In this week’s script writing quick tip I want to talk about a nifty little way to make your screenwriting instantly more interesting, engaging and emotionally powerful.
And it all comes from that screenwriting guru NFL hall-of-famer Deacon Jones.
Huh? Deacon Jones?
You mean the former American Football defensive lineman who famously used the “head slap” to devastating effect. (Forcing the league to eventually ban the practice.)
The ferocious mainstay for the Los Angeles Rams who coined the football term “the sack” because he intended to “wrap up the quarterback all day long.”
The Hall of Fame athlete who hated quarterbacks, even his own, and used to wrap a metal plate to inflict more damage.
Yeah, that screenwriting guru.
See, Deacon Jones recently passed away this week. And I had a chance to listen to his Hall of Fame induction speech from 1980.
And one thing he said has been haunting me ever since:
“Violence in its many forms is an involuntary quest for identity.”
And if there’s a better definition of a story, I havne’t heard one.
SUBHEAD
Violence isn’t just Michael Bay robot explosions and horrible Will Smith movies about the end of the world.
Violence, from a pure physics standpoints, is the energy produced when two forces crash into each other. And just like those superconductors that mash electrons together to reveal electrons are actually just energy…
…the violence that occurs when these two objects collide CHANGES the objects….
…transforms them…
…shows them to be what they really are.
So, how do we apply this to our screenwriting.
Here are a couple of questions to ask on the Big-Picture level:
1) What is the identity my main character “thinks” they have and holds on to at the beginning of my story?
2) What is the true identity my main character is trying to hide/run away from?
3) What forcef opposition would create a big enough violent showdown to force that true identity to come out?
4) What element of my main character’s backstory could make this showdown even more violent, personal, and significant.
Remember, Deacon Jones had his college scholarship taken away because he marches for civil rights.
The night before college football games he had to sleep on a cot in a gymnasium because no motel would let him stay there.
See, though, Deacon Jones retired from the game with mangled fingers, a broken spine and a walk crippled with pain…
…he always believed the inherent violence on the gridiron let him become politically-conscious, inspiring, motivating, nasty, quarterback-hating, civil-rights fighting, gregaroius, emotional, passionate, don’t give a crap man he was.
So, what can violence do for your main characters? (Chances are it might just be the key to taking them and your script to some amazing levels.)
