Hilary Weisman Graham is a screenwriter, Emmy-nominated TV producer, filmmaker, and the author of Reunited (Simon & Schuster – June 12, 2012), her debut young adult novel. You may recognize Hilary from her stint as a contestant on the 2007 Mark Burnett/Steven Spielberg-produced reality show On the Lot: The Search for America’s Next Great Director. Out of a pool of 12,000 submissions, Hilary made it onto the show as one of the 18 finalists and stayed in the competition until only nine contestants remained, making her the longest-standing female director. Visit Hilary at her website, her blog, her Facebook page, or on Twitter @HilaryGraham.
Any time I take on something new—be it screenwriting, motherhood, or writing my first novel—I’m consumed with a desperate need to orient myself in that endeavor, to educate myself Fodor’s Guide-style to the rules, customs, and currency of this uncharted world. I surround myself with teetering stacks of how-to books and trade magazines, fill my in-box with blog feeds and e-newsletters, and solicit the expertise of anyone willing to share it. Then, when my brain is reaching capacity, I toss out the bits of information that don’t resonate with me, keep the ones that do, and let the remainder of accumulated knowledge ferment into its own special concoction.
I had just begun to transition into this phase of my screenwriting career when I met Blake Snyder. Meeting Blake was part of my prize package for winning the 2008 Silver Screenwriting Contest (for my spec Freebird) and in the fall of that same year, Blake, Julie Gray, (who ran said screenwriting contest) and I spent a lovely evening at the Chateau Marmont, talking about our craft.
I read Save the Cat! a few days prior to my meeting with Blake, mostly because I was meeting Blake. And even though I was burnt out from the numerous how-to screenwriting books I’d just read, Save the Cat! was so funny, engaging, and practical that I was hooked right away.
Up until that point, I hadn’t done much outlining when it came to my scriptwriting, preferring the “seat of my pants” method to the hard labor of crafting a plot. But the spec I’d just written had been a torturous experience of taking wrong turn after wrong turn, until finally, with a bit of luck, I just so happened to stumble across the road that would get me where I needed to go. So, having been charmed both by Blake and his book, I decided to give the Save the Cat! method a try.
The very next screenplay I wrote (outlined meticulously, according to Blake’s beat sheet and index card system) was my first spec sale. After that, more sales followed, as well as a book deal for my debut young adult novel, Reunited, (Simon & Schuster) which comes out this June. I’m not implying that my writing career wouldn’t have taken off without Save the Cat!, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
Clearly Save the Cat! has lots of wisdom to offer, but the most important lesson I learned was the one I needed most. Namely: dramatic structure exists for a reason and I had to accept that as the cold hard truth if I was ever going to move forward. I was the person Blake was addressing in Chapter One when he warns us that we’re deluding ourselves if we are setting out to create something truly original. “Sorry,” Blake says, cheekily slapping us back to reality. “Too late.”
Of course, this isn’t entirely true. As a writer, it is possible to experiment with structure, just as long as you’re aware that this choice will marginalize you as an art-house filmmaker, as opposed to a Hollywood screenwriter. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Being outside the mainstream is a valid and important creative pursuit, and a choice I myself made for the first decade of my career when I wrote, produced, and directed two decidedly left-of-center independent feature films. Sure, there was a place for my movies—the festival circuit, Europe, public television—but it was a much smaller market than allotted to films that adhered to the structural conventions of the genre.
Similarly, in the publishing world, there seem to be one or two novels each year that manage to eke out a name for themselves by employing some clever, “new” device, like Padgett Powell’s novel The Interrogative Mood, where every sentence is a question. But even in a quirky book like this, or in one of my unabashedly plot-less indie films, the lack of structure is actually a reference to the very structure it eschews, if only by its conspicuous absence.
These days, in the most recent iteration of my career (where I actually make my living as a writer) I’ve come to accept that I’m not reinventing the wheel when it comes to structure. But instead of fighting against the boundaries of my genres—screenwriting and young adult fiction—I’ve happily embraced them. Does that mean resorting to cliché? Not at all. It means finding opportunities for originality within the established structure. Creativity is fueled by constraints, and as writers, we must learn to honor them.
The new story I’m working on has got me thinking about this a lot lately. I’d call it a book or a movie (and I hope it ends up as both) but right now it’s not either. The thing I’m writing belongs to a medium so new it has yet to be defined. I’m talking about my latest obsession: enhanced e-books.
In fact, the genre is so brand-spanking new that the few enhanced e-books that do exist aren’t technically e-books at all—they’re apps—since current e-book technology doesn’t allow for interactivity. Of course, there are a handful of brilliant content creators out there, like the folks at Moonbot Studios (who won an Oscar for the film adaptation of their app “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”) who have begun to explore the full potential of this burgeoning new form.
And inside my head, I’m exploring the hell out of it—using my skills as both a writer and a filmmaker to think up stories that can be told best in an amalgamation of both disciplines, and with interactivity. Like all creative brainstorming sessions, this often is a joyous process. Other times, my desire to take part in the development of a new medium feels overwhelming. Enhanced e-books are so new, there’s no canon to reference, and the newsletters and podcasts I subscribe to are largely speculative. Then there’s the distribution question. Traditional book publishers don’t want to stick their necks out to produce something they’re not familiar with, and the Hollywood studios aren’t quite ready to accept that we’re moving towards a culture of tablet-based entertainment. So how do I ground myself in a world that doesn’t exist yet? By reminding myself of the questions Blake might ask.
Will this new format allow me to employ three-act structure? Will my story feature a hero with a primal urge? Will I want readers/viewers to root for my hero to overcome her obstacles and succeed? The answers to these questions seem obvious to me, even though my vision of the final product is still developing. Because as I learned from Save the Cat!— an enhanced e-book is really just the same as a book or a screenplay… only different.
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Great article and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
I see the interactive aspect of e-books at least starting with small video game-like sections or perhaps a video game that runs throughout. You read a section and then see it illustrated by playing a simple game. The game could have more than one possible result and that could lead to the next section and so on. It’s kind of vague but maybe there’s something there. I see e-books becoming huge in the field of non-fiction – how-to books etc. A Cinematographer friend is writing a book about 3D photography and having read some books on this subject, I know how difficult it is to comprehend. Animated illustrations and actual footage would go a long way towards easy-to-understand explanations. Best of luck with your e-book endeavors. It is something I believe will be huge – probably bigger than the movie industry and is certainly something I’d like to explore. As you say, there is nothing out there about it right now – in fact if you know of any good websites or blogs that I could visit, I’d greatly appreciate any recommendations.
Sounds like Simon is advocating a choose your own adventure type method of storytelling. I don’t remember how well these books did in the 80’s, however, they were all the rage back then….
thinking outside the box! I like it! 🙂 It will definitly be interesting to see what the “rules of structure” for that kind of format will be.