Exercise #4 Action

For purposes of this assignment, youll want to review these Bible chapters: Ten keys to creating captivating characters (pp. 50-69). Narrative description (pp. 164 -185). When I first tried my hand at scriptwriting, one of my colleagues told me, You should be a natural at it, Pat. Youre really good with dialogue. And thats the common perceptionthat screenplays are all about dialogue. But if that were really the case, wed all still be working on radio dramas. Screenplays are about dialogue, sure, but theyre mostly about the visuals. Making pictures. Moving pictures. Showing instead of telling. Youve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Well, a sharp visual is better than a page of dialogue that explains what the visual shows us. (Have you seen The Artist yet?) Trottier calls it Description. My Final Draft program calls it Action. Ive heard colleagues refer to it as Narrative or Instruction or even Direction. But it all amounts to the same thing: its the stuff that aint dialogue, the flush-left blocks of paragraphs that show your characters doing things. So lets try our hands at showing our characters doing thingsthings that show us something of who they are.

Job #1 (due by noon Monday 2/6/12)

Write a scene or scenes (1 to 3 pages) that feature description rather than dialogue. Youll probably want to concentrate on fleshing out your main character here. She or he can be alone or with other characters, but the focus should be on whats being done rather than whats being said. If you need a line or two of dialogue, so be it, but keep it to a bare minimum. And try to have the action show us something about who the character is and what his or her conflict might be. Using the free Celtx program (or another that youre comfortable with), post this exercise as an attachment in PDF, DOC, or RTF standard screenplay format. (PDF preferred. See the syllabus for details.) NOTE -- Heres how to save your Celtx file to PDF:
To save your Celtx file to PDF: Look at the menu bar at the bottom, the one that says: Script TypeSet Scratchpad Index Cards Title Page Reports

Click on "TypeSet". This not only shows you your script with page numbers, but above the script itself, it gives you the option to "Save PDF".

Job #2 (due by midnight Friday 2/10/12)

Read and respond to at least four of your colleagues

exercises by the deadline, the one posted just before yours, the one posted just after yours, and two others of your choice. (If youre the last one to post, then respond to the person who posted the first exercise. And if you are the first to post, then youll respond to the last person to post.) Question, comment, confer, commiserate, etc. Any tips for improvement will be greatly appreciated by the authors. And be sure to point out any formatting problems you see and the ways to fix them. And oh, yeah. . . . Dont forget to have some fun while youre at it.