Competition for FD and Screenwriter?

This very puffy Variety piece says that lots of new screenwriters are ignoring the (expensive) two top screenwriting formatting programs, Final Draft and Screenwriter, in favor of newcomers like Scripped.

Over the past few decades, Write Brothers' Movie Magic Screenwriter has been the Pepsi to Final Draft's Coke in the screenwriting software aisle. With the exception of the niche occupied by Celtx, an open-source, all-in-one screenwriting and production package, the two companies have all but dominated the field.

Recently, however, Scripts Pro, ScriptWrite, Million Dollar Screenwriting and Scripped.com have popped up. And while none appear ready to overturn the big boys anytime soon, they could develop into significant competition down the road.

Discuss...

Studio Notes on THE MAGIC FLUTE

Wolfie, baby:

I checked out your show, THE MAGIC FLUTE. First of all, the music -- terrific. I think the soundtrack is going to be a smash.

Glad to see you're getting back to comedy. I mean, I loved Don G as much as anyone, but in a recession people want to laugh. There just isn't an audience for tragedy outside of HBO.

I gotta say, though, the plot could use some strengthening. Characters, too.

So basically you've got this prince, Tamino. When we meet him he's terrified by a big serpent. Three women kill the serpent, then run off. Really? Normally wouldn't you want to introduce your hero doing something heroic? Especially since the Queen of the Night immediately selects him to go rescue her daughter Pamina.

In fact, he never does anything heroic, ever. He spends the rest of the movie either following orders (the Queen's, Sarastro's -- he obeys whoever talked to him last!), standing around stoically ignoring his girl, or defeating enemies with the magic flute. He's never in any real jeopardy. He has the magic flute, which protects him from everything. But more importantly, the supposed villain he's been sent to rescue Pamina from, Sarastro, turns out to be a philosopher who immediately says Tamino is destined to wind up with Pamina, Tamino just has to go through a formal test which he's fated to ace. So he's reactive, not proactive, and there's never any real suspense or jeopardy.

The obvious fix here is to make Sarastro not such a great guy. In a lot of fables the villain suspects he can't defeat the hero, but offers him the girl anyway, subject to completing an impossible quest. If Sarastro doesn't really want to lose Pamina, he could send Tamino to defeat some serious boss baddie, not realizing that Tamino has the magic flute. Which, obviously, shouldn't neutralize every danger or it's all too easy. So then it's a surprise to him -- and us -- when Tamino survives the test.

Would be a nice beat if Tamino, who's been dismissing Papageno all along, fails at one point and it's Papageno who saves him, Sam Gamgee-style.

I couldn't help thinking there's a lost opportunity between Sarastro and the Q of the N. She says he stole the sun from her. He says she's trying to steal the sun. She wants Pamina to kill him. They really sound like a bickering couple. What if they're exes? It would add a level to their relationship. And then, if you want, they can get together in the end, brought together by the other lovers (T/P, Papa/Papa).

Talk to Dickie Wagner, he's good with dysfunctional family relationships.

Let's talk about Papageno, the cowardly birdcatcher. He sure is fun, and you've given him a lot of story time. I know your librettist is going to play him. (Emanuel Schikaneder -- c'mon, what was his name "before"?) Wouldn't be the first time an actor gave himself all the juicy stuff to play.

But Papageno's story doesn't make much sense, either, does it? He does everything wrong. He doesn't keep his mouth shut when he's been warned to, turns down the invitation to join the secret brotherhood, does his best to womanize, and nearly kills himself for no good reason -- but he's rewarded with his perfect mate, Papagena, who promises to love him eternally -- why? What's he got to offer? Could she at least give us a sense what she sees in him? His sense of humor?

Can we maybe get a script doctor in to do a pass for the other characters? Sarastro is such a stiff.

I won't criticize Pamina. She's the whiny victim all the way through, but I realize you're writing in the 18th Century, so that will probably work for your demographic.


I'm totally loving the Q of the N. This role is sheer Oscar bait. She's such a crazy bitch but we love her. Can we see more of her?

The final battle between the Queen and Sarastro could be a lot of fun, if we have a sense Sarastro could lose. I wouldn't even mind if the lovers resolve it somehow, rather than you just giving the win to Sarastro. It really deflates the Q of the N if she's defeated in one shot. I mean, we're going to want to bring her back for the sequel, aren't we?

Hope these notes make sense. Can't wait to see how it shapes up in the next pass. I smell a hit!

Storytelling in the Game Industry: A Panel Discussion

On January 19, at McGill (Leacock 232), from 7 to 9 pm, I'm moderating a panel discussion on storytelling in the video game industry.

(Many thanks to Trevor Ponech, of the McGill Department of English, which is hosting us, and Jason Della Rocca, of the International Game Developers Association, who is organizing this with me.)

• What is great video game storytelling? How is it different from great storytelling in film and TV?

• When does storytelling come into the process of game design? Who does it? How important is it?

• How do you break into the games industry as a story teller?

Our panelists (in alphabetical order)

Mary DeMarle is the lead writer for Eidos’s new RPG, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. A former animation writer for Hanna-Barbera in Hollywood, DeMarle also created the story for Myst III and IV.

Richard Rouse III is the Narrative Director of an action/combat game at Ubisoft Montreal. He created, designed and wrote The Suffering action/horror video game franchise. Rouse has lectured about games on five continents. His Game Design: Theory & Practice is one of the most popular books on game development.

Nina L. Sund has spent the past two years writing lore and backstory for Secret World, an upcoming MMO. She began as a hardcore Anarchy Online player, moving into Funcom’s story development team. Sund also wrote dialogue for Age of Conan, trying to recreate the narrative voice of Robert E. Howard.

Stephen Wark began as a board game enthusiast, but his skill as a technial writer brought him into the game industry. Now a game designer at Ludia, Wark creates game concepts, mechanics, scripts and concepts for a range of games from casual puzzles to online education RPGs.

If you’re coming, please RSVP to our Facebook Event page. The panel is free but RSVPs are over capacity, so you'll want to be early.

Special bonus for blog readers: if you email me to say you're coming, and tell me one of your favorite blog posts from this blog, I'll reserve you a seat. Good for the first 20 readers who write in!

Probably Not in Time for Christmas, but...

Amazon.ca (NOT Amazon.com) now has copies of THE CIRCLE CAST available for order. I just got a copy here in New York, so they can ship to the States, too. Buy your teenager a copy for Imbolc!

Richard Rouse III

As you know, I'm organizing and moderating a Game Writing for Screenwriters panel on January 19th, at McGill. Here's another one of our intrepid panelists.

Richard Rouse III is a game designer and writer, currently focusing on action games. He is currently Narrative Director on an unannounced project at Ubisoft Montreal. Earlier, he wrote horror games. He was Creative Director and Writer on the hit action/horror title The Suffering and its sequel, The Suffering: Ties That Bind. Rouse has led the design on a number of other games, including Centipede 3D, Damage Incorporated, and Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis, as well as contributing to the design on Homefront, Wheelman, and Drakan: The Ancients' Gates. He was previously the Director of Game Design at Midway and the Studio Creative Director at Surreal Software. Rouse has lectured about games on five continents and is author of Game Design: Theory & Practice, which remains one of the most popular books on game development.

Read his book over the holidays, and you can pummel him with even more questions!

Another Awesome Googletool

Now that Google has scanned umpteen gazillion books into its Big Computer Brain, you can now ask it to graph how common a word or phrase has been over the past 200 years.

It's like Googlefight, but in the fourth dimension!

I mean, how awesome is that?

I have no idea what use this is, but it sure is fun.

Ubicunque Ezio, ibi Ubi

So want to work for Ubi again.

(Really, any company named via a Latin-English-English pun appeals to me at a deeply geeky level.)

Thought of the Day

A lot of sitcoms are, in fact, darker than you realize. At its core, "Two and a Half Men" is about loneliness. "The Big Ban Theory" is about alienation. "Mike & Molly" is about self-hatred. You would never know it from the shows themselves, but you do, sometimes, feel it while watching them. To laugh at these things with our mental families may allow us to cope with our own loneliness and alienation and self-hatred. It may be that the sitcom's constant avoidance of any final, dramatic catharsis is its accidental strength. If so, that would make this least lifelike form of entertainment the most comfortingly similar to real life."

"A Simple Medium," by Tom Bissell, The New Yorker, December 6.

Comedy is discomfort. It is about something bad happening to someone else.

Slapstick is comedy about physical pain and, occasionally, death. ("And now we see the importance of Not Being Seen.")

A lot of teen comedies are about the characters being embarrassed or scared.

A lot of grown-up comedies are about characters doing things for which they should be embarrassed, but aren't, so we're embarrassed for them. (E.g. the Marx Brothers, THE OFFICE, SEINFELD, ROSANNE, Mr. Bean, etc.)

I would say a lot of Woody Allen's comedy, back when he was funny, was based on frustration. The comedy in my series, NAKED JOSH, was mostly frustration. A lot of Jewish humor is based on frustration. And fear. No soup for you!

Absurdist comedy ) is really a sort of intellectual discomfort. ("We want your pollen.") Juxtapose two things that don't go together and you get absurdity. (ROMANES EUNT DOMUS!) As my six year old daughter will say, laughing, "Thaaaat's not riiiiight!"