13 Reasons Why - Side 9: Keeping storytelling clarity in non-linear structure

Side 1: The Setting
Side 2: An overly contrived premise can present a challenge
Side 3: Hannah Baker, from joy to despair
Side 4: Clay, an outsider who isn't an outcast
Side 5: Clay's tape leads to one of this year's most heartbreaking episodes
Side 6: Mr. Porter - Terrible Counselor or Worst Counselor?
Side 7: Do depictions of suicide provoke imitation?
Side 8: Generating tension that stokes viewer intensity

Today's writing tip from 13 Reasons Why is a simple one, but having seen a lot of amateur writers make this mistake, bears its own post.

The story unfolds in more than one timeframe. There's the present, the post-suicide timeline where the tapes are circulating and Clay is gradually understanding what happened to his friend. And there's the flashbacks which move forward mostly linearly (but not always) from the time that Hannah arrived in town. In screenplays I've seen writers keep things straight for the reader by adding things like FLASHBACK or the date to the slugline. Sometimes there's even a trick like writing the flashbacks in italics

That works when you read, but you also have to think about visual cues and transitions that the audience will need to orient themselves. In that regard, 13 Reasons Why is very smart. There was never a point where I was confused even for a minute about where we were in the scattered timeline. Since this isn't the kind of story where you put the characters in heavy old age makeup to signal the timeframes, that takes some wits.

Here are all the ways the past and present are delineated:

Flashbacks tended to be more colorful and warmer than the present. TRAFFIC used this kind of color tinting to keep its three concurrent stories clear, but with a much more aggressive tint on those scenes. 13 Reasons Why is more subtle, with the present feeling harsher and more blue-grey tinted. It also fits the emotions of the scenes - there's a more romantic feel to Hannah and Clay's life when she was alive and a colder sense to life after she's dead.

Early on in the present time frame, Clay gets into the first of many accidents on his bike and has a cut on his forehead going forward. It's a blunt way to instantly signal the audience which timeline we're in (at least when Clay's in the scene), but that makes it no less effective. If you're writing a script that bounces around in time, don't be afraid to be unsubtle. If you have an audience that's not giving their full attention to the screen, you don't want to risk them getting confused.

Obviously, Hannah's look evolves, the most obvious being when she chops off half the length of her hair once things have gotten really bad. In real life, drastic changes in appearance can be taken as a warning sign of depression, so it also works as a story point. It's worth noting that when Clay thinks back of happy times with Hannah, he always envisions her with longer hair. She herself does the same thing in her brief fantasy of them being happy together. I didn't think to watch this as closely as I should have, but it feels like the colors of her wardrobe become less vibrant.

Furthering that, take note of the difference between how Jess's wardrobe and makeup in the past scenes tend to show her as more done up and pretty than in the present where she's wearing less makeup and her hair is found more often in a pony tail than being let down and styled. The guys tend to look mostly the same in past and present, but the hard times are definitely reflected more in the ladies' looks. (Hannah's mother would be another example of this.)

Also, when you're writing this, think about transitions. Hannah's voiceover is often the device used to introduce the past each episode, but there always comes a point where the episode trusts we know what the specific storylines are that week and forgoes an in-your-face marker. Context matters - why would this specific moment in the present trigger us to go to the past? That's a question to be asking constantly when structuring a story like this.

Always be thinking visually. How is the audience going to get the information they need without becoming lost in the details? Yes, some of these elements are an issue of production design and post-production but always look for opportunities to underscore the differences in time frames in a non-linear story.

Side 10: Alex's storyline hides parallels in plain sight
Side 11: Fleshed out parents help deepen the other characters
Side 12: Episodic structure makes a comeback
Side 13: Thoughts on Season 2

Revenge - when it's okay to show us the climax first

Major spoilers for last night's Revenge in this entry, so if it's still on your DVR, you're going to want to skip this.

Figures.

Just one week after I run a rerun post about how one should never use the cheap writing device of starting a script with a climax and then flashing back (which I call "Pulling an Abrams"), I'm in the position of praising an episode of Revenge that did just that.  Actually, the entire season did that, as the pilot episode opened with a sequence featuring the events of last night's episode before flashing back 12 weeks to show how the plot arrived at that point.

I have to confess, that was one of the few elements of the pilot that didn't work for me when I saw it the first time.  I found the first few minutes a little jarring and disorienting, but the rest of the pilot was strong enough that I found it easy to ignore that one quirk.  In that opening, we were led to believe that Daniel Grayson was shot dead on the beach as the party celebrating his engagement to Emily Thorne was in full force nearby.  Meanwhile, Jack Porter attempted to hide the body, but was unsuccessful before Daniel's sister spotted the hooded figure dragging what she presumed to be her brother.

A good number of viewers guessed early on that Daniel's death was a fakeout, especially since we never saw the corpse's face.  When the conniving Tyler arrived a few episodes later, it didn't take long for fans to theorize that he would be the one who died on the beach.

Later still, when the real "Emily Thorne" - now posing as Amanda Clarke - arrived in the Hamptons and seduced Jack, a good many fans theorized that Jack's role in hiding the body happens because Amanda was the shooter and he was trying to protect her.  (Though under this theory, it was probably more likely that Daniel would be the one to end up dead, as Amanda seemed to have more motivation to kill Daniel as a way of hurting Emily.)  Amanda had already been shown to kill one person with little provocation and she stirred up trouble for Emily from the beginning.

Last night we finally caught up to the timeframe shown in the opening of the pilot.  In fact, the episode opened by "pulling an Abrams again" by showing Daniel clearly falling face down in the sand, followed by an unseen figure discharging their gun.  With that, the episode flashed back 24 hours and built up to the engagement party.  By episode's end, we'd find there was more to the reveal.

Amanda, attempting to stop Tyler, ended up on the beach around the time of the murder.  Jack followed her there and arrived in time to see her kneeling over the dead body.  Assuming Amanda did this, Jack tries to hide the body.  But as we learn when the crowd is summoned... it's not Daniel's body - it's Tyler!  Daniel arrives as the crowd gathers on the shore, presumably having been knocked out by the real killer... though he has Tyler's blood on his body... hmmm.

I admit that's a lot of explaining on my part just to make a simple point.  Why did "pulling an Abrams" work here?  Because what we thought we were shown wasn't what actually played out.  Better still, even those who were convinced that Tyler was the dead man had to have been shocked with how it all played out.  The misdirection at the start of the episode showing Daniel's body falling to the ground was an effective way to provoke doubt.

I don't see that kind of cleverness in 99% of the scripts I read with this gimmick.  Too often, flashing ahead to a climactic moment is used as a cheap gimmick to get an intense scene in early on as the hook.  It usually is a sign the writer doesn't have faith in their ability to drawn the audience into the story linearly, so they have to resort to the trick of saying "I promise there's cool stuff down the line if you just sit back and bear it."  Then when that moment comes, there's rarely much of a twist. 

I have to give Revenge some credit - they did the flash-forward trick twice and when the reveal eventually arrived, few people could have guessed it ahead of time.  Moreover, along the way, there were other reveals that could have been anticipated, reveals that raise the stakes going into the last stretch of the season.  (These include Tyler telling Daniel there's more to Emily than he knows, Emily's revenge sensi picking up Amanda, and Amanda learning that Emily may have tried to help get her and Jack back together.)

I still think opening your script with a scene from your climax is a cheap trick.  But if you must do it, please be smart about it. Don't show us what you're going to do and then do it.  Show us enough to make us think we know where the script is going- then pull the rug out from under us.  There always has to be more to the climactic moment than what you reveal in the flashforward.

Cliches I'm tired of seeing - Part Four

There's a tendency among first-time screenwriters to not have faith in the openings of their scripts. They're told to grab the audience from the start, but often first-time writers have a hard time beginning their story with an strong opening scene. My gut is that a lot of this has to do with early writers placing too much emphasis on backstory and exposition. Usually the audience needs a lot less exposition than the writer assumes.

In any event, it seems like an unwinable paradox to Mr. First Timer. They wonder,"How can I write an opening scene that will get an audience excited if they don't know anything about these characters?" Often, they'll go for a trick that J.J. Abrams both used effectively and beat into the ground - open the script with a scene from the climax, then flashback and tell the story of how things got to this high point.

As a reader, I find this trick usually has the opposite effect. When I see it deployed, I heave a heavy sigh because I now know exactly where this script is going and usually I'm going to have to sit through another 100 pages before the characters catch up to me. A good writer might be able to make the journey to this point interesting... but I think you can guess how often Mr. First Timer makes that work.

I'm sorry to say that even Abrams overindulged in this gag. It was a trick that was really effective once on Alias, during the Super Bowl episode. At the time, the low-rated show was hoping to pull in viewers who felt that the show's plots were often too complicated and inaccessible. So what did they do? They put Jennifer Garner in black lingerie and had her strut in front of the camera. It was a typical set-up for the show. She had to go undercover as a prostitute in order to get access to a crucial agent in the enemy camp. After a scene showcasing Garner in two separate sexy outfits, which lead to an action scene where the plane she's in loses pressure, the episode flashed back 24 hours.

The trick here is that despite the eye candy both Garner and the action provided, there were very few plot twists exposed in this opening scene. The audience didn't know why Garner was on this mission, what she was after, who this guy was, or really anything. As the episode progresses, it's soon exposed that this mission is the key to bringing down the entire enemy agency. However, J.J. didn't give that twist away in the opening. There was still something for the audience to be surprised by later. Jennifer Garner in lingerie was just the bait.

In other words, if you're using a non-chronological structure to get the audience hooked early on, make sure you're just baiting the hook - not dumping your whole supply of worms into the lake. I feel this sort of gimmick is overused anyway, but if you're determined to use it, use it well.

But before you open your film with a scene from late in the story, ask yourself it is absolutely necessary and if it's an asset to the story you're telling.