Karl Iglesias - Writing for emotional impact : advanced dramatic techniques to attract, engage, and fascinate the reader from beginning to end

Karl Iglesias

WingSpan Press

Livermore, California

W RITING FOR EMOTIONAL IMPACT
Advanced Dramatic Techniques to Attract, Engage, and Fascinate the Reader from Beginning to End Copyright 2005 by Karl Iglesias All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to:WingSpan Press
Livermore, CA
www.wingspanpress.com Printed in the United States of America The primary purpose of this book is to educate students on the craft of screenwriting and the emotional impact of great stories. All quotes and script excerpts are offered to illustrate storytelling techniques and are published in compliance with the Fair Use doctrine, Title 17, Chapter 1, Sec. 107 of the United States Copyright Law.Cover design by Bill Graham (www.grahamstudios.com)Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataIglesias, Karl.
Writing for emotional impact: advanced dramatic techniques to attract, engage, and fascinate the reader from beginning to end / by Karl Iglesias1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-59594-028-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-1-59594-751-2 (ebook)
1. Motion picture authorship. I. Title.
PN1996.I39 2005
808.066791dc22200502614910 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

To Tara
for your love, support, and patience.
All my love always.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Isaac Newton once said, If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Id like to thank all the screenwriting giants whose work herein proves that greatness in craft is indeed possible.

My deepest thanks:

To all my students at UCLA Extension and the Screenwriting Expo for demanding that this book be written. Without your constant requests, it would still be a series of lectures.

To Linda Venis at UCLA Extensions Writers Program for providing me with such a fulfilling venue to teach, and to her dedicated staff for running such a smooth operation.

To Rosa Graham for the extra pair of eyes, and Bill Graham for the cover.

To Jeff Coller for the office space.

To all my friends and family for their caring and support.

And as always, to my wife, Tara, for her unwavering love, support, and enthusiasm for anything I do.

ALSO BY KARL IGLESIAS

The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters

CONTENTS

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INTRODUCTION

The Emotion-Delivery Business

Its not about what happens to people on a page; its about what happens to a reader in his heart and mind.

-G ORDON L ISH

T here are three kinds of feelings when reading a scriptboredom, interest, and WOW! Your job as a screenwriter is to create that WOW feeling on as many pages as possible. This book is for all writers who want to deliver that WOW , and who truly understand that great storytelling is about one thing onlyengaging the reader emotionally.

Writing for Emotional Impact is for all the frustrated writers who have spent hundreds of dollars on books and seminars only to realize that the formulaic writing they preach leads to boring reading, a Pass from readers, and unreturned phone calls from disappointed executives desperate for exciting material. If youve read the screenwriting books, taken the seminars, and have mastered the rules and principles, youre only halfway there, despite the good intentions of the gurus out there. Although most of them would agree you must write a script that involves the reader, I have yet to see a dramatic increase in script quality. Sure, it seems better. We hear new writers exclaim, Look how well-structured it is I got my plot points where they belong My protagonist follows the heros journey, and he changes at the end. Close, but no cigar. Understand, though, that these structural foundations are an essential part of any screenplay, and some books offer brilliant and valuable insights. But if you want to complete your education, read on.

WHY ANOTHER SCREENWRITING BOOK?

Some of you may be thinking, Do we really need another book on how to write a great screenplay that sells? As Robert McKee says, We dont need another cookbook to reheat Hollywood leftovers. I agree. Take a look at how many books there are on bookshelves and onlinemy latest search on Amazon.com yielded over 1200 results! It boggles the mind. For the past thirty years, aspiring writers have had a wealth of information devoted to the fundamentals and principles of screenwriting, from books and magazines to seminars and web sites, film school graduate programs, not to mention consultants and screenwriting gurus, all promising you that if you put certain events in a specific order by a specific page number, youll have a great screenplay that will sell. And yet, nothing has changed. Most scripts being marketed today are formulaic, mechanical, predictable, and therefore dull. Why? Because screenwriting is more than just theories and plot recipes. Sure, you need to know the basics, but its still a far cry from creating a great script. In my book, The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters , Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman ( Cinderella Man, I, Robot, A Beautiful Mind ) says, Screenwriting is like fashion: All clothes have the same structure. A shirt has a two sleeves and buttons, but not all shirts look alike. Most classes and books teach you that a shirt has two sleeves and buttons and then expect the student to come up with a designers shirt. Writer Howard Rodman, whom I also interviewed but wasnt included due to the books length, added that these rules, principles, and theories have become more tools in the hands of bad development executives. Things like act structure, inciting events, plot points and page numbers are ways in the studio world of taking a script that only one person could have written and transforming it into something anybody could have written.

Might as well come out and say itthere are two reasons for this book. The first is to present much-needed information to the frustrated writer who cant find it anywhere despite the incredible array of screenwriting sources. Aspiring writers are still desperate for valuable information. I hear them complain at workshops and conferences how theyre tired of picking up book after book and attending seminar after seminar, and yet not learning anything new. The second reason is a more selfish one: As a busy instructor and script consultant, Im tired of reading awful scripts. My thought is that if I present techniques used by professional writers, the beginners will improve their writing to a satisfactory level. It may not be great enough to sell, but at least itll raise the level of writing and make the reading experience and analysis more bearable.

Its time to go beyond the basics and focus on what the screenwriting craft is really aboutcreating an emotional experience in readers. Good writing is good writing because you feel something when you read it. Its why a great movie can be three hours long and you dont even notice, while an awful ninety minute one can feel like ninety hours. Its why psychologists call movies Emotion Machines. The experience of emotions is the most compelling reason we go to the movies, watch television, play video games, read novels, and attend plays and sporting events. And yet, emotional response is a subject too often overlooked.

When I became a script reader, I thought it was a great time for screenwriters with all this available instruction we didnt have before. I thought I would read decent scripts, especially since many were from mega-literary agencies like CAA, ICM, and William Morris. Boy, was I wrong. Out of the hundreds of scripts I read over the years, Ive only recommended five. Understand, though, that many of the scripts I passed on were technically flawlessno spelling or format errors, well-structured, with all the prescribed act breaks on the correct pages. The main problem was that they all felt the same, as if theyd been written by a connect-the-dots computer programmed with the same old formulaic algorithm. Not only was I shocked that even agented scripts were mediocre at best, but also annoyed that many aspiring writers were wasting their money on instruction that was getting them nowhere. To this day, a surprising lack of awareness still exists among aspiring writers about what great screenwriting is really about. Emotion, not logic, is the stuff of drama. Emotion is your screenplays lifeblood.

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