I've been reading up on screenwriting lately. Screenwriting advice often resonates with me more than fiction writing advice.
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John August's website Question: It seems a lot of my scripts revolve around a character’s inner struggle and their inner demons creating destructive physical reactions (acting out). My question is: What if the main character’s motivation is finding their way because they are lost? Isn’t this a purely mental obstacle? I know you say to make these obstacles physical and simple but this is the complete opposite. Any help would be appreciated.
Answer: Write a book. Or a song. Or a poem.
Sure, many great movies feature characters struggling against their demons, or attempting to find themselves. But it’s invariably played as subtext against a more external conflict — the one that actually drives the plot. You need to be able to point the camera at something.
(BTW, David Guterson's
East of the Mountains, for me, did the amazing feat of being extremely internal, yet with external life-death conflict.)
Sure, not everything in August's entry is to agree with. For one, I can't get with the assumption that books don't need external conflicts. Still, the gist of it is true. Besides writing the script, we fiction writers have to operate the camera (and design the set, costumes, etc.). So we need to give ourselves something to point the camera at.
Lots of other juicy stuff on August's website. Another entry I liked was
How to introduce a character.
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