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Screenplay Prep

Screenplay Frustration

Frustration is good. As long as it is the right kind of prescribed frustration.


This isn’t the frustration you are thinking of. This is not the 2am scene where you sit as a screenwriter under a lamp, paused over a keyboard wrestling with writer's block.


There is another form of frustration which can greatly benefit your storytelling. It can be a handy mechanism to involve the minds of the viewers and get them invested. Any time you can get people to root for or scream at the screen, then you are winning and creating a bond. In many cases, it doesn't even matter if it is negative commentary if the viewer doesn't change the channel! It's like those annoying washing powder commercials which use tunes and scenarios which stick in your mind. You hate them, but remember the product when you're in the supermarket aisle.


The kind of frustration I refer to here is the feeling we experience as the result of a scene we watch on screen. That situation where one character doesn’t believe the other and threatens to torture him/her for the truth. They don’t accept the pleading and think that pain and suffering will usher in a flood of truth. But the information is simply not there.


This is obvious to the audience and so frustration sets in as we witness the futility of an uncomfortable exchange. By presenting such a scene, this leads to further investment into seeing the outcome. A degree of "care" for the character enduring the ensuing events is triggered.


Frustration can be born out of character stupidity. This works well in horror films and thrillers, where the oblivious victim is lost in the world of their cellphone, headphones on, and steps down into a dark basement while the hooded killer approaches behind them.


See how easy it is to trigger an audience? You must remember times when you have raised your voice at the TV or moaned at a ridiculous scene. Of course it is possible that these could be by accident and unintentional by the screenwriter, but cunning use of storytelling can be used to your advantage.


When reading through a draft of your screenplay have a look for dull moments and boring scenes. See if you can inject some kind of exchange between the characters to create some tension with the audience via the use of frustration. It can be as simple as an inappropriate response or action which elicits thoughts from the audience like these:


“Why did he do that?”

“Idiot went the wrong way!”

“I wouldn’t have done that.”

“He’s behind you!”


Just make sure to be mindful as to how you employ this tool and not force it where it doesn’t comfortably belong. You don’t want a reader spotting the use of writing tricks and seeing them as such. Keep it natural and flowing in a way that the frustrations advance investment in your story or even move it forwards.

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