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For writers, why September 5 is a date worth remembering

doug1443



January 16, 2025


All kinds of people have written all kinds of how-tos on ways to get script readers to go through a movie script. And while they all have value to a greater or lesser degree, I have found a textbook example of how to do it best:

 

The screenplay for September 5.

 

This is a drama about how ABC Sports covered the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. On its face, it shouldn’t have worked. Much of it takes place in a control room. A lot of the dialogue is TV production-speak. There’s a good bit of insider action and overlapping conversations.

 

Not the stuff of breathless thrillers.

 

I couldn’t put it down.

 

And it not just because of the horrific act it depicts, which is well known to those of us of a certain age, or the writing, which is brilliant.

 

No, it was also about how the script looked on the page.

 

The first 16 or 17 pages are stage-setters, introducing the characters, putting them in their jobs, establishing responsibilities, etc.

 

Then on Page 17, there’s gunfire.

 

From that point on, the dialogue and descriptions are terse and clipped – often no more than one or two lines.

 

The characters talk like true professionals doing an impossible job in a crisis. There’s no pontificating, no opining, no “actor moments.” Even when the ethical questions of how and what to cover surface, they are handled just as succinctly:

 

“If they (the terrorists) shoot someone on live television whose story is that? Is it ours or theirs?”

 

The dilemma is put out there with absolutely no histrionics.

 

The descriptions are just as curt:

 

“Mechanical clatter in the dark. Muffled. Far away. Scary.”

 

“Marianne sees the portable radio in his hand.”

 

“A newscaster’s serious voice is a bad omen.”

 

“His AP Wire starts rattling. Roone reaches for it. Starts reading.”

 

You get the point. It goes on like this for much of the next 85 or 90 pages.

 

I have said many times that the manner in which content is displayed is just as important, and sometimes even more so, than what that content is. The fact is, huge blocks of gray (i.e., fat paragraphs) don’t get read.

 

You know what does?

 

Short sentences and short paragraphs. Not just because they are brief. But because their brevity introduces white space on the page. The eye loves white space. The more there is, the faster the read.

 

I realize I’m talking about a movie here. But the same holds true for novels. (Product placement alert).

 

A developmental editor of my new book, Failure Point, had worked with James Patterson, and she schooled me in the Patterson Way. As a result, two chapters became four or five very short chapters. Dialogue was generally limited to no more than three lines. The climactic scene – about 50 pages – was broken down into 20 chapters, some just a couple of paragraphs long.

 

The feedback I’ve received proves the point.

 

Almost to the person, readers have commented on the speed and pace of the narrative, saying that when they were 100 pages out it was damned near impossible to put down. If you want to write a page turner, which I do, that’s high praise.

 

And if you want to read the cinematic equivalent, look no further than September 5. It is a masterpiece of the genre.

 

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Contact:
Doug Williams
doug@dwraywilliams.com

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