mine asked me: Movies are all about showing right emotions. Is it necessary to support it with dialogues? If yes, then how to select perfect dialogues? If no , then how to show perfect emotions? When do I know what to do with either of them ? Kindly advise.

If I'm getting the question, it is this: How to create a scene that is emotionally authentic as well as dramatically powerful? To be honest, the approach to this question not only separates good screenwriters from not so good ones, but also explains why screenwriting is one of the most difficult forms of writing. As film-writers we determine each twist and turn and all conflicts and resolutions of our story, and every action and reaction of our characters. We meticulously control every bit of our story universe to make it 'powerful', so that scene after scene the story can move forward. However, this much is not sufficient to emotionally affect the audience. Despite achieving all that is mentioned above, if there is one false note here or there, one moment when the audience stops believing in the authenticity of what they are seeing, every effort by us becomes visible, and the telling appears manipulative and contrived. In fact, in movies, the camera actually 'recreates' reality and such false notes are spotted more easily than in a novel, where the author need not 'show' every little thing and can hide behind words, trying to explain each 'untrue' motivation, or in a play, where the audience 'knows' that this is 'not real'. We brutally expect movies to mimic reality, so much so that we question the absurdities of a film more than we question the absurdities of life. It is this expectation of the audience, of authenticity, that makes film-writing so difficult, because unlike life, the 'truth' in the lives of movie characters does not shape up on its own. It has to be crafted, without appearing crafty.

I am listing down all that, I believe, may help in achieving this. The list is not absolute and can never be complete, and is mostly my spontaneous attempt at answering the question.
  • Know the world of your story. Through research and active imagination you can have a detailed and almost intimidating understanding of the universe in which you are setting the story - the location in space and time, the socio-cultural milieu of your characters, the colors and textures and so on. If the world you have created is rich in its detail, it will appear authentic - the greatest fantasy films have proved that. Also, research gives you an authority and the audience loves to be in the hands of a storyteller who 'knows'.
  • Create characters who are unique in their outwardly appearance and in their psychological make-up, but extremely relatable at the emotional level. If your story is about a woman, give her an emotional core that will resonate with all women, and men. But through her behaviour, her world-view, her interpersonal relationships, her experiences, and her appearance, make her truly original.
  • Know your characters inside out. Any level of detailed understanding of your character will not be enough. You should know them so closely that you can predict with certainty their actions and reactions at each and every situation. Never judge them, and love all of them - even your antagonist. You must know that each character behaves according to what she thinks is good and right. You need to understand her perspective to know why her idea of 'good and right' is different from someone else's.
  • Now, while creating your scene, treat it as a battle between your characters. In this battle, each of their actions and reactions, their dialogues and pauses, will be directed as per their individual behavior in the situation of the scene. And the end result of this battle is something you have already determined - your scene objective.
  • Guide their behaviour with the light touch of your scene objective. Do not make them do anything for the audience, but to each other or to themselves. Write diaogues (and every action/reaction of your characters) by getting into their respective minds. Let them speak when they want to. Let them react without dialogue if that appears truer. And finish writing the scene. Finish writing the first draft without worrying too much about how brilliant it is.
  • Read the scene aloud, especially the dialogues. Be ruthless in your scrutiny to find the false notes. Also, determine the dramatic impact of it. If you are honest to yourself, you will find that there are certain moments where 'truth' is missing. Also the dramatic potential of the scene will appear unfulfilled either because of too much of effort or because of lack of conflict. Also the scene will appear either too long or too short to create the desired impact.
  • Then ask this question: how can you add more genuine conflicts into the scene to make it more dramatic? The conflicts that you add must come from the characters and their world - and the first two points in this list will ensure that. Also, these conflicts should ideally not depend on chance. When a gun runs out of bullets at a crucial time in a movie, we never say it is destiny. We say - it is a film! It is important that we avoid such chance-driven conflicts to remain invisible as storytellers, to craft without appearing crafty.
  • Ask another question: how can you remove the false notes? The answer to this lies inside your characters. Ask them why they would behave in such a way and they will give you answers from their lives. You will find that they will either modify the 'false' action you gave to them or completely change it and surprise you with something new and original, that still helps you reach the scene objective.
  • Rewrite the scene based on the answers to above questions. Do not resort to cliches. In fact, fight all temptation to use them. Determine the correct length of the scene. Try to use as less diaogue as possible. And once you have rewritten it, evaluate it again, and prepare for the next rewrite. 
As should be clear from the above discussion, conveying right emotions does not essentially need dialogues. It needs truth - believable behaviour from relatable characters in an authentic world. If dialogues come naturally in this believable behavior, they must be used. We have to trust our understanding of the characters, develop a critical eye for our own work, and believe in the power of persistent rewrites. Eventually, we will get there. 

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