Storytellers: Stop Making Sense

Plot and Exposition in Screenwriting: Storytellers, Stop Making Sense

Screenwriting MFA director in the Graduate Program in Creative Writing James Napoli examines the craft of plot, dialogue, and exposition in screenwriting, arguing that the scripts that hold us are the ones that explain themselves slowly. Drawing on years of reading scripts as an industry story analyst, he makes the case for withholding, delaying, and writing dialogue that lets an audience do the work.

Word on the street is that you cannot copyright a title. With that in mind, I would like to express my gratitude to the band Talking Heads for floating the revolutionary concept of relinquishing our hold on the sensical, thereby also providing me with a delightful way-in to advising storytellers of this simple notion: when it comes to unfolding the plot and exposition in screenwriting, they needn’t always feel obliged to tell us what they want us to know.

In certain specific cases, that is.

We Don’t Need to Know Exactly What’s Going On

Not right away, anyway. Things don’t need to make perfect sense immediately, other than to introduce the people and circumstances of your story in an intriguing way. The first ten or fifteen pages of your screenplay should have us wondering, big time. Who is this protagonist? Why are they avoiding that person or situation over there? How come that reference to someone we haven’t met yet has tweaked them so? What is this place we’ve been plunged into and why are we there with this particular main character? In my career as an industry story analyst, I have read a mountain-sized stack of scripts that feel obliged to let us know right out of the gate what the premise is, what the mindset of the protagonist is, sometimes even the nature of their conflict with the world or the people around them.

I suspect we have all sat in front of screens big and small and absorbed some variant of a screenplay such as this:

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW RIGHT UP FRONT

A screenplay by Noam Agination

INT.  HIGH-RISE SAN FRANCISCO BOARDROOM – DAY

Shiny office on the 79^th floor overlooking a post-apocalyptic landscape. STRYKER, sharply dressed and slick paces around a glass conference table at which sits a nervous TERRY.

STRYKER

Listen, to me, Terry. This isn’t 1979. This is 2046, and we’re living in a world where released criminals have the right to take their accusers back to court. Terry, you’ve been my father’s most valued attorney since he raised you when your foster parents died, and your work on the Wilson treason case was legendary. But now Wilson is getting out of prison, and since the man lost everyone who loved him thanks to the verdict you made happen, he blames you for everything that went wrong in his life. He may be coming for you, Terry. Be ready.

The problem arises: if we the readers (and eventual viewers) have it all handed to us in the first ten minutes, why are we hanging around? You’ve got nothing else to tell us, so we’re checking out of your narrative hotel, thank you very much.

A point of clarification here: at some point, screenplays do need to explain themselves. However, letting us get tidbits of information that help us digest the “what it’s all about” before we are told what it’s all about is what invests us in being engaged in the events to come. Whether you’ve put your heart and soul into a screenplay that’s a romance, fantasy, comedy, horror, science fiction, or a climate-based drama, once we’re successfully grounded by a good chunk of wondering, of putting the pieces together that will form the foundation of the story, we are invested and on board. We’ve figured out the premise, the characters and the conflicts, now we’re off to the races courtesy of your effective use of plot and exposition in screenwriting.

“Offer up just a smidgen of what’s actually going on in the scene but be careful not to give away too much info. If you do, your audience will grow bored. You want the audience to be an active participant as they pick up the few breadcrumbs that are left on the ground to follow the story…”  Orson Welles

The Question No One is Asking (Because They Already Know the Answer)

Here’s another writing gaffe to look out for, and then discipline yourself to stop making sense with it.  Full disclosure: I succumb to this gaffe regularly, even as I urge my students in the Screenwriting MFA to avoid it! In dialogue, if a character is saying what the reader/audience is already asking themselves, you may feel free to cut said dialogue. Here’s an example:

Your protagonist has sneaked under the yellow police tape into a crime scene and skulks around the office where the dead body was found. Only to turn and see their ex-spouse rising from a crouching to a standing position, having been close to the ground looking for previously unnoticed clues. This is, of course, the ex-spouse to whom we were introduced a few scenes earlier after an awkward meeting at the day care place. This is the last person our protagonist, along with our audience, expected to see in this situation. Do we really need said protagonist to utter the line, “What are you doing here?”  No, we do not. For the audience is asking the same question themselves. In cutting such dialogue, not only is a screenwriter demonstrating their sophistication and mettle, but also, they are leaving an opening to craft an utterance that is far more unexpected and therefore rewarding for the audience. How about “I’m getting remarried?” Now, there’s an alternative to the obvious that opens up vast new possibilities for complications, thematic undercurrents, and character growth. Not to mention plot and exposition working hand in hand.

“The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.” – Raymond Chandler

The Question Everyone is Asking (But You’re Not Going to Answer It)

The inverse occurs when writers are tempted to make sense of a dialogue exchange by actually answering an important question. The nerve!  Unlike the aforementioned example, there are some questions viewers do not know the answers to, and hence crave the closure that can come with being offered some kind of definitive response. Here again, let’s not be too hasty to make sense of things. Let’s keep your reader/audience waiting, ideally until just about the end of your story, to get that resolution. If your plot hinges on a profligate sibling and their ill-gotten gains, you might well have their fellow sibling hit them with an inquiry such as, “Did you steal from mom and dad to get where you are?”  Let’s compare three possible responses to that question as we consider which one leaves us on the hook for more. First, there’s “Yes, I did.” Next, there’s “No, I did not.” How about a third option? “I need to go, I’m late for work.” By not answering the question directly, the reckless sibling has defied our expectations and made us…here’s that word again…wonder. Thereby compelling us to stick around.

“Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.” – Emma Coats, Pixar Story Artist.

Making Sense of It All

When a writer lets go of the urge to lay out everything for the audience, a trust in the storyteller emerges. A trust that says, “I can let this story unfold bit by bit. I know that the plot and exposition in screenwriting here will give me just what I need to take in as each scene progresses.” Ultimately, of course, the completed arc of a story needs to make logical sense, and that, indeed, needs to be part of a writer’s grander vision. But scene-by-scene, don’t worry: a trusting reader or viewer will be so grateful for the opportunity to exercise their minds that they will make sense of things in their own time. Provided you let them.

James Napoli directs the Screenwriting MFA concentration in Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing. He holds an MFA in Film from the London Film School, and as a professional story analyst for Los Angeles production companies he has evaluated close to a thousand works for the screen. He wrote and directed the award-winning shorts “The Priests” and “Nobody Gets Hurt.” He also hosts the screenwriting podcast “Screenplaying.”