Screenwriting Advice From The Past: Midway in the Photoplay [Part 4]

“It is inadvisable to attempt a minor plot in a photoplay unless it has a distinct and important bearing on your big story.”

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: Midway in the Photoplay [P. 100].

It is inadvisable to attempt a minor plot in a photoplay unless it has a distinct and important bearing on your big story. It is easy to confuse photoplay audiences, and there should be none of these “odd moments” of the spoken drama in the screen play.

As noted last time, what Loos and Emerson are talking about here is what has come to be known as a subplot, a secondary or “minor” plot.

Their advice is sound and speaks to one of the most fundamental truisms about a screenplay: Every aspect of the narrative has to be connected with and move forward the Plotline / central plot. At a bare minimum, as Loos and Emerson suggest, we do not want to veer off onto a tangent at the risk of confusing a script reader. More than that, however, subplots can shed light on the main plot and the journey of key characters, most notably the Protagonist, each subplot reflecting a different light on a story providing multiple layers of meaning and interpretation. As such, subplots are powerful tools for a screenwriter, allowing us to explore different dimensions of the narrative in terms of plot, theme, emotion, and so forth.

There is also an incredibly simple, yet valuable aspect of subplots which we will explore next week as we continue our exploration into Anita Loos and John Emerson’s book from 1920.

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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
How To Begin: Part 2
Midway in the Photoplay: Part 1
Midway in the Photoplay: Part 2
Midway in the Photoplay: Part 3

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.