Ela Thier's Blog

Writing assignment: week of March 22, 2011

Comedy doesn’t come from people being funny. In fact, no one is hardly ever funny in comedies. Most comedies thrive on people taking themselves seriously in absurd situations. The more seriously the characters take the situation, the funnier it becomes.

Let’s try one: Honey and her cousin Screw have been planning a bank robbery for weeks. They have it all timed and planned to perfection. Honey knows the bank well because her mother works there; she has devised the robbery around the ONE day that her mother plans to miss work.

The big day has finally arrived, mother is finally cashing in a day-at-a-spa coupon that she’s had for ages and is missing work, and Honey shows up at Screw’s place to pick him up. He’s the designated getaway car driver.

Honey wants: Screw to leave his parents’ house (he lives in their basement) and get in the car
Because: they are going to rob a bank and execute a perfect plan, that is dependent on being there the only day of the year that Honey’s mom won’t be there.
But: Screw read in the Yahoo horoscope section that this is a bad day for risky ventures in the work arena, but a great day to stay home and reflect.

Now, don’t fall into cliches by making Screw a girly guy who reads fashion magazines. Na uh. Make Screw a really big, scruffy, macho, scary, 40-year-old guy.

In fact, as an added obstacle: it’s Screw’s secret that he reads the horoscopes. Let him be too embarrassed to explain his reason for bowing out.

Try it? The more seriously Screw will take the horoscope, the more screwy your story will be.

Click here for instructions on how to best fulfill these assignments.

Happy writing

Writing assignment, March 14, 2011

GUESSING GAME!!

Below is a transcription of a conversation between husband and wife as he comes home to find a candle-lit dinner prepared for him. See if you can guess what popular movie it’s from:

JOHN
You did all this for me?

JANE
I missed you.

JOHN
I missed you too honey.

She lays a napkin on his lap.

JOHN
Why thank you.

JANE
Don’t mention it.

She reappears with pot roast.

JOHN
Mm… pot roast. My favorite. Sit down honey, I’ll carve… So how was work?

JANE
Same ol’ same ol’

This is dialogue from Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The couple are about to attempt to assassinate each other.

It’s not the champaign, but the subtext, that makes a scene sparkle.

Let’s turn to our weekly assignment:

Jack wants: to reconcile with his estranged brother and ask if he can crash at his place till he finds a job
Because: Jack lost his job months ago and was recently evicted from his place.
But: Due to pride, Jack and his brother haven’t spoken in five years after they had some stupid, meaningless fight. (Neither one remembers what the fight was about).

Let Jack show up at his brother’s office at work. Same rule as last week: Jack can’t bring up his current situation. Give the guy a break: Filling his brother in on what’s going or asking for anything would be far, far too humiliating. And remember that they haven’t spoken in five years. His brother won’t ask anything about his money or living situation because it wouldn’t even occur to him.

Don’t get “cutesy” by having them brush up against the subject with hints: like talk about the economy, unemployment, housing, or about that pull-up couch in Jack’s brother’s living-room. They also can’t talk about their fight, or mention the fact that they haven’t spoken in five years. No, no, no. Relegate their conversation to the gorgeous sounds of inane, irrelevant, SMALL TALK.

The bigger the gap between what people are saying and what people are thinking, the louder your writing will sing.

And yes: if the spirit moves you, (some) subtext may come to the surface at the very end of the scene. The moment that subtext comes to the surface is “The Big Event” in a vast majority of scenes. Cherish those rare, rare moments when people actually say what they think. Those moments are few and far between in real life, and should be few and far between in your writing. Ask Mrs. Smith: if people speak their thoughts, instead of pot roast, what you get is syrup!

An added bonus writing assignment: what are five thoughts you’ve had this week, that you would never, ever, ever, in a million years, tell ANYbody…? Write them down and then post them on my blog (just kidding!)

Have fun!

Click here for instructions on how to fulfill these assignments.

As always: feel free to play with characters’ genders or ages.

Writing assignment: March 8, 2011

Subtext is that gap between what people say and what’s actually going on. One of my favorite examples is from “The Professional”. The killer holds a gun to this guy’s head in front of his whole family, and they discuss classical music. No one says anything about murder. They talk about music.

The bigger the gap between what’s going on and what people are saying, the richer the dialogue becomes.

This week’s assignment:
Nancy wants: her daughter to invite her to her 30th birthday party
Because: she loves her daughter
But: her daughter is estranged from her and did not invite her

Place mother and daughter in some location that is not home, car, or food establishment.

And let them talk.

The only rule is: neither one, in this assignment, is allowed to bring up the birthday or the party. Mother won’t do it because she doesn’t want to be pushy. She wants the invitation to come from her daughter. Daughter won’t do it because she doesn’t know that her mom is aware of the party, and she doesn’t want her to come.

Don’t bother making sure that the audience knows what’s going on. Assume they found out what’s up the scene before. Don’t get silly with them by “insinuating” stuff and hinting at the subject matter. None of that. Let them SMALL TALK. Talk about anything.

If you keep the birthday story in mind, it’ll all be there. I promise.

As always: feel free to change genders. Also feel free to change age. It can be daughter’s 40th birthday party. Or 20th birthday party. Use whatever age and gender will help you connect with the story.

Click here for instructions on how to fulfill these assignments.

One of my students asked me a great question last night: she said that she finds her characters’ dialogue to be on the nose. There was no subtext in her writing.

If you find that in writing these scenes your dialogue is syrupy and making your skin crawl, here are two things you can try:

1) Write the entire scene using no dialogue. Seriously. It doesn’t matter what Lisa says to her dude. It doesn’t matter if she gets her way or not. Don’t worry about whether the audience knows what’s going on. Your characters know what’s going on and that’s all you should concern yourself with. (I’ll write an assignment on how-to-inject-information-without-being-obvious-about-it another time.) For now, don’t even think about your reader. Write this scene using no dialogue.

2) Alternatively (or additionally, after you try the no-dialogue method), try writing this scene using dialogue, with the only rule being that the two can NOT discuss food or health. They can say whatever you want them to say, but they can’t speak about the topic at hand.

People rarely EVER talk about the elephant in the room. The elephant will be there; I promise. They can talk about the weather, the Mets, the kids’ little league game. But as long as they don’t talk about the subject on the table, the scene will snap-crackle-pop with tension.

Have fun!

Weekly writing assignment:

Last week someone wrote me a question that I didn’t have time to reply to and now I can’t find it in my inbox. I can’t remember the person’s name and all my gmail searches are in vain. I hope that whoever wrote me reads this posting and will know that I’m addressing their question. (write me if it’s you!)

The question (and I’m remembering it only vaguely) was something about creating stakes and obstacles when you’re dealing with a broad, social issue. This person was writing about the food industry. How do you create goals, stakes and obstacles, when you’re writing about the overall state of an entire industry?

My answer is that whatever the backdrop is: the best stories are personal. What you do is focus on the personal story of one individual, and demonstrate how the larger issue is affecting that person’s life.

The most resonant documentaries do exactly that: they focus on the personal story of 1-4 individuals, with the social/political issue acting as the backdrop – providing the individual stories with goals and obstacles.

“Supersize Me” was about fast food. Instead of giving us statistics, we followed the journey of one person who ate only at McDonald’s food.

Michael Moore is the king of personal stories. In every one of his documentaries, you get personally attached to 1-4 individuals and follow them, as Michael involves himself in their stories and becomes a part of it. He may pepper in a several stories that show similar hardships and outcomes, but he always follows the personal stories of 1-4 individuals.

So let’s think about the food industry: We live in a society in which most human efforts are organized around making profits for a few wealthy individuals, rather than focusing our efforts on human needs. The food industry is the perfect example of profits being more important than humans. This is an industry that may be responsible for over 95% of the deaths in this country given what it puts on our supermarket shelves.  Heart disease, adult-onset diabetes, strokes, dementia, most cancers: thousands of studies show the same thing over and over again — that these fatal illnesses are avoidable through good nutrition.

Dr. Joel Furhman recently published a study showing that eating healthy (ie. mostly fruits and vegetables, some beans) decreases cholesterol more effectively than cholesterol-lowering medications. Yet most doctors prescribe medications. Hardly any doctor discuss nutrition with their patients to any degree. Our doctors are trained to be trigger-happy with meds rather than discuss salads. Meds make a lot more money than a head of lettuce.

Check out Furhman’s study: http://drfuhrman.com/library/conquer_cholesterol.aspx

This week’s story:

LISA WANTS: to get her husband to agree to read the book “Eat to Live” by Joel Furhman and then make an appointment to see him (let’s make them both in their 60’s)

BECAUSE: her husband, who is overweight, had just been diagnosed with adult-onset diabetes, an illness that will take away his sight, his kidneys, and eventually his life.

BUT: When she tells him that Dr. Furhman has healed diabetics completely just through nutrition (this is true stuff, by the way), her husband discounts her as a naïve idiot and gulps down his meds while ordering a cheeseburger.

This would be a painful scene to write, wouldn’t it.

The more you can connect with how much Lisa loves her husband, the more powerful a scene this will be. What’s at stake is his life. The bigger the LOVE, the bigger the scene.

Have fun with this guy and his cheeseburger.

And needless to say: the pleading, arguing, reasoning, is not going to work. So don’t rely on that. Lisa will have to figure out something else.

Oh, and for a long healthy life, regardless of what you weigh, read this book:
http://drfuhrman.com/shop/ETLBook.aspx

It has changed MY life.

Most memorable parts, of course, are the personal stories of people whose lives changed when they changed what they ate.

Click here for instructions on how to best fulfill these writing assignments.

Happy eating

OH! I ALMOST FORGOT! Several of my students are organizing writing groups all over NYC. Go to
http://www.meetup.com/Ela-Thiers-Writing-Group/ to find a group. More of them will be scheduled soon.

Appropriately, tomorrow’s group is meeting at Wholefoods

writing assignment, Feb 22, 2011

Penelope Wants: to find the collection of diamonds that she knows her boss is hiding somewhere in his apartment
Because: she would have the money she needs to take her child and leave an abusive husband
But: her boss will be home any minute

When you write this scene, be sure to have the boss show up at some point. As to what happens when he shows up: allow yourself to find that out when he gets there. Don’t spoil the ending to this scene by planning it all out in advance. Writing is a lot like doing an acting improv. You establish the circumstances and then find out what happens.

Let’s add one more obstacle: Penelope’s young child is with her.

And last stipulation: write the entire scene, beginning to end, using no dialogue.

Good luck Penelope!

Happy writing

WEEKLY WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Feb 15, 2011

Hi folks,

I just re-read last week’s assignment and I see that it was confusing. My bad. I wrote it while jet-lagged and overworked. While I apologize, I’m quite sure that it isn’t the last time that I’ll botch one up

The assignment was confusing because I articulated what “Cindy” wanted, when it was “Rita” who had stakes in the matter. Let’s change Cindy’s name, so we don’t confuse her with Ms. Lauper and rearrange it:

It should have read:
Rita wants: to go to the school dance with her friend Gwen
Because: Rita has never gotten to go to a school dance, and has wanted nothing but that ever since she saw Cindy Lauper’s video when she was four-years-old
But: her strict father forbids her from going.

That makes more sense. You might still argue that the stakes aren’t high enough, but depending on the context, someone standing up for themselves to be who they want to be can be the biggest decision in somebody’s life.

However, since we’re on the topic of stakes, let’s write the exact same scene, and see how differently it plays out when the stakes change. The stakes, by the way, the reason she wants to go to the dance, never need to be mentioned or discussed. Changing her reason for wanting to go to the dance will still alter the scene entirely. Let’s try:

Rita wants: to go to the school dance with her friend Gwen
Because: her best friend Neil told her about a bomb in the gym that will go off during the dance
But: her strict father won’t let her go, and she can’t tell her father or anyone (other than Gwen) about the bomb because Neil was involved and she doesn’t want to get him in trouble.

OK. So now that we’re talking about the lives of a couple hundred people, her desire to get to the dance might shape out differently. She must get there to find and dismantle a bomb or everyone dies.

Now let’s remember: the story is only as big as the obstacle. A pain-in-the-butt father may not pose enough of an obstacle in the face of an imminent bomb. Instead of replacing her father with a menacing dragon, let’s turn the father into a bigger obstacle by raising HIS stakes.

In early drafts, it is not uncommon to run into an emotionally under-developed opponent. So let’s make dad a bigger obstacle by clarifying his stakes:

Rita’s father wants: to keep Rita from going to the school dance
Because: he’s in the middle of a cut-throat custody battle with his now ex-wife who plans to move overseas and take Rita with her. Letting Rita go the dance, something he and his wife jointly agree they wouldn’t do, will jeopardize him keeping his daughter
But: Rita won’t give up trying to get to the dance (of course she won’t, she can’t!) and he can’t tell Rita about the custody battle or her mother’s travel plans because it would devastate her.

Now the strict father is not such a bad guy, is he. When you can put yourself in the “bad guy’s” shoes, the story becomes elevated to a whole other level.

And remember that great conflict doesn’t necessarily come in the form of “a fight”. Let Rita explore all sorts of tactics. She might even try coddling, appeasing, reassuring her father; she’ll try anything. And he might try reasoning with her, or making it up to her somehow. There are all sorts of things they can do. See what happens if you avoid the most obvious choice where they just shout each other down.

Happy writing!
Ela ☺

As always: feel free to switch genders around. Daughter/son/father/mother whatever.

And click here for instructions on how to fulfill these assignments effectively.

What’s at stake if your character gets or doesn’t get what they want? The stakes are the consequences of your scene.

If what’s at stake is your character finding fresher fruit for lunch, we’re not that invested. If what’s at stake is your character getting to live or die, you’ve grabbed us by the collar.

In TV episodes, since they’re episodes in a person’s life, you can get away with pretty low stakes. In feature films, the only way to fill up a screen that big is to create the biggest possible stakes.

There are only so many stakes that are big enough for feature films:

-Life or death (Alien)
-Integrity or selling out (Casablanca)
-Being yourself or conforming (Billy Elliot)
-Justice (The Sting, The Fugitive)
-Money or Power – (Matchstick Men)
-Love or loneliness (Most movies)

Some of these stakes are bigger than others. When we talk about “the stakes rising”, we’re referring to stakes changing from less important ones to more important ones.

For example: in The Fugitive, stakes begin with life or death, but rise to being about justice when the character on the run makes a u-turn and returns to the city to find his wife’s killer.

In Little Miss Sunshine, the stakes at first are winning the pageant (we put that in the money/power category), but stakes then rise to being yourself and acting with integrity, a much more important thing than money or power.

In Casablanca, love is at stake. Huge. But the main character eventually chooses to act with integrity, even at the cost of losing his love. Rising stakes.

Let’s write a scene about a young woman getting to be herself. This assignment was inspired by the Cindy Lauper’s video above, which I think is a profound video. There just isn’t a more powerful weapon against oppression than pure joy.

Cindy wants: her friend Rita to go dancing with her
Because: girls just wanna have fun
But: Rita’s dad won’t let her (let’s make Rita a catholic school girl.)

Will Rita spend the rest of her life in fearful obedience, or will she get to be herself?

Be sure that Rita 1) does not manage to sneak out without her father knowing and 2) she does go dancing

click here for instructions on how to fulfill these assignments

This week’s writing assignment:

Samantha wants: to figure out if Will is her father and decide if she wants to reveal her identity and have contact with him.
Because: She’s been fatherless since she was three. And now, a series of clues she received from her mother before she passed away, led her to this guy. This is her chance to finally have a father.
But:
Option 1) Besides being an arrogant, disgusting and obnoxious womanizer, Will is DRUNK. As she asks him questions to figure out if he knew her mother, without revealing who she is, his responses are nonsensical and contradictory.

Option 2) Besides being an arrogant, disgusting and obnoxious womanizer, Will is a corrupt CEO who trusts no one, much less people who are asking him about his past.

Option 3) Combine options 1 & 2

What will help the scene great is knowing what Will wants, and why. So let’s be sure to flesh that out:
In Option 1) Will wants her to take him home and take care of him. He treats all women like maids.
In Option 2) Will wants to figure out who sent her without letting on that this is what he’s trying to figure out
In Option 3) Well… unless the scene is practically writing itself, you should probably pick numbers 1 or 2 in terms of Will’s goal, even if you choose to combine those obstacles.

As always, feel free to switch genders. Daughter can be son, father can be mother — choose whatever will help you connect with the story.

Happy writing!

Click here for instructions on how to fulfill these assignments effectively.

This week we have a scene that would typically be entirely inter-personal. Boy wants his mother to meet his boyfriend, but mother disapproves and refuses to meet him.

When all obstacles are inter-personal, you run the risk of writing melodramatic stuff. What gives soaps the feeling of a soap is the fact that all obstacles are inter-personal (You did that to me! You betrayed me! You love me! etc. etc.) In soap-operas, all obstacles come from people, other than the occasional cancer.

Unless it’s your intention to write a soap (by all means, it pays well) all you have to do to deviate from soap-dom is to introduce internal obstacles. So here I’m devising your typical “coming out” scene between mother and son, but adding a layer of complexity by making the son doubt his decision. Here goes:

Phil wants: his mother to meet his boyfriend
Because: he wants his mother’s approval
But: his mother does not approve, will not meet his boyfriend, and Phil himself is not sure if his mother is right or wrong to disapprove.

Shall we add an external obstacle as well? Yes! Why don’t you choose from one of the following external obstacles:

1) Mother is driving Phil to make a dentist appointment and they’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
2) Mother is getting her hair done and insists that no one in the salon hear what they’re talking about
3) Mother (or Phil) is having a violent reaction to some food poisoning and is throwing up
4) make up your own! Avoid placing them in the predictable kitchen scene where they’re sitting at the table chatting it all up. Put them in some interesting location and create an external obstacle.

As always: son can be daughter, boyfriend can be girlfriend, mother can father, use whatever gender will help you connect with the story most easily.

Click here for instructions on how to fulfill these assignments effectively.