#screenwriting is filmmaking

[writingwithfolklore]

If it doesn’t impact the rest of the story, you didn’t raise the stakes

              I recently went back to a chapter at the midpoint of my novel and changed a huge detail of it because I thought it didn’t raise the stakes enough as it was. Because of this change, I had to go through every single scene and chapter beyond that point and edit it to fit in and make sense. It was annoying, but that’s how I knew I achieved what I wanted to.

              Raised stakes change everything about a story.

              If your characters can continue on as they were, then you didn’t really raise the stakes at all. This heightened pressure or danger has to be heightened enough that their lives as they know them are different now.

              Consider this: at the midpoint, you introduce a mutated form of a monster your characters have been facing that’s more deadly and intelligent than its predecessor. It’s a super scary scene, but after that, your characters go back to their safe house to talk over how best to kill it.

              Suddenly, this new monster doesn’t feel as much of a threat. It’s just another element of the same threat they’ve already been facing.

              To properly use this element as a way to raise the stakes, it should take away something the characters rely on—safety, allies, powers, etc. Something they can’t get back, and don’t get back for the rest of the story. They now have to adapt to new circumstances, and things will never be as easy for them again.

              So maybe instead, they flee to their safe house only to discover that it’s no longer safe—the monster is smart enough to get through their hidden entrance and corner them. Now they’re stuck out in the open, taking turns keeping watch and slowly deteriorating to sleeplessness and stress.

              That’s a delicious steak.

[artfilmfan]

Am i OK? (Stephanie Allynne & Tig Notaro, 2022)

[leighlew3]

I have this one intense, smaller-scale action thriller with a pretty epic love story built-in and just hear me out with this dream casting…

[greenwitchanthology]

“The Worry Dolls” is now available to watch. If you’re looking for something spooky to watch tonight checker out, it’s 5 mins! 🎃

⬇️⬇️⬇️

[the-technicolor-yawn]

fun fact I ACTUALLY DO NOT CARE THAT THERE WONT BE NEW MOVIES AND TELEVISION UNTIL THE STRIKE ENDS

[aashish0470]

The engagement of this effect >

[iseetheworldinmetaphor]

"It's a strange thing to hold the seed of a film inside you. For me, the process of bringing it into life asks for me to be in my body. To allow myself to be affected. I deeply believe so much of directing is about getting out of the way. Trusting what moves you. What wants to move through you." —Raven Jackson

[momentsnfilm]

“Allerton begun to feel like a culprit in Mexico. No matter the side of the bed he awoke on, the comfort of the shade to his right or the puncturing spotlight of warmth on his left side, he sensed his undoing was interrogating him to speed ‘it’ up. And he kept his lips sealed with the repose of a martyrs’ last remarks.

Yet, last night with Lee, he felt an aching as if he was in front of Kansas’ dusty green hilltops, Capote reading his memories like a bedtime fable until night-time carried him home. Allerton wanted to turn Lee’s every action, the smell of desperation springing from his undrafted words, the residue of an escaping man’s aftershave caught beneath the beds of his fingernails, into a mirror. He hoped they could catch a few light joints at the cinema and let their dreams, echos of what hasn’t already been whispered in looks between them, a main stage in the dark. Allerton wanted Lee to find his other half, maybe, no, truly, his real self running in translucent wonder around the theater as the two became boys again. Phantom arms absorbing into chests. Eyes merging into lips. Discovery was the only language they needed to disembody themselves amongst the forgotten glances of a universe that sought to send them to the conversion chair of the butcher.

Allerton never got his wish. His desire stayed in prison because he was a man. All a 20th century man knows is how to be a stranger - even to his own reflection. Though, one day, he believed, deep in his gut, he could be Orpheus, brave enough to stare right into the soul of his disembodied heart’s parade.”

QUEER | Luca Guadagnino (‘24)

[thepersonalwords]

The biggest difference between writing a movie and writing a novel? No one ever tries to sleep with me to get into one of my novels.

Mylo Carbia, The Raping of Ava DeSantis

[filmcourage]

Every Writer Should Visualize Their Story As A Movie - Viki King

Watch the video interview on YouTube here.

[writingwithfolklore]

5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists

Antagonists, whether people, the world, an object, or something else are integral to giving your story stakes and enough conflict to challenge your character enough to change them. Today I’m just going to focus on people antagonists because they are the easiest to do this with!

1. Your antagonist is still a character

While sure, antagonists exist in the story to combat your MC and make their lives and quest difficult, they are still characters in the story—they are still people in the world.

Antagonists lacking in this humanity may land flat or uninteresting, and it’s more likely they’ll fall into trope territory.

You should treat your antagonists like any other character. They should have goals, objectives, flaws, backstories, etc. (check out my character creation stuff here). They may even go through their own character arc, even if that doesn’t necessarily lead them to the ‘good’ side.

Really effective antagonists are human enough for us to see ourselves in them—in another universe, we could even be them.

2. They’re… antagonistic

There’s two types of antagonist. Type A and Type B. Type A antagonist’s have a goal that is opposite the MC’s. Type B’s goal is the same as the MC’s, but their objectives contradict each other.

For example, in Type A, your MC wants to win the contest, your antagonist wants them to lose.

In Type B, your MC wants to win the contest, and your antagonist wants to win the same contest. They can’t both win, so the way they get to their goal goes against each other.

A is where you get your Draco Malfoy’s, other school bullies, or President Snow’s (they don’t necessarily want what the MC does, they just don’t want them to have it.)

B is where you get the other Hunger Games contestants, or any adventure movie where the villain wants the secret treasure that the MCs are also hunting down. They want the same thing.

3. They have well-formed motivations

While we as the writers know that your antagonist was conceptualized to get in the way of the MC, they don’t know that. To them, they exist separate from the MC, and have their own reasons for doing what they do.

In Type A antagonists, whatever the MC wants would be bad for them in some way—so they can’t let them have it. For example, your MC wants to destroy Amazon, Jeff Bezos wants them not to do that. Why not? He wants to continue making money. To him, the MC getting what they want would take away something he has.

Other motivations could be: MC’s success would take away an opportunity they want, lose them power or fame or money or love, it could reveal something harmful about them—harming their reputation. It could even, in some cases, cause them physical harm.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but the antagonist has to believe it’s true. Such as, if MC wins the competition, my wife will leave me for them. Maybe she absolutely wouldn’t, but your antagonist isn’t going to take that chance anyway.

In Type B antagonists, they want the same thing as the MC. In this case, their motivations could be literally anything. They want to win the competition to have enough money to save their family farm, or to prove to their family that they can succeed at something, or to bring them fame so that they won’t die a ‘nobody’.

They have a motivation separate from the MC, but that pesky protagonist keeps getting in their way.

4. They have power over the MC

Antagonists that aren’t able to combat the MC very well aren’t very interesting. Their job is to set the MC back, so they should be able to impact their journey and lives. They need some sort of advantage, privilege, or power over the MC.

President Snow has armies and the force of his system to squash Katniss. She’s able to survive through political tension and her own army of rebels, but he looms an incredibly formidable foe.

Your antagonist may be more wealthy, powerful, influential, intelligent, or skilled. They may have more people on their side. They are superior in some way to the protagonist.

5. And sometimes they win

Leading from the last point, your antagonists need wins. They need to get their way sometimes, which means your protagonist has to lose. You can do a bit of a trade off that allows your protagonist to lose enough to make a formidable foe out of their antagonist, but still allows them some progress using Fortunately, Unfortunately.

It goes like… Fortunately, MC gets accepted into the competition. Unfortunately, the antagonist convinces the rest of the competitors to hate them. Fortunately, they make one friend. Unfortunately, their first entry into the competition gets sabotaged. Fortunately, they make it through the first round anyway, etc. etc.

An antagonist that doesn’t do any antagonizing isn’t very interesting, and is completely pointless in their purpose to heighten stakes and create conflict for your protagonist to overcome. We’ll probably be talking about antagonists more soon!

Anything I missed?

[jules-m-scribbles]

Here We Go Again: The Reintroduction

Hey folks!

My name is Jules (she/they), and I used to run a writing blog here. I slowly pulled back due to commitments from school and work and learning about myself.

But I missed the community, especially for writers. Instagram and Tiktok ain't got nothing on the feral energy y'all have on here. So I'm starting this blog, hopefully to connect with other writers, worldbuilders and old friends!

What I Bring to the Table: - Chaotic Good energy, as certified by IRL and online friends alike. - Amazing music taste. - Random Doodles! - Fantasy writing, worldbuilding and characters you'll hopefully enjoy half as much as I do. - A family recipe for banana cake that is to die for. As in, I'll kill you before you get it. - Movie Scripts! I went to film school and I can show you cool scripts! - Excellent Puns and Dad Jokes Who I'm Looking for: - Writers, especially women, PoC and 2SLGBTQ+ writers! - Book reviewers! I wanna know more about other books, I miss reading! - Fantasy Lovers! - DnD Lovers! - Artists! I love drawing and want to make more art friends! - Other Indie Film makers!

[artfilmfan]

La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, 2023)

cinematography: Hélène Louvart

[leighlew3]

Important legal paperwork just signed and I yelled out “I did it mama!” but she’s not here even though WE did it, because she was my ultimate supporter. So then I cried. Hard.

Grief has a way of making life’s most wonderful moments utterly bittersweet and unfairly heartbreaking.

But I worked so f’ng hard for so f’ng long and she would want me to just be happy so I’m going to try to be. Both to honor her, and because damn — I f’ng deserve this. 💜

[greenwitchanthology]

Season 3. Episode 2. “The Trunk” is now available to watch 🖤 if you like short sci-fi stories, checker out!

[the-technicolor-yawn]

rob eggers kicking off his nosferatu screenplay with a guy cranking the hog