In last month's column I admonished writers, including myself, not to be lazy, to hunt down that sluggard verb be and replace him with active verbs that reveal character.  You all listened and learned and vowed to never again write a sentence without revisiting it at least thirty-times, thus making Papa proud.
 
No?  Still ducking the discipline that makes a good writer great?
 
Well, that's OK.  In fact, it's to be expected.  After all, you wouldn't be a real writer if you didn't have a love-hate relationship with your craft, a struggle that Bono summed up nicely in Achtung Baby's "The Fly":
 
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.
 
So achtung, baby: Here's part two of my admonition, in which I argue that writing lean action (or direction) is sometimes just taking the easy way out, and cheating is never a good idea.
 
OH, MS. SET DESIGNER?
 
In answer to a student's question about how much of car-chase scene he had to write in a script, my hero Syd Field gave a simple answer:
 
"All of it."
 
That is, if your story requires a car chase, then it's up to you to detail every bone-rattling twist and turn, every spinning-wheels-off-asphalt leap down the streets of San Fran, every OMG!: Is that a mom pushing a baby carriage through the crosswalk at the bottom of the hill?  You can't just write "There's a car chase," then leave it up to the director to figure it all out for you.
 
Don't get me wrong: I'm a huge fan of lean action (or direction).  Don't slow the read down with too many details - especially when they have nothing to do with the story.  But too many times screenwriters leave out too many details.   The screenwriter has all but said to the set designer: You figure it out.
 
Yes, the nitty-gritty is the set designer's job.  Yes, he or she wants to be able to impose his or her own vision on a particular scene.  But it's your story.  Your characters.  And you're missing a great opportunity to reveal something about them.
 
Here's one example of too-lean action: the car (whether it's involved in a chase or not).  Too many times that's all I get, "car," as in: "John hops into his car."  No make, no model, no color, no year of production.
 
No kidding: That's it.  Sadly, the writer has just told me: I don't know my character well enough to tell you what kind of car he drives.
 
So you need to ask yourself a multitude of questions (ideally before you start writing).  Among them might be: Is your dude a tough guy?  Then stick him in a '71 Mustang.  Is your woman outdoorsy?  Put her in a forest-green pickup.  But then have fun with it - if it suits your story and your character, of course.  Make that Mustang pink.  Give that pickup some monster wheels.
 
Being specific about his or her car is just the start.  What about where he lives?  What about her dog?  The same principle applies to every bit of action you write, from the clothes your character wears - is that a Jay-Z T-shirt on that hip-hop wannabe ... or a plain white one? - to the food he or she eats.
 
Consider food.  That figures into many a script.  And, for the most part, it's bland stuff.  We are what we eat, right?  Well, let's see what your characters are eating.
 
Let's say you've placed your character at some sort of reception. Now a lot of writers will give me something like a "sumptuous feast" or they might write "food lines the table," and be done with it.  But if everything in your script must reveal character, then sumptuous eats lining a buffet just doesn't satisfy.
 
Again, it all depends on your story and your character, but give me something more - maybe something surprising, like egg rolls and tacos at a bar mitzvah.  
 
Mind you, don't overdo it.  Don't give me a full eight-page menu.  Don't pull a Henry James and describe every damn thing on the mantelpiece.  Just provide enough detail to add another layer of complexity to each of your characters.  Do that and you're well on your way to making them interesting, and thus worth watching for 90 or so minutes.      
 
DON'T CHEAT ON ME - OR YOUR SCRIPT
 
Do me and anyone else who will read your script a favor:
 
1.      Take an index card.
2.      Scribble on it the following: "I can only write what we SEE and HEAR."
3.      Tape the card to your computer screen.
4.      Slap yourself silly whenever you have the urge to write what a character is thinking or feeling.
 
We're not writing novels, folks.  It's not OK in screenplays to internalize a character's thoughts and feelings.  If you do, you have written a "cheat."
 
It's an apt word to describe what you've done to me as a reader.  It also describes what you've done to yourself (as a writer) and to your script (as the work you've presumably crafted with love and care).  Why?  Because once again you have abdicated your responsibility.  Take a look at the following example to see how:
 
"Joe gazes at the sunset and it reminds him of the girl he met two summers ago."
 
Think about it.  How the hell do we know - see - that Joe is reminiscing about a girl?  Obviously we can't, even if he has a dreamy look on his face.  For all we know, he's thinking about something else.  Maybe it's the ice cream cone he ate or the beer he drank on that wonderful day two summers ago.  Or was it yesterday?  Hmmm ... time.  How do you see time on a character's face?
 
So if you write something like the above, you've all but told the director: "Look, I want Joe to remember the girl ... but I'm not sure why ... and I'm not sure how to do it.  So I'm lobbing that grenade right at you.  I'll be in my trailer till you figure it out."
 
If Joe's special girl is so important, then show her to us.  Maybe we see her in a flashback.  Better: We see her earlier in the script, with a visual cue - let's say fading sunlight on a single red rose (trite, but you get the idea).  When we later see him smile at the sight of a sunset-hued red rose, we can assume that he's thinking about her.  
 
But here's the thing about cheats: I suspect that a lot of them can just be cut.  Many times the writer uses them to bridge two weak scenes, or to show time passing, or to take a stab at poignancy.  They're all a clear indication that the writer is still in first-draft mode and hasn't put the work in yet.  Certainly most of them can be rewritten - as is the case with the following typical cheat:
 
"Seeing the injured boy makes Mary sad."
 
How do we see that she's sad?  Does she grimace?  Frown?  Cry?  Any one of those verbs works to fix the cheat:
 
"The boy's arm hangs weirdly.  Mary grimaces."
 
The problem with cheats, too, is that they invariably involve a passive activity.  So instead of an active, vibrant character who actually does something, your character just stands there, with some sort of undefined expression on his or her face.
 
But, you say, it's the actor's job ... right?  Wrong.  He or she will want to make that scene his or her own - and maybe that grimace will instead be a frown or a nervous laugh - but you need to give us something.
 
As examples, I offer you three cheats from a script I recently edited (with names changed and sentences edited to protect the innocent):
 
"Joe looks at Mary and wonders what she's thinking."
"Mary senses that she's hurt Joe."
"Joe is filled with remorse at the thought of cheating on Mary."
 
In each of these examples it is impossible to see what Joe and Mary is thinking or feeling or sensing.  That's why they're cheats.  Even the best acting in the world can't change that fact.  But how do you, the writer, fix them?
 
There are any number of ways.  Maybe for the first: Joe asks "What's wrong?"  For the second: "Mary caresses Joe's arm as he hangs his head."  For the third: "Joe pounds his fist against the wall, but pockets his wedding ring anyway."   In each instance we've changed internalized thoughts and feelings into actions that we can see or hear.  We've done the work we had to do.
 
Some writers cheat more than others.  Sometimes there are a handful sprinkled throughout those 120 pages, but often there are two or three on every single page.  Do the math: That's an awful lot of cheating.  So do yourself a favor.  On the next pass through your script, read each line and ask yourself: Can I actually see or hear what I've just asked my character to do?  If you can't, you've more than likely written a cheat.
 
And you know by now what comes next.
 
Have a question about grammar, or how to format that INTERCUT?  Email me.