I’ve come home for Memorial Day, to see Indiana Jones for all of six dollars with my family. On my ride home last night I finished David Mamet’s Bambi vs Godzilla book. The book is a commentary on his experiences in the movie business, there was one particular chapter that I thought was good advice, and ought to be shared.
To write a successful scene, one must stringently apply and stringently answer the following three questions
1. Who wants what from whom?
2. What happens if they don’t get it?
3. Why now?That’s it. As a writer, your yetzer ha’ra (evil inclination) will do everything in its vast power to dissuade yuou from asking these questions of your work. You will tell yourself the questions are irrelevant as the scene is “interesting,” “meaningful,” “revelatory of character,” “deeply felt,” and so on; all of these are synonyms for “it stinks in ice.”
You may be able to dissuade your yetzer har’ra by insisting that you were and are a viewer before you were a writer, and that as a writer, these three questions are all you want to know of a scene. (You come late to a film ask your friend there before you, “What’s going on? Who is this guy? What does he want?” and your friend will, as a good dramaturge, explain that the subject of your inquiry [the hero] is the vice president of Bolivia, and he wants to determine where his boss is, as the bad guys are about to ambush him, and if he, our hero vice president, does nto extract the info from the reluctant mistress, whom the president has just thrown over, the bad guys will his boss and bring down the country.)As anyone becomes more adept in the use of these invaluable ancient tools, one may, in fact, extend their utility to the level of the actual spoken line and ask of the speech, no doubt, beginning, “Jim, when I was young I had a puppy…” “Wait a second, how does this speech help Hernando find out where his boss, the president of Bolivia, is?” And you may, then, be so happy-not with the process but with the results of your assiduous application of these magic questions—that finding the puppy speech wanting in their light, you will throw it to the floor and out of the scene it was just about to ruin.
These magic questions and their worth are not known to any script reader, executive, or producer. They are not known and used by few writers. They are, however, part of the unconscious and perpetual understanding of that group who will be judging you and by whose say-so your work will stand or fall: the audience.
Its good advice, to consider though I don’t agree with these magic questions being unknown to script readers, executives and producers. You would think they would read a script with these questions in mind in the name of making a buck, which is their modus operandi and in the name of making that buck I feel like they would be inclined to make sure the audience is entertained throughout, and be able to summarize like this.
Though, in the end, it’s David Mamet. I’m sure he knows better than I do, and regardless, I feel like if you’re writing a screenplay this is good advice to consider when doing it.
