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Category Archives: Homework


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Designing Dialogue

So you don’t want your dialogue to just sound like blah blah blah. You want it to be as rich, engaging, and true to form as possible. A good approach to dialogue throughout the writing process is to remember that it directly correlates to character. And as we all know by now, character is story. Dialogue is not story, though, just to clarify, but it does enrich the way you tell it. Just think, even now I am exercising this muscle as I talk as if to you. How did I decide on this laid back approach to academics? That’s just the way I am. And it will be easy for you to know how your characters would speak to you or anyone else once you have a firm grasp on who they are. If you’ve done your Character Detective Work you might be ahead of the pack on this next exercise, but you can always write up a quick character bio for any new character as well. When thinking about how your characters speak, and also the type of information that would go into their bio it is helpful to keep these factors that determine/defines how people speak in mind:

(in no particular order)

  • region of origin
  • class
  • age
  • gender
  • education
  • political leanings
  • state of mind
  • who talking to*
  • where they are talking (setting/environment)*
  • ethnicity
  • time period
  • self-image
  • what they want (motivations)*
  • if they are on any substances
  • occupation

The ones with asterisks are, of course, perhaps the most important to keep in mind.

Okay, cool. Moving on. Once we know how are characters speak we have to give them something to talk about. On the most basic level, language is about communicating information. In screenwriting we refer to the information needed to understand the story as exposition. Here’s an example of how exposition works in a screenplay. Read the following scene, then write down at least 10 things you learned about these characters.

Note: this excerpt is from an early and scrapped draft of one of my screenplays. You’ll surely notice that it’s not very good, but that can be explained with one word: pipe. Early drafts tend to be “pipey” when a writer is unsure of what is the most relevant information to present and the most clean and concise way to present it. That’s fine. Figuring all that stuff out is what drafting is for.

Okay, so for your homework, pick a script any script. Read the first 10 pages, and jot down 10 things you learned about these characters from the dialogue. Just the dialogue. Take note of how the information was presented (humorously? in a heated moment? off-hand? etc.), how it fit the scene, and how the characters react to the information. Your homework assignment is to write 5 – 10 pages of heavy exposition without it being clunky or obvious that that is what you’re doing. This might be the most difficult thing you do all year.

Happy writing!


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A Class You Can Do By Yourself – Week 1

As promised, class has begun. Sit down, take out pen and paper, play some music if you like, and follow along.

Screenwriting is an art and a craft that takes practice and diligence to perfect. This process will not be easy, but I hope it’s fun. It’s certainly fun for me. If you’re still on the fence about doing this class, know that all you have to produce over the next 8 weeks is an 8-10 page screenplay. Okay. Let’s start while the momentum is still hot.

Exercise 1

Getting Into The Groove

First, write down 1 – 3 of your favorite movies (or TV shows if you have trouble thinking of films). Save this in mind; we will be doing some more exercises with this list later. Next, write down 1 – 3 adjectives describing each film and why you like it. e.g. characters are engaging, world is beautiful, score is moving. Now, look for similarities between the films you chose. Take note of how and why these films speak to you, and what they are saying as far as a message or a moral goes.

Taking notice of what you are already familiar with and know you like to watch can help guide you in the direction of the story you should write. Maybe the story hasn’t come to you yet, but maybe you’re honing in on a genre, or the overall thing (for lack of a better term) that you want to say with your piece.

Exercise 2

Watch A Movie

Watch Lunch Date by clicking in the title. Refer back to How To Watch A Movie And Write At The Same Time as you watch, and think about each question thoughtfully in regards to this Academy Award winning short film.

By now, you should be in full on movie zone. A good place to be if movies are what you’re trying to write. Notice how using the How To Watch a Movie… guide makes you a more active watcher? Notice the specific vocabulary terms for working in this craft? Good.

Exercise 3

Read.

Read these handouts on premise and synopsis, and loglines.

Notice how a story can be told is as much or as little detail as time and space allows. Once you have your screenplay idea in mind try thinking about telling it in several different ways. This will help you crystallize your screenplay idea down to it’s small, workable essence.

Exercise 4

Write.

Write a premise for one of the films/shows on your list.

Notice how a premise is essentially comprised of an engaging character in a world filled with conflict. 

Exercise 5

Read some more.

Read this handout out on formatting. Make sure you have some screenwriting software (either Final Draft or Celtx), and that you familiarize yourself with it.

If you’re only going to play by one rule in Hollywood, make sure it’s this one. If it looks like a screenplay, you can get away with breaking a lot of rules in the narrative.

Exercise 6

Loosen up.

This writing exercise consists of making four lists as fast as you can can (speed is important to emphasize that you shouldn’t think too hard about what you’re putting in the lists).

Write down the numbers 1 -10. Title this list “Characters.” Write down anything from ‘nuns’ to ‘squirrels’ to ‘presidents’ to ‘Martin Luther King, Jr.’ We just want the people part of a noun.

The second list from 1 – 10 is  “locations,” e.g. ‘an aircraft carrier,’ ‘the moon,’ ‘Dominos Pizza’.Now we’re onto places.

The third list from 1-  10 is activities, such as ‘write a novel,’ ‘play tennis,’ ‘knit’. Here we are looking for actions/verbs.

The fourth list from 1 – 10 is things that someone could be doing an activity with.

Great. Once you have finished making your lists, combined with any one item from each of the lists to generate an idea for a scene/short film, a la ‘nuns on an aircraft carrier playing tennis with a mallet,’ or Martin Luther King, Jr. at Dominos Pizza writing a novel with a toy car.’

Notice how you can get great ideas by tapping the subconscious, which means not thinking too hard about things and “letting” the mind spill out good fodder.

And that’s it!

Great job this week!


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Automatic Writing Exercise

Sometimes the best way to get the creative juices flowing is to write about things you haven’t thought about in a long time, but that are bound to have left some kind of impression on you. The way this works is I give you a prompt, you read it, and after, say, 10 seconds you start writing. Try not to think to hard about what you’re going to write, and definitely don’t delete/edit as you go. What you do want to do is zero your focus in on the little details of these moments. The tastes, the touch, the sounds, smells, and whatever other odd bit of information your subconscious has stored away for the long haul. Ready? Okay, here we go!

(p.s. try not to look ahead to the next prompt, and just focus on one at a time.)

1. Your first kiss.

"Bitch, watchu doin' with my man?"

2. The first time you went swimming.

Rut roh.

3. Where you sat in elementary or high school.

I wish my classroom had looked that cool.

4. Where you were likely to be on a Saturday morning when you were a kid.

I was watching these guys.

5. What you did this past Thursday.

Yup.

6. Write about the person you have the most baggage around right now.

If only all my baggage was this pristine.

7. Write a dialogue between two people: A wants B to do something that B doesn’t want to do.

I dare you to try to get me to cut my hair.

And now you’re on a roll!

When I did this writing exercise it resulted in this cool, existential story about people choosing how they’re going to die before they’re even born. So, you know, that was pretty rad. Hope you come up with some equally surprising and satisfying results!

Happy writing!

Holly