{"id":85,"date":"2007-10-02T15:32:43","date_gmt":"2007-10-02T03:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/02\/making-it-compelling\/"},"modified":"2012-09-05T17:28:01","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T05:28:01","slug":"making-it-compelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/making-it-compelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Make It Compelling"},"content":{"rendered":"

After my last spleen-lancing post<\/a>, I’ve had some imaginary emails and non-existent comments with valid questions like Who the [hell] do you think you are?<\/i> and Why make do with the length you have?<\/i><\/p>\n

To answer the first, I get paid<\/b> to write, thank you. And although the polite and understated New Zealand way of explaining such a position would be to shuffle my shoes and bashfully say that I must be doing something right, the reality is that I’m good<\/b> at what I do. I’m a professional. I deliver.<\/p>\n

So there.<\/p>\n

As for the second question, that was actually from some email or comment spam, so no response required.<\/p>\n

I may have been a bit harsh with my accusations of lazy storytelling and a fear of audience confusion in my last post. It’s one thing to blame everything on the writer – and very easy: just trawl through a random sample of dissatisfied film reviews – but it’s another to ignore the fact of how fragile a feature film is. Anyone who’s made a film will tell you that everyone involved – every-bloody-one<\/b><\/i> – has a hand in how it turns out. It’s a miracle they get made at all.<\/p>\n

But back to the hapless writer and those ever-reliable chestnuts:
\n– the child\/sidekick\/damsel who don’t do as they’re told;
\n– the unnecessary lie; and
\n– egregiously dumb acts by characters.<\/p>\n

I’ll be lazy and hereby categorise them as dumb things<\/i>. Such dumb things can be avoided by providing a compelling reason so that the dumb thing becomes at least understandable<\/b><\/i>.<\/p>\n

Remember how the DAUGHTER got her MOTHER killed? What the hell was the kid doing outside the house?<\/i> Well, what if…<\/p>\n

\n

Once MOTHER left to investigate the noises outside, we spend some time focussing on her DAUGHTER. All alone. So vulnerable.<\/p>\n

There’s a LOUD NOISE from the back of the house: it’s the backdoor being busted down by a couple of mobile VENUS HUMANTRAPS! Their tendrils slither across the polished wooden floor, rushing towards the little girl until –<\/p>\n

DAUGHTER<\/p>\n

(sotto)<\/p>\n

The hell with this.<\/p>\n

– and she slips out the front door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The same principle can be applied to the other situations. In the boy-meets-girl situation, what if…<\/p>\n

BOY listens to his BEST MATE tell him that –<\/p>\n

\n

BEST MATE<\/p>\n

– women are stupid. We, as manly men, lie to them to save them face.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Whereupon Boy ignores his friend’s advice and is upfront with GIRL about MEAN BOSS’s request – and the challenge then is to bring about a different yet interesting obstacle to put in the way of Girl and Boy’s embryonic romance<\/b>.<\/p>\n

And finally, what if…<\/p>\n

\n

HOT DOG COP and OLD BULL COP admire the form of NAKED WOMAN for a couple of slo-mo seconds as she hoofs it down the street, shrieking all the while.<\/p>\n

HOT DOG<\/p>\n

What’s she yelling about?<\/p>\n

OLD BULL<\/p>\n

You weren’t listening either?<\/p>\n

HOT DOG<\/p>\n

(sheepish)<\/p>\n

I was a bit –<\/p>\n

OLD BULL<\/p>\n

Distracted? Yeah, me too.<\/p>\n

HOT DOG<\/p>\n

(beat)<\/p>\n

I suppose we should call it in.<\/p>\n

OLD BULL<\/p>\n

(nods)<\/p>\n

There was some blood on her.<\/p>\n

(off Hot Dog)<\/p>\n

Go on. I’ll call for backup while you run her down.<\/p>\n

A mental image strikes Hot Dog:<\/p>\n

HOT DOG<\/p>\n

I... suppose I should.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So:<\/p>\n

Knowing why<\/b> the kid leaves the house won’t save her mother from being beheaded by some plant hybrid but at least no-one’s thinking of throttling the ill-disciplined sprog.<\/p>\n

Having a realistic response to patently stupid advice may have generated some work down the line but at least viewers aren’t planning death-threats against the writer.<\/p>\n

And replacing blind machismo with some droll humour doesn’t really work here, but at least police-procedural aficionados aren’t up in arms about blatant disregard of common-sensical law enforcement practice.<\/p>\n

See? Provide a compelling reason for action – or inaction – and you make that moment yours<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After my last spleen-lancing post, I’ve had some imaginary emails and non-existent comments with valid questions like Who the [hell] do you think you are? and Why make do with the length you have? To answer the first, I get paid to write, thank you. And although the polite and understated New Zealand way of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Make It Compelling”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,4,6],"tags":[272,98,605,606,353],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-scriptwriting","category-television","tag-horror","tag-plot-device","tag-police-procedural","tag-sci-fi","tag-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2878,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/2878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}