Screenwriting Advice From The Past: Midway in the Photoplay [Part 7]

“Many amateur photoplay writers are very clever in getting their characters into terribly involved situations; but they are not so clever in getting them out again.”

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. 102]:

In any case, you must put the big scene in the story. After you have led up to it, you must not sidestep it, or your audience will feel you have taken up their time under false pretenses. Many amateur photoplay writers are very clever in getting their characters into terribly involved situations; but they are not so clever in getting them out again.

An amateur play writer will, for example, get the audience all stirred up about a young couple who are separated because of family feuds. “It’s bad, all right.” the spectator agrees. “And how are you going to mend matters?” The amateur writer is not very sure of the answer to the question himself, so he simply sidesteps the issue by having the families suddenly patch up their quarrels for some casual reason, or by having every one die off, or letting the hero find $100,000 in the street. But that isn’t the sort of thing the spectator came to see. He was given to understand by the writer that this family feud was just about irreconcilable and anticipated seeing the big scene where the hero and heroine defy their elders or find some original method of extricating themselves from their difficulties

To amateurs we say: Meet the issue you have created squarely. Walk right up to your crisis and then fight your way out of it, just as you would have to do if these things were actually happening to you in real life, Then you will have made a photoplay.

This speaks to two critical points:

• Once you have set the narrative into motion, you must resolve the plot within the context of the story universe. To bring in some solution from outside the story universe is what is known as Deus ex machina, whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.
• No, you must “walk right up to your crisis and then fight your way out of it.” The resolution has to reside within the problem. If you can’t find it, perhaps like Billy Wilder suggests, “If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.” The story’s ending must have its seeds in the story’s beginning.

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

To read my entire series of posts on highlighting takeaways from the book, go here.

Next week, more screenwriting insights from a century ago.