“Storytelling is our only way of knowing ourselves,” Dara Marks began. “The thing we call reality lasts three seconds, and then it becomes memory.  From the moment we come out of the womb, we are beginning to define our story, define who we are. Storytelling is set up to be enjoyable, and to propagate human understanding. If there is a conflict; something within us has to open up and push to resolve the conflict, and at the end we get out of it.” Marks went on to elaborate on how we, as screenwriters, can aspire to writing scripts that may be considered “classic.”

 

“When you can open up and tell the truth, that’s when your story becomes a classic,” says Marks. “You can’t be as mediocre as what’s out there. You have to be better than that. The problem is people in Hollywood don’t make movies; they make deals. American movies tend to be about will they catch the killer or get to the church on time, nothing much else. But in our private lives, there’s more going on than that.”

 

“Cinema is a true form of literature,” Marks went on, “and at the very mention of certain films, everyone nods their heads. That’s because these films – such as The Godfather and Dead Poets Society -- are timeless, universal. We share common stories, as a country, as a state, as a town. You don’t have to be the same age or even be from the same country to feel that universal connection. That’s because, on some level, these stories are archetypal and with them you hit ‘the golden tone,’ meaning they resonate with just about everyone who sees them.”

 

“The arc is the essence of what storytelling is all about,” says Marks. “Putting the character in an arc is one of the basic, basic, basic aspects of writing a script.  It’s how the character processes what’s happening to him/her. . At a deep, archetypal level, we all need to grow and change. But transformational change is exhausting and daunting! Your protagonist is in some kind of resistance to the goal, so when they get to the mid-point, there’s a shift into a new consciousness – a moment of enlightenment which is the driving force for the rest of the script.

 

“You move the story along by understanding the needs of the character. If an opportunity is presented, but not accepted, by the character, you have a tragedy, as in The Godfather. Michael Corleone knows what he has to do to extricate himself from the family crime business, but he can’t do it – and he loses everything. He keeps making choices that are not authentic and pays the price. This is a story that is told in the deep regions of everyone’s core, forcing us to ask ourselves: “Am I leading an authentic life?”

 

“When writing a new script, the first stage is the intuition stage,” says Marks. “Begin with your idea and just write, write, write. At this stage, you are intuiting, not censoring or evaluating your words with your critical intellect. Just write! The next stage is turning what you’ve intuited into process. Maybe you realize that your main character doesn’t seem to need a transformation. For example, a cute girl (like Julia Roberts) catches a cute guy, and they hook up. But we learn nothing about the nature of love.

 

“So if you want your script to do more than that, then you’re going to have to write better than that. Perhaps you’ll need to create a ‘fatal flaw’ in your character. A ‘fatal flaw’ can be defined as something in the character -- a survival system -- that has outlived its usefulness. In order for the character to move forward and get what he or she needs, that fatal flaw, which is a major obstacle, is going to have to be eliminated. Somewhere along the line, the character is going to have to stop and say, ‘Hey, this is serious,’ and ask themselves, ‘Whose life is it going to be anyhow?’ And then do something about it. That’s how it is in real life. At every moment in your life, you are asked to declare who you are and what your life is about. Do the same in your scripts.”

 

“In the beginning, you can only make random choices as you write,” says Marks. “If you only make random choices, then you only get random results. If you want purposeful results, then you have to make purposeful choices i.e., meaning you have to understand your theme. And to get to your theme, you have to write your script and process it.”

 

So what is theme? “Theme represents a writer’s values and point of view. You have to investigate your theme because it’s your own personal truth. You might want your theme to be ‘love sucks,’ but then you’ll have to investigate it. You can’t just say ‘love sucks.’ Your ‘theme work,’ then, is your investigation into your ‘love sucks’ theme. Explore it in all its aspects to determine if that point of view really holds water. You’ll need to uncover your passion for the subject and draw upon your personal point of view to make your case. Once you do that, you can understand your theme on any level.

 

“Theme is the key to the kingdom. It can be very simple, like in the movie Sideways. Press your protagonist to move to a goal. Ask yourself what your main character is capable of at the end that they weren’t capable of at the beginning. That’s their arc.” 

 

Dara Marks ended her presentation with a reminder and an encouragement: “Everybody here today is a writer because, at some time in your life, you had a moment of bliss. My goal as a teacher is to make conscious what you have been doing unconsciously. Don’t believe that people in Hollywood know something you don’t! Look to your own experience and use yourself as a lab-rat.”