Note From Tongal: “Breaking the Block: Write Yourself Into Your Script" is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Tongal Blog Open Call Project. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here and then Pitch us a topic you'd like to write about for the Tongal Blog!
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You’re sitting in some designer LA coffee shop trying not to finish that 4 oz. almond turmeric latté too fast. After all, you did pay half of your hourly wage for it. The ambient music is the same Lo-Fi house robot dream you’ve been listening to for the past two hours.
In front of you, your outdated Mac makes the sounds of something landing at LAX, yet you’re just working on a simple FDX file. The same one you’ve been working on for the past three months. A personal story. A visual masterpiece. And here you are, grinding away. Trying to suss out the beginning of the second act. The cursor blinks and blinks. Where are you in the script?
You’re blocked.
You look up. Surrounding you are ten other screenwriters voraciously typing. They look just like you, just more put together. Some of them have post-it notes sprawling out from their laptops. Evidence of their genius. You think, “I need to make a run to Staples for some Post-it Notes.” Take another sip of your latté. It’s empty. Where was I? What the hell comes next?
We, as creatives, all feel this underlying pressure to create something new. To get out our stories and sell them and make a ton of money. This pressure can lead to these moments of turmoil and distrust in your own process. Looking around and comparing yourself to your peers. We all feel it. Even now, as I’m writing this and you’re reading it.
It’s also extremely easy to get stuck in the sea of semantics. We all know about the midpoint reversal, we’ve all read Bruce Block. Our Chrome tabs are filled with articles on writing/filmmaking tips. We are constant noise collectors, just look at your browsing history, that is unless you’ve erased it...like me.
These aspects alone can lead to some pretty discouraging writer’s blocks, slowing your process and ultimately turning your writing into some grueling Sunday chore. When your writing turns sour like this, I encourage you to throw writing-by-the-rules aside for a moment and turn the process inward. Create a character out of thin air that speaks to you as you are writing them. Or better yet, inject yourself into the script. Talk to yourself. Everyone does.
This is a method I use that has led to some pretty engaging scenes. A character by my same name, will pop up and make a mess of the text, turning the furniture upside down, calling me out, asking me questions. I treat it very matter-of-fact.
Okay, so if you want to steer off the rails for a second and save where you are in the script, this could get messy. Imagine I was writing a scene where two ex-lovers are meeting up after not seeing each other for some time. I’ve set the scene and, of course, the tension between them already exists, but I can’t think of what they would say. I might take a moment like this to plop myself into the scene and start talking to the characters. Ask them, like some kind of therapist, what they are doing there? What do they really want from one another and what is stopping them from getting it? I write all this stuff out as a conversation, freely ignoring all instincts to try and steer the ship. Most of the time this kind of play not only reveals the true meaning of the scene I am writing, but it may also pivot my characters and action into places I hadn’t even thought about. When you allow yourself to play, it’s possible to free up that block that you’ve been trying to chip away at or find a path around.
Although, this technique may not always be the best method of block circumvention. Because of its improvisational nature, your scenes can start looking a bit long, drawn out and wordy. This is a technique meant to reveal the core of your scenes, not meant as a permanent solution to your script problems. I’m not suggesting that a character like yourself show up in all of your scenes, (although, that may be a fun film in and of itself). It’s always good practice to go back through your scenes and assess what works and what doesn’t. Get others to read your work and welcome their feedback.
So go ahead, tilt your eyes back down to your screen, put your headphones back on, sip that last bit of latté and start to write yourself into the script.
