On Writing and the Artist's Journey

I remember listening to a New Dimensions Radio interview with the late mythologist Joseph Campbell. He was paraphrasing Nietzsche’s analogy of the Artist’s Journey.

 

I make bold here to paraphrase Campbell’s paraphrase. It’s really fascinating and eye-opening (and maybe sobering if you’re honest with yourself)… and I believe largely true.

 

What’s meant by “artist”? Nietzsche’s analogy can be applied to anybody pursuing any field (not just art like dance, painting, film, music, writing)… but even sports. I don’t think anyone would argue with the idea that Michael Jordan wasn’t just a basketball player, but was an artist in the field of basketball. And, he too, took the artist’s journey that Nietzsche describes.

 

Nietzsche says that all artists start as children, meaning they bring the curiosity, fascination, passion, and wonder to the pursuit. More than anything, they are passionate, if not informed. They often exhibit flashes of raw talent, even genius. They are certainly better than their peers, but possibly too because their peers aren’t really interested in pursuing the field. The child does not bring aesthetic so much as passion and energy. A child wants to show you everything. They are convinced that what they are doing is good--great even--because they don’t have the extensive knowledge of their field to know otherwise. A child will run to you with every picture they draw. Will they be good? Likely good for a child with even a few accidentally well-executed strokes.

I think of the late Michigan poet (a Pulitzer Prize winner), Theodore Roethke (pronounced Ret-Key). Even early on he showed facility with words (not poetry yet) but as an essayist. In his freshman year of high school, he wrote an essay regarding the Junior Red Cross, which was translated into 26 languages. But, Roethke would flounder for many years before transitioning into poetry and finally giving up the unappealing idea of law school. He would truly start his journey of growth.. a long journey.

 

Many get stuck in the “child” phase. I have had students, who when we critique their stories, will argue, “But Mrs. Williams said I was the best writer she ever had at such-and-such high school.” To which I often think, “Good. Go back there. You will probably still be the best… the best 20-year old high school writer. What we are about here is growth, not showing off.” Some continue to be fascinated with their own raw output without ever truly wanting to know the full extent of craft involved in their field. (these are folks who get mad when someone rates their self-published book less than 4 or 5 stars, somehow wanting to blame the reviewer for being “mean” rather than seeing it is their work that warrants the poor review) 

They take their identity from their “art” but they don’t have the aesthetic (and aren’t interested in the aesthetic) to see that they really aren’t that good. Their clinging to their "artist" identity gets in the way (and can even waylay) their growth as an artist. There are many 30, 40, and even 70-year olds stuck in the child phase. Without coaches, Michael Jordan would have likely remained one of the best players on the local basketball court. He also would likely have never made the NBA without guidance.

 

And so comes Nietzsche’s second phase… which he calls, according to Campbell, the camel phase. The camel says, “Fill me up!” Here the child has grown to understand that their passion needs to be honed. They turn to teachers, mentors, and other seasoned artists for their growth. They absorb as much prior knowledge of their field as they can in an effort to grow. Jordan listens to his coaches. After some minor college-level success with poetry, Roethke turns to W.H. Auden, Louise Bogan, Stanley Kunitz and William Carlos Williams for guidance. He reads everything he can from classic poetry to modern. Your camel phase is your period of being a student of your field. It’s an important phase that can’t be rushed. Too often in my fiction courses, my students start talking about sending out their stories for publication. I don’t discourage, but I often think, “You aren’t ready. You’re going to get your ass handed back to you when you start sending those stories out. Slow down. Learn more. Write 20 short stories. Learn from that experience. Share your work with mentors. Grow!”

 

Even though an important phase, we too can get stuck in the camel phase. We fear showing anyone anything we’ve written, for fear we aren’t good. And, if we don’t ever share our work, we don’t have to confront the fact that we might be mediocre. We take class after class after class. We go to conferences. We study. But, out of fear (not measured caution) we never share our work with the world. Probably many come to the end of their lives having only been a camel when it comes to their field. The camel phase can be long, but it can’t be too long. The artist must develop the aesthetic to realize of their own work, “It is ready.”

 

Ready for what?

 

Well, Nietzsche calls the next phase, the Lion phase. The lion phase is very much dependent on the phase that came before it, and one's readiness for "battle" as a lion depends on how well they navigated the camel phase. For they must be read for Facing the Dragon… and the dragon’s name is “Thou shall not.” It implies, “Thou shall not succeed.” That is the fear we carry. What if all the work, all the studying, all the hours were for nothing? What if we still aren’t very good? Facing the dragon is a scary prospect. The dragon has a lair not of treasure, but of rejection. Nietzsche argues though that if the artist spends the right amount of time in the camel phase, she will be ready to face the dragon and defeat it as a powerful lion. Some people rush the camel phase, think they have learned enough (like students who take one course with me and want to pursue publication), and the dragon answers with fiery rejection after rejection because they are nothing but a paper lion. But, if one spent enough time in the camel phase, their lion can defeat the dragon.

 

I think of Roethke, writing his first book of poetry entitled Open House. His poetry, though sometimes seen as derivative and showing the fingerprints of his mentors, is met with critical praise. His book is published. He’s shown he’s a competent, even gifted, practitioner in his field. He learned well, and defeated the dragon.

 

The dragon always involves a jury… other experts in the field confirming your skill. If you self-publish a book, you didn’t defeat the dragon because the only juror in the process was you. But if your self-published book does well (and no, not five-star reviews from family, friends and other writers for whom you provide 5-star reviews)… but truly well, meaning many others (strangers) are drawn to your work. Maybe even a publisher wants to take your book from self-published to traditionally published. Or, you sell 10,000 copies… well, then, yes you defeated the dragon.

 

It sounds like defeating the dragon would be the end of the journey, but no. Nietzsche says once the dragon is defeated, the true artist can enter the final phase. What is it? They become a child again, but they are a child of wisdom. They have all of the wisdom, but instead of the diligence and persistence of the camel, they come to their field with the renewed passion, innocences, curiosity, and individuality of the child. They begin to truly do their best work… work not derivative, but truly original.

 

I think of Roethke. After Open House, he began working on wholly new poems. And, not coincidentally, he began to explore the images of his childhood. Roethke grew up in the home of a professional florist, his father Otto Roethke. Behind their home on Gratiot Ave. in Saginaw, MI was acres of green houses. Knowing he was after those haunting images of his own childhood, Roethke returned to his childhood home to write... to sit on the back, second-floor porch of his childhood home and look out over those overgrown greenhouses. 

He was on a Guggenheim Fellowship, but he didn’t travel to Europe, but instead traveled back to Saginaw, where he knew the poems were. His journey home to write helped him produce his groundbreaking second book of poems, The Lost Son. It contains Roethke’s famous “greenhouse poems” and it was met with critical acclaim, with no talk of the poems being derivative. Roethke had truly arrived, and with each new book (because he was a Wisdom Child) he reinvented himself as a poet. Honestly, very few actually ever reach this stage in the artist’s journey.

 

All of this asks you to ask, “Where am I on my artist’s journey?” Are you being honest with yourself? If you’re content with where you are, then maybe the question is unimportant. But, if you long for success, and you aren’t finding it, you might look at the phases to see if you’re stuck somewhere along the journey.

If you find my blog posts instructive, please consider purchasing a copy of my new dystopian novel, Rules of Order as a donated payment for the "class."

From Amazon: here

Fly Fishing and Writing: "Still, we enjoyed ourselves"

I’m going to wax a little philosophical about writing in this post… taking a look again at how fly fishing is a lot like writing. Truly, the frustration with either activity is directly related to how you approach them.

 

So, I just arrived home from a three-day fly fishing trip. In our minds we’d done everything right. We’d checked the weather a few days ahead of time and even the night before. We saw there were chances for rain on Sunday, but we were arriving Monday, so we were in the clear.

 

So we thought.

 

Upon arriving, we set up camp, and then I walked into the woods to relieve myself… one of nature’s many luxuries. I heard a loud churning noise and walked back to the campsite to tell Dave the river sounded loud. He seemed skeptical, so we decided to walk down and take a look at the water.

 

It was raging. It must have been nearly a foot and a half higher than normal. We would later find out the river was putting through 3000 cubic feet per second of water. When the river is at normal levels, it puts through much less than 1000 cubic feet per second (normal would be 500 to 600 cubic feet).

 

In short, it looked like the opportunity to catch any fish was nil. The river was literally too dangerous to wade, let alone try to fish. We even spoke for a time about bagging the trip, knowing that it would be days before the river was back to normal. (We later found out that the rain we’d seen for Sunday turned out to be a four-hour downpour, and we were looking at the aftermath).

 

Why would we leave? Well, dry fly fishing is already a difficult way to catch fish. So much needs to be perfect to catch a keeper. Fish (bigger ones) need to be feeding from the surface. They need to be hungry enough to expel the energy to feed off the surface. Your fly also needs to come pretty close to matching what they are feeding on.

 

When the river gets flooded (as it was) lots of “feed” in the form of insects and worms gets washed into the river. When the water starts to slow, the fish eat copiously below the surface. Plus, the water we were looking at was opaque with stirred up silt, so the fish couldn’t even see if something were floating on the surface.

 

In short, water flow like that kills the fishing. So, yeah, we thought about bagging it because our mind was on big fish, seeing as how our previous two trips had been productive. In early June, we’d each caught the biggest fish of our over 20-year fly fishing career.

We had fish—big fish—on the mind.

 

Did we bag it? No. Why? Because we’d already paid the 45 dollars to stay three nights.

 

Instead, we changed our mindset. We decided to focus on the experience of camping, relaxing, avoiding Covid-19 news, and trying to fish when we could. The first night, we drove an hour south to another river that hadn’t seen as much rain. We caught a few fish, but no keepers. Still, the river (the South Branch of Michigan’s famous Au Sable River) was beautiful. We were on the Mason Tract. (George Mason was an auto exec who owned miles and miles of land along the river early in the 20th Century. When he died, he bequeathed the land to the State with a proviso that the land could never be developed. It’s some of the most pristine river you can find with no cabins or manmade structures what-so-ever… well, beside the fly fisherman’s chapel. There’s actually a little chapel on the river. One can fish on a Sunday, but still go to church and commune with God… if that’s their thing. Granted, there’s no pastor, but you can buzz up to the chapel, say a prayer, and then get back to casting).

 

 

 

We enjoyed the scenery of the Mason Tract. We enjoyed seeing a Great Blue Heron flying down the river. We enjoyed walking in nature. We didn’t catch any keepers, but we were fishing and walking down a river… and that was enough.

 

The rest of the trip was about the same. The Pigeon River did come down quite a bit over night, but it was still whisky-colored from all the silt. Still, we fished that night. We didn’t do well with only three fish between us… none of them over 5 inches.

 

Still, we enjoyed ourselves. A beaver slapped his tail on the water at me as I walked by its dam (if I was going to have a heart attack at 50 that would have been the moment). Birds flew all around us. The mosquitos were relatively absent. We had great conversations about life and writing around the fire. Dave is close to finishing a draft of a novel, and I’m close to starting a new one. We talked a lot about that. We sat for hours in the campsite reading. We played corn toss. We ate well.

The third night the river was back, more or less, to itself. We could see the bottom clearly. The fish were much more active (though no keepers).

 

Still, we enjoyed ourselves… mainly because we decided the purpose of the trip was the experience, not big fish.

 

Fly fishing and writing have a lot in common. Catching big fish on a dry fly is a long shot. Once, in the past, a guy was hiking through the campground. He asked how we were fishing, and we told him fly fishing. He laughed and said, “Oh, so you guys don’t like to catch fish when you fish.” We laughed too. It’s a pretty accurate statement.

 

Hackle and different material tied around a hook trying to imitate an insect. That’s your bait. Then there’s every reason for a big fish not to be feeding on the surface.

 

So much is stacked against you when you’re dry fly fishing. Same goes with writing.

 

What’s your big one? Five thousand sales for your self-published novel? Landing a reputable agent? Publishing with one of the Big 5?

 

Those are lofty goals and probably even less likely to happen than me catching a 21-inch brown trout on a dry fly.

 

If you focus exclusively on the Big Ones as a source of pleasure, you’re likely going to be a miserable writer. I often tell my students, “Enjoy the writing; everything else is downhill.”

 

Like with fly fishing, as a writer, you need to learn to just enjoy the experience… those moments when you lose yourself in the creative act. That perfectly crafted sentence. Figuring out some logistical glitch in your plot. The high of writing more pages than you thought you might on a given day.

 

Focus on that…because the big ones might never happen. Statistically, the chances are stacked against you… heavily stacked.

 

Do you bag it? Quit writing? Wallow in each rejection? Lament your publishing hardships on Twitter?

 

No, you redirect your enjoyment to the process of writing itself. Nothing ruins fly fishing like over-focusing on big fish, and the same can be said of writing and publication.

If you find my blog posts instructive, please consider purchasing a copy of my new book of short stories, The Neighborhood Division, as a donated payment for the "class."

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

Book Trailer: here

Consider (and support) Small Presses

What’s the future of publishing? We are living it. It was already bad if your dream was to break into the Big 5. The audience for books is small, but fierce. Still, during a pandemic, many people are watching their luxury spending (like money for new books) dwindle or dry up.

 

The upshot? Agents are going to be even more selective than they already were, which was already pretty damn selective. Their focus will be on one question: What is guaranteed to sell?

 

This will not be much of a time for nurturing new talent unless you are lucky enough to somehow have created something that’s guaranteed to sell.

 

Much like Hollywood is much less willing to take a chance and has almost become a source of anti-innovation (new Marvel movie, anyone?), the Big 5 in publishing is going to become even more cautious.

 

What that means for literary art… I don’t want to know.

 

I do know that just like independent film festivals are a way for indie filmmakers to get their work in front of audiences, independent presses (small presses) are doing the work of publishing worthy books that might not otherwise have a venue for release.

 

The small presses might be the last bastion of hope for a democratized literary art scene rather than a monetized entertainment scene.

 

Have you looked at all into small presses? I have all of my work out from small presses. I have written previously about what it’s been like to work with small presses (read it: here).

 

The experience has come with both highs and lows, but I am committed to working with small presses. My experiences with Joel Van Valin at Whistling Shade Press have been some of my best. Larry Smith at Bottom Dog Press has been great, too. When my novel, American Poet, found itself with the opportunity to be considered for a Stuart and Vernice Gross Award for Excellence in Michigan Literature, Larry moved the publication date up by two months so we could get a copy to the committee for consideration.

 

The book won the award, and that wouldn’t have happened without Larry’s flexibility.

 

Also, the late Robert Bixby was one of the best editors I ever worked with. Though March Street Press was mostly known for poetry chapbooks, Bixby took a chance on my novel, Into the Desperate Country. It was my first novel and theirs too and, with a shoestring budget, we managed to sell over 500 copies (took two years!)

 

So, just do it. Google “small presses”. There are so many. So many. And not all of them, but many of them, will take queries and submissions without an agent.

 

As you decide between self-publishing and traditional publishing, it doesn’t come down to self-publishing or Big 5. There are many valid possibilities in between.

 

I’ll admit, when I started querying agents this spring about my novel manuscript, Falling Sky, (written in the first 5 weeks of quarantine), I wasn’t optimistic. My pessimism proved accurate. Not one agent asked for the entire manuscript. I received a handful of carefully worded emails about how the agent “wasn’t the right fit”. I just recently did a blog post on subtext (read it: here), so I’m fully aware that there’s more to “wasn’t the right fit” than its surface message.

 

What I heard? “It’s not you, it’s … well, honestly, it’s your story idea and your writing. THEY WILL NOT SELL.”

 

Not long after the last of the rejections trickled in (and many non-responses that will never trickle in)… I turned to where I knew I was going to turn from the beginning: small presses.

 

But, for me, it’s not enough to just submit to them. I need to support them. You should too. They might be the only place where the New Literature will arise. But nothing can rise out of nothing.

 

Small presses need support too… in the form of sales. So, I’m doing my part, and buying only small press books for the foreseeable future. And the best way to do that is to go to the press’ website.

 

Just recently, I submitted a book to 11:11 Press. First thing I did was check their catalog and buy a book. I did the same with Stalking Horse Press… purchasing and then reviewing Duncan Barlow’s A Dog Between Us (which you can read: here). I also purchased and reviewed a book from Alternating Current Press.

 

Am I feathering my nest a bit with these purchases and reviews? Perhaps. Although I would never shine up a review just for the press’ attention. And, I seriously doubt that any press would publish my book simply because I purchased and reviewed one of their books.

 

No, what I’m doing is supporting the venues that I hope might someday support me. We need small presses to be viable, so others might look at their success and say, “Hey, that’s possible. I’m going to start a small press too.” I might be supporting individual presses, but I feel like I’m supporting the Small Press mission in general. A victory for any small press is a victory for all small presses.

 

And, going to their websites before going to Amazon goes a long way toward supporting the press financially (no middleman taking a cut).

 

So, if you’re a writer, you might consider small presses before you get jammed up by the Self-Publishing versus Big Five dilemma.

 

But, more importantly, as you search the small press websites, be sure to purchase a book… it will go a long way towards keeping literature original and richly diverse.

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

Book Trailer: here

Manually Formatting Screenplay Pages in Word

As I’ve mentioned, some of the posts that I am writing I will use with my fiction and screenwriting students this fall as I endeavor to teach online.

This post regards formatting—specifically manually formatting—a screenplay or pages of screenwriting.

It is my belief that any screenwriters worth their salt should be able to manually format a screenplay, even if eventually they turn to screenwriting software that does the formatting for them. After all, how does one know the software is getting it right otherwise?

So, to begin:

First, one should open a Word document. Some quick changes need to be made. First, screenplays have their own font. In my case, I use Courier New (though Courier is considered official). Screenplays originally were written on typewriters, and Courier New comes closest to that font.

A page of screenplay equals (approximately) a minute of screen time… and Courier New comes the closest to approximating this.

Next, before you do anything, you’ll want to go to Line Spacing and set it to Single. Make certain it’s a true Single and not 1.15 or something like that.

Additionally, you’ll want to go to Line Spacing Options. Make sure it looks like this:

I put a circle around the important area. Just make certain that Before (but especially After) are set to 0 pt. Some word processing software is defaulted to automatically put space after you hit the Return key. If your After isn’t set to zero (but is set to 8 pt), then every time you hit Return (which is a lot in a screenplay) you’ll have unnecessary spacing in your screenplay. In short, it will be all messed up. Just make sure After is set to zero.

If you wanted, you can also find your AutoCap and shut that off. That’s going to keep your software from trying to capitalize words in your dialogue.

So, checklist: Open Word, Font to Courier New, Line Spacing Single, and make certain After is set to 0 pt in Line Spacing Options.

Ok, we are ready to begin.

The first aspect of screenwriting to understand is Scenes. Screenplays are written in scenes. New scenes are indicated by Scene Headings (or Slug Lines). One switches scenes ANY TIME there is a switch in Time or Location.

Movies happen in real time on the screen. You can’t have lines of scene description that say: A few minutes pass. What is the audience doing while those minutes pass? Instead, you deal with jumps in time (even small amounts of time) by orchestrating scene changes.

But, here are the basics.

A scene heading looks like this (notice they are flush to the left margin)

INT. CAR – DAY

First, scene headings are in all caps. They are either INT or EXT… interior [inside] shot or exterior [outside shot]. The scene heading is not the place for detailed description. You would not have:

INT. RUSTED TRANS AM – DAY

That would be too detailed for a scene heading. If you were to describe the car, that would be in Scene Description, which we will discuss in a moment.

Again, any time there is a change in location or time, you need a new scene heading.

Imagine police on a stakeout. You might have a scene where they start the stakeout, and a following scene where they’ve been on the stakeout for a few hours.

That might look like this:

INT. CAR – DAY

and next scene

INT. CAR – DAY or  INT. CAR – HOURS LATER

Those two scenes back to back suggest that time has passed that was not experienced by the audience. In the scene description for the second scene, you might describe coffee cups on the dashboard, fast food bags, etc to also show visually that they’ve been there awhile.

Scene Headings aren’t super difficult. They are in all caps, you need one when you change location or time, and they aren’t heavy on description. Nobody is looking at your scene headings to get details about what to include on the set.

All of this will make more sense as the pieces of screenplay format come together.

Next up… Scene Description.

Short of dialogue, scene description pretty much handles what is seen and heard on the screen.

It, too, starts flush to the left margin. Because a movie feels like something you are watching happen now, the screenplay is written in present tense. If you look at a screenplay, you’ll see that there are no long paragraphs of description.

Lots of white space in a screenplay.

They almost should feel like they fall down the page rather than read left to right. General rule? Don’t go over four lines of scene description. I have a more nuanced post on how screenwriters should think like cinematographers, which can help you determine when to include white space in your screenplay description. Read it: here

You’ll find out screenplay description is almost more like technical writing than fiction writing. The language is not flowery: no similes or figurative language. Just sticks to the basics.

You give the gist of a scene rather than hyper describe it. It will be a set designer, actors, etc that actually bring the scene to life. Any time we go to a new location, describe it briefly. If we return to that location, you don’t need to describe it again (unless something significant changes)

Let’s go with an example.

INT. BAR – NIGHT

Terry walks into the bar. He stands near the doorway, crosses his arms, and surveys the crowd.

A regular neighborhood bar. Jukebox. Pool table. Most people sit along the bar itself. A few tables are occupied. A man sleeps with his head down on the bar.

Terry walks up to the bar. The bartender, muscular and wearing a handlebar mustache, steps over to him. This is BUTCH McCLAINE.

There’s a loud CRASH of glasses falling to the floor.

Other patrons jump, startled. Terry does not flinch and stays focused on Butch.

That’s some of the basics of screenplay description. Notice it’s pretty stripped down. Someone else (a Costume Designer) will decide what Terry and Butch are wearing more specifically. Someone else (a Set Designer) will flesh out the details of the bar. Scene description is pretty basic, giving the gist, not so much the specifics.

Couple things: Notice when a new character is introduced, his or her name is all in caps. After that, it’s lower case again (like with Terry). Even notice when Butch is mentioned again, his name is back to capitalized first letter, but the rest lower case.

Also, as we see above, very prominent sounds are often capitalized.

So scene description is light on details and more follows the basic actions of the characters.

Some other things. Screenplays don’t get into the characters’ heads. We can’t know what they are thinking.

Terry thinks the place is a dump. Or   Terry is certain he won’t get any answers here.

Those are no-nos. A movie audience has no way of knowing exactly what Terry is thinking.

I mean, he could react, which could imply his thinking:

Terry surveys the room, nostril arched, a slow shaking back and forth of his head.

This could suggest that he’s disgusted with the place and doesn’t think much of the crowd. But, you can’t tell us directly what he’s thinking.

Also, there is no summarized or paraphrased dialogue in a screenplay. You can’t write:

Terry greets Butch.

or

Terry and Butch exchange small talk.

We’d need to hear the first one in dialogue. Notice how the second one is even worse because it implies time is passing. What is this small talk? How long?

Nope… if it’s spoken, it’s handled in Dialogue, which we’ll get to in a moment.

It is with Dialogue that we get into some of the more technical aspects of manually formatting a screenplay.

Ok, so all dialogue is written out. No summarized or paraphrased.

What does dialogue look like then in a screenplay? Well, it comes down to indicating speaker and what’s said… (and sometimes how it is said)

The speaker in dialogue almost looks like their name is centered, but it isn’t. Instead, to get the name to where you need it to be, hit TAB six times. Dialogue indicators are ALWAYS in all caps.

                               BUTCH

You can also use parentheticals to suggest how a line is being delivered. Do this sparingly because in a way it will seem like you are trying to direct the movie/actors. Ultimately, it will be the director and actors who decide how a line is delivered. But, if you do use a parenthetical, you TAB it five times. Like so…

                               BUTCH

                          (gruffly)

Finally, what comes next is the dialogue itself. There are no quotation marks. The formatting makes it clear that these lines are being spoken, so you don’t need the quotation marks that separate dialogue from narration in fiction.

Dialogue is TABBED in three times. For manually formatting, just hit return when the dialogue is about even on either side of the name. Then TAB three times again.

                               BUTCH

                          (gruffly)

               What do you need? It’s a private party

               in here tonight, so make it quick.

Dialogue does not go all the way to the right margin. Manually formatting, you actually need to hit Return when the dialogue is about “even” on either side of the name. Once you hit return, you’ll need to hit TAB three times again to get the second line of dialogue in the right place. This is where shutting off AUTOCAP helps because Word will want to capitalize the word “in” because it looks like a new sentence.

So, here's what that would look like:

INT. BAR – NIGHT

Terry walks into the bar. He stands near the doorway, crosses his arms, and surveys the crowd.

A regular neighborhood bar. Jukebox. Pool table. Most people sit along the bar itself. A few tables are occupied. A man sleeps with his head down on the bar.

Terry walks up to the bar. The bartender, muscular and wearing a handlebar mustache, steps over to him. This is BUTCH McCLAINE.

BUTCH

                          (gruffly)

               What do you need? It’s a private party

               in here tonight, so make it quick.

Terry looks around the room.

                               TERRY

                          (smirking)

               Yeah, looks like quite the party.

                               BUTCH

               Funny. Now what do you need?

Notice how a parenthetical can also include a brief description (i.e. Terry’s smirking). Again, use parentheticals sparingly. You could write an entire feature-length script and never use a parenthetical. They often come too close to directing, and that could make your screenplay look like you don’t know what you’re doing... like an amateur.

What I’m covering here are the basic of screenplay formatting, not all of the nuances. More than anything, I want you to be able to manually format a screenplay in Word. Here is an example of what your pages will start to look like:

INT. BAR – NIGHT

Terry walks into the bar. He stands near the doorway, crosses his arms, and surveys the crowd.

A regular neighborhood bar. Jukebox. Pool table. Most people sit along the bar itself. A few tables are occupied. A man sleeps with his head down on the bar.

Terry walks up to the bar. The bartender, muscular and wearing a handlebar mustache, steps over to him. This is BUTCH McCLAINE.

There’s a loud CRASH of glasses falling to the floor.

Other patrons jump, startled. Terry does not flinch and stays focused on Butch.

BUTCH

                          (gruffly)

               What do you need? It’s a private party

               in here tonight, so make it quick.

Terry looks around.

                               TERRY

               Festive.

                               BUTCH

               Come on.

                               TERRY

               I’m looking for Johnny Sloan.

The men seated on either side of Terry stand up and face him.

                               BUTCH

               Get out or get thrown out.

Terry raises his hands in surrender.

                               TERRY

               Ok. Ok. I’ll show myself out.

Terry starts toward the entrance.

INT. APARTMENT – NIGHT

Terry walks into a dingy apartment. It’s an efficiency with a small table and chair in the dining area. There’s a futon couch/bed near the window.

Terry takes his coat off and drapes it over the chair.

An obese cat rubs against his leg. Terry bends down and picks it up.

                               TERRY

               Well, Jinxy, looks like you have

               everyone’s tongue. Nobody’s talking

               about our Mr. Sloan.

He sets the cat on the table, walks to a cupboard, opens it, and takes down a box of cat food.

He shakes it. It’s nearly empty.

                               TERRY

                          (sighing)

               I’ll be right back, fatty.

INT. GROCERY STORE – NIGHT

Terry stands in an aisle of pet supplies. He holds a small box of cat food. He sets it back and takes a larger bag from a lower shelf.

When he rises, a MAN in blue jeans and a flannel shirt stands next to him.

                               MAN

               You were in Ray’s tonight… looking

               for Johnny Sloan.

Terry looks the man over.

                               TERRY

               Maybe. What’s that to you?

                               MAN

               You ain’t going to find Sloan without

               shelling out some dough.

                               TERRY

               We’ll see.

                               MAN

               Or you’ll wind up dead.

                               TERRY

               So, you’re threatening me.

                               MAN

               No. I’m warning you, and trying to

               help you… and help myself too. Wallet

               is a little light lately.

Terry looks him over again.

                               TERRY

               I’m here for cat food, but I might

               linger in the parking lot for a minute.

                               MAN

                          (nodding)

               I’ll see you out there.

The man turns and walks away.

Terry stands for a moment. He puts the large bag of cat food back and grabs the small box again.

Real quick. Notice how when a scene ends, you actually hit Return twice before starting the next scene heading. So, two lines of single space white space between scenes.

Some other nuances.

You shouldn't write:

Terry goes to the cupboard for cat food.

This is pretty minor, but it does imply thinking. It implies that we know what’s on Terry’s mind when he goes to the cupboard. It will feel more like a movie scene if you write:

Terry steps to the cupboard. He opens it and pulls out a box of cat food.

We will continue to flesh out other aspects of screenplay formatting. These are just the basics to get you started manually formatting your screenplay in Word.

Biggest thing to remember is that eyeballing of dialogue.

                               BUTCH

               What do you want? We’re having a private party in                here tonight.

This is wrong. Dialogue does not go flush to the right margin. And, while manually formatting a screenplay, it’s up to you to hit Return at a spot where the dialogue looks to be around even on either side of Butch’s name. In the instance above, I would hit Return after the “private”.

BUTCH

               What do you want? We’re having a private

party in here tonight.

Recap:

1.     Open Word doc.

2.     Set Font to Courier New 12 pt.

3.     Set to Single Space

4.     Make sure After is set to 0 pt.

5.     Scene Headings… All caps

6.     Switch scenes when either Time or Location changes

7.     All caps for character introduction in scene description

8.     Scene description should not go over for lines without white space

9.     Description is written in present tense

10.  To format dialogue name: Hit TAB six times.

11.  Parenthetical? Hit TAB five times.

12.  Start of actual dialogue? Hit TAB three times.

That should be enough to get you started, especially as you compare your screenplay pages to the examples above… and examples you find on the Internet.

If you find my blog posts instructive, please consider purchasing a copy of my new book of short stories, The Neighborhood Division, as a donated payment for the "class."

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