Saving the novel

I haven't plugged books here before, but I'm so excited about one I recently picked up that I just have to share it with you. It's Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody.

Regular readers of this blog know that I've been an avid disciple of the Save the Cat! books for a long time. I first came across them fourteen years ago when I tried to break into screenwriting. They quickly became my bible for structuring all my stories, not just screenplays.

Other books have covered similar ground, but Snyder's take was more detailed and user-friendly. He provided specific page counts for each of this fifteen story beats so that you can see how closely your story paces with existing movies. He defined ten popular story genres--from Monster in the House to Fool Triumphant--and described how the beats varied for each genre. And his books were just fun to read, with a jokey, light-hearted style and catchy, unforgettable names for many of the story concepts (I still refer to "Whiff of Death" and "Pope in the Pool" in discussions of my own stories).

I especially loved his second book, Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies, because it described the specific story beats of fifty famous movies, giving readers an intimate look at how masters of the craft structured their stories.

Sadly, Snyder passed away all the all-too-young age of 51 in 2009. But he left behind a legacy in Hollywood that's hard to match. Blake's template has become the de facto standard for commercial films.

Of course, novels aren't expected to follow this structure as closely as movies are. But you have to give your novel some structure or it'll just drift from event to event with no tension or sense of direction.

Author Jessica Brody
(Photo Credit: Brian Braff)

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel provides that structure. Brody--who's had her own success in the YA field with books like I Speak Boy--offers the same fifteen-beat template as Snyder but adds her own quirky humor while showing how those beats are met in novels like Misery and Bridget Jones's Diary. It took Snyder two books to cover that much ground for films.

Now I'm not one of those writers who believe you have to slavishly follow these templates. Do you absolutely need a B story? I don't think so. Can the Theme Stated come later, say halfway into the story? Probably.

But deviate at your own risk. Over the years, I've read many, many manuscripts for friends and acquaintances, and one thing has become painfully clear to me. Every poorly written story--whether novel, screenplay or play--fails because it leaves out one of those fifteen story beats.

Sometimes it's the Debate. Instead of rejecting the call to adventure, the hero jumps in willingly--even excitedly. Not good if you want to maintain a sense of tension.

More often it's the Midpoint. This is where the stakes are raised, where the hero first gets that whiff of death. Skip this beat and your readers won't even care what happens at the climax because they don't know what your hero is risking.

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel isn't a book you're going to want to read straight through. There's just too much detail, too many helpful tips to remember. Instead, keep it at your side while you're writing so you can dive in when you hit a wall and find out how the masters got around it.

It won't just save the cat. It'll save your butt.

The Hero's Journey in Legally Blonde

A few years ago, I put together a lecture for the Colorado State Thespian Conference on the hero's journey in Star Wars. I broke down the movie into its major plot beats and showed how they match up with the three-act structure first laid out by mythologist Joseph Campbell and further developed by screenwriters Christopher Vogler and Blake Snyder, among others.

It was the most popular class I ever taught, drawing over a hundred kids in a room set up for a couple dozen. I was looking forward to teaching it again, but less than a year later I moved to Arizona. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get myself on the staff of the Thespian Conference here.

But the lesson lives on. And that's because my post where I share my PowerPoint from the class has recently become my most popular post.

So I thought people might be interested in the other part of the class, the part where I applied the same structure to the 2001 Reese Witherspoon film Legally Blonde.

Why this movie? Well, most writing students already know that the Hero's Journey works for testosterone-driven action and sci fi films like Star Wars. I wanted to show that it works just as well for something funny and light like this beloved girl power comedy.

My breakdown of Legally Blonde is shown in the chart above. Feel free to download it as a JPG by clicking on the chart itself or download a PDF version by clicking on this link.

Looking at it you'll notice that, unlike a lot of writing teachers, I don't dictate a page count for each of the story beats. After all, some very successful movies play fast and loose with the generally accepted ones (Star Wars itself takes 40 of its 125 minutes to get to the first beat).

But there's one key caveat. If you take too long to get to that next beat, you risk committing the only real sin of writing: boring your audience.

And yes, some teachers include several more beats, but I wanted to keep my template simple for the beginning writers I usually teach. Trust me, if you can cover these seven beats in your story, you're well on your way to crafting a compelling, structurally sound tale.

So let's jump in and see how the irrepressible Elle Woods forges her journey:

1) Catalyst--This is the beat that gets the whole story started. Some beginning writers confuse the Catalyst (or Inciting Incident or Call To Adventure, as some teachers call it) with Accepting The Challenge, but there's an easy way to keep them straight. The Catalyst is something that happens TO the hero. Accepting The Challenge is what the hero DOES in response to the Catalyst.

There are two ways to play the Catalyst. Some movies, like Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starts with the Hero in a negative status quo, i.e. a world in which the Hero is already suffering (Charlie's poverty). In this case, the Catalyst takes the form of a positive opportunity for the Hero, something that will allow the Hero to break out of the status quo and build a better life (e.g. the Golden Ticket).

A more common--and effective--way is to start the Hero in a positive status quo, a world in which the Hero has everything they need to be happy. The Catalyst then becomes something that upends that situation, snatching that perfect world away from the Hero.

The second path is the one that Legally Blonde takes. As the film starts, Elle Woods is well on her way to a SoCal version of nirvana. She has rich parents, a newly minted degree in fashion merchandising (my daughter looked into it once, it's much harder than it sounds), great friends, and the world's most eligible bachelor as her boyfriend. All she has to do is get that boyfriend to propose and the rest of her life will be bliss.

But Warner doesn't propose. In fact, he dumps her, making it all too painfully clear that he considers her unworthy of him. Elle is devastated. Her dreams of a "happily ever after" are destroyed.

2) Accepting The Challenge--This beat is the Hero's response to the Catalyst. And Elle goes big. Despite a (perceived) lack of smarts and a lifestyle that's been centered on swimming pools and the latest fashions, she's determined to follow Warner to Harvard and get her own law degree.  For this, she's convinced, is how she's going to prove to Warner that's she worthy of him and win him back.

As audience members, we already know this is a bad goal. Warner's a jerk. We don't want Elle to get back with him, now or ever. But we know this is part of the growth path she needs to follow to get to her True Happiness, so we go along with her.

Elle now enters the first half of Act Two, what Save the Cat's Blake Snyder called the Fun & Games section. Free of any real cost to her decision, she gets to explore all the ways that her new world (Harvard) is different from her old world (SoCal). This is always the funniest part of a movie, as it gives us a chance to see our Hero make a fool of herself as she flounders around trying to learn (or fighting against) the rules of this new world.

3) Stakes Are Raised--Also called the Midpoint or Turning Point, this is where things get serious. The fun and games are over. Now the hero really has something to lose.

In the movie, Elle goes to the Halloween party to win back Warner, only to be rejected one last time. After he shoots down her plan to get an internship, saying she's just not smart enough, she finally realizes she's never going to be be good enough for him.

In my class, I argued that this was one of the weaker beats in the movie since Elle's stakes aren't raised in any meaningful way. One of the students pushed back, claiming that this defeat provides Elle with the motivation she needs to succeed. But, as I pointed out, things really haven't changed for her. As audience members, we always knew she would never get Warner back. And sure, maybe she'll work a little harder now. But she's already working pretty hard in her classes.

Blake Snyder once observed that a lot of writers think the most important beat is the Inciting Incident or the Climax, but it's really the Midpoint. The whole movie revolves around this beat. The other beats are about what happens. This beat tells you why they matter.

When I first read this, it was like the heavens opened up. It changed my whole approach to writing. No longer did I dread the long hard slog of Act Two. Instead, I relished the challenge of coming up with a turning point that would raise my story to a whole new level.

In fact, the Midpoint is such an important beat, you could almost say it launches a whole new act, with the second half of Act Two becoming Act Three, and Act Three becoming Act Four.

A four-act structure? Why not? After all, a lot of films break their stories into four different worlds, with the middle two worlds occupying the Second Act. Legally Blonde does it with Southern California, Harvard, the law firm, and the courtroom. Star Wars does it with Tatooine, the Millennium Falcon, the Death Star, and the X-Wing Fighter.

If you think of the Midpoint as an act break, then you've split the three acts into four. And making the Midpoint an act break should really hammer home how life-changing this beat needs to be.

Still wondering if you've raised the stakes enough in your story? Then ask yourself one thing. What does your hero stand to lose now that they didn't before?

If the answer is nothing, rework it. Your readers (if not your hero) will love you for it.

4) All Is Lost--After the struggles of Act Two, your hero should lose it all at this critical beat. All Is Lot is where the mentor often dies, as when (spoiler alert!) Obi Wan Kenobi is killed by Darth Vader. Killing off the mentor is a highly effective story choice as it forces your hero to prove themselves by fighting their final battle alone.

But you can't have a death in a romantic comedy, so what do you do? You find another way to get rid of the mentor.

Legally Blonde handles this extremely well. After Elle gets the internship, Callahan becomes her mentor--and he's a good one. He teaches her how to do research. He teaches her how to build a case. Most importantly, he teaches her how to think like a lawyer.

Unfortunately, this all comes tumbling down when Callahan tries to seduce her. Not only does this convince Elle that no one will ever respect her for her brain, it also makes it impossible for her to work with him any longer. The relationship, if not the mentor, is dead.

5)  Final Push--Here the hero picks herself up, dusts herself off, and makes one last attempt to achieve her goals. And this time she has to do it alone. Or at least without her mentor. In most movies, the hero has allies she can lead into battle.

Elle does this by taking the lead of Brooke's defense team. Emmett may be guiding her, but it's up to Elle to win or lose for her client. She's the one who argues the case. And she's the one who makes the observation that finally turns the case her way.

For more on this, read on...

6) Final Victory--And now for the payoff. The hero succeeds, finally achieving their goal. But there's a little more to it than that--and it's all in the way they win.

As we know, the hero of every story must follow an arc. They start out being one thing (Act One), and through the lessons learned from their mentor, and the battles they've fought with their allies, they become something else (Act Two).

In Act Three, they may even reject their old self and attempt to achieve their goal based on their new skills only. But they only succeed when they combine something about their old self and their new self.

Star Wars does this. Luke starts the movie with mad piloting skills. In Act Two, he learns to use the Force. But when he gets to Act Three, he loses confidence in his ability to use the Force and relies solely on his piloting skills to destroy the Death Star. He quickly discovers that's not enough. He keeps missing the target. It's only when he combines his new self--the Force--with his old self--the Pilot--that he hits the target and succeeds in blowing up that massive space weapon.

Legally Blonde does something similar but opposite. At first, Elle tries to win the trial by being her new self--a quick-thinking, hard-nosed defense attorney. But it's not enough. Her legal arguments are going nowhere. Only when she combines that new self with her old self--a beauty expert--does she recognize that Brooke's stepdaughter must be lying about washing her freshly permed hair.

Not every movie does this. But if you want to make your story the best it can be, you're going to want to find a way to have your hero combine their two selves.

7) Final Reward--Now the hero gets to revel in their victory. But the main point of this beat is not to show how the hero revels. It's to show how much they've changed.

Elle has definitely changed. No longer the bubble-headed blonde who only cares about looking good and landing a wealthy husband, Elle is now a successful lawyer who has proven herself to everyone by graduating it the top of her class.

She has achieved her True Happiness. But, as in the best of these endings, it's a very different happiness than what she pictured in Act One. This is made painfully clear at the end when Warner asks her to take him back--and Elle rejects him. What better way to show how much she's changed?

I know a lot of writers reject templates like these, thinking it inevitably leads to formulaic stories. And yes, if you follow them blindly, it can lead to a story that's completely predictable and dull. But that's your job as a writer: finding new ways to make those old structures work.

After all, they've been used to tell stories for thousands of years, so much so that they've become a part of our DNA. Who are we to change them?

Writing Tip #2: Make Your Heroes Likable

One of the most common critiques I get about my writing is that my characters are often unlikable. My first impulse is to cry out, that can't be. That character was based on me!

I'm kidding, of course. My characters aren't based on anyone, living or dead.

But they are unlikable. And I think that's because I push their personalities so far toward an extreme that they stop being human. And that's a problem. If your characters are unlikable, then your audience doesn't have anyone to root for. You audience won't care what happens to them.

My soon-to-be-published play Real Pirates Don't Wear Tiaras is a good example. The story revolves around five pampered princesses who are forced to pose as pirates in order to save their skins. The princesses were likable enough, but I gave them princely beaus--and those guys were complete jerks: self-centered, lazy and, well, kind of dumb.

When I submitted the script to my publisher, they accepted it, but they also asked for changes. They thought the princes were fun, but they had no redeeming values. If the princes were so awful, why were the princesses even with them?

My publisher had a point. So I went back to the old drawing board.

There's a scene toward the end of the play where Blacktooth, the pirate who shanghaied the princesses in the first place, throws everyone--princes and princesses alike--into the brig. In the original draft, the princesses come up with the plan to rescue themselves:

                      EMERALD

          Oh, Norbert! I'd always hoped we'd be 
          together till the end of our days. I 
          just never dreamed the end would come 
          so soon!

                      NORBERT

          Don't be afraid, Emerald. I'm sure
          someone will save us.

                      RUBY
          Who's going to save us? Everyone we 
          know is knocked in this cell.

                      OPAL
          Well then, maybe we should get to 
          know more people.

                      RUBY
          Sure, Opal. We'll get right on that.

CRUSTY ENTERS. She goes to grab the key.

                      AMBER
          Wait. Maybe that's not such a bad 
          idea.

                      RUBY
          What idea?

                      AMBER
          Getting to know more people. In fact,
          I see someone we should get to know 
          right now.

                      DOROTHY

          Didn't you hear? That's the past due 

          notice from Mr, Skinflint. If Miss 

          Margie doesn't come up with three

          thousand dollars by tomorrow, Mr. 
          Skinflint is going to close the shop.

After I got the note from my publisher, I tried a version where the princes helped the princesses make their escape. But it didn't work very well. The play is about female empowerment, and there was no way to have them help without taking away from the princesses' independence.

So instead, I added some dialogue to have Donahue--the laziest, most cowardly prince of all--explain why he was the way he was. And the reason why was something that, I hope, we can all identify with:

                      EMERALD

          Oh, Norbert! I'd always hoped we'd be 
          together till the end of our days. I 
          just never thought the end would come 
          so soon!

                      NORBERT

          I'm sorry, Emerald. I guess I've 
          failed you.

                      WILLOUGHBY
          We all did.

                      CARLTON
          That's right. We should have gone
          after Blacktooth like we said we 
          should.

                      RUBY
          Yeah. Now that you mention it, why
          didn't you?

                      DONAHUE
          Don't blame them. It was all my fault. 
          I'm the one who talked them out of it.

                      PEARL
          But why, Donahue? Why did you do that?

                      DONAHUE
          I don't know. I guess I was scared.
          Everyone expects prices to fight
          bloodthirsty pirates and evil knights 
          and hideous monsters with bad teeth. 
          But I don't know how to fight.

                      PEARL
                 (to the others)
          That's true. He's not much of a 
          fighter. But he does make me laugh.

DONAHUE makes a funny face. All the PRINCESSES laugh.

                      AMBER
          That's all right, Donahue. I guess we
          all feel trapped by the roles we play.

CRUSTY ENTERS. AMBER watches her as she goes to grab the key.

                      AMBER
          And I know somebody else who must feel 
          the way.

Following AMBER's gaze, NORBERT and WILLOUGHBY rise to their feet.

                      NORBERT
          Do you want us to knock her out for you?

                      WILLOUGHBY
                (pats himself all around)
          I might have a bottle of sunscreen on me.

                      AMBER
          No. Just stay back. I'll handle this.

And that's where I left it. The princes offer to help. The princesses decide to do it themselves. And even the least likable character reveals a touch of humanity.

That's what I call a win-win-win.

Writing Tip #1: Raise the Stakes!

Stakes are important. They're what make us care about the story in the first place. Without stakes, there's no tension. Without stakes, there's no one to root for.

Every writer knows they need to give their hero a meaningful goal, but that's not what we're talking about here. Stakes go deeper. Stakes answer the question: what does the hero lose if they don't reach their goal?

This is a lesson I had to relearn when I was polishing the script of the pilot for The Enchanted Bookshop TV series.

In the teaser, Miss Margie is threatened with eviction because she's several months behind on her rent. Shortly after, the Lits have a brief exchange what they can do to help.

Pollyanna picks up the NOTE from the counter.

                      POLLYANNA

          What's this, Dorothy?

                      DOROTHY

          Didn't you hear? That's the past due 

          notice from Mr, Skinflint. If Miss 

          Margie doesn't come up with three

          thousand dollars by tomorrow, Mr. 
          Skinflint is going to close the shop.

                      POLLYANNA
          Oh, no! What's going to happen to 
          us?

                      DOROTHY
          Who cares what happen to us? It's 
          Miss Margie I'm worried about.

                      TOM
          Yeah. This shop is her life.

                      POLLYANNA
          Hey, I've got an idea! Why don't we 
          open a lemonade stand? I'll bet we 
          could raise the three thousand dollars 
          in no time!

                      DOROTHY
          You know we can't do that, Pollyanna.
          That would break the two rules the 
          Book Fairy gave us when she first 
          brought us to life.

                      TOM
          That's right! If we ever leave the 
          shop or are seen by any humans, we'll
          disappear into our books forever.

If you've seen the play, then you might remember that this is pretty close to what the Lits say soon after we meet them.

The scene does a lot. It introduces the two rules that the Lits have to follow. It describes what'll happen if Margie doesn't pay her rent. And it throws in a little humor by showing how the overly optimistic Pollyanna would address the problem.

Unfortunately, it failed do the one thing it needed to do: lay out the stakes for the Lits.

That's because I played it safe. In my mind, I knew that the Lits would disappear into their books forever if Margie lost the shop. But I didn't want the stakes to be about them. I didn't want the Lits to seem selfish.

So I made the stakes about Margie. And I thought if we saw how much the Lits care about her, then we'll be rooting for them.

The problem is that it doesn't make us root for Margie. As my manager pointed out, why do we care if Margie loses the shop?

And if I had any doubt about his wisdom (I didn't), I got almost the exact same criticism from a reader at a screenwriting competition.

John's suggestion was to add a scene showing Margie doing a reading to kids at a library. If Margie loses the shop, then the kids lose their stories.

It's a good suggestion, and I'm sure it would work. But one thing I've learned is that if you need to clarify something and your choice is between explaining it by providing additional dialogue or simplifying it by removing the source of confusion in the first place, the better choice is to simplify.

So this is what I came up with:

Pollyanna picks up the NOTE from the counter,

                      POLLYANNA

          What's this?

                      DOROTHY
          Didn't you hear? That's the past due 

          notice from Mr. Skinflint.

                      TOM

          If Miss Margie doesn't come up with 

          the money by tomorrow, that old miser

          will shut down the shop and we'll 

          disappear into our books forever!

Short. Punchy. And, I hope, more effective.

Yes, it leaves out the two rules and it leaves out the fact that Margie could lose the shop. But I can always drop those into a later episode.

Right now, in the pilot, I have one job, and that's to lay out the stakes that will keep viewers coming back.

What are the stakes in your story? What does your hero stand to lose if they don't reach their goal?

Get on your feet

If I told you that there's one simple thing you can do to make your writing really come alive, would you believe me? One thing that will individualize your characters, enliven your dialogue and spice up your staging? Well, there is, and me being a little slow on the uptake, only just discovered it.

It all started a couple of days ago when I was listening to the On The Page podcast podcast. It's one of my favorite writing podcasts, and although it's focused on screenwriting, I've found that a lot of the advice applies to plays.

It's also a lot of fun. Host Pilar Alessandra interviews a wide range of Hollywood creatives, and her conversations with them are always lively, informative and hilarious.

So anyway, I was listening to the 12/16/16 podcast, titled The Seven Deadly Sins of Actors... And Writers. In it, actor Kevin E. West talked about the bad habits he had to overcome to achieve success in his career, and about halfway in, he said something really interesting:

"I don't know how much writers get up and walk around when they're writing dialogue... The dialogue of a character, regardless of what, you know, archetype you've made this person and what ethnicity you've made them or what educational background you've given them is: what are they like on their feet? And that's what's missing a lot in a lot of the dialogue I've read over the years... I can read something and tell you've never put this character on their feet in your mind."

He nailed it. At least for me. Oh, I'll read my scripts out loud a couple of times during the revision process to make sure the words flow naturally. But I don't act it out. And I rarely picture what the characters are doing while they're talking, other than the occasional laugh or sneer or pout.

So I decided to give it a try. I read the script I'm currently working on, and as I read it, I acted out their movements. I made every entrance and exit. I fidgeted nervously as the earnest young production assistant asked his crush for a date. I even writhed in agony as the temperamental movie star succumbed to a fatal dose of cyanide.

It worked wonders, just like Kevin said it would. By getting off my butt and moving around, I felt like I had actually become my characters. Not only did it let me figure out what the characters were doing while they talked, it helped me with the dialogue itself.

If a line I'd written didn't match their personality or their emotional state at the time, it jumped right out at me and I could immediately come up with something more authentic and true. I didn't have to think about it. The words just flowed form my brain.

There's only one drawback to this technique. Okay, two.

First, it's exhausting! You're basically performing an entire play--speaking every line and making every movement--all by yourself. So obviously, you don't want to do this every single time you revise the script. I recommend doing it once or twice, near the end of the polishing stage.

The other drawback? Oh, just some minor domestic strife. I guess when I was performing my little one-man show, I was so loud my wife could barely hear the TV upstairs.

Ah, well. The sacrifices we make for our art. At least I didn't injure myself like this guy.

The Hero's Journey in Star Wars

So I had another amazing experience at Colorado Thescon today. Around 25 students attended Five Ways to Punch Up Your Playwriting, and we had some good discussions, especially around loglines and how to make them unique.

But the response to my workshop, Plot 101: Playwriting Lessons from Star Wars, completely blew me away. I figured those magic words, "Star Wars," would generate a lot of interest, but I never expected over 100 students (and several teachers) to show up. Unfortunately, my room only had chairs for 30 of the students, but the other 70 carried on bravely, claiming a spot on the floor for the hour and 15 minutes of my lecture. (I'll ask for more chairs next year!)

Actually, it was less a lecture and more a free-wheeling debate. Most of the students had already been exposed to the Hero's Journey structure, and they all had very strong opinions as to what the catalyst is and why the destruction of Alderaan does not make a strong midpoint. Surprisingly, the students were just as passionate in their discussion of my alternative example of the Hero's Journey, Legally Blonde.

You know how people with a strange, terrible disease often think they're the only one in the world with that disease? And then they find an online support group and they realize there are actually hundreds of people like them? Well, that's how I felt today, only my disease is Story Structure Geekitis.

I didn't bring enough handouts for all of the students, but I promised them I would post the diagram I taught from on my website, so here is the PDF version. Or just download the JPG above. Either way, feel free to print it, email it, tattoo it on your forearm, or whatever floats your boat.

Yes, it borrows from both Joseph Campbell and Blake Snyder, but I've simplified it to include only the seven plot points most important to a well-told story (I don't want young writers to get overwhelmed by the numerous plot points in those other works). I also changed some of the terms to more accurately reflect their purpose. Most importantly, I added the corresponding plot points in Star Wars to guide them as they develop their own stories.

The class was so popular that I've decided to turn it into a two-hour workshop in which I'll work closely with each student to help them structure their story according to the Hero's Journey. Look for this class to pop up in Colorado Springs, probably sometime in January.

Update: If you'd like to read my take on the Hero's Journey in Legally Blonde, which formed the other half of the class, follow this link.

On naming plays

Writing plays is hard. Writing the outline is hard. Writing the first draft is hard. Writing the final draft and every draft between those two drafts is hard.

But the hardest words any writer has to write are the two (or three or four or five) words at the top of the script, i.e. the title.

After all, the title has a big job to do. It should be memorable. It should tell you what the play is about. And it should suggest what genre the play belongs to. (For comedies, I also like my titles to pass the smile test. If the title is funny enough to make you smile, it's a keeper.)

If the title does all that, and you find that it's never been used before, then you've hit the play-naming quadfecta.

I was thinking about this today because I've been wracking my brain for a title for the cat heiress comedy I'll be developing at Palmer Ridge High School. But then I usually torture myself over my titles.

Million Dollar Meatballs is one of my favorite titles. But I didn't come up with it until I was halfway through the first draft. Before that, I had gone through half a dozen titles, each one more forgettable than the last.

The problem was that the original version had the diamonds being hidden in a bottle of ketchup. And I didn't like any of the ketchup titles I came up with. So I put the script away for a year--yes, an entire year--until I could figure out how to get the diamonds from the ketchup bottle to a plate of meatballs just so I could call it Million Dollar Meatballs.

I'm glad I did. That play is now one of my most successful, and I think the title helps.

How I Met Your Mummy was originally titled Now Museum, Now You Don't. I liked the pun there (surprisingly, it had never been used as the title of a play), but it doesn't really tell you what the play's about. The museum isn't the important part of the story. The mummy is.

So I played around with "mummy" titles. Unfortunately, all the good ones were already taken: I Want My Mummy, Mummy Dearest. Then my friend Jeff Schmoyer suggested a pun on the title of the sitcom, How I Met Your Mother.

I loved it, but I had to check whether it had ever been used before. Luckily, it hadn't, although it had been used for an episode of an obscure animated series. I didn't think that would lead to much confusion, so I went with it. And it's worked out great ever since.

Could I come up with an equally good title for my cat heiress comedy? Well, not the way things have been going for me lately. I hate the title Where There's a Will, There's a Way. Again, it doesn't really tell you what the play is about and it definitely doesn't pass the smile test. And all the other titles I came up with were extremely lame.

Then today I stopped by Palmer Ridge. I wanted to see the stage where the play will be performed and to meet some of the students in the school's theatre program. It's always better to write a character with a specific actor in mind, even if the actor doesn't end up playing that part.

I took away a lot of ideas for characters. But the biggest takeaway came from an offhand comment by director Josh Belk. He said he'd been wracking his brain for titles and the only thing he could come up with was The Purrfect Murder. Then he immediately dismissed it, saying it was too cliched.

Wait a minute, I said. That's actually a great title. But there's no murder in the play, just a kidnapping. Why not change it to The Purrfect Crime?

I immediately Googled it. Sure, it popped up as an episode of an old detective show, but I couldn't find a single play with that title.

So it's official. The title of my next play will be The Purrfect Crime.

The lesson here? If you're ever stuck on the title for a play or novel or whatever, check the episode list of old TV shows.

Thescon lessons

Yesterday, I led my new workshop at the Colorado State Thespian Conference. This year, I had two sessions on Friday instead of two sessions on Saturday. The turnout was much lower than last year. I had just 12 students at the first session and 6 at the second. But the students who were there made up for it in enthusiasm, and one obviously bright young man said my workshop was his favorite. Score!

The workshop was titled Five Ways to Punch Up Your Playwriting. And in case you're curious, the five ways I came up with were:

1) Give your play a hook

2) Give each character a dominant personality trait

3) Demonstrate personality through dialogue and action

4) Keep tension high

5) Give your characters a hidden agenda

I wanted it to be a practical workshop, with examples drawn from real plays and several writing exercises. And, as usual, I was blown away by their creativity.

For step three, I started by having two students perform a scene from Alan Ayckbourn's Garden (one-half of his House and Garden duo of interwoven plays). In it, a middle-aged man named Gavin reveals to his teenage son Jake that his wife--the boy's mother--has been cheating on him. I then asked the students to continue the scene.

I expected that the students would take the scene down the standard path, that Gavin would blow up, railing against Joanne's betrayal and demanding that his son take his side. The twist is that this is not how Ayckbourn wrote the character at all.

In fact, Gavin does not get angry at all. Instead, he makes excuses for his wife. He blames himself for her infidelity. He even enlists Jake in his effort to get her the help she needs. My point was that our characters come alive the more they vary from the standard human response.

What stunned me was how each student made the scene so completely their own. Their Gavins weren't the typical vengeful husbands I expected them to write, but they weren't Ayckbourn's marshmallow of a guy either. Instead, each Gavin came to life in a unique and surprising way.

Did I teach them anything? I don't know. But maybe by talking about the scene, I helped them systematize their thought processes in a way that will make their future writing more effective.

In any case, this workshop is a keeper. It needs refinement, that's for sure. I need to find more scenes for the students to perform and I need to come up with more exercises for them to do.

But I think the concepts we covered really get at the heart of what makes for powerful writing.

By the way, I'm available to lead this workshop at your school or writing group. If you're interested in getting a quote, email me with your specifics (e.g. location, number of students, length of workshop) and I'll get right back to you.

10 things I learned in high school

And just like that, the world premiere of Million Dollar Meatballs is over.

As I described earlier, the Discovery Canyon High School production of my play was the first time I got to sit in on rehearsals from auditions to final preview. And although I'm sad to see it end, I have to say it was a wonderful experience all around. Director Amy Keating did a fabulous job, encouraging the students to play with the script while remaining completely respectful of my intent. And the students themselves were amazing, making the characters come to life in ways I never expected.

The houses were smaller than I would have liked, with about 100 people on our biggest night. But the audiences made up for it through sheer enthusiasm. From the moment hotheaded chef Gordon Ramrod angrily tore off his aprons (yes, he was wearing more than one) to the final frenzied search for the diamonds, the auditorium was filled with that most beautiful of sounds: laughter.

Amy originally offered to produce the play because she felt it would be an educational experience for her students. What surprised me is how many things I learned as well.

Here are the top ten:

1. High school actors are absolutely fearless. You can ask them to do anything--eat food off the floor, slam into walls, have a pitcher of water poured into their lap--and they will throw themselves into it with complete and utter abandon.

2. High school theatre directors are way underpaid.

3. If you make people laugh, no one will complain that your play is only 60 minutes long.

4. Don't ever, EVER have two things happening in a scene at the same time. While it may look exciting on the page, it's a confusing mess on the stage.

5. No matter how much you promote your play, it'll never outdraw the school's football game.

6. The amount of laughter a joke gets has no correlation to the amount of effort it took to think of the joke.

7. Shaving cream makes an excellent beard.

8. Given freedom to experiment, the actors will come up with better lines than you ever could.

9. Given freedom to experiment, the actors will also come up with much worse lines than you ever could. As a playwright, it's your job to know the difference.

10. Nothing gets a bigger laugh than a bad French accent.

And an extra one:

11. Theatre kids are some of the brightest, politest, nicest people you'll ever meet.

Coming alive

There's a great lyric from the musical Applause in which the headstrong Broadway star Margo Channing lays out for her young protege what she can expect from a life in the theatre. Among things like grabby stagehands and dark toilets in the halls, comes this little gem:

"You'll only come alive at night, when you're in a show."

That pretty much sums it up , doesn't it? And not just for actors, but for playwrights as well.

At least that's the way I felt this week, as I sat in on the rehearsals for the world premiere of my new farce, Million Dollar Meatballs, at Discovery Canyon High School.

It's a wonderful experience, and a rare one. I've attended rehearsals for my plays a couple of times before, but this time it's different. This time the play is still in development.

Oh, it's close to being done. I'm happy with the pacing and flow. I don't have to rewrite huge sections of dialogue and I certainly don't have add or delete any scenes.

But there are a ton of physical gags that I may discover aren't possible (a beard made of whipped cream?). And every new script I write seems to have plenty of "jokes" that just aren't be funny.

Fortunately, I found a dream director in Amy Keating, the school's theatre director. She has years of directing under her belt and really knows her stuff. And yet she's open to questions and suggestions from a relative newbie like myself. Just as importantly, she's been giving her students free rein to play with the script. After just two walkthroughs, we're already finding new directions to take the story.

One major change has been with the character of Humphrey, the maitre d' of the restaurant in which the play is set. I originally described him in the script as "maddeningly dense", but Amy had the idea of patterning him after the snarky maitre d' in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And she found the perfect actor to pull it off, a young man with a smarmy delivery that reminds me of the Jim Carrey character in Liar, Liar. I've been tweaking his dialogue to bring that out some more and we even stole one line from another character because it fit Humphrey's sardonic view of the world much better.

I've also been punching up a lot of the jokes. One big surprise about this whole process is that I found I don't need an opening night audience to know which lines work and which don't. Between the understudies and the crew, about 30 people are present at each rehearsal and that's more than enough to get meaningful feedback (some local theatre companies don't get that many people to their actual performances), And these kids make the perfect audience, eagerly yukking it up--or not--through each run-through.

The most important thing I've learned? It turns out that there are three kinds of jokes.

One, is the joke that never gets a laugh. It may sound funny in your head when you're typing it on your laptop, but in the harsh bright light of the stage, it fall flats on its face.

Here, to great embarrassment to myself, is an example from the script. It's the scene where that dubious whipped cream beard comes into play. Beans, a stupid jewel thief, has disguised himself as a waiter and Cecil, the arrogant restaurant critic who popped in by surprise, sees right through his dubious costume.

CECIL: You're not Boris. Boris has a beard. You've just got a face full of whipped cream.

BEANS: I do?

CECIL: Yes. Right there.

(BEANS takes a taste of the whipped cream.)

BEANS: Ah. So that's why those cats were following me.

Ouch. The best thing to do with these jokes is rip them out of the script at your first opportunity and give them a quick burial in some dark alley.

Then there is the joke that gets a laugh the first time it's heard and never again. This type of joke  typically involve a degree of wordplay or wit, something that surprises you the first time you hear it, but once you "get" the joke, it doesn't offer anything new.

An example of this occurs when Tommy the Singing Telegraph Boy arrives on the scene:

TOMMY: Look, I need your help. If I don't deliver this message, then I won't get paid. And if I don't get paid, then I won't be able to get into clown college.

HUMPHREY: You want to become a clown?

TOMMY: No. I'd rather be an accountant, but my father insists I become a circus clown like him.

HUMPHREY: Those must be some pretty big shoes to fill.

TOMMY: You have no idea.

I don't mean to suggest these are lesser jokes. After all, most of your audience will only see your play once. Just don't rely solely on this type of joke.

Finally, there is that Holy Grail of Humor, the joke that gets a huge laugh no matter how many times it's repeated.

It's not witty. It's not particularly clever. I don't even know how to describe it except to say that it's just a long, oddly specific way to say something that could be said much simpler. And, as much as I hate to admit it, it's funny not because of the writing skill of the playwright but because of the delivery and timing of the actor.

An example of this comes when Cecil attempts to order some food from the sullen Russian waiter, Boris:

CECIL: All right, fine. I'll have the Duck L'Orange.

BORIS: I'm sorry, sir, but the duck flew south for the winter.

CECIL: Are you joking?

BORIS: Oh, no. The migratory habits of waterfowl are no laughing matter.

Believe it or not, that last line gets the biggest laugh in the play. Sure, it's a good line, but it gets a huge boost from the outrageously accent of the actor playing the part.

And yes, using an accent is a cheap way to get a laugh. But you know what? It works. Every single time.

So I'm now looking for ways to add more of these jokes to the script. After all, it's not my job to write funny lines. It's my job to write lines that the actors can make funny.

Character is not king

I've been a character-driven writer as long as, well, as long as I've been a writer. To me, characters are the most important part of any story. More important than plot. Even more important than setting. More important than voice.

In fact, when I start a new play, I can't even write the first line of dialogue until I've defined all of my characters and given each of them a distinctive personality and a compelling goal. And if I've created them distinctively enough and compellingly enough, the story will practically write itself.

Of course, there's nothing unique about this. As long as I can remember, the entire writing community has seemed to agree: Character is king.

Writing instructors teach it. Writing manuals show you how to do it.

Lately though, I've started to realize that character is NOT king.

Don't get me wrong. Having rich, complex characters is essential for any story. But it doesn't go far enough.

Character is not king. Relationships are.

I still start each play by creating my cast of characters. That helps me understand who the story is about and giuves me some idea where the story is headed.

But now, instead of leaping right into the dialgoue, I step back and take one extra step.

I think about the relationship each character has with every other character in the piece (or at least every other character they will interact with) and consider how that relationship is different from every other relationship in the story.

It is this difference, I believe, that really makes your characters come alive.

Let me give you an example: My Fair Lady. Maybe not the best example, but one which demonstrates my point and which I expect nearly everyone is familiar with.

If I had written the script (and I wish I had!), I would have broken out the characters like this (note that each character is given a descriptor, one or two dominant personality traits and a goal):

Henry Higgins--professor of phonetics, haughty, mysogynistic, wants to teach Eliza how to speak proper English

Eliza Doolittle--poor Cockney flower girl, feisty, wants a comfortable life

Colonel Pickering--friend of Henry, jovial, wants to win bet with Henry

Alfred Doolittle--Eliza's father and a dustman, lazy, conniving, wants to make money off Eliza

Freddy Eynsford-Hill--rich young man, starry-eyed, wants to win Eliza's heart

If you look over this list, you may think that this is all that needs to be said about each of the characters. But if you place them in interaction with the other characters, their personalities take on new and fascinating complications.

Take Henry Higgins. He's haughty and mysiogynistic, it's true. But this barely scratches the surface.

With Eliza his haughtiness takes on a patronizing tone and that's because Henry considers her his social and intellectual inferior. He treats her more like a scientific specimen to be experimented with than a real, flesh-and-blood person. Of course, their relationship changes as he finds himself falling in love with her, but his natural superciliousness continues to dominate his interactions with her, preventing him from showing any real affection until the very end when, in a fit of irony, he jokingly commands her to "fetch my slippers".

Henry views Pickering as a social and (near") intellectual equal. So while he remains haughty in this relationship as well, here this haughtiness takes a more competitive tone, playing off the old warrior's natural joviality to take the form of a friendly rivalry, as between two old drinking buddies.

By rights, Henry should treat Alfred with as much disrespect as he does Eliza. After all, they come from the same socioeconomic class. But when Alfred visits Higgins' house, Higgins is drawn to the man's gift for language and his utter lack of morals. Just as with Eliza, Henry is drawn to Alfred as a scientific specimen, but one to be studied and admired rather than controlled. Is this seeming inconsistency due to Henry's basic misogyny: behavior that is unacceptable in a woman is not only acceptable but admirable in a man? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it does add an unexpected depth to a character that we thought we knew.

Finally, there is Freddy. Henry and Freddy do not interact much, but Henry's attitude toward his romantic rival is spelled out in the song, "I've Grown Accustomed to her Face". Yes, Henry and Freddy are members of the same class, but Henry views the younger man as an intellectual lightweight, completely unworthy of Eliza's love. It does not even cross Henry's mind that that Eliza may be attracted to Freddy for his youth and good looks. All he can see is that any future marriage between the two is sure to end up in poverty and despair.

So there you have it. One character. Four very different relationships.

Of course, you could do the same for the rest of the relationships in the story: Eliza and Alfred, Eliza and Freddy, Freddy and Alfred (no those two didn't meet, but wouldn't it have been fun if they had?).

It's a lot of work. But I've found that it really pays off.

Now my story really is writing itself.

The most important step in playwriting

In my monthly playwriting group, I spend a fair amount of time giving advice to new and aspiring playwrights. Many become frustrated because they're unable to get productions, even with the proliferation of playwriting contests over the last few years.

Well, the problem, to me at least, is obvious. If you want to get produced, then you've got to write plays that theatre companies want to do. And that means things that are easy to produce: small casts, simple set requirements.

It also means that you've got to write plays that audiences want to see. It doesn't matter which demographic you're targeting: sophisticated urban adults, small town families, whatever. You have to have someone in mind that you're writing for.

That mean seem like obvious advice, but it isn't. I recently gave feedback to a playwright who loves to dramatize the stories of the Brothers Grimm. In all their original, bloody glory.

The plays are very well-written. But who's going to see them?

Adults won't because they're fairy tales. Kids won't because they're too violent.

I've also seen 10-minute plays with 6 scene changes and dozens of characters. These can be hilarious, but they read more like a short film than a piece meant for the stage. Trust me. Cash-strapped, understaffed theaters don't need the hassle.

Obviously, if your main reason for writing is to express yourself, then write what you want and don't worry about getting produced. But if your goal is to see your works come to life, then don't whine if what you've written doesn't fulfill the needs of the marketplace.

After all, no one owes you a production.

The other side of the footlights

Just finished a two-week run at the wonderful Millibo Art Theatre (formerly the Manitou Art Theatre) in Colorado Springs. Only this time I wasn't a playwright, I was an actor.

Yep, you read that right. I -- Mr. Introvert, Mr. Can't-Act-His-Way-Out-of-a-Paper-Bag -- took a rare turn on the proverbial boards.

It wasn't my plan, but when a prominent local director drafted me to appear in a play, who was I to question her judgment?

The play was "Out the Window", a hilarious 15-minute comedy written by the criminally talented Colorado Springs actor Jordan Mathews for FourPlay, a 44-hour theatre project. (That's my equally talented co-star Carolyn Sinon grasping me for dear life above.)

I was only on stage for about two minutes, but what I learned will feed my writing for a lifetime.

The thing that most surprised me about performing was how monotonous it was playing the role every night. And that was for just six performances! Carolyn and I had to change it up every night just to keep ourselves sane.

And that was the saving grace of the whole experience. Not only did it make performing more fun, it helped us come up with bits that squeezed every drop of laughter from the audience.

In our scene, we played two office workers taking a coffee break outside. Early on, we came up with the idea of me reading a newspaper as a veritable between my cocoon and the deluge of vernage spewing from her mouth.

We played with the newspaper a bunch of different way. Some of them worked, some of them didn't. But we didn't come up with the real payoff until the final night of the show.

That night, instead of holding a full section of the paper, I held only a single sheet. This meant that when she grabbed my newspaper, instead of it coming free in her hands, it ripped right down the middle in two long strips.

And I continued to read one of the strips, impervious to her rant, to the delight of the audience.

So what's the takeaway for me as a playwright?

Simply this. Trust your actors.

The script is merely a blueprint for the play. Lay the groundwork for the story, of course. But then step back and let the actors do what they do best: play.

The actors will be happier. The audience will be happier.

And your play will truly come to life.