Progress

I’m making some great headway on my screenplay. For the last few weeks I was getting frustrated because I kept writing these meandering scenes that were killing the flow of the script simply because I was not clear on some aspects of my story and the characters. A week ago I watched the movie The Switch starring Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston and made some discoveries about what really makes a screenplay work. That movie was satisfying because it hit every marker required for a comedy to work. The characters can’t be flat. They have to have what some writers refer to as “the comic gap.” They have to have something funny about them. Are they a schemer? A control freak? A bum? Or like in the case of Jason Bateman’s character, are they a hypochondriac? Also, there are certain beats a comedy must hit to work. The main character needs to have an external problem that he is very much aware of as well as an internal problem that only the audience is aware of. Also, it is important to have two people after the same goal. This allows for the comedy to really work. There needs to be somebody in the story who stands as an opponent to the main character who is after the same thing he is. For example, in The Switch both Bateman’s character and another guy were in love with Jennifer Aniston’s character. This allows for tension to be built and comedy to follow.

After watching that I realized why I was frustrated with my screenplay and felt like I was writing in circles. Since my story and characters needed help I sat down with a good friend of mine and fellow writer, David Fredrickson, last Friday and we hammered out a solid story and came up with some good comic gaps for the characters. My main problem was my lead character needed some more flaws. He was too normal. The two of us bounced ideas around and were able to give this guy an interesting and entertaining personality. Now I’m working on the outline of the screenplay so I have a clear direction to go. (I guess those research paper writing skills I learned in school are really coming in handy.)