How to Develop Your Own Voice as a Screenwriter: Three Techniques
It’s commonly said that screenplays with “a voice” are those that get readers’ attention.
Now we’re faced with a problem of definitions, what the hell, then, is a screenwriter’s voice?
It’s sort of easy to imagine the voice of a novelist, for example, because you can imagine Hemingway’s simple sentences or Faulkner’s interminable sentences or, for that matter, David Foster Wallace’s interminable (and ultimately crushing) neuroticism.
With film, it’s a little bit more difficult. You might think about Tarantino’s penchant for poetic dialogue about mundane issues that (seem to) have nothing to do with plot, or you might think about David Lynch’s unique blend of wholesomeness, horror, and comedy, but none of this gives you much of a window into how actually to develop your own voice as a screenwriter.
So let’s talk tactics.
Balancing the Screen and the Page
In screenplay, one has to think about what’s on the screen as well as what’s on the page. And, of course, how much of what’s on the page gets translated to what’s on the screen. The balance between these two things is very important, because the screenwriter’s touch on the page can easily steer the director and actor toward what the writer has in mind.
Never forget, while you wouldn’t write camera moves in a screenplay,* you can easily force certain shots by the way you write something. Similarly, you can use description and movement to give an actor a very precise idea of whom the character is she will be portraying.
Just take a look at Shane Black’s description of Murtaugh and Riggs from the first page of the Lethal Weapon script:
DETECTIVE SERGEANT ROGER MURTAUGH
Forty years old today.
Vietnam War veteran, 173rd Army Airborne.
Joined Los Angeles Police Department Fall, 1969. Currently working Robbery/Homicide.
Detective Sergeant.
Loves kids. Hates animals.
Smokes too much.
Has nightmares.
Not as bad as they used to be.
A family man, a loving father.
A world class marksman.
Except today he’s feeling a little old.
He is forty.
SERGEANT MARTIN RIGGS
Thirty-six years old in August.
Celebrated his birthday by watching Wheel of Fortune and
drinking a fifth of Wild Turkey bourbon.
Vietnam War veteran, Fifth Marine Division.
Joined Newark Police Department 1974. Quit. Joined Long
Beach Police Department, 1980. Eleven years; medal of valor (twice).
Never had kids. Hate animals.
Smokes,drinks. Shaves once a week whether he needs it or not.
Watches an incredible amount of television.
Teaches Weaponless Defense and SWAT tactics.
Proficient in all infantry light weapons.
Registered with the Los Angeles and Newark police departments
as a deadly weapon.
He is single. Lives alone. Wife killed in a car crash.
He is quite possibly psychotic.
One thing they both have in common is they hate to work partners.
Now this might be a bit of an extreme example, but you definitely know who these guys are coming from the first page of the script.** That is arguably useful. Yes, you can tone this kind of stuff down a bit, but adding a sentence here or there that is for atmosphere, description, or–dog forbid–a character’s thought, can work wonders.
This, my friend, is voice as a screenwriter.
*Or would you? Please don’t; it will get your scripts wadded up and tossed in the trash.
**If you’re really pushing back here, e.g. “Yes, but it’s Shane Black!” I urge you to remember that this was written in 1985 before this very script turned some schmuck kid called Shane Black into the Shane Black we know today.
- Adding Voice to Scene and Character Descriptions
You can take Shane Black’s example and write nice little asides, particularly when introducing spaces or characters. It doesn’t take much. Just look at the difference here:
INT. BAR – NIGHT
A small, darkly-lit bar.
Yeah, well, that gives us something, but it’s leaving a lot to the imagination for the set dresser and the DP. Now you could rely on these people and let them do their thing, but quite honestly, they probably actually want a bit more of a steer. You need to give them something to be creative with, if not totally prescriptive.
INT. MOLLY’S BAR – CLOSING TIME
A dank hole in the wall with patrons to match. Dull red lighting. Eyes peer from dark corner booths. If the place doesn’t moonlight as a cathouse, it sure smells like it does. Sawdust on the floor congealed by God knows what. Smoking indoors is presumably illegal, but nobody told these folks.
So have some fun. Stretch your literary muscles. Don’t go overboard in terms of puppeting actors, but remember that descriptions are your playground. You are quite literally setting the stage here so it’s your place to shine–and one excellent place to showcase your voice as a screenwriter.
- Embrace the Eccentric, Weird, or Extreme
To paraphrase Angus Fletcher, that computers have trained us to prioritize signal: essentially, we expect story to work a certain way, and we are keen to throw out anything that seems “off” or “wrong.” Fletcher would ask that we flip the script–drill down and focus on the noise, not the signal and see how you can integrate that into the story.
In an era where we are all pushed to self-censor, being the weirdest you can be is actually a benefit. This is where a Tarantino or a Lynch really shines. Work on pulling the most horrifying things that stick in your brain out of your brain and put them on the page.
Now of course this is rife with risk. The problem is that we live in an age where there are a lot of people who get their jollies by being offended and trying to police others.
This is where we enter the problem of taste versus voice. Certainly, it’s not good to punch down or be rude toward people or groups based on ethnicity, preferences, gender, etc. There’s really no excuse for that because it’s simply cruel and idiotic. If that’s your thing, then I’m sure you’ll find a comedy club in Austin where you can flex those muscles all night long–but do us all a favor and stop screenwriting.
However, you can get away with a surprising amount of rude language, a surprising number of fucked-up situations, and a tremendous number of horribly cringe scenarios if it serves the story. Cruel, idiotic characters can say cruel, idiotic things.* Characters can use terminology like “homeless” or “slave” even if some ass-clown will eagerly tell you that’s not the preferred nomenclature.*
Because, well, life. That’s the point. It’s dialogue, dipshit.
I grew up in rural Kansas and believe me, the casual racism and sexism there would permanently curl your toes. Growing up around this, I’m completely desensitized. That doesn’t mean I can’t recognize this horror for what it is, but I’m basically impossible to offend; much like watching a Connery-era Bond film (“Run along now dear, this is Man Talk…”), one just observes, jaw agape, and doesn’t comment.** Pretending like the problem doesn’t exist or “calling it out” in that obnoxious, privileged, white-bread college student way won’t get you anywhere.
What will? Tap that shit cuz that’s life. Make your characters awful. But make it serve the story. Make it a commentary about how awful this person is. And, like your dog in the park, roll in the shit. It’s transgressive, and that can be enjoyed. Just make sure it’s pointed in the right direction–as long as the character is vilified rather than glorified by the story, you’re safe.
Now hopefully we’re arriving at an evolutionary point where discussing a topic is not the same as endorsing that topic. To wit: Fire Walk With Me is a film about incestual abuse, but anyone with their head screwed on straight would pause for at least a microsecond before lobbing any accusations of the same toward its writer/director.
In my experience, however, it’s when I let rip with demented sex, violence, fetish, inappropriate commentary, and more that scripts have picked up steam. To be perfectly fair, it has probably got my script tossed in the bin as well, but one thing is clear–the times I’ve tried to write pea-brained pabulum for pea-brained readers, I’ve invariably failed. When I’ve taken the gloves off, I’ve occasionally seen success. Take that for what it’s worth.
Now… no one’s saying you have to be extreme if that’s not something in the story, but think about the sorts of things that only you would say. This is, by definition, expressive of your own voice.
Why? Voice. Art is meant to be transgressive; just make sure you’re transgressing with heart–remember Lynch–and you’ll be fine.
Of course some idiot with his bun wrapped too tight is going to claim you’re doing whatever to whomever, but just keep your head down and weather the storm. They’ll get distracted by the next shiny object and swim off.
*And I’m sure the Holocaust would never have happened if Hitler simply knew “the R-word” was no longer au courant.
**Observe, don’t interject. You won’t change any minds. In these casual situations, it’s really not worth the fight. If physical safety is an issue, that’s a different story.
- Add Voice Metaphorically
Think about the theme of what you’re trying to say and work this through the plot.
This is a good place to reiterate that if you’re using a template, whether the Hero’s Journey of the BS2 or whatever, only use it to help with edits. Don’t use it to map the script in the first place or you’ll undoubtedly hamstring yourself with all of this.
Think about how you can apply the idea of the metaphor to the way that the film itself actually works. This is a rather advanced technique, but bear with me. It’s easiest to look at a few examples:
- Under the Silver Lake – David Robert Mitchell expresses his horror at the meat-grinder that is Hollywood ca. 2011 by writing a film centered on a vast conspiracy that is, in fact, rooted in powerful men luring beautiful young women into an underground cult rife with sex and death. Of course that is nothing like what Hollywood does to people. Right?
Right?
- Eddington – Ari Aster expresses his horror at the world shitting itself during early COVID by setting up a scenario where no one looks good, everybody is demonstrably lying, your nicest characters have a murky history that may involve exploiting young women, and facts shift as the story progresses, and also the mythical “antifa” may actually exist only to swoop in and fuck some shit up. The unreliability of the normal story–lurching tonal shifts, bad information, untrustworthy narrative–all serve to give us a taste of the instability and horror experienced by the entire world in early 2020.
- Triangle of Sadness – Ruben Ostlund gives us innumerable triangles: the working class, middle class, upper class on the boat, the three parts of the film, the love triangle between the Yaya, Carl, and Abigail, the trajectory of the boat, and probably a few more I’m missing of the top of my head. Suffice it to say, the structure is in the title and the repeated geometric theme is something that Ostlund trafficks heavily with–remember, of course, that his previous film was The Square.
All this is to say, remember that the abstracted structure of your screenplay, scenarios, individual scenes, shapes of the conflicts between individuals, etc. can also reflect a particular voice.
To wit, in the above cases: Hollywood is essentially little more than old dudes with money perversely exploiting young women; all our facts are wrong, nobody is innocent, and nobody knows what’s going on; our world is constructed of inescapable triangulations that lead to the shitshow that is consensus reality.
This can be hard to do as a beginning writer, but the key point here is to pull out your theme. It might take a draft or two really to figure out what you’re trying to say, but once you have it, figure out a way that the entire story can be figuratively–not literally–that.
Conclusion
Now of course the screenplay is a package and there are doubtless many other ways that you can introduce theme and voice into your writing. Remember not to refine your edges too much. We live in a world that is algorithmically making everything more similar–literally (not figuratively) on purpose, because that’s how the math powering LLMs works!–so it’s incumbent upon you to embrace and highlight your eccentricities.
Don’t sand everything down to appear more similar just because you think that will win a contest. Perhaps that’s true in certain cases, fine–but consider the rewards if you write something that actually sticks in people’s heads.
As a last anecdote, I once won a contest–no names on the scripts, of course–but an acquaintance was in the decision room, unaware that my script was in contention (no names, remember). She said that what made the script a finalist was that its topic had disturbed so many of the judges that they wouldn’t stop talking about it. It wasn’t even rude; just very weird. (Maybe one day I’ll tell the full story.)
The lesson here is that if you go for the eccentric thing, it is more likely to be recalled. In a world where everyone has too many scripts and not enough time–provided they’re not just having AI read them all–then being the eccentric one will give you an advantage.