we see...

I've heard No-no and It-doesn't-matter, but why not avoid it altogether?

"MTV plays on a television in the background."

Essentially, it's redundant. You're writing for a medium which is visual, so everything in the description or action lines is something 'we see.'

As Miss Plum shows in the rewrite, it just adds words which are not needed. If you use it a lot, that's hundreds of words you can edit away, often with an improved verb added at the same time.

I'd go through the script and remove them all. Save that word count for better uses.

Maryn, who lurks more than posts at script writing boards

If you a have a good command of the craft, the use of "we see" will be largely invisible. It's one of those rules that's OK to break as long as you know what you're doing, and do it sparingly. "We see" can be a useful device for directing a specific POV or image, but if you're still cutting your teeth, I'd avoid it for now.

Solid advice above. But it isn't a "no-no" to use it.

clockwork said:

If you a have a good command of the craft, the use of "we see" will be largely invisible. It's one of those rules that's OK to break as long as you know what you're doing, and do it sparingly. "We see" can be a useful device for directing a specific POV or image, but if you're still cutting your teeth, I'd avoid it for now.

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This.

Every word of it.


I notice the OP says he uses "we see" A LOT. And THAT might be a problem. So "sparingly" is the best way to go. Maybe no more than once or twice in an entire feature-length screenplay (just a suggestion).

writeaway said:

I use that a lot. Is that a no-no?

ex.



Thank you

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In my own opinion, it depends what works for you.

I agree with the comments that, if used, then use sparingly, but I often apply it throughout the first quick draft as I find it to be a helpful method of getting on with the story while also flagging crucial narrative that in the next pass will be more streamlined.

It's almost a guarantee that the 'we see' won't be around after the second/third draft, but personally I find it a useful part of the process.

Some scripts I've read that sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, use the royal "we." But I tend to avoid it except for maybe something POV like:

We're in a close, slimy cave with creepy, crawly beasties on the walls and floor. A MAN struggles to breathe, unseen in the dark nearby.

***

I still might take it out though. I once heard a somewhat bitchy writer say, in reference to this point, "Leave US out of it!"

Whether I agree with it or not, I hear her damn voice say it every time the "we" shows up in my script.

My thought is, use it sparingly and don't let it keep you up at night. And remember Mark Twain's great words, "Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."

I'd add agents to that. My old agent, Barry Freed, one of the greats, used to say, "They rejected us." or "We got rejected."

My God, I always loved him for that.

Verbal said:

Some scripts I've read that sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, use the royal "we." But I tend to avoid it except for maybe something POV like:

We're in a close, slimy cave with creepy, crawly beasties on the walls and floor. A MAN struggles to breathe, unseen in the dark nearby.

***

I still might take it out though. I once heard a somewhat bitchy writer say, in reference to this point, "Leave US out of it!"

Whether I agree with it or not, I hear her damn voice say it every time the "we" shows up in my script.

My thought is, use it sparingly and don't let it keep you up at night. And remember Mark Twain's great words, "Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."

I'd add agents to that. My old agent, Barry Freed, one of the greats, used to say, "They rejected us." or "We got rejected."

My God, I always loved him for that.

Click to expand...

I think that what we have to remember when we're writing screenplays is that there's always a point of view -- and that point of view isn't the protagonist's and it isn't the writer's -- it's the the point of view of a potential audience sitting in a theater watching the movie that the script will ultimately be turned into.

That audience is the "we" that's doing the seeing when "we see" is used.

And there are times when that "we" -- the audience needs to be clued in on just how something needs to seen in that putative movie.

That is, more is happening that merely the events of the story unfolding. Rather, those events actually need to be seen in a particular way in order for the story to unfold correctly.

And sometimes "we see" is the simplest way to make that clear.

And you see that sort of thing all the time in movies -- where, for instance, a character meets somebody and they talk, but "we see" them meet at a distance, in the middle of an open field so that we don't recognize who the other person is and we don't what they're saying.

And it's important, for story reasons that we don't.

That's the sort of thing that you can't merely "imply." And it doesn't work to simply describe what's happening -- because what's happening is that somebody is meeting somebody in an open field and having a conversation, and the audience needs to know, for instance, that the main character is meeting somebody, but they *can't* know who the main character is meeting or what they're saying.

And there are countless ways of showing such a meeting -- but you simply have to make the point clearly -- *WE SEE* the two meet, but *WE* can't identify who the other guy is or hear what they're saying.

To do it any other way risks confusing the reader and making a critical point less clearly.

Obviously, when it isn't necessary, you shouldn't use it -- but then again, you shouldn't use anything when it isn't necessary.

NMS

I'm gonna do something I've never PERSONALLY seen done here at AW before (although it may very well have been done and I just missed it). Specifically, I am going to try and get two dofferent threads from two different AW sub-forums to get a look at each other in a sort of Lewis Carroll through-the-looking-glass kind of way.

There has been a "sister-conversation" concerning an almost indentical writing question going on in the subforum for "Novels."

Here's the thread, entitled:

She saw him run into the icy river . . . or shouldn't she . . .

And here's the OP.

DKM said:

Somewhere in a thread a long time ago I remember reading that writers should refrain from using the word: saw. If I remember right, it puts distance btwn you and the reader. It's better if a writer says: She was alarmed; she feared if he kept on running - the icy waters would kill him.

On the other hand I can't help but notice some authors use this word. Maybe they're just limiting its use.

All comments welcome.

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Plot Device said:

I'm gonna do something I've never PERSONALLY seen done here at AW before (although it may very well have been done and I just missed it). Specifically, I am going to try and get two dofferent threads from two different AW sub-forums to get a look at each other in a sort of Lewis Carroll through-the-looking-glass kind of way.

There has been a "sister-conversation" concerning an almost indentical writing question going on in the subforum for "Novels."

Here's the thread, entitled:

She saw him run into the icy river . . . or shouldn't she . . .

And here's the OP.

Click to expand...

This is a question having to do with point of view and there's no right answer -- or at any rate the only right answer is that the proper choice of point for the story's point of view is whatever best serves the telling of the particular story.

It doesn't follow that what is always "best" is a sort of transparent perspective that looks beyond someone's face (speaking now strictly in terms of prose) and into that person's mind, thoughts, emotions, history, destiny.

No. Obviously, as the creator of the universe of the story, you know everything because you create everything -- and so you have an infinite capacity both to see everything and to reveal everything to your reader.

Yes, she "saw X" -- and she felt X. And she remembered X. And X reminded her of something else -- and that something else has significance because of something that happened to her when she was five years old.

And the next thing you know, you're writing Remembrance of Things Past.

The question is -- what serves the intention of the scene, of the moment -- it's emotion, its theme, that particular character -- and what *you* the writer, are attempting to convey to the reader.

What's going on in the head of a particular character at a particular time may not be relevant -- or you may not wish for the reader to know at that moment.

Or, because of the way in which you've constructed the story up until that point and the scene in question, the mere act of her *seeing* makes what she's feeling obvious because of what we've learned about her already and you don't have to say any more.

Often the most powerful statements consist of things that are left unsaid or unshown -- one need not say everything or show everything.

It was Billy Wilder who said that if you let an audience add one and one and make two they will love you.

It's in the ability, in writing, and in all art, to create, as it were, *unfinished* scenes -- but scenes that you know that the audience will finish the way that you want them to that's often the most satisfying.

NMS

Can't we replace the 'we look' with 'the characters looks?'

I'm asking this because many times I write what or who the character is looking at, in order to make the story intelligible.

Eumenides, for fiction it's nearly always redundant if the POV is that of the character who's doing the looking. You can nearly always go directly to whatever he or she sees.

Consider:

Stuart looked at Josie. He saw she'd dyed her hair again.
I looked at Josie. I saw she'd dyed her hair again.

Whether Stuart is your POV character or you're using first-person narration, you can get rid of a lot by simply going directly to what the narrating character experienced, without filtering it through the utilization of the sensory organs which allow the experience to happen:

Josie had dyed her hair again.

In the course of a whole novel (and presumably a screenplay as well), you can save a whole lot of words by seeking and deleting such filtering.

Maryn, returning this thread to scripts

Well, imagine there's a character who wants to avoid another character, he's running away from:

INT. CORRIDOR - DAY

Brad walks along the corridor. Suddenly Pete turns the corner and is coming in his direction, oblivious to him. Brad looks at him.

BRAD
Oh no!

Brad turns back and starts running away.

I think in this case it's essential that we describe that Brad looks at Peter , sees him, because on that depends what he does next.

Eumenides said:

Well, imagine there's a character who wants to avoid another character, he's running away from:

INT. CORRIDOR - DAY

Brad walks along the corridor. Suddenly Pete turns the corner and is coming in his direction, oblivious to him. Brad looks at him.

BRAD
Oh no!

Brad turns back and starts running away.

I think in this case it's essential that we describe that Brad looks at Peter , sees him, because on that depends what he does next.

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There are times when you want to establish the POV of a particular character within a scene, because *they're* particular reaction to what they're seeing is important. It may even be that they, alone, have seen whatever it is, and so that -- their particular POV -- has to be established, in order for that point to be made.

Likewise, sometimes something happens in a scene that *nobody* sees, except for the audience. It may be that there's a bomb ticking under a table. *WE* -- that is, "we" being the audience, see the bomb -- but nobody else does.

Sometimes you can phrase the events of a scene where it's clear that the bomb, seen by "us" -- the audience, is unseen by anybody else in the scene. Other times, the clearest and simplest way to make the point is to simply say it in those words -- "We see a bomb under the table -- meanwhile the guests above continue to eat their meal, unaware of the death just beneath their feet.

(And please, I'm not inviting others to rephrase the above, without the "we see" -- it's just an example).

NMS

That's interesting advice. Thanks!

If I catch one "we see" in one of my scripts, I'm going to kill it.