CrashDaily at 2010-03-10 09:44:44:
I love quotes like these from established writers. They are inspiring. Justify our existence as "artists." They're also complete bullshit. Maybe David has convinced himself that his work transcends that of a three act structure. The problem, David, is that your work is of public record, and your screenplays are textbook three act structures with all the formulaic trimmings. And if you didn't structure them that way, maybe the writer that got paid to fix them did. And if you did structure them that way then you are either full of crap, or you've found some way to "free yourself" as an artist, while subconsciously writing within a very defined structure (i.e. formula). Wow. Even I think I sound like a jerk at this point, but the reason Scott has one of the best blogs on writing is that he tempers this kind of esoteric gobeldygook with the hard reality of becoming, and working as, a professional writer. I'd love to be a fly on the wall listening to someone who has taken this advice to heart try to explain to the VP of production at (name a friggin studio) how their take on fixing said script is to just "let it happen" ... "The structure will come to me while being an artist" ... "might be 2 acts, might be 6" ... *insert joint whiffing sound*
That hilarious scene, however, will never happen because a writer that actually thinks like this will never get in that room. The most freethinking (working) writer we have right now is Kaufmen, and maybe his best work is the one about an "artist" relenting to the necessity of structure in movies. Irony anyone? And he did what we all need to do -- make that an awesome, original ride, on the rollercoaster that we know takes X amount of time, and has X amount of big drops, etc.
Guys like Sheldon Turner, Gilroy, Helgeland, and the 6 other fixers that get 95% of the rewrites in town love hearing advice like Seltzer's, even give it themselves from time to time, because they know that anyone that thinks like this will be writing scripts for themselves, or their mommies, until they figure out the business. Does that mean these guys are lesser writers? Absolutely not. If you want to be a pro, and actually get paid to be a screenwriter, you need to figure out how to bring something really interesting to the table within the confines of the structure. We are not writing novels. We have 120 pages or less to tell a compelling story. The art, the profession, is knowing that certain things must happen at certain points and then filling in the pages in between with compelling story and characters. You want to be an artist and just let it happen... write some poetry, maybe a stream of consciousness short story with no punctuation, but if you want to get paid to write movies then you need to pull your head out of your artistic tookus and get to work. And please don't take my word for it. Read any of the specs that are selling -- they'll have great concepts, at least good, decent characters, decent structure. Then read the production draft that lists the fixers on the cover -- usually more than one -- and compare scripts. Did they mess with the formula? No they did not. They probably made it more structurally sound, and then they amped up the characters and the scenes those characters are in. That's the job, that is the profession. You don't want to do that? Bohemia Cafe' has open poetry readings on Wednesday nights. Maybe you can pass the hat after.