Writing from the Inside Out

Writing From the Inside Out

by Bill Johnson

Well told stories are created with scenes that heighten a story's impact. One method of writing potent scenes is to start with an understanding of the moment of greatest impact, that revelation, line of dialogue, or action at the heart of a scene that defines a character, that defines a story through some action. When I work with writers, I ask them to find that moment and write about it in the clearest, most direct way. Then write what supports that moment, sets it up, that allows time for an audience to fully take it in. I call this writing from the inside out.

When writers start with what is external -- what a character looks like, a description of action or environment -- they risk starting or ending a scene at a moment of no or low tension. When every scene starts with this type of introduction or ending, it creates a sense of the writer needing time to get to the point, then time to leave it behind. While that's fine when writing a first draft, it creates a problem when those scenes aren't revised. Even one extra exchange of dialogue in every scene, or two extra action lines, adds up to pages that dull the overall effect of a story.

To discover the heart of a scene, start with an understanding of the dramatic moment of change for the scene's main character. That moment will often be rooted in what is dramatically true for a character being challenged or affirmed. Work back to what heightens the effect of that moment, what line of dialogue or action. Use that understanding to heighten a scene's visual effect. This is writing from the inside out. In this way what is most true, most dramatic, most deeply felt, most visually unique in a scene will not be buried under the ordinary details of what I call stage building. Like a building scaffold, stage building has its place, but it often serves no dramatic purpose in a finished script.

Another way to find get inside the inner life of a character is to ask, what moral dilemma does a character face as a story starts? And how can the opening action of a story heighten the impact of that dilemma? Make it visible to a story's audience? A character confronting a dilemma also faces making a choice, and by their action, they dramatically define themselves. A character with a comfortable inner world is difficult to convey (with the exception of characters who are comfortable in an uncomfortable world, a choice that still dramatically defines them). Such characters can come across as passive, simply reacting to events, instead of actively trying to shape the outcome of a scene.

When characters pass through a scene without some shift in feeling or of understanding, the risk is that the story's audience will also pass through that scene without some shift in feeling or understanding of the scene's dramatic purpose.

One way for a storyteller to fully experience the heart of a scene is a process I call dreaming. Let yourself relax and imagine a scene through the POV of a main character. Let yourself feel the emotions of the scene, internalize them, let the heart of the scene beat in your chest. Then use the words that most visually embody that feeling, that act it out. You can do the same for the other characters in a scene. Let yourself inside a character to feel the truth a character embodies. Consider what action would most confound a character, what moral dilemma would compel them to speak or act out.

I often dream scenes when I'm hired to do a rewrite. I use the process to build on the plot and characters already in place.

Another way to get to the heart of a character is to speak to them. Ask them what event would compel them to act, to speak out. Then use that information to strike at your characters.

Whatever method a writer uses to get inside a story's characters to learn what drives them can help give scenes a quality of having different dimensions.

An example of writing from the inside out is seen in the movie You Can Count on Me, written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan. The story has a quick, powerful opening: a husband and wife are driving home at night, chatting about a young daughter who is embarrassed about wearing braces. They swerve to avoid a pick up pulling onto the road, putting themselves directly in the path of a semi truck. Next scene, a young sheriff goes to a house and nervously asks to speak to a young girl baby-sitting two children. End of the scene. We know he's there to inform her that the parents of the children are dead. We know what he'll say. His struggle to speak is the heart of the scene, its moment of greatest impact, and the scene ends there. To listen to what the policeman has to say would delay the advance of the story. To start earlier in the evening to more fully develop the parents would serve no dramatic purpose. By showing just the heart of each scene, the story becomes more powerful.

We then see scenes of the funeral service while music plays. Crying children -- Samantha and Terry -- mourn the loss of their parents. The storyteller trims away the external --listening to people speaking at the service - to let us focus on what is important.

The story resumes ten years later. Samantha -- Sammy -- now has an eight-year-old son, Rudy, and a job at a small town bank. She must immediately deal with a new manager who tells her she can no longer accommodate her schedule to pick up Rudy from school. She also has to deal with Rudy building a fantasy around the father he's never met. For comfort she turns to an old boyfriend for intimacy. We don't see the sexual intimacy, we see the aftermath when she lays beside her lover. There's no suggestion of passion. That is the heart of this relationship, that lack of passion.

In another town, we meet Terry, a young man getting ready to leave a run down apartment. He's borrowing money to leave a young woman who clearly doesn't want him to go. By his awkwardness, it's clear he's not able to emotionally connect with her. That is the dramatic point of the scene. By introducing him at this moment of difficulty, it's clear he's the surviving son, that he lost something when his parent's died, and he's still lost. If Terry had been introduced before this moment, the audience would meet him, but wouldn't have as strong a sense of what defines his character.

When her wastrel brother shows up, Sammy learns that since his parent's death, Terry's been drifting around the country, including a stay in jail for fighting. He arrives a day late because he got lost on the bus, and he intends to leave the very next day. Quickly Sammy is accusing Terry of just coming to see her to get some money. He accuses her of being a phony. These two know right where the pain inside each resides. Before Terry can leave, the girl he left attempts suicide, so he doesn't have a place to return to. And, because Sammy's world has been upset with the new bank manager, it's clear she could use some help with Rudy. Terry agrees to stay.

For comfort Sammy turns again to her old boyfriend, leaving strict instructions that Rudy can only watch two hours of television. When the two hours of watching television comes to an end, Terry takes Rudy out to play pool at a tavern. When Sammy finds out from the local sheriff, she rips into Terry for having Rudy lie to her about the evening. Terry blames Rudy for not keeping their secret and goes off on him, using foul language. Rudy finds himself in a world that is not bounded by the carefully modulated, guarded feelings he gets from his mother.

Everything that Terry does angers Sammy, but a subtle undercurrent also rises to the surface. It become apparent that Sammy's been living in a rut, and living in a rut is what Terry hates most. Terry's very presence begins to undermine the life Sammy has created for herself.

The most carefully constructed part of Sammy's rut revolves around withholding the truth from Rudy about his father. Terry can't let that be. He takes Rudy to meet his father. When the father is abrupt with Rudy, Terry beats him senseless and is arrested. Terry shatters the rut Sammy's created around Rudy.

Her anger at Terry also forces Sammy to confront her own feelings, and something deep comes out of that guarded heart of Sammy's. She's involved with a man she doesn't love and involved with her boss because she feels sorry for them. Being around Terry gets her in touch with the idea that she can have her own life. At that moment the audience is led to the revelation that Terry, who has appeared to be completely lost, has found a way of life that works for him, while Sammy has masked being lost by staying in a rut.

It's a powerful revelation that arises from the feelings and needs of this story's characters. This is a film that lets us share the quiet and loud, soft and abrasive bond between this brother and sister.

Another example of a film that reveals the hearts of its characters is Yi Yi (A One and a Two), directed and written by Edward Yang. The story about a family in Taipei starts simply with a wedding, but deepens to be about life and death, about the nature of truth, about what we need from relationships and life. The visual rhythms of the story speak to the dramatic truths the story explores. Characters in the dark about their lives speak in dark rooms. Characters who are trying to understand what is true in their lives see different aspects of themselves reflected in mirrors and windows, reflections that offer no easy answers, or even questions that can be asked. The young son of the family buys a camera and starts collecting pictures of the back of people's heads so they can see the truth about what they can't see about themselves.

Many scenes in this film are one shot, a shot that is framed to express dramatic truths.

The film has a powerful ending when we see different generations of the family making some of the same choices as they seek to go from being a one to a two, a couple.

Writing from an understanding of the heart of a scene can guide writers to ensure that what's vital in a scene is not buried in detail. That scenes begin and end with dramatic clarity. That scenes have visual power.

(This article appeared in ScreenTalk, The International Magazine of Screenwriting.)

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