WW CSSC Writer Wednesday | Blog the 5th: The Screenwriter's Lede

J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster)? understands the importance of ?theme? (The Sweet Smell of Success).

I find it hard not to think of screenwriting ? or for that matter, writing in general ? within the context of my journalism schooling. Old habits die hard, and they also have a way of defining new habits.

While teaching an entry-level news writing course, one of my college journalism professors described two kinds of news writers: Those who can get past their lede, and those who can?t.

The lede ? journo-speak for ?lead? ? simply refers to the opening paragraph of a news story. Ideally, your lede delivers the most bare-bones, essential version of the facts while establishing both the?Raison d??tre?and tone for the rest of the story. Without an intriguing (or in the very least, sound) lede, you?ve lost your reader from the get-go.

The average morning commuter reading the paper before work doesn?t have time to be confused. He or she wants a clear communication of what they?re getting into. A jumbled lede says, ?Move along, we?re still sorting things out here? rather than ?This is what happened, see below for details?.

As my professor observed, some writers can skip over their lede ? leaving a placeholder or nothing at all. They write the entire story and go back to the beginning, retroactively distilling the information of the piece down to a lede.

And the others? well, I was in that camp. The news writers who knew no shoddy temporary lede would suffice. In order to continue writing, I always had to have my lede more or less perfect, in close-to-finished form. Or else, no further work could continue.

The analogous ?lede? for the screenwriter would logically be the opening of the script; Page 1, Scene 1, ?We begin in darkness.?* However in my ongoing campaign to eschew logic, I?d like to suggest the titling of a script is much more akin to writing a ?lede?, and in many ways, just as important.

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*Please, for love of the written word, never begin a screenplay with ?We begin in darkness? or any other variation on that all-in-it-together POV.? I know there are different schools of thought on whether a (spec) script should ever implicitly include the reader/audience with references to ?We see? or ?We hear?, but I?m firmly against it.

Find a way to write the image or the sound. ?Darkness.? establishes everything ?We begin in darkness.? does while being more concise and evocative.

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Francis Ford Coppola has talked about the importance of boiling down the central theme of a film (or for our purposes, screenplay) to one or two words. In times of uncertainty, this one or two-word focal point serves as a guide to the director (or for our purposes, writer). Every decision comes back to the theme. What is the film (script) about?

When I write, or even when I plan to write (outlining, note taking, etc.), I cannot work unless I have a title in mind. It may change, but I need a title and I need to know I at least have the intention of keeping/using the title. This is some serious cart-before-the-horse action when you?re talking about taking notes on an idea I may never follow through on.

The short answer is, hey, I?m a bit OCD when it comes to certain things. But if you?ll allow me a longer rationalization of my behavior, I think of the title like my lede. A script or movie title, by nature, will probably be a little more oblique than one of Coppola?s one or two-word thematic distillations.

For example, in the linked article above, Coppola mentions The Conversation, for which he summed up a film about ?privacy.? The Conversation alludes to the central plot of the film ? private investigator Harry Caul discovers a sinister plot while listening in on tapes he recorded for a corporate executive. There?s a suggestiveness to the simple title, which turns out to be ironic given Caul?s life in near-isolation.

Take a look at Sweet Smell of Success, a title that cuts right to the heart of the film: Mocking, sordid, both petty and grand. The sing-song alliteration even mimics them rhythmic flow of the script?s cracker-jack dialog.

Titles are promotional tools as much as they are true reflections of the works they?re attached to. At the writing stage however, a title should be your lede. Setting the tone, creating a hook or providing an answer for the questions that will follow. A place the writer can revisit to remember why he or she even started writing the piece in the first place.

Currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, Zachary Herrmann started off writing entertainment journalism during college, interviewing a wide variety of personalities in film and music. He now works in Manhattan by day, and pursues creative writing in his apartment by night. In May 2011, he and his brother Jesse received top prize in the 2010 ? 11 Canadian Short Screenplay Competition for their short script, Elijah the Prophet. Through the summer and fall, Zach helped coordinate a Kickstarter.com fundraising campaign with director James Cooper and CSSC?s own David Cormican, successfully raising over $20,000 in production funds. The film wrapped shooting in April 2012, and is now awaiting the start of its festival run.

Source: http://www.screenplay-contest.com/2012/08/01/ww-cssc-writer-wednesday-blog-the-5th-the-scripwriters-lede/

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