“Creative Hints and Cheats for Writers”

Advice from screenwriter Dale Launer.

When I broke into the business in 1987, there were certain screenwriters who were on a hot streak into the early 90s. They included Joe Eszterhaus (Flashdance, Jagged Edge, Basic Instinct), Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout), and Leslie Dixon (Outrageous Fortune, Overboard, Mrs. Doubtfire). Among that group was Dale Launer whose screenwriting credits included Ruthless People, Blind Date, and Love Potion №9).

When I selected My Cousin Vinny — another movie Launer wrote — as today’s Daily Dialogue post, I did a bit of checking on what he’d been up to and I discovered two things. First, there is a website dating from 2004: www.dalelauner.com. On it, there is a web page entitled “Creative Hints and Cheats for Writers”. Here is an excerpt:

How do just be… creative ? How do you that? I meet people now — out of the business — who are in abject admiration of someone who can sit down…and just… create .

But now? Now I find it so easy now that I wonder why I was every frightened of it in the first place.

First of all creating stories is a lot like daydreaming, but with your fingers on a keyboard. You want the conduit between your imagination and the page to be as unobstructed as possible. You want it to flow. You want that page to become an extension of your imagination. And you should really try to enjoy yourself — even if you’re writing drama or tragedy — you will enjoy yourself.

And maybe something will come out of it. Maybe not. But I thought of putting together some hints and cheats that’ll make it easy.

But before we get the Hints and Cheats — I’ll preface his with a few suggestions.

GIGO

It’s a computer term actually, and it mean Garbage In, Garbage Out. Another appropriate adage — pretty much the same thing is — You Can’t Get Blood From a Stone — or the slightly more popular “You Can’t Get Blood From a Turnip” — the point is — if you live in a cave you won’t have much of a bank from which to make creative withdrawls — and you’re gonna end up writing very simple cave stories.

Open yourself to books and magazines and ideally as diverse an arena as possibly. Indulge in knowledge. Random bits of information can always come in handy. The point is — that all this input provides mucho grist for the mill. Ideas don’t come out of thin air.

You may actually entire stories, and if not that — characters and dialogue and will find. The newspaper is a constant daily source — and not an issue goes by without at least one good idea for a movie. The Patty Hearst kidnapping was the basis of Ruthless People (Despite the fact that many critics said it was an adaptation of O’Henry’s Ransom of Red Chief — I can see why they’d think that — but it wasn’t.)

PHONEBOOK AS FONT OF CHARACTERS AND CONFLICTS

Hopefully you will have some friends and acquaintances. Get out your phonebook and start with the “A” and ask yourself to come up with at least three identifying personality traits for each person. If you come up with more that’s not a problem. But create a list. Also ask yourself what this person might put in as their list. Or how they would like others to see them. And do they have quirks? Do they sing to themselves? Do they hate something about themselves?

Here’s a sample list.

Quiet

Intelligent

Well-read

Sexy wife

Trust-fund baby

Overweight

Metrosexual

Now when this list hits a hundred or so (you can add to it over time — especially when you meet new people who stick out in your head) this can be a nice list to go over when you’re trying to flesh out a character.

But here’s where you can have some real fun with it. Come up with contrary traits. Instant conflict! Just imagine these people meeting? Or sitting next to each on a plane! Or in a restaurant or whatever…

Quiet/Loud

Intelligent/Dumb

Well-read/Ignorant

Sexy wife/Mousy Wife

Trust-fund baby/self-made-man

Overweight/skinny

Metrosexual/macho

Cheap/generous

A good example of this process is politics. How spin doctors take something, spin it a certain way, veer it into the direction they want. This is exactly how a story evolves. Here are some practical spins with some examples. And we’re going to start with cliches, spin them and alter them genetically.

SPIN #1 — REALITY.

As a spin, the truth is the best spin of all. You can take a bullshit idea, a cliche, spin it towards the truth (go to the light!) and it just about makes anything fresh and smart. Some dare call it truth , but that word is so mis-used these days, let’s just stick to reality. So, take a cliche, any cliche, then add varying degrees of reality. Say we had that cop movie with that detective who has these hunches that often turn out to be true? Now, apply reality, if this cop has hunches that turn out to be true, consistently true, this cop isn’t just smart, this cop is fucking clairvoyant . I don’t believe in such things, it actually has nothing to do with reality, but in reality, if someone had hunches that often turn out to be true, well, think about it. When the first hunch comes true, everybody’d be pretty impressed. The second one, well, could be lucky, but when the third hunch, this isn’t just luck, but it’s a pattern, and the fourth hunch? Well, what about that grizzled supervisor who’s always riding him? Add reality. In the real world that supervisor wouldn’t be at odds with him, quite the contrary, he would probably be in awe of him and treat him with tremendous respect. And go to him with every problem.

The next cliche would have the other detective being jealous of him and shunning him, giving him a hard time.

Add reality.

They might be a little jealous, but they’re not going to shun him. This guy is awesome. This guy is a demi-god. A rock star. They’re not just very impressed, they’re going to want to hang out with him. They’re going to come to him with cases that have normal men stumped.

And…well, let’s add a little more reality. Clairvoyance doesn’t really exist, so let’s make him just a little less clairvoyant. Say he doesn’t get it all the time, just some of the time. And it’s not predictable. There seems to be a random element involved. Sometimes he’s right, but not everytime, and maybe he gets it wrong a few times, and then, sometimes, he’s right. It’s variable, unpredictable.

By the way — a good indicator of bad writing is that a bad writer will often add artificial conflict EVERYWHERE and it’s not realistic. Development executives tend do this to. They’ll say RAISE THE JEOPARDY! Everything has to be life or death (which is just a hamfisted way of trying to improve a story). Well get to this in a second. With another kind of spin.

Let’s get back to our clairvoyant cop. Add more reality. After a few years of these hunches, word would spread, and he’d probably be farmed out to other departments. He might be courted by bigger, more cosmopolitan cities. And I’m sure the FBI would be interested and so would the CIA.

You can always take a bad cliche. He comes home and the CIA is waiting for him and they take him away and lock him up in some underground complex — and use him like a caged up chicken, and use him like a machine.

Bullshit. Truth is — they would court the guy, offer him money, fix him up with actresses, wine and dine him. And he’s get fat and lazy.

We can take this story anywhere. But I suggest you just spin and KEEP IT LOOSE, don’t make any commitments yet, if you do, you risk structuring yourself away from a better story opportunity. Those are ideas and you may or may not make use of them. Don’t decide yet.

You can go here to see the rest of the post. The second thing I discovered is that Dale Launer has a new movie coming out in May as he is one of five writer credited with penning The Hustle starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson (screenplay by Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning and Dale Launer and Jac Schaeffer, story by Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning and Dale Launer).

IMDb plot summary: Two female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, team up to take down the dirty rotten men who have wronged them.

If this sounds like a female remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which is another movie written by Launer (and Shapiro & Henning), you are right. Here is a trailer for The Hustle:

Looks like a fun movie and must be tracking well with an excellent release date. Good to see Dale Launer’s name again.

Hey, Dale, if this crosses your path, I would love to interview you. We could talk about the heady high concept days of the 80s and 90s, as well as the craft of screenwriting.

Best of luck with The Hustle.