Screenwriting Advice From The Past: The “Interest” [Part 2]

“To inspire emotion in your audience you must have been inspired with emotion yourself… Make yourself feel the things you are writing about.”

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 series based on the book.

Today: The “Interest” [P. 68–69].

To inspire emotion in your audience you must have been inspired with emotion yourself. It is impossible to write a good story in cold blood. People who take up motion picture writing because it is the fashion or because they are told it pays are apt to find a most unappreciative audience. Make yourself feel the things you are writing about. Even the “sure fire stuff” will fizzle out unless the fire itself is real.

In a series I wrote called How to Generate and Critique Story Ideas, the post called “Test Your Concept” offered this final test:

Does the story resonate with me on a personal level?

You may have stumbled upon the greatest high concept of all time, but if you don’t connect with it, if you don’t sense much in the way of enthusiasm for its narrative possibilities, and/or if the story doesn’t play to your writing strengths, it’s probably not a good idea to write that story.

You need to have some sort of personal connection with a story to find its emotional core and imbue its characters with life.

You need to have a passion for a story to keep luring you back to the writing and push you to FADE OUT. Writing is hard work. Writing something for which you do not much enthusiasm is really hard work.

Consider that channeling the spirit of Loos and Emerson.

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

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.