Richard Walter has shared some excellent advice for screenwriters on The Wrap which essentially boils down to one point: Lie.
He writes,
Art, Picasso tells us, is the lie that tells the greater truth.
Screenwriters need to learn how to lie through their teeth.
As a screenwriting educator and script doctor I have seen more scripts brought down by a writer’s wrongheaded devotion to some idealized, romanticized, self-conscious, narcissistic, pie-in-the-sky notion of The Truth.
During tutorial sessions with writers in UCLA’s Master of Fine Arts screenwriting program, I often find myself asking something like, “Why is this character hemming and hawing, starting and stopping, meandering, beating around the bush?”
The answer I often get is, “That’s the way people really talk.” read more »
