Annie is a screenwriter, story consultant, and reader for major screenplay competitions.
Notes from a Screenreader: Bonsai for Beginners
Photo via Go Into the Story.
It looks like it grew naturally, its boughs and crown pleasingly asymmetrical in the way wild things grow, but you can hold it in your hands.
Bonsai looks entirely wrought by nature and time, but it’s a painstaking process of complete artifice. Constant bending, pruning, grafting, wiring and clamping are responsible for its perfection.
- Know the shape you want. Allow only elements into your script that create that shape.
- Disguise your work. Your clamps and wires can’t show. The mechanics of the story can’t be in front, in dialogue. Tuck them away with misdirection.
- Perfection is in what you take away. There are plenty of little sprouts that turn up in your story that feel like they belong, but they don’t. A good screenplay is about your own ruthlessness. Prune, destroy, focus on the outcome.
Bonsai is all about discipline.
PUBLISHED BY
nywift
Related Posts
Notes from a Screenreader: Hoarder Edition
Photo via Go Into the Story. A first draft is a hoarder house. It is piled full of things of great value to the writer,...
READ MORENotes from a Screenreader: Pitch Me
Photo via Go Into the Story. Ninety seconds is more than enough time to pitch a well-defined story. The elements that make a story interesting...
READ MORENotes from a Screenreader: Well, Obviously
Photo via Go Into the Story. The post “Writing Advice So Obvious It Gets Overlooked” covers the most fundamental of all story fundamentals (thanks to...
READ MORENotes from a Screenreader: Bad Contractors Build Great Characters
Photo via Go Into the Story. Like badly built houses, when your characters suffer from faults in their very foundation they can get by just...
READ MORE
