Screenwriting Advice From The Past: How To Begin [Part 2]

“Always try to tell the basic facts of the plot in as few scenes and sub titles as possible. The audience is not interested in the life history of screen characters; it wants to see the plot started.”

If you are a screenwriter, you should know about Anita Loos. Loos was one of the most influential writers in the early stages of American cinema, associated with 136 film projects per IMDb.

Married to writer John Emerson, the pair wrote one of the first books on screenwriting in 1920: “How to Write Photoplays”. I have been running a weekly series based on the book. You can access those posts here.

Today: How To Begin [P. 95–96].

Always try to tell the basic facts of the plot in as few scenes and sub titles as possible. The audience is not interested in the life history of screen characters; it wants to see the plot started. Try to combine exposition into one or, at the most, half a dozen scenes.

The problem of exposition — setting, information, data, backstory — has existed since the very earliest stages of the development of movies, witnessed by these comments by Loos and Emerson. Why is exposition a problem? Because it can be deadly dull. Info dump. Brain drain. Talking heads. These are some of the phrases Hollywood writers associate with the conveyance of exposition.

Even though when you begin your script, you need to establish some sense of the story universe and its key characters, Loos and Emerson provide a fact no less true today than it was a century ago: The audience wants to see the plot started.

So when dealing with exposition, one rule of thumb is do as little of it as possible.

Tomorrow: More screenwriting advice from the past.

You can read “How to Write Photoplays” via Google books online here.

For the rest of the series articles:

Introduction
Getting Ideas
Conflict and Crisis
Situation
Theme
Star Sympathy
Action: Part 1
Action: Part 2
Action: Part 3
Action: Part 4
Action: Part 5
Story Synopsis
Continuity: Part 1
Continuity: Part 2
The Title
Marketing the Script
Writing for the Camera
Scenery for Scenarios
The Actor’s Angle: Part 1
The Actor’s Angle: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 1
Character On The Screen: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 3
Character On The Screen: Part 4
The “Interest”: Part 1
The “Interest”: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 1
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 3
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 4
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 5
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 1
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 2
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 3
Cutting The Picture: Part 1
Cutting The Picture: Part 2
Cutting The Picture: Part 3
Writing for the Censors: Part 1
Writing for the Censors: Part 2
Writing for the Censors: Part 3
The Pictorial Element
The Denouement: Part 1
The Denouement: Part 2
The Denouement: Part 3
How To Begin: Part 1

Note: I ran this series originally in 2012. Unfortunately, the individual articles got bungled up on the site in some sort of technical snafu. So, I am recovering them one by one in this reprise of the series.