A-B-C of motion pictures

by Robert E. Welsh

In a preceding chapter we have endeavored to drive home what we conceive to be the first and most important lesson in the art of photoplay-writing; that is, a respect for the work and willingness to devote serious attention and study it. Regardless of what the correspondence-school advertisements say, writing photoplays is no easy task, and selling them a still more difficult one. The screen is not a retreat for hackneyed, broken-down plots that failed of a sale everywhere else, nor is it likely to pay you for the idea that you dash off in a few idle moments. True enough, you can see many mediocre stories, many trashy ones, when you attend the picture theater, but the aspirant for success should not take the worst specimens for his ideal. It is bad enough for the staff writer to be forced to turn out such material to keep step with the swift pace of production, but the fact that he can do it so much easier than the outsider means that the latter’s efforts must be top-notch to bring forth the welcome check that comes with acceptance.

The would-be photoplaywright must first undergo a process of self-examination. He must be certain that he possesses the power of observation that enables him to see the germs of stories in the little incidents that would ordinarily be passed by with scarce a moment’s thought. He must be gifted with the imagination that will enable him to create a full-bodied story—a plot—from this germ. Lastly, he must possess the story-telling ability, or, more properly for photoplay-writing, the knowledge of dramatic principles necessary to relate his story in such a manner that the interest of his audience mounts steadily and is held to the end. These qualities the beginner must have at the outset. He can learn later the possibilities and limitations of the silent drama by studying the pictures in the theaters. Likewise, by imitation of a sample form he can learn how to prepare his manuscript in the correct technical form.

Let us take up in greater detail the necessary qualities that we have enumerated. We will imagine that you have pencil and paper before you and have set out to write a photoplay. Your brain is barren of ideas, but you can’t afford to wait for an inspiration; you might sit there all day, chewing the end of your pencil, before a plot-germ would come to you out of the empty air. But there is your note-book—first aid to the power of observation—let’s see if there is anything there to jog the imagination. Turning the pages of the note-book, you see brief jottings that represent weeks of observation. Here is a note prompted by a newspaper account of a train hold up in which the lone bandit blunderingly made away with the mail-bag, leaving thousands of dollars in currency untouched. The newspapers said the laugh was on the robber, but as you read the thought flashed through your mind, “Supposing a fugitive from justice, wrongfully accused, knew that in the mail carried by this train there was a letter concerning the condition of his wife who was critically ill back East, and that he braved arrest and possible death, not for money, but because of the strength of his love?”

There are possibilities in that idea, but somehow or other, as you revolve it in your mind now, your enthusiasm does not increase. For one thing, you know that newspaper accounts are dangerous bits of inspiration. Possibly fifty or a hundred other photoplay writers in all parts of the country have read the same story, followed similar lines of thought, and are about to write stories with this as the central idea. The staff writers have also seized upon it. Then, again, the only plots your imagination gives you to build around the idea are trite and ordinary. So you decide to let this plot-germ rest in the note-book until some future moment, when another jotting, or perhaps a bit of happy inspiration, will give you the material to make a strong, original story out of it.

Over the pages of the note-book you go again. There are accounts of humorous little incidents that you witnessed or heard about, and which will one day furnish inspiration for comedies. There are notes concerning unusual faces, features that, to an observant eye, seem to be pregnant with stories. A two-line note may describe the odd-looking house you saw on your walk last Sunday that brought to mind visions of ghosts and goblins. This is what we mean by the power of observation. Without it you cannot hope to succeed as an author, for there is no such thing as inspiration per se; observation is the seed of inspiration. Cultivate this power, use your note-book, never lose a moment in search of an idea, spend your time developing the plot-germs that you have found at the best of sources—real life.

“The ability to create a plot from this idea,” we have stated as the second important quality. “Plot”—there is the stumbling-block that halts the majority of beginners. “The biggest defect of the plays submitted by outsiders,” says Lawrence McCloskey, a photoplay editor who has handled thousands of such manuscripts, “is that they do not contain real plots. They are usually abstract incidents, more or less interesting, but without complications sufficient to hold the attention of an audience. Or else they are in the nature of long histories, telling the life stories of their characters, without definite beginning, climax, or ending.”

What is plot? In Editor McCloskey’s sentence you have the outlines of a definition. It is not an abstract incident, or even a series of such incidents. It is a story woven around a central theme, which is usually a crisis in the lives of the characters. It has a definite beginning, which is at the time when the causes are born which gradually increase in strength and at the last give rise to the events which produce the climax, the height of the suspense and interest. It has a definite ending, which should come as soon as it has been determined whether the crisis overwhelms the characters or whether they pass through it successfully. The ideal plot is the plot of struggle, whether physical or mental. The struggle may be that of two men for the favor of a girl, a poor man against starvation, an avaricious one for wealth, or it may be the struggle of a woman to keep steadfast her faith in a worthless husband. The climax is the point at which the struggle becomes most bitter, the outcome of which is to decide whether the characters win or lose in their fight against odds. The climax may be in sight to the audience soon after the beginning; in fact, a grouping of the early incidents so that the audience fears the climax produces suspense, but the outcome, the author’s solution of his climax, must be in doubt. Or, if it be sensed by the audience, the means by which he is to bring it about must be the author’s secret until he is ready to say the word. There are students who go further in the analysis of the subdivisions of a plot, and in dividing the different types, but the beginner who uses this definition as a test of his stories will not go wrong.

We will go back to the note-book and seek an idea that may be developed into a plot. Here is a hastily made note written to remind you of a pathetic face: “The wrinkled old woman and the worried-looking daughter who come to the post-office every day.” “Aha,” you say. “Here is a ready-made plot. I’ll have them coming to the post-office in search of a letter from a wandering son. They are in poverty, and just as they are about to be turned out of their home I’ll have the son return laden with wealth.” Beware of the ready-made plot! The studio mails are full of them, but no checks are drawn to pay the authors. The judge who condemns his own son, the little child who reforms the burglar, the upright district attorney who defies his sweetheart’s father, the political boss, all these are old friends of the photoplay editors. “But,” you say, “I saw one of these same stories on the screen only a few days ago.” Perhaps you did, but think it over. Wasn’t there something else besides this bare idea, wasn’t there some new twist, some original turn that lent it freshness and almost made you forget how old the plot-basis was? Let’s see if we can’t take the idea about the old woman and daughter at the post-office and give it a new guise. And before we start to mold our plot remember that we can’t compel the characters to do what we want them to do; we must give them a reason for every action. In real life people do not do things without a motive or an impelling cause, but many photoplay authors would seem to think that the fact that the author wanted his characters to perform a certain action is sufficient excuse for it. To check up: Originality and consistency are all-important. Seek a fresh viewpoint, but when you get something new remember that it must be logical, let it not insult the intelligence of the audience.

Starting out, then, we need a reason for the son going away from home. Suppose we change the young woman’s status and make her, not the daughter, but the girl who was to have married the son. They quarreled, she broke the engagement, and in a state of mingled temper and despair he ran away. Soon after his departure the mother is injured in an accident and her sight destroyed. Blaming her pride for the son’s leaving home, the young woman takes upon her shoulders the care of the mother. The son takes to drink and roistering companions; he descends lower and lower in the scale until finally he is a besotted tramp. We now have our characters drawn; we have a reason for the son’s action in leaving home, an “excuse” for his long absence and apparent indifference to what is happening there, and a motive for the girl in seeking to make the mother happy.

All well enough. We have our characters, but we are still far from having a story. An audience might be mildly interested in such people, but there would be no gripping suspense, no desire to know more concerning them. There would be no “doubt as to outcome” because from all appearances the lives of the characters are to continue in the same channel. We want “complications,” but don’t go after them like the average beginner and throw in action and befuddling incidents just for the sake of mixing things up until you are ready to have the son return home. And don’t fall back on the trite story we have already discarded—the mother in poverty and the son returning in time to save her. Let’s see: Mother and sweetheart are hoping for the son’s return, the audience expects to see him back. Can’t we introduce some element that would make his return also a cause for fear? Steer clear of that thought that tells you, “He went away charged with a crime, and he will brave arrest to come back to his dying mother’s bedside.” The audience knows that story too well. We have it! When the mother met with the accident the doctors despaired of her life. To make her last few weeks of life more happy the girl concocted imaginary letters from the son saying that he was prospering in a distant country. Later, when death seemed near, to cheer the mother and strengthen her faith in her boy the girl’s letters told of his efforts to return home, though the means of travel were difficult. But finicky fate ruled that the mother, though still blind, should recover her health, and the girl has been forced to continue the deception. Now the surgeon holds out hope that within a few months the mother’s eyesight may be restored. Here we have complications and suspense galore. Any way out seems to lead to trouble worse than any which our characters have yet encountered.