To WE or not to WE

jonpiper · May 7, 2009

Goodwriterguy, when you insert these kinds of asides (we will see, we will learn, etc.) into your script, you in a sense become part of the story, a kind of narrator, a narrator without dialogue, a narrator outside of the story. In prose stories (novels, short stories) this is called authorial intrusion.

In a screenplay, the Reader, and later, the Director "hear" you, but never does the audience hear you.

Why not insert into the screenplay a NARRATOR whose dialogue would communicate these asides to the audience? Reveal to the audience that these horsemen are important and the story will return to them shortly, after the next sequence.

You say don't do this because you want to reveal certain information to the audience only when the story is ready to have that info revealed. And a well written screenplay will reveal that info at the proper time.

But you have no qualms about revealing these things to the Reader and Director. I don't get it. If your story is well written, why would you need to give the Director a heads up?

I've read and reread this thread and your thread on Share Your Work and am not convinced these asides are needed to inform the Director or Reader.
In my view not only are they not needed, they do not enhance the read, as certain Shane Black-type asides do.

curious1980 · May 9, 2009

Cyia makes a good point on why not to "we".

Goodwriterguy · May 11, 2009

jonpiper said:
Goodwriterguy, when you insert these kinds of asides (we will see, we will learn, etc.) into your script, you in a sense become part of the story, a kind of narrator, a narrator without dialogue, a narrator outside of the story. In prose stories (novels, short stories) this is called authorial intrusion.

In a screenplay, the Reader, and later, the Director "hear" you, but never does the audience hear you.

Why not insert into the screenplay a NARRATOR whose dialogue would communicate these asides to the audience? Reveal to the audience that these horsemen are important and the story will return to them shortly, after the next sequence.

You say don't do this because you want to reveal certain information to the audience only when the story is ready to have that info revealed. And a well written screenplay will reveal that info at the proper time.

But you have no qualms about revealing these things to the Reader and Director. I don't get it. If your story is well written, why would you need to give the Director a heads up?

I've read and reread this thread and your thread on Share Your Work and am not convinced these asides are needed to inform the Director or Reader.

In my view not only are they not needed, they do not enhance the read, as certain Shane Black-type asides do.

Only to the reader, not a director.

My quesion to you would be how do you see character introductions? How do you see declared scene transitions?

Character intros are certainly not part of the narrative that's describing the movie. They can only be asides to the reader. And we read them in every script we read. They are de rigeur are they not?

I don't consider any aside I may write to be for the guy or gal who's gonna direct the picture and I don't believe I said I did nor implied that I did, but if that impression was left let's set it right, I do not seek to communicate with the person who's going to direct in any specific or exclusive way.

The idea of a "heads up" to a reader occurs because the page isn't the film, text isn't footage. If I write a brief paragrah that introduces a character that's not going to become part of the imagery that's recorded on film and hence the audience will never be privy to it. But we do it all the same, all of us do it from what I've seen in the hundreds and hundreds of screenplays I've read over the years. Or is it your view that we don't actually do this?

I've not managed to pin anyone down on this point, everyone has sidetsepped it or ignored it or just flat paid it no attention or heed.

So I ask you, how do you see character intros? Are they part of your narrative, or are they asides to your reader?

In my view, obviously, they are asides to my reader. They happen once and once only.

Obviously, my entire narrative is intended to describe my movie to any reader, be they a d-type person or reader, actor, or director, but I don't ever include an aside that's specifically intended for a director to advise him or her of this or that.

I do include asides that are intended for my reader, character introductions being the most prominent of them.

jonpiper said:
Why not insert into the screenplay a NARRATOR whose dialogue would communicate these asides to the audience? Reveal to the audience that these horsemen are important and the story will return to them shortly, after the next sequence.

Because the audience is sitting in a theater watching and they'll "know" or "guess" intuitively that they probably haven't seen the last of these riders, which have been presented to them in a powerful visage ... heavily armed men who appear bent on a mission.

My reader on the other hand is curled up in an overstuffed with a script in their hands reading, the only imagery they're seing is what my narrative has managed to evoke in their imaginations, but because it's text and not footage, they get a heads up from me.

The audience KNOWS, a reader probably can't.

The following form is common as apple pie in screenplays, albeit the actual transition is right justified, which we can't seem to do in this software, but you get this:

Emmett’s eyes droop, then close, as WE DISSOLVE TO:

The train’s whistle blows OS as the car lurches,
jerks, and gets rolling again and WE DISSOLVE TO:

I've seen this form a thousand times in screenplays.

This particular usage does add a thought:

We’ll revisit them soon enough, but for now WE CUT TO:

This is the "heads up" and yes, it is between me and my reader. And you know what? No reader or d-person has ever busted me for this kind of thing, and movie industry people of all kinds have read my scripts.

I reckon we'll have to chalk it up to style. Obviously you and others here think it's bad style or whatever but unacceptable, and yet I've been doing it for years and have read the same in hundreds of screenplays.

C'est la vie!

ricetalks · May 11, 2009

The reason the audience knows they are coming back to these riders isn't intuitive. It is the same reason the reader of the script also knows by the cut. I detailed why and how that works in the last analysis I did of your ten pages in Share Your Work so I'm not going to waste space detailing it again. You can tell your reader if you want, as I detailed there, I don't really have a problem with you doing it like that (as I am reiterating again) but it STILL works without it, and the reasons are detailed there. And it works as a cut on the page for the same reason it works as a cut in the film, as I detailed.

These are not the real problems or the problems I have opinioned about in your ten pages. Please see details in last Share Your Work posting I did.

xhouseboy · May 11, 2009

Goodwriterguy said:
We’ll revisit them soon enough, but for now WE CUT TO:

This is the "heads up" and yes, it is between me and my reader. And you know what? No reader or d-person has ever busted me for this kind of thing, and movie industry people of all kinds have read my scripts.

I reckon we'll have to chalk it up to style. Obviously you and others here think it's bad style or whatever but unacceptable, and yet I've been doing it for years and have read the same in hundreds of screenplays.

C'est la vie!

To be honest, if the story and writing is strong and 'we' isn't overused to the point of clutter, I've never known of anyone having a real problem with this.

nmstevens · May 11, 2009

Goodwriterguy said:
Only to the reader, not a director.

My quesion to you would be how do you see character introductions? How do you see declared scene transitions?

Character intros are certainly not part of the narrative that's describing the movie. They can only be asides to the reader. And we read them in every script we read. They are de rigeur are they not?

I don't consider any aside I may write to be for the guy or gal who's gonna direct the picture and I don't believe I said I did nor implied that I did, but if that impression was left let's set it right, I do not seek to communicate with the person who's going to direct in any specific or exclusive way.

The idea of a "heads up" to a reader occurs because the page isn't the film, text isn't footage. If I write a brief paragrah that introduces a character that's not going to become part of the imagery that's recorded on film and hence the audience will never be privy to it. But we do it all the same, all of us do it from what I've seen in the hundreds and hundreds of screenplays I've read over the years. Or is it your view that we don't actually do this?

I've not managed to pin anyone down on this point, everyone has sidetsepped it or ignored it or just flat paid it no attention or heed.

So I ask you, how do you see character intros? Are they part of your narrative, or are they asides to your reader?

In my view, obviously, they are asides to my reader. They happen once and once only.

Obviously, my entire narrative is intended to describe my movie to any reader, be they a d-type person or reader, actor, or director, but I don't ever include an aside that's specifically intended for a director to advise him or her of this or that.

I do include asides that are intended for my reader, character introductions being the most prominent of them.

Because the audience is sitting in a theater watching and they'll "know" or "guess" intuitively that they probably haven't seen the last of these riders, which have been presented to them in a powerful visage ... heavily armed men who appear bent on a mission.

My reader on the other hand is curled up in an overstuffed with a script in their hands reading, the only imagery they're seing is what my narrative has managed to evoke in their imaginations, but because it's text and not footage, they get a heads up from me.

The audience KNOWS, a reader probably can't.

The following form is common as apple pie in screenplays, albeit the actual transition is right justified, which we can't seem to do in this software, but you get this:

Emmett’s eyes droop, then close, as WE DISSOLVE TO:

The train’s whistle blows OS as the car lurches,
jerks, and gets rolling again and WE DISSOLVE TO:

I've seen this form a thousand times in screenplays.

This particular usage does add a thought:

We’ll revisit them soon enough, but for now WE CUT TO:

This is the "heads up" and yes, it is between me and my reader. And you know what? No reader or d-person has ever busted me for this kind of thing, and movie industry people of all kinds have read my scripts.

I reckon we'll have to chalk it up to style. Obviously you and others here think it's bad style or whatever but unacceptable, and yet I've been doing it for years and have read the same in hundreds of screenplays.

C'est la vie!

It's not the "we dissolve to" or the "we cut to" that's particularly bothersome so much as the "we'll revisit them soon enough."

The use of "we dissolve" is simply a kind of awkward extension of the general usage of "we see" -- sort of saying, "we see the image dissolve to something else."

That just comes down to an issue of how you're expressing what's being seen by the putative audience.

But you run into dangerous areas -- and I'd include, by the way, those same character descriptions that are generally tossed around by writers -- when you give readers information that a viewer watching the movie wouldn't otherwise have.

Sometimes you can use prose devices, like metaphors, to convey information that a viewer *would* get watching a particular scene that might otherwise be difficult to convey succinctly.

But nothing that a viewer is seeing on screen is conveying "we'll revisit them soon enough."

And I've read character descriptions along the lines of, "A tough, introspective kid out of the slums who's struggling to make a better life for himself" -- and I always ask myself when I read stuff like that -- how is somebody in the audience going to know all that about somebody who's just come on screen and hasn't even said a line yet? Are they supposed to glean all that from an expression in the kid's face? From the way he dresses? From his posture?

No? Then why is the writer telling me all this stuff? If the audience doesn't know it yet, why are you letting me in on it?

If it's conveyed through action -- describe the action. If it's conveyed through dialogue, give me the dialogue. If it's conveyed through the character's appearance or dress, then describe that. But don't "tell" me stuff about a character that isn't going to be on screen.

And don't tell me stuff about a character on page 6 that isn't going to be on screen until page 34.

NMS

Cyia · May 11, 2009

nmstevens said:
And don't tell me stuff about a character on page 6 that isn't going to be on screen until page 34.

NMS

QFT.

The reader should get as close to the movie experience as possible. Things should be revealed to them in the same manner as they would be revealed to the audience.

Those "we'll revisit" intrusions, or similar devices that warn a reader what's coming as opposed to letting them experience the story are akin to going to a movie with someone who's already seen it and having them whisper every twist in your ear before it happens.

"Oh! pay attention... this is the guy that comes back from the dead later. You want to remember him."

"Oh, this is the part where the dinosaur jumps out and rips his face off."

"Don't get attached to the dog. You'll regret it."

"See how that guy walks through the whole movie and no one but the kid talks to him... that's because he's dead, we just don't know it yet."

jonpiper · May 12, 2009

Goodwriterguy said:
My quesion to you would be how do you see character introductions?

Character intros are certainly not part of the narrative that's describing the movie. They can only be asides to the reader. And we read them in every script we read. They are de rigeur are they not?

I've not managed to pin anyone down on this point, everyone has sidetsepped it or ignored it or just flat paid it no attention or heed.

So I ask you, how do you see character intros? Are they part of your narrative, or are they asides to your reader?

In my view, obviously, they are asides to my reader. They happen once and once only.

I do include asides that are intended for my reader, character introductions being the most prominent of them.

I see character intros as part of the narrative, not as asides to the reader. True, a character, is introduced only once, by definition. But a character develops after his/her introduction as the story progresses. Therefore, I have time to fully describe my characters.

When the reader completes reading my screenplay he or she will have a complete picture of the character - hopefully.

The movie should develop the characters in the same way, as the story progresses. A character won't be fully developed the first time she appears on screen

Does the reader see the character I create in my mind? Will the audience see the character I imagine? I only control (and only to a limited extent)what the reader sees.

So I reveal more and more of the character as the story progresses.
But this is also true of the action and description throughout the screenplay.

nmstevens said:
And I've read character descriptions along the lines of, "A tough, introspective kid out of the slums who's struggling to make a better life for himself" -- and I always ask myself when I read stuff like that -- how is somebody in the audience going to know all that about somebody who's just come on screen and hasn't even said a line yet? Are they supposed to glean all that from an expression in the kid's face? From the way he dresses? From his posture?

No? Then why is the writer telling me all this stuff? If the audience doesn't know it yet, why are you letting me in on it?

If it's conveyed through action -- describe the action. If it's conveyed through dialogue, give me the dialogue. If it's conveyed through the character's appearance or dress, then describe that. But don't "tell" me stuff about a character that isn't going to be on screen.

And don't tell me stuff about a character on page 6 that isn't going to be on screen until page 34.

NMS

I agree with NMS concerning the kinds of asides he describes. But I think certain asides, used sparingly, are useful and can add flavor to a screenplay.

jonpiper · May 12, 2009

Goodwriterguy said:
This is the "heads up" and yes, it is between me and my reader. And you know what? No reader or d-person has ever busted me for this kind of thing, and movie industry people of all kinds have read my scripts.

I reckon we'll have to chalk it up to style. Obviously you and others here think it's bad style or whatever but unacceptable, and yet I've been doing it for years and have read the same in hundreds of screenplays.

C'est la vie!

Goodwriterguy, I just Googled Screenplay Asides. Your thread (this thread) came up in second place.
[Snipped. WAYYYYY beyond Fair Use. No WAY can you go go clip over a thousand words from another site and repost without all kinds of permission. I am now, btw, getting angry emails from this site's webmaster. Who, in the last twenty-four hours since you posted this has sent me multiple emails to multiple addresses with threats of official DMCA take-down notices for copyright violation. So do me a favor, okay? Don't ever link to this site or quote anything from there on AW again, okay?]

Team 2012 · May 12, 2009

The "we" is basically a stand-in for "one", a depersonalized expression that's hard to acheive in English without a reflexive.

It can almost always be said just as easily in a form like "A gallows can be seen in the distance", "A camera can be seen, partially shrouded by foilage". Or even just "The gun is in plain sight" or "The suitcase sticks out slightly from under the bed."

None of us use "we" (except, probably obnoxiously, in these posts) and nobody we write with in television does. But whenever you tell somebody not to use it, the next script you see by Shane Black or some other great and/or hot writer will have it, bigger than hell.

It's probably not too far off to see it as an affectation or sloppy usage. But like [Redacted--JDM] says, a writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do.

leim · May 12, 2009

I would say the use of the word WE is best left out of a spec script, especially for a new writer. When a director reads a script, he wants to put in the WE's and decide that WE CUT TO or WE SEE.

It's best to leave out any directing in your script and just get a great story and dialogue on paper.

Cyia · May 12, 2009

Team 2012 said:
The "we" is basically a stand-in for "one", a depersonalized expression that's hard to acheive in English without a reflexive.

It can almost always be said just as easily in a form like "A gallows can be seen in the distance", "A camera can be seen, partially shrouded by foilage". Or even just "The gun is in plain sight" or "The suitcase sticks out slightly from under the bed."

But "can be seen" isn't the best way to present those set-ups, either.

A GALLOWS looms in the distance.

A CAMERA peeks out, shrouded by foliage.

The "we see" asides and "can be seen" descriptions are clunky and cost you more space on the page. It's usually better to streamline and use stronger descriptives or verbs to get the point across in fewer words.

Team 2012 · May 12, 2009

Yes, thank you, that was pretty much my point. Steamlining with power verbs is not the big thing in screenplays that it is with fiction, of course.

But yes, there are other ways to hack the reflexive other than using "we".

Goodwriterguy · May 12, 2009

leim said:
I would say the use of the word WE is best left out of a spec script, especially for a new writer. When a director reads a script, he wants to put in the WE's and decide that WE CUT TO or WE SEE.

It's best to leave out any directing in your script and just get a great story and dialogue on paper.

How a director may or may not react to what one has written in their spec screenplay is, to me, a secondary consideration. The first consideration is how a reader will react, because if they react unfavorably, a direcor's never going to see the script anyway.

Hence, my priority is to give my reader a satisfying read, one in which the movie I've described for them has been competently written so that it does indeed cause my movie to explode across their mental movie screen. I want my reader to "see" the movie I have imagined and described.

I think declared transitions such as CUT TO: or DISSOLVE TO: help them do this and I reckon I'm up enough on what directors do to prevent such declared transitions from creating a bump in the reading road when a director finally gets round to reading my script.

The terms WE SEE or WE HEAR aren't part of my screenwriting lexicon nor do I think they should be part of any screenwriter's lexicon.

If screenwriter's become overly concerned with what a director might or might not do they might as well write a treatment and tell their screen tale in prose form. But we don't do that, we use the master scene form of the screenplay and while it's true that a director may do things a bit differently than what we the writer have specified, not knowing what they might do or not do leaves us no choice but to stick to the principles and conventions of the master scene form and let the directorial chips fall where they may.

And in my view, declared scene transitions have a legitimate place in the master scene form, and if I perchance choose to append a thought for my reader to one of them, that's a matter of style, not substance.

We will return to these characters soon enough, but for now WE CUT TO:

reflects a stylistic choice that I'm quite content with. Others may not agree and that's fine, we all choose our style, we all write in our own voices.

Cyia · May 12, 2009

Team 2012 said:
Yes, thank you, that was pretty much my point. Steamlining with power verbs is not the big thing in screenplays that it is with fiction, of course.

But yes, there are other ways to hack the reflexive other than using "we".

Not the big thing, but it can sure be a space saver.

Goodwriterguy · May 12, 2009

jonpiper said:
Goodwriterguy, I just Googled Screenplay Asides. Your thread (this thread) came up in second place.

A [Redacted--JDM] also came up. Don't link or quote this site on AW, please. The site owner sends me multiple harrassing emails and DMCA threats, to multiple email addresses-thanks, Mac
Oops. I just noticed that near the beginning of this thread, you referenced this article. I've included a few exerpts below which hit on what we've all been discussing.
I think the [Redacted--JDM] column advances this discussion by clarifying what all of us have said, and gives credibility to your and everyone's position.

Emphasis added by me.

I included the URL for [Redacted]'s piece when I referred to it in the OP, in the hopes that others would go there and partake.

Thank you for your efforts in getting the important points [Redacted--JDM] makes posted up here in this thread, well done!

I will say also that from a historical standpoint what's acceptable and proper in a spec script and what supposedly isn't has gone through an evolution from the early to mid-1990's to the mid-2010's in which spec writers were strongly advised to not ever use a declared scene transition or an INSERT or a POV or any number of other conventions that were traditionally part of the spec script's lingua franca ... advice that was inspired by so many new writers using these conventions wrongly and thus forcing or causing a negative reaction that eventually led to the advice to not use them at all, period.

And how many scripts have I read from this period in which an extensive time jump occurred from one scene to the next but with no DISSOLVE TO: to indicate this leaving me the reader to figure it out on my own?

Plenty.

Ditto CUT TO:, a declared transition that indicates our movie's about to change locations and shift to a different set of characters in a different place than we've just spent the last six or eight minutes or whatever.

I get three or four sentences into the next scene before I realize that, oops! we are somewhere else, which has a tendency to take me out of the movie. But if there's a CUT TO: there, then I know ... we're going somewhere else.

But in any case, thanks for your keen insight!

Team 2012 · May 12, 2009

DISSOLVE TO: tells you time has passed????

You're reading scripts that don't slug the location for a new scene?

Weird

Goodwriterguy · May 12, 2009

Team 2012 said:
DISSOLVE TO: tells you time has passed????

I know of no other purpose that DISSOLVE TO: might serve.

Team 2012 said:
You're reading scripts that don't slug the location for a new scene?

Umm, of course not, although I'd not know it as a "slug," to me it's a scene caption, whereas a slugline is just an ANGLE.

a) a reader can miss a new location; b) the impression's different when you read the location change in a caption, which does not convey a time jump.

Team 2012 said:
Weird

To be frank about it, I find a lot of the commentary here to be "weird."

Team 2012 · May 12, 2009

You're obviously living in a very different world of scriptwriting than we are. Maybe that's because we are all TV writers, but most of of are pretty familiar with screenplays, having written them and being in the milieu or hollywood writers and a couple of us having had some options.

I don't know why you are doing whatever it is you're doing here. I would have thought your previous posts established really clearly that you are giving us a hard time about things you are COMPLETELY wrong about (witness "backbone", scriptwriting, etc.)

But I guess there's no law against it. If you want to think a slugline is an angle or that a dissolve has to imply passed time, you go right ahead.

jonpiper · May 12, 2009

Goodwriterguy said:
But in any case, thanks for your keen insight!

Thank you for recognizing my keen insight, even though I wasn't thrilled with the asides in your first ten pages of A Western. (wink)

But I see what you are attempting to do, and give you credit for working on and developing your own style.

I think we all are experimenting with our own styles and voices. If we aren't each of us should be, unless we have already become successful.

Cyia · May 12, 2009

Team 2012 said:
You're obviously living in a very different world of scriptwriting than we are. Maybe that's because we are all TV writers, but most of of are pretty familiar with screenplays, having written them and being in the milieu or hollywood writers and a couple of us having had some options.

No, it's not because you're TV writers. GWG has some... interesting... ideas.

INT SOMEPLACE REALLY COOL -- NIGHT

Action, more action, lots and lots of action.

BOBBY JO
Remember when I used to live in that other place?

Dissolve to:

EXT SOME OTHER PLACE I LIVED A LONG TIME AGO -- DAY

BOBBY JO
I just dissolved from my last scene into my new one and set it with a Slugline.

clockwork · May 13, 2009

I gave fair warning to keep it constructive.

MacAllister · May 13, 2009

Guys, you'll notice I've made some edits to the posts in this thread. That's because the webmaster those posts linked back to has apparently been sending me hissy-fit DMCA-takedown threat emails all day while I was, well, inexcusably WORKING instead of waiting by my email.

No matter what, no matter HOW tempted you are, please don't ever link to that site again. Don't quote that site here, don't refer to that site. I don't need the fucking amateur-hour headaches from their webmaster.

To WE or not to WE

jonpiper

curious1980

Goodwriterguy

ricetalks

xhouseboy

In the Yellow Woods

nmstevens

What happened?

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

jonpiper

jonpiper

Team 2012

leim

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Team 2012

Goodwriterguy

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Goodwriterguy

Team 2012

Goodwriterguy

Team 2012

jonpiper

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

clockwork

In the zone...

MacAllister

Tired and worried.