Screenwriting Advice From The Past: Midway in the Photoplay [Part 6]

“By showing more and more action, you will elaborate your plot in the best way.”

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. 101].

By showing more and more action, you will elaborate your plot in the best way… The audience wants to see every thing important to the story in the picture.

Two takeaways here:

• Note the use of the words showing and see: This reinforces the fact that movies are primarily a visual medium. Remember: Motion. Pictures. Both words imply visuality.
• “The audience wants to see every thing…” Interesting they use the word ‘wants’. That is different than the verb needs. And therein lies a good point: While a script reader may want to know everything, they do not need to. If they did, our 100 page screenplays would thousands of pages long for the simple fact the universe in which our stories take place does not shut down when we’re not there. No, they exist 24/7/365. Our job is to pluck the choice moments, the events that matter most and in combination create the most compelling, interesting story possible.

I did stand-up comedy for a living for 2 years and one of the most important lessons I learned was this: Always leave them wanting more. If you do too much, the residual feeling on the part of the audience can range from exhaustion to boredom. That idea of ‘less is more’ is nowhere more relevant than in a screenplay: Give them just what they need and no more.

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
Midway in the Photoplay: Part 4
Midway in the Photoplay: Part 5

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.