Michael Soileau, a former student, writes in with a question and a relevant scene that he’s written:
I’m looking to introduce a new World, the rules of the World, and a main character. The setting is urban fantasy with film noir elements. The most common method in fantasy is to use the “dumb kid who needs splaining” method. This is where the main character is not from the same Universe where everything is happening, (think Frodo in “Lord of the Rings”, Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars”, etc.). The other method is the “Watson” method, where a great mastermind has to explain to his/her sidekick why he/she is doing things in the storyline.
In my story, I opt for the approach of just having the main character narrate what is going on in the story. See what you think of this as a character introduction and an introduction to the settings of this particular World and environment. So here’s the intro to the World and the main character, see if it makes you want to keep reading or if you think there’s a better way to introduce all these elements.
(Note: I haven’t yet sorted out how to cleanly express script format in WordPress yet, so for this scene, the action blocks will be bolded, the dialogue will not.)
————————————————————————————————
(START OF ACT #1)
INT. RICK’S MANSION
A mansion is shown with beautiful masonry, decorated tables with gold-leaf trimmings, statues and art decorating wall. Further in, the scene becomes disheveled with BROKEN TABLES, SMASHED VASES, and GLASS littering the floor with BLOOD TRAIL marks.
RICK (V.O.)
Hello, I’m Rick. World’s greatest detective.
A thick crunching sound is made and a BORIS is kicking a man while he is down. BORIS is Russian, 300 lbs., with a buttoned-down shirt that’s been rolled up and a tie around his neck.
RICK (V.O.)
That is a big motherfucker. And no, that’s not me.
Boris pulls up RICK and headbutts him in the nose, smashing it. Rick is in his late 20s, not muscular but fit, and sporting a nice suit. His wavy hair is smeared with blood and he looks at Boris with a set of grey, glowing eyes.
RICK (V.O.)
If you can’t guess it, I’m the guy getting his ass
kicked right now.
Boris slams Rick into his expensive desk and punches him.
RICK (V.O.)
But look closer, there’s more going on here.
Rick’s nose is already HEALING the blood and tissue reconnecting and clotting up.
BORIS
Where is she? The boss knows you can
find anyone. We paid you, you found her,
you tell us.
He picks up Rick and throws him against a wall.
RICK (V.O.)
I’m what they call a “heavy Aug”. It means a
someone whose body doesn’t reject augmentation
and who can use magic. A “heavy” is a serious
magic user, less than one in a half million are considered
“heavies”. I’m the only heavy Aug known. Which is why
this is insulting.
Boris stalks over to the wall. Rick is listening intently to the FOOTSTEPS, which echo out. He is hearing an echo of the entire mansion, which shows TWO GUARDS waiting by a limousine for Boris. Rick looks up at Boris from the ground. Boris picks him up and rears back for another punch, but Rick rams his hand through Boris’s chest and starts electrocuting him by turning his body into a gigantic electric arc.
He runs towards the a window and crosses through it, standing next to the two men he overheard earlier. They are startled at first, but then pull out their handguns and try to fire at Rick. He shakes his head and opens up his fist, which pours out bullets. He holds two of the bullets inbetween his fingers and fake fires it into the first guard. A flash goes off between his fingers and the bullet explodes into the first guard, killing him. He quickly turns around and pulls off the same trick on the second guard, killing him.
Rick stands surveying the scene for a second, and then flops face first onto the ground.
RICK (V.O.)
Something I should mention here. Using heavy
magic is taxing. Think of running a marathon in
the space of two minutes and you’ll get the idea.
These down times are when I wait for the
augmented side of me to take over while my
normal body takes a breather and…
He hears a clicking noise. A scan of one on of the downed guards shows his heart has a device on it.
RICK (V.O.)
The problem with Augs is that you can’t look
at a person and tell if they are one. Some are
big deals, full muscular skeleton reworks, healing
and poison filters, etc. Some are small. Like a dead
man’s switch that calls out if a mark manages to kill
the hitters you sent to his house.
Rick hears vehicles a ways out speeding towards his mansion. He attempts to crawl in sputtered efforts towards his fence. The cars pull into the driveway. Rick stands up and teleports through the fence. His foot gets a branch shoved through it when he teleports and he limps off from the house.
RICK (V.O.)
Of the very few people born “heavies”, even fewer live
to adulthood. Not being able to control your powers,
like attempting to teleport when you can barely walk,
means the results can be very, very bad.
Rick snaps the branch off on his foot and keeps walking.
______________________________________________________________
First up, big ups to Michael for being gutsy enough to want his scene posted online, with feedback. He’s constantly working on new projects and isn’t afraid of putting his work out there, which is great.
Now, before we get into the specifics, a formatting concern. Make sure that you’re using scene headers to separate locales/time. We start out in the mansion, then when the fight is over, we have a single action block that starts with Rick hearing cars, then jumps to Rick moving toward his fence, then goes back to the cars in the driveway, then back to the fence, then a close-up on Rick’s foot.
As written: “Rick hears vehicles a ways out speeding towards his mansion. He attempts to crawl in sputtered efforts towards his fence. The cars pull into the driveway. Rick stands up and teleports through the fence. His foot gets a branch shoved through it when he teleports and he limps off from the house.”
You need, at least, an EXT. MANSION GROUNDS – NIGHT when the scene moves outside. You can further split that into EXT. MANSION YARD and EXT. DRIVEWAY or you can use internal slug lines like:
EXT. MANSION GROUNDS – NIGHT
ACROSS THE SIDE YARD, Rick limps toward the fence separating him from freedom.
AT THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE, cars roar into the driveway, spraying gravel.
AT THE FENCE, etc. etc…
But you have to solve that geography situation, otherwise your settings are too fluid. And it’s not correct format.
As for your ultimate question, “does this scene make me want to keep reading,” the short answer is… not yet. Not as written. I think you’re trying to make the scene do too much.
Right now, you’ve got an opening scene with some familiar elements: a kinda stereotypical movie thug interrogating someone with his fists. The reversal is that the guy copping the beating is actually superhuman and when he’s tired of fooling around, he takes all the baddies in short order.
Opening with our hero getting the shit kicked of him has potential, as does the sudden reversal. Where the scene is falling flat (besides the formatting) is in the 1) details, 2) shape within the scene and 3) the voice-over.
1) Nothing is popping out either description or action details yet here. The house is vaguely opulent; the baddie is vaguely intimidating and vaguely references a botched assignment. Vaguely. There isn’t much spark here. It feels too rote, too first draft-y, as if you haven’t fully envisioned all the details yet. So they’re not showing up in the writing.
Who is Boris? What does he want? Clearly some information. But he’s so boring. Basically just a pair of fists smacking someone around.
If you want Boris to veer more to the rote side, you gotta pump up the action and description more. Maybe incorporate the setting. In my mind’s eye, I don’t see the mansion yet.
One of the most catchy visual moments in DJANGO UNCHAINED (one that appears in most of the previews) is the brief moment when blood sprays on cotton plants. And it’s written in the script just as it appear on-screen. It’s a brilliant little moment because it’s visually striking. It’s cinematic. Perhaps metaphorical. And it incorporates the setting into the action. Tarantino doesn’t go on and on describing the cotton field, but in that moment, you are totally aware of the setting. So it sticks.
(Also take a look at the LETHAL WEAPON script. Shane Black does a great job putting you in the scenes.)
The action, as written here, is also pretty straightforward. A punch here, a headbutt there. So it’s not jumping out too much either yet.
2) As for the shape of the scene, there isn’t much flow yet. Every action, regardless or significance, gets pretty much the same level of emphasis. You’re not building to big moments yet. Rick hearing a clicking sound and Rick ramming his hand into Boris’s chest get about the same amount of emphasis. But they really shouldn’t.
Rick changing from helpless punching bag to electricity-wielding superhuman should be an epic moment. But as you’ve written it, it’s just the next step in getting closer to the end of the scene. When all the actions have the same “weight” then nothing stands out. The scene is shapeless. This is another thing that Shane Black is really sharp on in LETHAL WEAPON. In fight scenes, he emphasizes important actions and lets less important ones slip by quickly.
So build to and expand big moments. Shape the scene instead of giving a point-by-point list of things that happen.
Also, in a similar vein, moments in the script aren’t really connection to each other in an organic, flow-y way. For instance, the audience sees Rick’s nose heal itself (a big moment…) but Boris seems to not notice it. Or he ignores it. Or he doesn’t care. Or it makes him angrier. Or scared…?
We actually don’t know Boris’s reaction to Rick’s face-healing because there is no mention of it in the scene. Boris slams Rick into a desk, Rick’s face heals, Boris yells at Rick for a while, then throws him into a wall… But does he not see Rick’s face healing? Is he so worked up that he doesn’t notice it? Does Rick turn his face away so Boris can’t see it? Does he proudly thrust his chin out to ensure Boris sees it? Does Boris know Rick is superhuman and doesn’t even care? This is a moment that would help the reader get a foothold in the scene and a glimpse into the characters.
There’s more to think about here, in terms of shaping the scene, but I’m going to move on to…
3) The Voice-Over. One benefit to putting the action blocks in bold means that the dialogue kinda recedes into the page more. Which means it has to work harder to stand out. And, in general, V.O. dialogue needs to work REAL hard to justify its worth. Does it here?
I don’t think it does yet.
As a reader, what would you rather experience? Simply watching that reversal when Rick unexpectedly turns superhuman or having Rick tell you to pay attention while he explains statistics and typologies?
For me, it’s definitely the former.
One handy way to keep your reader interested is to give them little mysteries to puzzle, to keep them turning the pages. Ask a question, then when you answer it, ask another one. If you cut out all the V.O. and simply let the scene unfold visually, I’d want to know who this Rick guy is, how he shoots lightning, and why Boris was kicking the shit out of him.
Instead, I’m loaded down with “1 in every 500,000 people are heavy” and “augs” and “world’s best detective” and “dead man’s switch” and the logistics of teleporting. Instead of wondering who the hell this lightning-shooting dude is, I’m trying to work out the math re: augs and heavies. So there are only 500,000 augs if he’s the only heavy aug and heavy augs exists 1 out of 500,000 people, right? BRAIN EXPLOSION. MATH. WHY.
At some point, you’ll want the audience to know about augs and heavies and their various capabilities, but maybe not the very first scene. If you want to use V.O. to establish Rick’s disdainful tone or to juice up the scene, it might work. But to relay semi-tedious information in the middle of an action scene… I’m using my veto power.
Voice-over isn’t a sin. SUNSET BLVD made good use of it (framing device, perspective, and tone) and V.O. made LOOPER’s whiz-bang first act even whizbang-ier. But it gums up the works in this scene.
And so, in the end, this scene feels very much like the first draft of the first scene. Like you’re trying to cram the world into a single scene because there isn’t anywhere else to put it. Yet. For a relatively simple scene (beatee turns tables on beater) there isn’t much space to info-dump.
You mentioned STAR WARS at the beginning. But the first scene of that movie isn’t Obi Wan explaining the Jedi ways to Luke. You don’t need to establish all the rules of the world at the beginning. Sometimes a little mystery is better for keeping the reader reading.
FADE OUT 