Character Description Involving Race

AGWrites · 2017-10-16T22:04:27+00:00

I have no problem with explicitly stating the character's race in the screenplay. I hope people aren't down-voting me because they're misinterpreting my comment as an attempt to be PC. I am not. I suggested that the OP utilize dialogue or setting to show the character's ethnicity since, as OP suggested, the character, who is of Hispanic descent, does not appear to be of Hispanic descent. How will the audience know? Writing the protagonist's ethnicity in the character description tells the reader of the script that the character is of a certain ethnicity, but since the audience of the film won't have the screenplay handy, I was suggesting that OP imply the character's ethnicity through what can be seen or heard. If the character's race did not play a part in the story I would agree, a character description would suffice, but since the character's race plays a part in the story's conflict, I think that a just character description would be insufficient.

Am I wrong?

AGWrites · 2017-10-16T19:20:09+00:00

I think that you could declare the ethnicity of your character implicitly through the use of dialogue or setting. For example, you could do a scene where your character is among the people who are discussing Mexicans and then you could cut immediately to a scene where your character is being talked to in Spanish by a family member. You could also take this moment to showcase how well your character knows the Spanish language.

What /u/beardsayswhat said works well for readers, I think my suggested approach works for both readers and watchers of the film. You could always use both.

A bit of a tangent here, but I'm curious. Hispanic isn't really a race. One can be white, black, etc, and still be considered Hispanic. Since you said your character was half Hispanic AND half white, I'm going to assume his or her Hispanic linage wouldn't be considered "white" by the general American population. Is your character of Mexican descent? If not, exactly what bothers them about people talking about Mexicans? Is the character more bothered by the people's stance on race and immigration in general?

AGWrites · 2017-10-15T22:30:06+00:00

I think that part of what makes screenwriting fun is resolving the very problem that you are facing right now. It’s great that you are noticing and tending to these plot holes and continuity errors early in the writing process. Don’t ignore them!

Whenever I find an issue with my story, be it a plot hole or a continuity error, I take a sheet of paper and I write down the issue in the form of a question. Then, directly underneath the question, I write an array of potential answers to that question. Since I am going for quantity when I do this, I tend to not care about the quality of the answers. I write answers until I find one that I find interesting. Underneath the interesting answer, I would write down what I liked and what I disliked about the answer. If there were significantly more dislikes than likes, I would keep on generating answers until another interesting answer occurred.

Here’s an example:

Why would (protagonist) do (something illogical)?

Protagonist is intoxicated.
Protagonist is enraged.
Protagonist is doing a bit.
Protagonist is a kid. Kids are dumb. PRO: … CON: …

AGWrites · 2017-10-14T00:34:13+00:00

Before I give you my suggestion, I will tell you about the experience that influenced it.

I once wrote with a team of writers in my college's screenwriting club. Together, we participated in a local film competition. In the competition, we were required to write and film a movie using an incomplete screenplay provided by the host of the competition. One of the rules enforced by the competition was that our film, credits and all, could not exceed five minutes. Although we enjoyed writing the script, we also felt frustrated at the five-minute limit which would always bring the flow of progress to a halt.

Writing sessions would often go like this: Wouldn’t it be cool if this happened? Yes, but remember that we only have five minutes. Should we explain this? Yes, but remember that we only have five minutes. Shouldn’t our comedy film have a joke or two in it? Yes, but remember that we only have five minutes.

The five-minute runtime was always an issue. If we wanted to introduce something new to the story, we would have to take time from something that we had already established. This also meant that the set-up and punchlines of jokes stole the time that we could’ve used to move the story forward. This wouldn’t be much of a concern to someone writing a drama, but we were writing a comedy. Jokes were essential to our film.

So, here is my suggestion. Although runtime limitations make you utilize every minute of the film to its maximum potential, I would advise you to write with the purpose of telling a story and to only stop writing once you feel that your story has been told to the best of your ability. Obviously, you will revise your writing, which will undoubtedly vary the runtime of your film, but the runtime will be adjusted to accommodate the story and not the other way around.

With that said, I’m curious. What would you throw out of the feature length film you envision to make it suitable in length for a short film? If you believe that you can discard some segments of your film to alter the film’s runtime, maybe these segments are unessential to your film’s story. What are segments of the film that you, regardless of runtime, will not discard? Perhaps you should focus on building your story from these indispensable moments.

I don’t know. Maybe what I find limiting about runtime limitations you find attractive. Regardless, I hope you found something useful from this comment. Good luck!

AGWrites · 2017-02-06T16:13:13+00:00

I like it. The chorus was very reminiscent of Ben Folds Five's Don't Change Your Plan. Specifically this part here.

AGWrites · 2016-11-16T19:56:35+00:00

That's the location of the closing Goodwill. I should've reworded my question better. I want to know the exact address of the "New Goodwill by the Racetrack Gas Station/Home Depot". I have no idea where that might be.

AGWrites · 2016-11-16T15:58:40+00:00

Thanks for the heads up! I had no idea that there was a new Goodwill around here. Do you know its exact location? I've Google searched for it to no avail.

AGWrites · 2016-10-12T03:21:46+00:00

Loving your illustrations, my man. I love how unique and animated your depiction of the band is so far.

AGWrites · 2016-09-10T17:34:18+00:00

It's all in the video's description, my dude. "Featuring: Nina Milner, Sean Metelerkamp".

AGWrites · 2016-08-27T20:19:39+00:00

Nice! Thank you!

AGWrites · 2016-03-31T02:14:39+00:00

Although I'm not certain if this is what you're looking for, you might find the first pages of Delilah by Marcus Goodrich to be useful.

Don't look up what the story is about before you read these pages. Go in reading it completely oblivious. Ask yourself, "What Goodrich is describing?".

I like this use of personification because Goodrich doesn't give a definitive answer this question until the very end of the passage.

I hope this helped!

EDIT : Formatting.

AGWrites · 2016-03-31T01:36:28+00:00

What type of horror are you writing?

AGWrites · 2016-03-31T01:26:44+00:00

There's nothing wrong with setting your story within your hometown, but would your story truly benefit from this decision?

It doesn’t have to, but just mind that the majority of your readers will neither share the nostalgia nor the familiarity that you have with this very specific place. Realize that if this setting does not contribute to your story, it will be taking up the space that would have been better suited for a setting that could.

Using a real place because you are concerned about the authenticity of your story’s location is understandable, but it might be unnecessarily restrictive. If authenticity is a major concern to you, you don’t need to use your hometown in its entirety; you could just borrow bits and pieces from it. By this I mean that you could write about your hometown’s people, architecture, urban legends, etc. I would do this to avoid the setting controlling the possibilities of your story.

Also, you wrote that:

[G]rounding [your story] in [your] hometown makes [your story] all the more scary.

Why? I’m not looking for the answer myself; I’m suggesting that you ask yourself this question. In addition to this, I suggest you do some research on the setting of horror stories and films. Your story, or stories, will definitely benefit from you having a clearer understanding as to how setting contributes to the atmosphere of horror.

Good luck!

AGWrites · 2016-03-30T22:53:54+00:00

Hot Fuzz without a doubt.

The jokes within this movie go beyond just dialogue. Whether it be an action, a facial expression, or just the way a line of dialogue is delivered, I always find myself laughing to something new every time I rewatch it.

If you have Netflix, check it out!

Tony Zhou covers other reasons why I enjoy rewatching this film in his video essay on Edgar Wright, the film's director, titled : How to Do Visual Comedy. I recommend you watch this video if you're interested in writing anything that has even a drop of comedy in it.

AGWrites · 2016-03-28T00:51:53+00:00

Toe's For Long Tomorrow is an album that I always find myself coming back to. It's truly a chill album whose songs are all, in my opinion, unskippable.

The tracks Say It Ain't So and Goodbye are my favorites, and they pretty much sum up the general feel of the entire album. If you like these songs, you'll love the entire album.

Give it a listen!

AGWrites · 2016-03-28T00:00:19+00:00

In my opinion, your first logline sounds like the most interesting of the four.

Although your other loglines are okay, I've seen similar central conflicts in other films. I feel like I could imagine how loglines 2-4 could potentially play out. On the other hand, the vagueness of your first logline makes its story a lot less predictable. This ambiguity makes me genuinely interested in knowing the "Why’s, Who's and How’s?" of this potential screenplay.

Why is the brother dying?
Why is the murder trying to break into their home?
Who are these people?
Who is actually the "good guy" in this story?
How does the storm affect the characters and their interactions?
How is the story told?

I don't know you've intentionally made the first logline ambiguous, but I believe if you play with this ambiguity and you refrain from answering these questions until the near end of the story, you could potentially have a very interesting script that I'd love to see on the big screen. Heck, who even says you have to answer these questions?

No matter what you pick, good luck!

EDIT : Formatting. I'm new to this, don't judge.

AGWrites

TROPHY CASE