Want to succeed? Maybe do the opposite.

A short one today.

Have you heard of Kelly Marcel? If not yet, you soon will. You’ll probably, if you’re like me, be deeply and painfully jealous. And she might teach us something.

Kelly is a British writer and actress whose first screenwriting sale has hit the big time. She wrote a TV series which has been bought by Steven Spielberg. Terra Nova, said by the Sunday Times to be the most expensive TV series, per episode, ever made, comes out this Autumn and has already been shortlisted in the Most Exciting New Series category at the Critics’ Choice Television Awards.

Envious yet?

It is, as I say, her first ever writing success. Indeed her first sale. But here’s the important thing.

I heard Kelly say recently that after many tries at screenwriting success Terra Nova was “like nothing else I had ever written.”

Think about that.

How often do you write something that is “like nothing else” you’ve ever written?

Most writers keep writing the same thing, in the hope that somehow the world will change and recognise their greatness.

After struggling to sell scripts whose genius went somehow unappreciated by the industry, some years ago I decided to do something totally different. I set out to write my next script in an entirely different way. Not just the story but my entire approach.

I examined everything I normally did, and did the opposite. I also studied how other writers worked and learned from them.

That screenplay was the first script I sold and indeed went straight to Hollywood to be packaged by a major agency and offered to a major director.

I hope you had a great time during the holidays, and whether you did or didn’t are raring to get writing again. Or maybe you never stopped. Either way, is your writing helping you succeed?

Or is it time to write something like nothing else you have ever written?

Have fun!

How long should your treatment be?

I’ve been running my Exciting Treatments workshop for over ten years now, and one of the first questions I’m asked is always,

How long is a treatment?

There’s no shame in it. I’m asked this by experienced writers who have scoured the net, and screenwriting books, and failed to find an answer.

Before we get to that answer, we need to look at industry terminology. The primary terms are:

Treatment
Synopsis
Outline
Summary
Beat sheet
Step outline
Masterscene treatment

It may surprise you, but the first four of these – treatment, synopsis, outline and summary – are totally interchangeable. There is no difference between them – in film and TV the four words all mean the same thing.

What is more, despite odd claims I hear from time to time, there is absolutely no agreed rule about length. If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying!

I’ve seen quarter page treatments and 15 page summaries.

If you are ever asked to send a treatment (or synopsis, outline or summary) your first question has to be:

How long do you want?

The answer may surprise you. Invariably I’ve found people who I expect will want 15 pages turn out to want 2 – and vice versa.

If possible try to stay under 6 or over 14. Between the two, an outline is too long to avoid going into detail, but not long enough to make the detail really work.

One of the things I had against the UK Film Council was that for many years they insisted on 10 pages treatments. (Later they saw the light and changed their demands).

Of course, if you’re writing the treatment for yourself, you can choose whatever length you want. Personally, I start with a short paragraph (no more than 4-5 sentences), then expand to three paragraphs, then three pages, and on from there.

Insights

I discover powerful insights into my story at each length and end up with a range of treatments of different lengths ready to send.

I’m doing this on a story now. It’s a powerful technique and I teach the process I use in detail in Exciting Treatments, so the writers develop their own treatments from short to long through the day.

A beat sheet or step outline is also a very exciting tool that I use all the time. Again the terms are essentially interchangeable. In a beat sheet you pin down the arc of the story and show how the story and the main characters develop beat by beat (or step by step). The length will vary but will probably average around 10-15 pages.

Some writers say you should include every scene, but I’ve read great step outlines that combine scenes into sequences. It’s up to you and what works for a particular project.

The final treatment I write before the first draft script is a masterscene treatment. This amazingly useful part of the process is more or less a full script, with much of the action and little or no dialogue.

The great advantage of writing a masterscene treatment is that you can get a sense of how the story works at almost full length, without having to worry about distracting details of description or how people sound. You can glide over complications with lines such as “they argue while the children destroy the summer-house” – knowing that you’ll be able to come back and colour in the details later.

This will normally run somewhere between 40-70 pages, which may sound a great deal of work, but saves enormous amounts of work later when you can concentrate on making the details of action and dialogue really sizzle.

Most of the treatments you can find on the net are actually masterscene treatments, which is difficult as one of the best ways to progress is to read good treatment examples.

I wish I had the time here to touch on other crucial areas of treatment writing, such as the importance of the inner story, treatment style and language (very different from the style you use for a good script) or writing series proposals.

I go into much more detail in Exciting Treatments, where I can teach all these methods in full, help you work through practical exercises and give feedback on your work. I also provide examples of a wide range of film and TV treatments and proposals at all different lengths.

I run this day roughly twice a year in London.

Check out the next one. I’d love to have you join us, but be aware that I need to limit the numbers so that I can give the best feedback.

More info on the next Exciting Treatments day

Just one trick for screenwriting success

A month to go before my Exciting Treatments workshop means that I can take things easy for a bit, and muse about odds and ends, such why a baby biting his brother’s finger is the most popular video on YouTube and how this can help writers find screenwriting success.

Finger biting for screenwriting success

My good friend writer-director-producer Alan Denman sent me an article about this from the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s the thing – the clip’s called Charlie Bit My Finger – Again! It’s just a short clip of a baby biting his brother Harry on the finger.  Spoiler alert! Harry gets annoyed, then laughs. End of clip – 56 seconds in all. It’s no great art. It’s not even a great video clip.

And this clip has apparently been watched 335 million times!

I’ll repeat that – it’s not a typo – 335 million times. Why?

(My original question was slightly longer and contained a few deleted expletives).

A study by Jonah Berger at the University of Pennsylvania, quoted in the WSJ, analyses success on YouTube – and concludes that success bears no relation to intrinsic content or quality.

Your video can be as clever, relevant, meaningful, or well-written as you like. Nobody cares.

What people want is emotion.

To put it another way, when you watch Charlie Bit My Finger  – or any other film/video/programme – what turns you on is a sequence of strong feelings. You watch two people going through pain, laughter, friendship – here viewers get a whole spectrum in just 56 seconds. And they connect.

Emotional connection – it’s what’s bound people together since humans became humans, if not before.

Why am I saying this obvious thing?

Because this one simple trick is the one thing that 99% of screenwriters forget to do.

They write a thriller or a comedy or a romance and they’re so busy trying to keep all the rules, and get their story points in order, and explain what’s going on (all important in their own way) that they completely forget to do the one thing that will bring them screenwriting success.

Make us feel.

In a good script at least 95% of the scenes should be alight with one of the primary emotions of the film. (That leaves a just few moments of contrast and relief).

Let’s get practical.

The best, in fact the only, way to get people to have emotions is to have them yourself. But digging into your own emotions can be hard work.

However there are some advanced exercises to help you get into the emotional swing. The following exercises should be exciting and energising – for success you should dive in wholeheartedly – do them 100%.

1. Ask yourself what primary emotions you want your readers to feel? This shouldn’t be too difficult – if it’s a thriller then the main emotion is probably fear. A comedy – laughter. A romance – you want them to feel romantic.

2. Stepping out of the script for a moment, go back to a time when you felt that emotion of (say) fear, laughter or romance. Preferably in your life, or if not then in a movie or maybe you’ve heard of other people talk about their own memories.

Whichever, write the incident down as if it were a scene in a film. Make the event and the emotion as real as possible, and as strong.

Make a note of any elements in the scene that created those feelings. Was the context important?  Was there something in the way someone spoke, or acted? The weather? The location? Something you saw, or heard?

What details added extra emotional impact – large or small?

3. Now go back to your script and find a scene that has potential. What elements are creating the emotion you need and can they be added to? What would it feel like if you were really there – feeling fear, or laughter, etc? What might strengthen those feelings? Are there any distracting elements that could be cut?

4. Do that with another scene, and another. Until at least 95% of the scenes in your script are on fire with strong, honest, felt emotion.

Now, do you think that might help bring you a little screenwriting success?