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Working out your protagonist’s conscious and unconscious desires is a vital part of the screenwriting process. Some people have it all mapped out before they start writing, while others knock out a draft or two before it all starts to come together. We recommend getting to grips with the internal forces pulling your hero in opposite directions as soon as possible, as it’s pretty hard to plot anything without knowing exactly what’s driving them.

So, welcome to the second installment of our look at Miles’ conscious and unconscious desire in the film Sideways and how it’s woven into the plot. After the Call to Action in which Jack directly challenges Miles conscious desire, by stating he wants to get Miles laid, they soon arrive at the Hitching Post for dinner. Here, Miles’ is challenged once again, this time by Maya, a waitress he knows in passing.

Jack eggs on Miles to get to know her better, saying, even though she’s wearing a ring, it doesn’t mean anything. He also points out that she likes Miles but he just can’t see it. And the fact she’s into wine just gets Jack even more excited.

Miles’ conscious desire makes him reluctant to accept the challenge. It’s important to note that Jack’s conscious desire is the direct opposite of Miles’. The protagonist and antagonist want the exact opposite outcome—the foundation of all conflict.

Later, Maya arrives at the same bar as Miles and Jack at the bar. For a moment, Miles’ unconscious desire breaks through—he invites her over to join them. She does so, and Jack is his usual charming self, while Miles is slightly reticent—his conscious desire clearly back in charge.

The key turning point (and reversal) in this scene is when Maya asks what they’re up to tonight. Before Jack has a chance to speak, Miles replies that they’re just going to go back to the hotel and crash—his conscious desire again sabotaging proceedings, much to the annoyance of Jack.

Later, as they stumble back to the hotel, Jack points out that when Maya came to the bar, she wasn’t wearing a ring. He was right—Maya is available, but Miles’ conscious desire made sure nothing was going to happen that night.

Miles’ rejection of Maya signals the Act One Turning point. Note how this is the wrong decision. His conscious desire has such a hold on him that this is the only decision he can make at this point.

Be sure to click here to find out how Miles and his conscious desire traverse the rest of Sideways.

So, you’ve worked out both a strong conscious desire and unconscious desire for your hero. But how do you weave both throughout your story’s plot points?  In this post, we’ll take a look at weaving conscious and unconscious desire into the set-up, and in subsequent posts tackle the rest of the screenplay.

Let’s use Sideways as an example. We’ve chosen this film as it’s a great character study, with elements of comedy and drama. Action and horror films are not conducive for study on this subject as the hero has little or no arc. The arc being, of course, the hero’s character transformation from living a life driven by unconscious rather than conscious desire.

Set Up—Miles’ Conscious Desire

The set-up needs to quickly get across to the reader your hero’s flawed condition.

In the opening scenes of Sideways, we briefly see Miles and the state his life is in as ruled by his conscious desire. He’s middle aged, living alone and hung-over (again.) Basically, he’s stuck in the hole his conscious desire has dug for him.

Moving his car for the workmen is a major hassle. He’s overslept and late to pick up Jack for their wine tasting trip, but still takes his time getting there—flossing, stopping for coffee. When he finally arrives, he lies about the traffic.

He makes them stop at his mother’s house to wish her happy birthday, but then steals money from her secret stash. At his mother’s we also learn he’s still living in the past regarding his ex, Victoria, who he split up with two years ago.

Call to Action—Miles’ Conscious Desire Clashes with Jack’s

Jack, on the other hand, is the antagonist—the physical representation of Miles’ unconscious desire. He’s gregarious, out-going, confident, and a womanizer. The Call to Action turning point arrives when Jack tells Miles he’s going to get him laid.

It’s Miles’ conscious desire talking when he replies, “Jack. This week is not about me. It’s about you. I’m going to show you a good time.” Miles, stuck in his old mode of behaviour and mourning the loss of Victoria, has no intention of chasing women.

This is where Jack’s conscious desire and Miles’ conscious desire clash to form the first major conflict of the film—how will Miles react to Jack’s challenge? Miles’ initial reaction is fuelled by his conscious desire—he just wants to relax, play golf and drink wine. If Miles had his way this is exactly how the week would go down, but Jack’s conscious desire directly challenges this. Miles’ unconscious desire is soon to be awoken…

Check back for part two on weaving your hero’s conscious and unconscious desire into the plot.

In today’s post we’re going to attempt to shed light on a particularly confusing area for many writers. Yes, we are going to dive into the murky world of your protagonist’s unconscious desire.

OK, you have a hero, but are you completely clear on what both their conscious and unconscious goals are? There are many differing terms floating around the world of screenwriting on this subject, but basically they all mean the same thing:

Outer Goal / Inner Goal

Conscious Desire / Unconscious Desire

Want / Need

In the examples above, the one on the left equals your main plot—the hero’s goal they think they want and battle fiercely for throughout the film to achieve. The one on the right equals a subplot—the goal they really want, they just don’t know it yet. But by the film’s end, the unconscious desire trumps the conscious desire and they end up with what they need, not what they want.

At around twelve minutes into a film, most protagonists have to make a decision on what to do about the Call to Action, (or Inciting Incident, if you prefer.) This decision is what propels them into the uncharted territory of Act Two and is their conscious desire talking. It is also, invariably, the wrong one. In Act One they are still flawed individuals, therefore, any decision they make will invariably be flawed also.

As they battle their way through the script, their unconscious desire grows louder and louder until they can’t ignore it any longer. But the conscious desire is not completely dead and buried just yet, and comes back to bite just when things are coming up roses with their shiny new unconscious desire.

And what makes it extra powerful is the fact that it’s the protagonist’s own fault. Either they have been lying all along—a lie involving their old way of life (and conscious desire,) or they revert to their old ways and literally slip back into that old persona—what their conscious desire wants.

Let’s take a closer look at this using an example.

At the start of Wedding Crashers, John and Jeremy want to crash weddings and get laid. This is their conscious desire. They crash the Cleary wedding and hook up with Gloria and Claire. By the midpoint it’s clear John is falling for Claire. His experiences with her make him realize he doesn’t want to mess around anymore but actually needs to settle down and fall in love. But neither he nor Jeremy have completely shed their old way of life and conscious desire. They are still lying to Gloria and Claire, and to themselves about what they really want. This, of course, comes back to haunt them when the girls find out the truth.

This loss causes them, (John specifically) to realize the errors of his ways and to change. The unconscious desire trumps the conscious desire. He will do anything to win back Claire and does so by the end of the film.

Once you really understand your protagonist’s conscious desire, unconscious desire, want and need, your screenplay will come on in leaps and bounds. In another post, we’ll explain how both the conscious and unconscious desire work simultaneously through a screenplay’s plot points.

Screenwriters are constantly being told to “set things up” in their screenplays. The opening scenes, heck, sometimes the whole first act, needs to “set-up the characters, time, place, and establish the world of the story.”

Hmm… We realize, of course, certain things need to be set-up, but we also think this kind of advice is the reason so many scripts from budding writers fail. Whole chunks of the first act end up being spent on back-story—explaining who the main protagonist is, where they work, who their friends are, their love life, their favorite donut shop etc. etc. It’s amazing how often we receive a script in which nothing noteworthy happens until page forty. And the main culprit for this is too much set-up.

So, in this post we’re going to de-bunk the myth of setting-up, and show how you should be writing your opening scenes.

When weaning screenwriters off the tendency to spend their opening pages explaining things, the phrase “Hit the ground running” seems to crop up remarkably often. There is simply no better way to put it—hit the ground running.

In other words, start your script with your protagonist already in forward motion. Something has just happened in the back-story, and when we first see them they are already acting on it. Or maybe nothing happened as yet, but within the next few pages something had better kick off!

It is important to remember that films need to grab an audience’s attention right from the get-go, and the best way to do this is by creating an immediate problem and, therefore, forward story movement. Story should always, ALWAYS, take preference over set-up.

Think back to some of your favorite films. They all seem to throw you in at the deep end of the story, don’t they?

So, you’re writing a script about a sheriff at a coastal town. Do you spend pages setting-up his family life, his friends at the local bar, and his job? And then on page fifteen kick-start the story by making a shark attack and kill someone? I hope not. In Jaws, a girl is dead from a shark attack by the end of the first scene. Chief Brody receives a call from the station telling him about the attack in the next scene. Just eight minutes into the film, Brody’s looking at the dead girl laid out on the beach, and the story is up and running.

As we’ve already mentioned in our post on misused screenwriting terms, Sideways begins the morning Miles leaves to pick up Jack for their trip. There are no setting-up scenes of Miles teaching class, writing his novel in Starbucks, or hanging out with Jack. We find out that he teaches English, has written a novel, and is friends with Jack along the way.

North by Northwest opens with Roger O. Thornhill dictating some notes to his secretary and jumping in a cab. All pretty mundane. But in the next scene he is apprehended by two men who stick a gun into his ribs. All of a sudden, Roger has a big problem, and it’s arrived by the second scene. Where’s the set-up?

Cut the back-story, hit the ground running, get to the main story as quickly as possible and you’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of ninety per-cent of aspiring writers out there. We look forward to receiving your trimmed down screenplays very soon!

I was leafing through my copy of Cinematic Storytelling by Jennifer Van Sijll, when I came across her analysis of the “adrenalin shot” scene in Pulp Fiction. Her analysis of this scene neatly follows on from our series of posts on how to improve your scene description.

So, in today’s post we thought we’d take a look at writing action within a scene and how to improve it.  (By “action” we don’t necessarily mean guns blazing at helicopters. Action means character movements not covered by scene description or dialogue.)

This technique not only generates much more suspense in a scene, but also creates a leaner, more focussed writing style. Who can argue with that? So, let’s get to it.

Remember the scene in Pulp Fiction when Mia overdoses and Vincent plunges a needle into her chest? Here’s the style of writing many less-experienced writers would employ when tackling this scene:

Vincent holds the needle above his head, ready to plunge it in Mia’s chest.

VINCENT

Count to three.

LANCE

One… Two… Three!

Vincent plunges the needle hard into her chest.

Mia’s eyes pop open and she bolts upright, screaming.

*                    *                    *

Now, take a look at how Tarantino actually wrote the scene:

Vincent lifts the needle up above his head in a stabbing motion. He looks down on Mia.

Mia is fading fast. Soon nothing will help her.

Vincent’s eyes narrow, ready to do this.

VINCENT

Count to three.

LANCE

One…

RED DOT on Mia’s body.

Needle raised ready to strike.

LANCE (O.S)

…two…

Jody’s face is alive with anticipation.

NEEDLE in the air, poised like a rattler ready to strike.

LANCE (O.S)

…three!

The needle leaves frame, THRUSTING down hard.

Vincent brings the needle down hard, STABBING Mia in the chest.

Mia’s head is JOLTED from the impact.

The syringe plunger is pushed down, PUMPING the adrenalin out through the needle.

Mia’s eyes POP WIDE OPEN and she lets out a HELLISH cry of the banshee. She BOLTS UP in a sitting position, needle stuck in her chest – SCREAMING.

*                    *                    *

The main difference between the two versions is the amount of suspense generated. The first has very little, but the second is full of tension. But how does Tarantino create this tension? Well, as Jennifer points out, it’s all about extending time.

The first version is in fact closer to real time. In real life Vincent would take a moment to prepare himself, lift up the needle above his head, wait for Lance’s three second countdown and plunge it in. This is what happens in the first version, but in Tarantino’s version everything is slowed down, thus increasing the amount of suspense as we wait for Vincent to plunge the needle into Mia’s chest.

He does this by using cutaways and reaction shots of the other characters in the scene. Each line, while not mentioning “CLOSE UP”, “MEDIUM SHOT,” or “WIDE” distinctly implies one of these nevertheless. “Vincent’s eyes narrow.” “The red dot on Mia’s chest.” etc. all serve to increase our anxiety because we’re literally left waiting for it to happen.

By expanding time to create suspense, the writer is letting the audience know this is an important moment in the film. It’s a great technique to use in those critical scenes such as major act breaks and the climax and is very effective at heightening suspense when needs be.

Be sure to not only catch our next post on writing action within a scene but, if you haven’t already done so, pick up a copy of Jennifer’s book, Cinematic Storytelling. It’s designed for filmmakers but contains a ton of great info for writers too.

In the third of our posts on improving your screenwriting style we’re going to take a look at a piece of scene description from The Virgin Suicides. Again, we’re going to write an “uninspired” version of the scene description, followed by the actual scene description in the screenplay.

So, here’s a piece of description from the screenplay to The Virgin Suicides.

A less skilled writer would write the following scene like this:

EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD – BALDINO’S HOUSE – DAY

The neighborhood boys are all listening to PAUL BALDINO speak. Paul seems to think he is some kind of gangster. We can see he is wearing a gold pinky ring as he throws his arms about.

PAUL

She sprayed the place, man – there was blood everywhere!

*                    *                    *

Instead, Sofia Coppola writes the scene like this:

EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD – BALDINO’S HOUSE – DAY

The neighborhood boys are gathered around PAUL BALDINO. Paul, who at 14, is a junior version of his gangster father, with dark pit-bull circles under his eyes, and wide hips. He waves his hands as he talks, his gold pinky ring catching the light. The boys listen to him intensely.

PAUL

She sprayed the place, man – there was blood everywhere!

*                    *                    *

As in the Sideways example, in this piece of description, Sofia “directs” the viewer with her sentences. The description starts with “The neighborhood boys are gathered around PAUL BALDINO.” This implies a wide shot of the boys listening to Paul. Then, we focus on Paul himself with his snippet of description. Then there is a “CLOSE UP” of his pinky ring catching the sunlight as he talks. Finally, we are back on the boys, maybe up close, maybe still wide, as they continue to listen.

Also, notice her choice of words. The line, “Paul, who at 14, is a junior version of his gangster father, with dark pit-bull circles under his eyes, and wide hips,” brilliantly describes his character without even mentioning what he’s wearing or his hair style. With the allusion to his “gangster father” we know exactly where this kid’s coming from.

And notice the choice of words when describing the boys. “Gathered” suggests attentiveness, and in the final line, with the word “intensely” we can practically see their faces full of concentration.

We hope this has been helpful and in our next post we’ll break down another scene and analyze its scene description. Keep writing!