Film Courage: How does a writer know the beginning of their story? Matthew Kalil, Screenwriter/Author/Instructor: So the beginning is a very
difficult time as June the movie begins which David Lynch maybe he hates movie
but it's a great quote in the beginning I think she says oh no she says the
beginning is a very delicate time so the beginning of a story is the most
important part I think the first 15 minutes like any issues you have in your
story it's all going to eventually work back to the first 15 10 minutes of your
story it really is a difficult time I think it's when you first write your
story chances are you gonna rewrite the beginning so because you're gonna get
into some sort of a structural mess at some point you're gonna have to
rearrange things and adjust it and come back to the beginning and normally the
beginning is later than you think so you know you may think your story begins
here and you start writing and then you're like oh but actually my story
begins much later than that that's often the case in first time first drafts you
know you write your first draft and it's like you think your story begins way
back in Arkansas but actually begins when they arrived in New York you know
you don't need the whole cuts of stuff you need the guy arriving in New York so
stories I think the beginning so if that's what you mean by how does is
Rajan at the beginning of their story you may think your beginning is there
but it might not be by the time you get to the rewrite and you'll probably
rewrite your beginning more than anything else unfortunately people
actually arrived in beginning more exact way they start when they open the
document it's like at the beginning which is a problem you should actually
rewrite your middle and end as much as you rewrite your beginning but your
beginning will change as you write because that's when you're setting up
everything that's what you're setting up like you know that's for me it's like if
your story is an arrow flying through the sky this is the pullback on the bow
you know and it's as far as you pull back and it's where you aim and then by
the time you get into your second act or even off it three or four that you let
go so that's a very important moment at the beginning and how does it writer
know where they're beginning is that you probably don't until you've getting into
the rewriting process and then you change where you begin almost more than
more often they're not when you rewrite are you rewriting from the very
beginning or are you going back to where you sort of like how are you breaking up
the rewriting so I probably do go back to the beginning a lot but I try not to
it just seems to be the way things happen so your first 15 pages are
fantastic and then the rest you kind of tend to forget about the beginning and
the end are the most important so for me the biggest question someone can ask
themselves is what do I want the audience to feel when they leave the
cinema the moment they leave this in I mean in that last frame when the last
frame comes up and it finishes what I want the audience to feel at that point
and in the rewrite process I go back and look at everything and say does that
sort of that feeling that emotion at the end if not I need to change something
but might be in the beginning of might in the middle it might be at the end
where you have to change that that thing so yeah I knew that answer the question
but that question is that's questions in my mind all the time what I want the
audience to feel when they leave the cinema and does the scene serve that if
not do I need it can I change it can I toss it so then yeah I guess when I
rewrite I rewrite them all over the place but the beginning is so vital that
you and I be writing that a lot yeah do you feel like people really neglect
rewriting the middle yeah and so a lot of problems happen because of that
definitely I think look you know in the middle of the second act problems is
like it's a cliche I think that that is a that's a result of just structure and
just that it's it's it's like a tentpole you know because you got your beginning
awesome you know you know it's gonna end fine middle and lots of sure so it is
it's a nature of the feature film beasts if you're talking about feature films
that the middle is going to be difficult and but I do think people end up not
writing that just because it from the simplest reasons you open up your
document and it's gonna open up on the first page and you're gonna rewrite and
then I find like even the craftmas of so if the structure doesn't change much the
dialogue doesn't even with the craft of the script itself in terms of the words
used and the spot the sparsity sparsity of the words used and the precision of
the words used is often better in the beginning and then you get halfway
it just becomes Masey so I would actually encourage
people to not do what I do but to start when you do your rewrite try and
discipline yourself - I have my own eerie writing from scene 12 today and
then I'm only running from scene 26 because you know to make sure that you
pay as much attention to that as you can but yeah it's a standard error I guess
I've seen it a lot
you