Joss Whedon’s Top 10 Writing Tips
A lot of great info and tips to any aspiring writer/artists out there amongst our readers!
Learn from the best when you can!
Appreciate the wisdom of the talented!
This original article can be found here.
Joss Whedon is most famous for creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off Angel and the short-lived but much-loved Firefly series. But the writer and director has also worked unseen as a script doctor on movies ranging from Speed to Toy Story. Here, he shares his tips on the art of screenwriting.
1. FINISH IT
Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.
2. STRUCTURE
Structure means knowing where you’re going ; making sure you don’t meander about. Some great films have been made by meandering people, like Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, but it’s not as well done today and I don’t recommend it. I’m a structure nut. I actually make charts. Where are the jokes ? The thrills ? The romance ? Who knows what, and when ? You need these things to happen at the right times, and that’s what you build your structure around : the way you want your audience to feel. Charts, graphs, coloured pens, anything that means you don’t go in blind is useful.
3. HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY
This really should be number one. Even if you’re writing a Die Hard rip-off, have something to say about Die Hard rip-offs. The number of movies that are not about what they purport to be about is staggering. It’s rare, especially in genres, to find a movie with an idea and not just, ‘This’ll lead to many fine set-pieces’. The Island evolves into a car-chase movie, and the moments of joy are when they have clone moments and you say, ‘What does it feel like to be those guys ?’
4. EVERYBODY HAS A REASON TO LIVE
Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue : you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny ; not everybody has to be cute ; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble.
5. CUT WHAT YOU LOVE
Here’s one trick that I learned early on. If something isn’t working, if you have a story that you’ve built and it’s blocked and you can’t figure it out, take your favourite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It’s brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise.
6. LISTEN
When I’ve been hired as a script doctor, it’s usually because someone else can’t get it through to the next level. It’s true that writers are replaced when executives don’t know what else to do, and that’s terrible, but the fact of the matter is that for most of the screenplays I’ve worked on, I’ve been needed, whether or not I’ve been allowed to do anything good. Often someone’s just got locked, they’ve ossified, they’re so stuck in their heads that they can’t see the people around them. It’s very important to know when to stick to your guns, but it’s also very important to listen to absolutely everybody. The stupidest person in the room might have the best idea.
7. TRACK THE AUDIENCE MOOD
You have one goal : to connect with your audience. Therefore, you must track what your audience is feeling at all times. One of the biggest problems I face when watching other people’s movies is I’ll say, ‘This part confuses me’, or whatever, and they’ll say, ‘What I’m intending to say is this’, and they’ll go on about their intentions. None of this has anything to do with my experience as an audience member. Think in terms of what audiences think. They go to the theatre, and they either notice that their butts are numb, or they don’t. If you’re doing your job right, they don’t. People think of studio test screenings as terrible, and that’s because a lot of studios are pretty stupid about it. They panic and re-shoot, or they go, ‘Gee, Brazil can’t have an unhappy ending,’ and that’s the horror story. But it can make a lot of sense.
8. WRITE LIKE A MOVIE
Write the movie as much as you can. If something is lush and extensive, you can describe it glowingly ; if something isn’t that important, just get past it tersely. Let the read feel like the movie ; it does a lot of the work for you, for the director, and for the executives who go, ‘What will this be like when we put it on its feet ?’
9. DON’T LISTEN
Having given the advice about listening, I have to give the opposite advice, because ultimately the best work comes when somebody’s fucked the system ; done the unexpected and let their own personal voice into the machine that is moviemaking. Choose your battles. You wouldn’t get Paul Thomas Anderson, or Wes Anderson, or any of these guys if all moviemaking was completely cookie-cutter. But the process drives you in that direction ; it’s a homogenising process, and you have to fight that a bit. There was a point while we were making Firefly when I asked the network not to pick it up : they’d started talking about a different show.
10. DON’T SELL OUT
The first penny I ever earned, I saved. Then I made sure that I never had to take a job just because I needed to. I still needed jobs of course, but I was able to take ones that I loved. When I say that includes Waterworld, people scratch their heads, but it’s a wonderful idea for a movie. Anything can be good. Even Last Action Hero could’ve been good. There’s an idea somewhere in almost any movie : if you can find something that you love, then you can do it. If you can’t, it doesn’t matter how skilful you are : that’s called whoring.”
I am so excited about this post. Buffy is my favorite TV show. The writing and all else about is phenomenal. I read Buffy in comics now and enjoy it.
Reading tips from someone whose work has impacted me, inspired me, and that I love is so helpful. Thanks for sharing this.
Glad you like it! Enjoy!
What a great post. Joss Whedon is an incredible writer and master storyteller. Every writer, regardless of format and genre, should pay close attention to his tips.
Agreed! Enjoy!
Hey, I loved ‘Waterworld’. Thanks for sharing. Joss Whedon is brilliant. I’d love to have even a tenth as much talent as a writer.
Oohhh….Waterworld?? Well at least someone liked it! Glad you enjoyed it! 😉
Waterworld – Kevin Costner in tight pants and lots of cool explosions, what’s not to love?
What’s not to love??? Kevin Costner in tight pants and lots of cool explosions. 😉
I never saw it in the theater; heard it was not very good…BUT when I saw it the first time on TV, there was something there and now I have seen it more times than I can remember. It has a depth about life and survival; about adapting and overcoming and hope that is layered. It has become a favorite. (and it has nothing to do with Kevin Costner in tight pants)
Mmmmmm Hmmm…sure it doesn’t! You’ve been hypnotized by the consistently wet and tight pants! Just kidding, if you find joy and meaning in it, who am I to argue. Enjoy!! 😉
“The number of movies that are not about what they purport to be about is staggering.” The truest statement I’ve read in years. “Terminator 2″ talked endlessly about pacifism, while setting up a world in which the painful deaths of billions could be avoided by killing one innocent guy.
Thanks, #1 applies to me in many aspects of my life!
I loved Last Action Hero.
Like all ‘how to’ tips on creativity this batch was antiquated the moment it was printed. Yes, all the advice is sound and must be understood by any writer but as a loose template (one of many) and nothing more. One creates from the eather. Ideas and their implemented forms are culled from the great beyond. They are discoverd not created. They come in blocks not one word at a time. When one writes they are not playing toys with their characters, sending them from one adventure to the next. A true creator is plucking fruit from the great tree that was itself grown from a seed shit out by the great grand daughter of mythology. There are no shortcuts. If ‘how to’ tips help you in any profound way you’d better be either 14 or accepting of the fact that you have a long road to travel before you find a morsel of fruit. Oh, and this first taste will most likely be rotten before it’s found.
Ah, but there’s the rub. There is a great difference between starving to death poetically and making a living writing for several years as a professional.
You’re talking about the well-spring of creativity, the Muse for which we all slave. I call him Leo. He’s a giraffe, and he’s purple.
Whedon is talking about the other thing, the thing where you maybe make a dozen or half-dozen ideas over the span of a career, while at the same time choosing what you want and keeping the bills paid. And if you’re really good at it and love what you do, you die happily ever after.
It’s one thing to lay out tips to, for example working with others in a professional environment, and quite another (and much less creative) to categorize all tips as useless.
Also: less absinthe equal more happy.
These are the only two creative truths I know.
You remain my captain.
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Brilliant list. Bookmarked, because I know I’ll be coming back to it.
And for my money, Joss is the smartest writer working in any medium right now. Not hyperbole.
Glad we could provide it for you Hugh! Come back anytime!
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I’ve lived my whole life with the philosophy that “the stupidest person in the room might have the best idea” and I listen to everyone and everything to the best of my ability. But, then again, I don’t listen when it sounds wrong to me (or for my story).
Great advice!
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Hope this is OK to print-out to self, will use it as a pep talk to myself!
PS. Loved Firefly thank you!
Great incites for me as an author. I especially took to heart: If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue.
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What if you have a feature script that has won 5 of 8 fests, a murder in first 4 min. and no clue as to the killer until the final 9 nmin. and you still can’t get anyone to look at it because of no “A list” star?
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That’s great encourage word..@-@ thanks
[…] Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue : you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny ; not everybody has to be cute ; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble. Continue reading here. […]
[…] The top 10 Writing tips from Joss Whedon are well worth reading. This one pertains to #2. ”Structure.” […]
[…] From onceuponasketch, Joss Wheedon’s top writing tips for movie writers but useful for all writers, here. […]