(First posted on the Bang2Write website on 4th September, 2014)


For most of us, Olivia Hetreed will have first come onto our radar when she was BAFTA-nominated for her screenplay of Tracy Chevalier’s best-selling “Girl With A Pearl Earring”. She’s adapted authors as diverse as Geoffrey Chaucer, Emily Brontë and Caroline Lawrence. Her latest script, ALTAMIRA, produced by Morena films, is about to begin shooting in Spain, helmed by veteran director Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire). For the past year Olivia has also served as the President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB). When she speaks, I listen. And you know what? You should too. Here are her top tips for newbie writers:

1. Be Bold
First off, Olivia emphasises the importance of having a plan: “Think about what it is you want to achieve. Write what you want, but don’t do it blindly.”

Once you’ve worked out your plan, be proactive. “We writers tend to think we need to wait for permission to do something,” Olivia says.

We don’t. Be bold and get on with it: go and make that film! “Getting something made can be extremely painful, but it’s a great learning experience.” 

2. Keep Studying
Learn from the best. Read hundreds of scripts. Deconstruct them. Put them back together again. Then spend some time in an editing suite. The most important thing editing teaches a writer is what you don’t need. Typically, this boils down to dialogue. Much of it ends up on the cutting room floor.

“There is so much an actor can do with just a look,” she says. “Of course, that’s hard to write. You have to learn to write for the page, knowing that a lot of what you write will not make it into the final cut, but is useful for conveying intention.”

You will be amazed by what issues have to be solved in the cutting room. “We can’t use that scene because… the actor didn’t nail it/ the location was ugly/ rain ruined the sound/ *delete as applicable.” 

MORE: 6 Reasons Dialogue Is Your Enemy

3. Practice Your Art
Write all the time, but don’t waste energy worrying about not writing. Even if you only have a small window of time in which to write, use it. Don’t get too precious about what you write too soon – just get it down on the page. Never let negative inhibitions get in the way. It’s far better to write ten bad pages, that you can rewrite later, than one good paragraph.

“More than any other form of writing, screenwriting is re-writing,” Olivia reminds us. “If you find re-writing tedious, then screenwriting is not for you.” 

MORE: All About Rewriting & Dealing With Feedback

4. Ask For Help
Ladies, this one is especially for you. Recently Olivia mentored a class of six students of equal potential, three male and three female, and came across typical gender specific behaviours that make all the difference to success or failure in the film industry. At the completion of the course, the females all emailed Olivia to thank her. The males all emailed Olivia to thank her AND ask her to introduce them to this or that person. Olivia then emailed the female students to explain what the males had done and how this had helped them get ahead.

There’s no such thing as “luck”. We all engineer our own luck by taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves. This can be particularly difficult for those of us who have been socialised to keep our heads down, work hard and wait for good things to happen. Here’s the shocker: if you wait for things to happen, life will pass you by. You’ve got to actively make things happen.

So ladies, don’t be shy about asking for help or for a favour. People want to help you! But be specific about what it is you’re requesting, and don’t waste their time.
 
MORE: Making It As A Writer – 25 Reasons You Haven’t Yet

5. Be Professional
Good behaviour is really important if you want to forge and sustain a career in this business. Find out what the producer wants of you.

“Even if you are friends, have a contract,” Olivia warns. “Make sure you both understand what you are undertaking. Deliver. If you can’t deliver – for whatever reason – own up to it. Don’t run away.

“Always be clear where the creative rights lie, what you have sold and for how long. There is almost never any money in filmmaking in the UK, but when there is, insanity erupts. Even the fondest friends can fall out over money.” 

MORE: What Is A Screenplay Option & How Does It Work?, plusWhat Is The Difference Between An NDA & A Release Form?

6. Leave Your Bedroom
Get out and meet people. “Form alliances with directors and producers,” Olivia urges. The ability to network with people and verbally articulate the central story in your script is as important as the technical ability to write it in the first place.

The WGGB is a good place to start. For new writers without representation it offers social events, seminars, minimum rates, pro-forma contracts and even legal advice, while for successful writers it provides a community in what can sometimes be a solitary profession and a chance to show solidarity with those writers less fortunate. The WGGB is tireless in its struggle to protect the rights of writers. Together, writers have a stronger voice. Join here.

Then there’s an annual gathering of screenwriters and other film industry professionals you may have heard about – the London Screenwriters’ Festival – this year, bigger and better than ever and now, 83% SOLD OUT! Buy your ticket here. 

MORE: 6 Ways You’re Stopping Your OWN Writing Success

What are you waiting for?

Dorothy and her partners in crime - Scarecrow, Lion and Tin-Man - in "The Wizard Of Oz"

For those of you not on Twitter, I wouldn’t want you to miss out on all the fun…

Every now and then, there’s a hashtag game that really captures the Twitter-sphere’s imagination and creates a few laughs into the bargain. This weekend in London #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly was the number one trending topic over two days. It was inspired by a logline seen in a TV schedule listing: 

"Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."

That's one way of looking at things! Behind the humour is a skill all new screenwriters struggle to hone: crafting the dreaded logline. In short, the ability to encapsulate an entire movie in a sentence or two. Of course, for any given film there is no one right answer. The "official" logline you read in a film's marketing material has been chosen by the producers to anchor your expectations as to the sort of emotional ride you're going to go on when you watch the film. 

I was interested to see the same films come up over and over again – Star Wars, Harry Potter, Titanic - evidence (perhaps) of how much impact certain films have had on the collective psyche.

See if you can guess the films that inspired the “bad” loglines below. Don’t be surprised to see the same film cropping up more than once. The answers are at the end – no cheating now.

MY ATTEMPTS (KT Parker ‪@lunaperla)

a) A woman goes to the dark side of the moon and back, having a secret George Clooney fantasy along the way.

b) Height-impaired creatures on a see-food diet trek across New Zealand in real time.

c) Enterprising producer/director makes aging actor's out-takes into action film with *action-cut-repeat* theme. ‪

d) Girl has the best dessert ever while on a road trip across the US with cynical boy.
  (I still want whatever she had...)

e) The guy who plays Eames steals the show. Also, the music is awesome.

‪f) Annoying Italian teaches his son to always look on the bright side of life in a Nazi concentration camp.

g) In a world where there are 999 males of various near-humanoid species to every female there are lots of battles.

h) Ms Bullock is Maj. Tom floating in a most peculiar way until oxygen kicks in & she becomes the Woman Who Fell 2 Earth

Now that you’ve got the general idea how the game works, here are tweets by other writers that had me sniggering.

Janet Leigh in the legendary shower scene from Hitchcock's "Psycho"

MY FAVOURITES

Alex Rubalcava ‪@AlexRubalcava
1. In a world before Google Maps, Harold and Kumar struggle to find a burger joint. 

British Reactions ‏‪@BritishReaction 
2. Boat load of people take Ice Bucket Challenge. Ends badly. Girl floats away. 

Nev Pierce ‏‪@nevpierce  
3. Nun steals sweet spinster's fiancé, makes children perform at Nazi X Factor. 

Alex Rubalcava ‪@AlexRubalcava
4. It takes a terrorist threat to make a bus get anywhere on time in Los Angeles.

Justine Musk ‏‪@justinemusk 
5. A budding romance between two attractive young people is rudely interrupted by a boating incident.

Kevin Lehane ‏‪@KevinLehane  
6. Two naked men travel back in time to hunt a woman. One to impregnate her, the other to stop her having sex.

Gerard Wyer ‏‪@gerardwyer 
7. There's a plane, and it has snakes on it, and everyone involved in the film should be ashamed of themselves.

Ian F. Hood ‏@IanFHood
8. Tom Hanks gets stranded on a deserted island and establishes a long-term relationship with one of his balls.

fuzzy lumpkin. ‏‪@theotisprice 
9. Billionaire orphan dresses up like flying mammal to beat up an asthmatic bodybuilder.

Josh ‏‪@jampadu 
10. Epic tale about how Clooney would rather float away in space and die than spend 10 minutes with a woman his own age.

Mary Evans ‏‪@MaryAliceEvans  
11. Wrongly-convicted inmate exposes rising damp in prison walls. 

Whatsit ‏‪@mattwhatsit 
12. Digs his way out of prison with a teaspoon so he can paint a boat. 

Darren Barker ‪@daz_barker
13. Man makes dinosaurs from a rock. Dinosaurs eat people at badly run theme park.

Saladin Ahmed ‪@saladinahmed
14. A white boy in England is told he is special. Then he goes to a private school. 

Mark Souza ‪@souzawrites 
15. Bruce Willis has to kill a dozen Germans to get his shoes back. 

Alexia Tsotsis ‏‪@alexia 
16. Guy drops out of college, builds a website.

Dave the Black Guy ‪@Realdaveblack
17. First they dropped a house on her sister and jacked her shoes. Then they do a home invasion and melt her.

Fun Mugford ‏‪@FunMugford 
18. Some chick has a really terrible shower and doesn't even get the chance to complain about it on Trip advisor.

Justin Boot ‏‪@Polymathically 
19. Anthony Hopkins discusses criminal pathology while making dinner plans.

And finally:

Simon Underwood ‏‪@SiFoulaReel 
I think ‪#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly has run its course - I'm now seeing people trying to explain ‪#ExplainAFilmPlotBadly and just doing it badly.

Ah well. All good things must come to an end.

ANSWERS

a)    Gravity
b)    Lord Of The Rings (the entire trilogy)
c)    Edge of Tomorrow
d)    When Harry Met Sally
e)    Inception
f)     La Vita È Bella (aka Life Is Beautiful)
g)    The Hobbit (the entire trilogy)
h)    Gravity (yes, again)

1.    [Seriously, I don’t know, but I’d definitely go to see it based on this logline!]
2.    Titanic
3.    Sound of Music
4.    Speed
5.    Titanic
6.    Terminator
7.    Snakes On A Plane
8.    Castaway
9.    The Dark Knight Rises
10. Gravity
11. The Shawshank Redemption
12. The Shawshank Redemption (no, this is not a typo)
13. Jurassic Park
14. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone
15. Die Hard
16. The Social Network
17. The Wizard Of Oz
18. Psycho
19. Silence Of The Lambs

(First posted on the Bang2Write website on 12th August, 2014)

LUCY hit the screens in Paris last week and Luc Besson, who both wrote and directed it, was doing no less than 6 “avant-premières” all over town. Those of you who don’t live in France may be wondering, what on earth is an avant-première? Well, it’s like a première minus the glitz of the red carpet and the flashbulbs of the paparazzi, but with the added bonus that the director often stays to chat with the audience after the screening.

Yours truly was very fortunate in that I got to walk in with Mr. Besson himself . I joked with him that I was LOVING the headlines in American publications saying “Hercules is getting beaten up by a girl!” That made him laugh. He said it was probably because Lucy had a nicer dress than Hercules…


1) LESSON N°1: The Judicious Use of Humour

So right off the bat I learned that Luc Besson is a funny guy. He knows how to use humour. At times the Q&A was like a stand-up-comedy routine. He made us laugh and had us hanging on his every word.

Likewise, in the film, here and there a note of humour is injected when you least expect it. Then, in the very next moment, the tension is ratcheted up, and you gasp all the more because the humour made you drop your guard. As writers, we are responsible for designing the emotional ride the audience will go on. No matter what your genre, use a dab of humour now and then as a counterpoint to the primary emotion you’re eliciting. (Or pathos if you’re writing a comedy.)

MORE: All About Genre & Craft


2) LESSON N°2: Be Open

LUCY is the story of a young woman, played by Scarlett Johansson, who is kidnapped by Korean gangsters and forced to act as a mule for a new super drug. The sachet containing the drug bursts inside her and unlocks her full potential, so that she can control first her own body, then those of others, then all matter and finally time itself.

The genesis of the idea occurred about twenty years ago. Mr. Besson, invited to dinner by the mayor of a small town, was seated next to a young woman. Our favourite French filmmaker was immediately wary. He often finds himself sitting next to the daughter or the niece of the host of a dinner party, and by coincidence she just happens to be an actress who would love a part in his next film… Nevertheless, Mr. Besson was very gallant and engaged his dinner companion in conversation.

“What do you do?” he asked.

 “I work in cancer research,” she replied.

He wasn’t expecting that. There then followed a three-hour conversation about cells and neurones and the brain. She was the one who told him the line that Morgan Freeman delivers in the film: cells select one of two strategies, immortality or reproduction, depending on the harshness of the environment they find themselves in.

The lesson here is openness. Mr. Besson could have closed himself off and avoided an encounter he assumed was going to be banal, even boring. Instead he chose to be open and GENEROUS with himself, and he was rewarded with the gift of a great idea. 

MORE: Connecting With Writers, Filmmakers & Producers Online, plus 10 Ways To Kill Your Writing Career Dead by Linda Aronson


3) LESSON N°3: Do Your Research

After meeting the young scientist, Mr. Besson sought out other scientists and gradually built up his knowledge. He set to writing the screenplay of LUCY NINE YEARS ago. This was a passion project and he wanted to craft the screenplay so that the science and the philosophy it contains would be presented in a way that was fun and entertaining.

Research then, is essential to create a sense of authenticity and emotional truth in a screenplay. But note, this is not necessarily the same as factual truth! 

MORE: The Importance Of Research


4) LESSON N°4: Make Your Story Accessible

Some American critics have beaten up on Luc Besson because one of the central ideas behind the film – that we only use 10% of our brain capacity – simply isn’t true. Mr. Besson KNOWS this. He’s done the research. Two decades of it. He even helped found the ICM, an international research institute focusing on the brain and spine.

What is true is that we only use 15% of our neurones at any given time. Mr. Besson worried audiences might not be familiar with the workings of neurones, whereas just about everybody knows what a brain is. So, to make the story accessible to the widest possible public, he made a CHOICE to use the brain as a metaphor… In the film it works beautifully.

The “truth” in your script can be anything you want it to be, as long as you CLEARLY set up the rules of the world of your story, and you do it in a way that is comprehensible for the audience.

MORE: Sacrificing Facts For Drama


5) LESSON N°5: Challenge Yourself

There is an extraordinary car chase in LUCY. I guarantee there are shots and angles you’ve never seen before, even if you’ve watched every one of the dozens of car chases that have been shot on the streets of Paris over the years.

Mr. Besson asked himself, “what would be the most DIFFICULT circumstances for a car chase in Paris?”

He came up with rue de Rivoli, at noon – equivalent to Oxford Street in London or Fifth Avenue in New York. The scene was shot over the long weekend of August 15, which is when Paris is at its emptiest. It covers the distance of approximately one kilometre and lasts only a few minutes of screen time, but it took four days to film and for safety reasons 25% of the cars are CGI. The result is breath-taking.

In your screenplay, don’t take the easy way out – ever. Challenge yourself to put your protagonist in the most difficult situation possible. That’s where you’ll find the drama or comedy or thrill or chill with the most impact. 

MORE: Writing, Selling & MAKING Thriller Screenplays with @jkamalou

It’s amazing what you can learn in ten minutes, isn’t it?

Remember that scene in Kenneth Branagh’s “A Midwinter's Tale” when the characters start listing what makes life worthwhile? “Brief Encounter”, says one. “Thinking of my son being happy”, says another. “Oh s**t. Do we all have to do one?” says Carnforth.

A screenwriter, it seems, has nowhere to hide. We may prefer to stay in our bedrooms, typing in our pyjamas, but when that invitation to participate in the Writer’s Blog Tour lands in your inbox, you’ve got to throw off your comfort blanket and “do one” – or in this case, four.

Thanks to the delightful Cera Rose Pickering for inviting me to take a turn. Here goes…

What am I working on?

At the moment I’ve got my producer’s hat on and I’m spending most of my writing time working on marketing materials for the two projects I am currently promoting: adventure/drama "Africa As You Like It" and period ghost story "Dowl’s Mill" – two completely different genres, but both featuring strong female protagonists.

This summer I am starting a new screenplay called "The Erskine Double", a period comedy loosely based on scandalous events that occurred at the periphery of my family tree in the early nineteenth century involving Thomas, 1st Baron Erskine, Lord Chancellor of England 1806-7.

How does my work feel different to others of its genre?

This is the trick question, isn’t it?!! Everybody brings their own personal narrative to their work, and I am no exception. I’ve had a unique set of experiences, good and bad, that have made me who I am and shaped my world view. I can’t help but bring that to my writing.

Having said that, I believe my scripts are more relatable than the vast majority of Hollywood fare. Personally I’m rather tired of worlds peopled solely by men and where female characters, if they exist at all, are often cyphers whose sole function is making the male protagonist look human/manly/sexy/etc.

My scripts typically feature female protagonists, but I work hard to ensure any supporting characters, male or female, are well-rounded with an interesting story arc of their own. I think the idea that audiences should feel that every character in your script is the star of their own film in a parallel universe is great advice.

Why do I write what I do?

I honestly feel that the story chooses me. And yes, I do know how nutty that sounds! Let me give you an example. I was jogging past a row of beach huts of uniform appearance on Bournemouth beach, when I noticed the last one was completely different to the rest. I started to wonder about the owners of that beach hut. What drove them to dare to be different? The characters continued to grow and evolve in my mind, and the next thing I knew I had a screenplay called “The Beach Hut”.

Another example is “Dowl’s Mill”, which was inspired by an ancient mill I saw progressively restored from a ruin to a magnificent residence as I stared out of the window on train journeys between Bournemouth and Dorchester. My 5x great grandfather, Henry Parker, lived in the adjacent village and I’ve always had an odd fancy that he worked at that mill… Train journeys seem to be a great place for writers to find inspiration. It was on a train that J.K. Rowling dreamt up  “Harry Potter” and Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat first discussed “Sherlock” – but not on the same train, obviously!

The other reason I write what I do is because I tend to write about what I know. Growing up, one of my favourite characters was Jo in “Little Women”, and she was advised to write about what she knew. It’s when she took that advice to heart that she became a really good writer, and I’ve always remembered it. The great thing is, you can constantly learn about new things, so the store of what you know is continually replenished and never diminishes.

How does my writing process work?

It’s a mosaic. It might start with an image, or a character or a snatch of dialogue. I need to start writing to explore it. It is in the act of writing that the story begins to emerge. When I’ve got a vague sense of the story, I do my research. I write. I research. I write. I research. Once I have enough material, I create an outline.

From there I’ll write the first draft. It’s pretty much a stream of consciousness that often takes on a life of it’s own and deviates from the outline. But that's OK. Sometimes you need to write stuff that is never going to end up in the script because you, the writer, need to have that information about your characters and their world on the tip of your brain.

Writing is re-writing, so I will then write any number of drafts until I’m happy with it. One of the things I do when I’m re-writing is break the script down into sequences (typically eight, with possibly a ninth as an epilogue), to make sure I have a strong structure and appropriate pacing. My two favourite screenwriting books are John Yorke’s “Into The Woods” and Julie Gray’s “Just Effing Entertain Me”. They’re never far from my desk when I’m in re-write mode.

Passing the Torch

Many thanks to my three torch -bearers:

Screenwriter Annas Eskander who specialises in science fiction and whose personal courage inspires me to be a better person and a more dedicated writer.

Comedy writer Nick Boocock who wrote the screenplay (amongst others) of the forth-coming short, “Reply To All”, of which I am proud to be an associate producer.

Playwright, poet and screenwriter Mary Anstey who was a classmate on the "storytelling for the screen" programme at the Screen Arts Institute in 2013.

Thank you one and all!