Thank you George...write however you want to, but understand it's the story that counts.  My point from the very first thread.

Death Monkey...again...my example was obviously not effective in getting my point across, and I apologize for that.  But just to be clear, my example was not to be taken as something that shows atmosphere, emotion, or anything like that...especially due to its subject matter.  You can't take a small snippet of an example and read any more into it than what's there...and we're all in agreement that there's not much there.  It's simply another "style" of writing, in this case, showcasing the use of color, light, and sound, as opposed to action, emotion, and charcterization.

If you don't get it, don't like it, or think it's trivial, that's OK.  Everything is a matter of personal opinion and interpretation.  Right?

Quoted from Grandma Bear Tierney is also a girl!

A girl writing? What's next, they're allowed to drive?

Quoted from Grandma Bear I understand what you all are arguing about, but I still say a good story trumps the writing style every time.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. There may be a few examples of pretty bad writing with a great story that DID make it, but as far as we can tell it may only be a tip of the iceberg.

Apart from that, even if it were true, it's really no excuse to produce a badly written script.  

(This post might be lengthy so skip at will. And I'm mostly talking about Hollywood screenplays so if you're an indie person move along.)

I have to admit that I've only skimmed the hubbub that happened since I last posted.  There's no point for me to address individual things because it will just add a dozen more pages of chatter.

I post here because I've exchanged emails with Don for years.  He's a really nice man who does an amazing thing on this site.  I started posting during the WGA strike because I had the time and I thought maybe I could do some good and offer some advice that would be helpful.  

Then I ran into your various and assorted "rules" over and over.  I kept getting the theme from Deliverance in my head.  Your rules are this odd assemblage of misinterpreted information from books and magazines and interviews that has become factual because it has been repeated so often.  Your rules are pretty much all just arbitrary.  And you use your arbitrary rules to comment on each others scripts.  When I first got here there were a few writers posting that I thought were interesting and had voices that are now gone.  They got that your rules didn't work and moved on.  I'm sure it happens a lot.  It's not a great thing for a writing community to lose talent and only keep the people who fall in line with the "rules".

Do you want to be produced or do you want to follow a bunch of community-centric rules?  That's the question to ask yourself.

Here's a somewhat streamlined version of how a Hollywood script moves into production that might clarify a few things. The writer delivers something called a white draft.  It's the script that he/she has written be it a spec script or a commissioned script.  The conversation happens with the person in charge of distributing your script to the people in the crew who need it.  "Are you using Final Draft?" "Or can I have the file in RTF format?".  This person preps your script which means he proofs it for typos, fixes any spacing errors, adds scene numbers, builds a location list and a cast list and locks it down.  This is your white production draft and it gets distributed to the director, the producers and the various production department heads and their assistants.  This is the prep script.  People starting scouting locations, getting permits, renting costumes and buying props from this draft.

Notes are given on this white production draft, changes are made and it becomes a BLUE DRAFT or a YELLOW DRAFT or a TRIPLE GOLDENROD DRAFT.  You get notes to eliminate scenes, clarify plot points, add a part for the director's girlfriend.  Whatever.  Writers don't add camera angles to make it a shooting draft.  They address problems that make the script difficult to shoot but they don't map the shooting.  If someone has bought your script they know how to shoot it and they don't need to add crib notes.  First day of production and guess what? They're shooting the script that you wrote.  Your spec has scenes numbers, has been tweaked and is being shot.

That's the weirdest thing about your "rules".  You so separate writer's draft from shooting script that it is like you don't get that the script you write is the script that gets shot.  It's like a protective barrier.  Like you don't have to write for the screen because someone else is going to magically turn it into a "real screenplay".  Doesn't work that way.

READ PRODUCED SCREENPLAYS.  Shouting, I know.  I live in LA and shout a lot. Usually obscenities. If you don't like the language or how people who get paid to write do the job then maybe you should consider writing novels.  Draw a distinction between yourself and paid writer in what language and techniques you can use?  Don't even bother to pollute the planet with 120 pages of typing paper that doesn't meet the requirements of a screenplay that can be produced.

And a screenplay only exists to be produced. ( I guess you could e-publish and give it to your family at Christmas but whatever.) When you start a screenplay it is FADE IN and that is a camera and editing direction.  The document you are typing is prefaced by a technical direction and then you go on to write stuff that divorces itself from from the language and accepted techniques of produced screenplays.  I don't get it.  WE SEE?  That's seems to be an issue with you.  Who told you that you couldn't do it?  I'm sure the not doing it has been repeated many, many times and thus it is a "rule".  If you read produced screenplays it's all over the place.  Who are you going to believe?  A bunch of writers on a message board or the writers of 47 scripts out of the 116 scripts on this year's Black List that use WE SEE?

You're all so thrilled when some college kid picks up your shorts to shoot as a class project.  Want  a feature that gets picked up?  READ PRODUCED SCREENPLAYS and try to understand what the writer is doing.  Frank Darabont's The Mist just went up on the main site.  He's a good, solid, linear writer.  Read the script and try to understand that his writing incorporates directions for a mob of people -- actors, art department, location scouts, buyers -- and it all fleshes out the story.  Every element builds the story and if you're writing a script without those "unfilmables" that define character and location and time then what you're writing that can't be produced because there's not enough on the page for it to matter.

I hope I'm not coming across a mean-spirited about this but I want to shake a lot of you really hard.  Sneak into your homes and shake you really hard.  At night. Oh, wait, that's a great idea for a K-horror like screenplay...

Thank you so much for that inside explanation!

Avlan,
I didn't say it was badly written. Just that a lot of people wouldn't read it because of the format being wrong. Big chunks of text, scene numbers, a lot of 'ing and things like that.

I'll admit before Tierney started to do her reveille a few months ago I too was under a dogmatic spell of "the rules". I'm still thankful I learned the rules, but now that I know them, I feel comfortable breaking them. If you wanna write screenplays that read like movies and not stageplays, and using a "WE" or a flowery characterization helps you do that, then do it.

I think inside advice like that is to be treasured. If "the rules" truly don't qualify or disqualify a script to a producer, then that is invaluable information.

Tierney, I like your explanation. It really does help to shed some light on a well worn topic that so few want to listen to. Too many people do obsess over these rules, and a lot of times, I wonder why they even care. When I was around a lot more regularly, I would field questions about how to write this or that, and a lot of times, it would boil down to "as long as it can be clearly understood, you're fine." That's the real curse we run into more than rules.

But you also have to look at this board from another perspective that you did touch in your post. We are amateurs. Few, if any, are produced. Some of the people on this board deserve to be working writers, but get very little attention. I've been accused of being of these people, but through all the queries I've sent out, no one wants to even read what I have much less produce it, so I don't know how all this learning even fares in that real world.

So what's the point of the rules from someone who essentially "grew up" on these boards? The first draft of my first script was total crap. It was poorly told, littered with unnecessary descriptions, and overall unbelievable. Through learning about these rules and such, I became a better writer. Through following all the little nit-picky things that are so over-emphasized here, I went from turning out crap to creating a script that was not only worth reading, but interesting...and I didn't change the story at all.

These rules are not meant to alienate anyone. They are aimed at making someone who doesn't know how to write a better writer. That's it. We don't tell people what to do; we make suggestions to improve the writing. I'm not produced, but I've been writing for a while now and watch over 200 movies a year and have at least a general idea of how a good one looks and feels. Can I give someone solid, insider, industry advice? No. Do I at least know how to make a good story? I believe I do.

Some specific rules? Why avoid "we see"? Because it forces you to write in a more active tense instead of present progressive. It flows better on the page, uses fewer words, and is easier to read. Granted, screenplays are written to be shot and the existence of one won't kill you, but you have to admit that screenplays are read before they're shot and the better one reads, the better chance it has to be shot.

We are sticklers on format, and I doubt you'd argue that that's a bad thing.

Some people seem to get caught up in them. I was very caught up in them at one time and could write a 10 page review only touching on what rules were broken. I stopped doing that some time ago and have focused on the story ever since.

Do you have to follow "the rules" to be a better writer? No. You do what works for you. I know it worked for me, and I now when I write, I do it all subconsciously, and at least the people on these boards have enjoyed many of the things I've turned out. If anyone in the industry ever reads them, I hope they feel the same way.

Everything boils down to the same answer though. You do what works for you and tells the story.

My final thoughts on the matter. Everyone has had more than enough of this thread, I know.

Firstly, I'd like to thank Tierney for posting the process that a script goes through. It's obviously been enlightening for a few board members.

However I would like to take umbridge with some of the things that she has said.

Firstly this :

"That's the weirdest thing about your "rules".  You so separate writer's draft from shooting script that it is like you don't get that the script you write is the script that gets shot.  It's like a protective barrier.  Like you don't have to write for the screen because someone else is going to magically turn it into a "real screenplay".  Doesn't work that way.

READ PRODUCED SCREENPLAYS.  Shouting, I know.  I live in LA and shout a lot. Usually obscenities. If you don't like the language or how people who get paid to write do the job then maybe you should consider writing novels.  Draw a distinction between yourself and paid writer in what language and techniques you can use?  Don't even bother to pollute the planet with 120 pages of typing paper that doesn't meet the requirements of a screenplay that can be produced."

This is hugely ironic in that you are essentially transplanting one set of "rules" with another, namely, "Do exactly what I tell you or else! This is the only way to write a script that Hollywood will buy!"

The greater irony is this:

The scripts that you are telling people to read,  follow the "Rules" as set down in text books more slavishly than any other art form on the planet.

The last 30 years of Hollywood film has more or less been defined by the work done by Joseph Campbell in "The hero with a Thousand Faces". He was a great friend of George Lucas and his investigation into Universal Myths and story types was a huge influence on Star Wars. It's influence can still be felt today in 90% of Hollywood films.

Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood exec, famously wrote a 7 page memorandum based on this archetype which he used to decide which films to buy. He later turned it into a best-selling book: The Writer's Journey.

Modern Hollywood films follow this template not only to the letter, but in many cases to the EXACT MINUTE!

You all know the story.

Kid gets orphaned, inciting incident/call to adventure, call denied, meeting with the mentor, hero loses everything , then comes out victorious at the end with a changed viewpoint on the world.

Hollywood films follow this template to such a level that once someone is aware of the model, they can predict almost to the second, the events that are about to take place.

I saw Iron Man two days ago. This was written entirely from this template. Most Hollywood films are.

In other words your advice is simply: "Don't follow the "Rules", follow the "Rules".

The error is compounded by citing Diablo Cody as an example.

Diablo did the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you are telling everybody to do. She didn't even write screenplays!

She was a young insecure, rebellious teenager who worked in the sex industry. She lived life and then wrote an INTERNET BLOG! which became famous and well-liked. On the back of the blog a Producer approached her to write a screenplay. She had never previously written one because she feared rejection.

In other words, if you want to learn to write with a unique voice DON'T read Hollywood screenplays which are almost all written from one starting point (and usually as you said by young white males who live within spitting distance of the Studios and whose only experience of life is the Hollywood system).

Instead lead an interesting life. Travel, meet interesting people, get involved in interesting events. Get your heart broken. Read just about everything OTHER than screenplays so that your influence and you style is not just the regurgitation of someone's elses work.

But Rick,  Campbell and Vogler deal with rules of story structure, what Tierny is talking about is basically format. She addresses "the rules" found and enforced on sites such as SS that dogmatically state certain techniques are inexorably VERBOTEN, simply for the sake of being "a rule".

I don't see anyone talking about story structure in this thread, which arguably is formularized in Hollywood. But this isn't about the content but its conveyance.

It's not me confusing style with content, It's Tierney:

"Every element builds the story and if you're writing a script without those "unfilmables" that define character and location and time then what you're writing that can't be produced because there's not enough on the page for it to matter."

We have now moved to a point that unless you fill your scripts with things that cannot be recorded by a camera, the film physically can't be produced.

Not only is that absurd, it's completely untrue.

How is that quote confusing content and style? It pertains to format, not content, and certainly not story structure.

Seems to me like you're trying to pick a fight, so to speak, just for the sake of it.

Because the discussion has moved from saying that "It's Ok to write in a certain way, Hollywood writers do it all the time"

To the fact that it is now being held as an essential part of the "content" of the film. IE No film can possibly be produced that isn't written in that style.

It's no longer being held as an optional style, but as an imperative one that apparently defines the character, location and timing of a whole script.

Is character, location and timing not part of the content of a script?

I'm not looking for a fight. I just reply to whatever people actually write and point out things that I don't agree with.

Rick is correct.  What Tierney is saying is just wrong.  Tierney seems to be talking about a screenwriter who has the ability to write whatever they want, and have it not only read by insiders, but also have it be picked up and produced.  That's just not the way it is for 99.9% of us out here.

As George said earlier, he's tried and tried and can't even get interest in someone who matters to read his work, based on low level gate keeper "readers", who turn him down bewfore thay've even seen his work.  The hard part is getting by these people, so "someone who matters" actually reads what we've put together.  This is why we have to do the most we can with our 120 pages.  Setting up each and every scene, character, and situation the way Tierney's talking about would leave nothing available for the actual story and action.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Because the discussion has moved from saying that "It's Ok to write in a certain way, Hollywood writers do it all the time" To the fact that it is now being held as an essential part of the "content" of the film. IE No film can possibly be produced that isn't written in that style. It's no longer being held as an optional style, but as an imperative one that apparently defines the character, location and timing of a whole script. Is character, location and timing not part of the content of a script? I'm not looking for a fight. I just reply to whatever people actually write and point out things that I don't agree with.

I feel you're miscontruing the argument by way of semantics. No one has ever mentioned story structure in this thread and yet you invoke Campbell and Vogler to counter what you seem to perceive to be Tierney's point: "Do not obey ANY rules, in any sphere of the screenplay". But the rules Tierney is talking about are specific, and were never those of structure or content, but certain dogmatically adhered, arbitrary tenets of format.

Quoted Text It's no longer being held as an optional style, but as an imperative one that apparently defines the character, location and timing of a whole script. Is character, location and timing not part of the content of a script?

Yes, they are. And a sensible style should convey its content, not be confused with it.

The keyword here is DEFINE. Your style of writing marks, fleshes out, and DEFINES character, time and location. But they do not CREATE them. Naturally, the very nature of style assures that we might "see" the movie in different ways depending upon the style employed, but it does not change the nature of the plot, it does not create events, and it does ultimately not dent the aforementioned story structure to which you segue. That's the difference.

So why did you bring up story structure? Are you saying writing-style informs plot-points?

Write how you write and tell a good story. I must admit being blindsided by all the "rules" I read about after joining this community. My writing style breaks a few of the rules continually mentioned and people have called me on it. Yet one of my scripts breaking those rules was optioned by a known producer in Hollywoodland, and never in the two years we worked on it did anyone ever say "umm Mike, you do know you have broken several sacred rules don't you?". Everyone focused on the story. And in the end when another writer was brought in, he pretty much had his own style too and broke the rules.

Two other scripts rejected by the system were turned down on the basis of the story, the written coverage sent back to me never mentioned how I broke any rules.

Know the basic style and structure of a screenplay, write it to be read, write a good solid exciting story and if your story is good enough and if it's what Hollywood wants, they'll come knocking and will forgive you a few instances of "We See".