🎥The Muse: Meaningful Moments // Drawing to Help Writing ✍️// Silence on Screen 🤫 / / Top Five Films That Pack a Punch 💪

Dear Writers,

Who doesn’t love summer? Plenty of sunshine, good vibes, and, of course, movies! Particularly after COVID upended our industry, this summer here in the U.S. is seeing the release of many Sundance films that premiered at the past couple of festivals.

One standout is Nine Days, which opens this weekend in NY and LA. The film’s script was originally supported at our Screenwriters Lab and went on to win the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at last year’s festival. I’m bringing it up here for a couple of reasons. One, it’s Japanese-Brazilian writer/director Edson Oda’s first feature, which I suspect would serve as inspiration to many of you in and of itself.

The other is that the film’s wholly original conceit brings up a provocative question: What meaningful moment from your life—or anyone else’s life—would you recreate to experience all over again before you leave this world?

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot here, but I think this question is worth considering on behalf of your characters. What is that quintessential moment for them? Not necessarily the most important or pivotal moment in their lives, but a memory that they deeply cherish, that made them feel fully alive. Perhaps a moment that no one else even knows about.

Then think about why this episode was so meaningful for them and how either the moment itself or the longing for it has affected them since. Do you want to include this moment in your script?

Meanwhile, may you have the freedom to create more meaningful moments in your own lives, and read on below for insights and writing tips from the storytellers of the Sundance network.

See you on the page,

Cartoonist Lynda Barry got me through this past year. Her book Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor changed how I think about my work, and other people's work, and creativity in general. I'm a process nerd, and she offered so much insight and freedom and got me drawing. I'd always done "morning pages" à la The Artist's Way, or journaled, or brainstormed, but now thanks to Barry, I do timed drawings (draw one thing—a dragon, for example—in 5 minutes, 90 seconds, 30 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds) or a self portrait before I even try to write.

A: This critical question was addressed in a conversation at last year’s Sundance New Frontier Story Lab. In a discussion on Building Characters, Emotion and Story, screenwriter Joe Robert Cole (Black Panther, All Day and a Night) reminds us that "What you come to the movie with often affects what you get out of the movie." But, of course, in order for the audience to connect with the work in their own unique way, they need some stillness and space to react.

Filmmaker Melissa Painter (Wildflowers, Steal Me) has experience in narrative design for new media like virtual reality in addition to traditional screenwriting. She shares in the discussion that her approach to this "is about trying to create conditions that allow people to bring themselves into a sense of presence and into a sense of body in the experience so that they can have their own explorations that I couldn't possibly have predetermined."

So when you are writing your script or working on your edit, consider those moments when your audience might need to process a major turning point or revelation, or to pause to really connect with your characters—essentially, to bring themselves into your film. Those are the moments where you might want to pause the action and give your story a little space.

Fellow panelist and writer Jon Raymond (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy) elaborates, "Those kinds of silences and stillnesses can actually then become really expressive" because it allows the audience to absorb the details of the scene, and everything around the character, and thus, its emotional intention. He says, "You start to understand the things falling into place between the person and the place and the situation which is what allows the silence to become galvanized."

Read more from this conversation: Four Ways to Create Empathetic Characters (and Why You Need to)

I feel as though I am always writing, at least mentally—there are lots of journals and notepads scattered (tidily!) around my house. I don't necessarily recommend this as it incites more mania, which is already present in my overactive brain. In order to properly sit down and write, I need a clean sink, a made bed, and everything picked up off the floor. I don't worry myself with the laundry; that'll never be done. On the days I cannot fit in a proper writing session, I make sure to listen or watch something, giving it my full attention, and when I do, I will find inspiration. That inspiration helps bridge the gap on the days I don't have the space to write.

Every character is a protagonist in their own story. That's true even at the scene level. Once we have a draft, we can practice rewriting and assigning protagonist status to each of the other characters in turn. This creates layers and depth to every character, which can be retained as we go back to the initial protagonist. To start, try rewriting a scene in which you assign the protagonist status to a significant secondary character when they are forced to make a tough decision.

Things to think about:

The protagonist advances the plot, which means they usually have the initiative: they enter the scene with an intent, or they start by asking a question, or maybe they are faced with a problem from the start. Any characters can be in this position, even if they're not the main focus.
One of the protagonist's distinguishable features is decision-making. But ideally, all characters should make decisions, even if not as big or consequential as those the protagonist is making.
Keep an open mind. Perhaps you will discover that some scenes actually belong to other characters, not to the film's lead!

For more prompts in a live setting, join our free Writers' Cafe each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.