On Writing : What aspect do you struggle with? by Mario Leone

I struggle with dialogue sometimes, Mario Leone, but two things that help me with writing dialogue are knowing the characters' personalities well and picturing the characters talking.

Not so much a struggle as an over-write for me - and actually kinda liberating Mario Leone. I throw everything in and then mix it down with edits that open up rewrites that require more edits... rewrites, etc... But my biggest struggle is with finding the humanity in my antagonist(s). Finding a way to make an antagonist sympathetic is not so easy sometimes.

I find my only real "struggle" when writing is...writing for a broader audience than myself!

i struggle with everythinggggg!!!! i still write my ass off tho lol (:

I'm not struggling per se, but learning the formatting nuances from play writing to screenwriting and my decades long habit which now don't translate! For instance, when using ALL CAPS in stage plays its to stress the word, and I did this in a film script and someone told me it meant "singing." huh

I don't think I struggle with any of it... I just HATE doing rewrites, because I've never been fond of reading (or watching) something more than once. So I get sick of my own scripts and don't wanna keep reading them anymore and just go "Meh! Good enough!"

Susan Kelejian I use caps for emphasis in dialogue in addition to usage in initial character introduction, unexpected sound effects, etc. I was told some screenwriters do the former and some don't. Never heard of the singing denotation. Interesting.

Mike Childress you know what I think... that we just get the basics in (margins for example, font) and then organically and authentically write. Yeah, I had never heard that cap thing either.

It's kind of like the quotation marks vice no quotation marks thing. Is a script reader really going to be put off/confused by uppercase words?

Mike Childress Just a heads up -- putting sound effects and props and things in ALL CAPS is considered by many (myself included) to be an outdated formatting thing that should no longer be in spec scripts (although, admittedly, they often get added back in for shooting scripts so departments heads know what they need at a glance). When giving notes to writers, I always redflag these instances, and when judging scripts for contests I give this a reduction in points in the formatting section -- and I know I'm FAR from being the only reader/judge who does so.

Travis Seppala You just highlighted an excellent point about subjectiveness in reading/judging. How many readers in the multitude of screenwriting competitions in existence are also going to subtract points for a writer using caps for unexpected sound effects when that was seemingly the standard previously? Like anything screenwriting appears to have different schools of thought about MANY different format protocols, and the problem, in perpetuity, is you have imperfect information re: exactly WHO is reading/judging your script. For me, because I am attempting to effectively get the reader to visualize my words as efficiently as possible, capitalizing that BANG or THUD just seems to be utterly and absolutely logical. And sometimes the capitalizations are re-added?! I think Susan made an excellent point re: "writing organically" and then kind of letting your authentic self dictate some of the minutiae in writing.

Mike Childress OH! You're referring to Onomatopoeia (BANG! THUD! etc). I was talking about things like the PHONE RINGS or the ENGINE ROARS (which is what I thought you were referring to).

Travis Seppala Ahhhh. One thing about screenwriting after writing in other realms, e.g. academia, different professional environments, short story fiction, etc. is you bring ALL those habits (good or bad) with you. My brain muscle memory wants me to write full on novels in Action Lines. So I am forcing myself to start thinking more like a screenwriter, and taking cues from what I read on proper format (outside of what Final Draft steers me to). As you know the competition rules are usually just like, 'Make sure it's an actual screenplay, and in PDF format!"

Don’t struggle with writing per sae, though plot can take a while depending on story & re writes can be riddled with choice/indecision I enjoy the ride. However regards format I sometimes stumble on “technical” glitches to do with varying types of software.

Notice in thread list 1,2,3 is plot, concept, characters. The Holy Trinity! Agree with order of importance & kinda think of them as the bones.. In the past I’d a problem with dialogue in that I wrote too much having come from a theatrical background. That slowly changed over the years. I’m currently doing a fun challenge to write a non dialogue short.

PS Guess I’m No 8 on list!