Scene Falling Flat? How Dramatic Rhythm Can Help Save Your Story.

Every once in a while, a friend will send me a screenplay or some other kind of dramatic writing and ask for feedback. As is often the case with stories in development, there’s at least one or two scenes that feel a little flat.  In this article, I’d like to discuss Dramatic Rhythm,  a rewrite pattern that helps rescue flat or problematic scenes by packing them with entertainment value.

How does it work? Well, when you really break it down, entertainment of any sort ultimately boils down to two things: emotion and suspense. Either something makes you feel an emotion, or you’re waiting in suspense for what you will feel next. For example, a beautiful sunset or a joke might make your feel an emotion, and when a character cuts a wire from a time bomb she’s hoping to diffuse, you might feel suspense. Either way, you’re entertained.

It’s only in the absence of emotion or suspense that the viewer feels bored. That’s precisely where Dramatic Rhythm can come to the rescue. What is Dramatic Rhythm? One way to think of it is like a game of emotional ping pong between your character and an outside force, often something in the environment or another character. This back and forth emotional ping pong usually escalates into an in-scene climax.

Example

Take for example,  a character in a tool shed organizing her gardening supplies.  She nicks herself on some pruning shears, and steps back into a rake. The rake flips up and  konks her on the back of the head. Recoiling from the pain,  she lunges forward and falls face first into her bag of  gardening soil. She gets up with a face full of dirt. Her dog stares at her, confused.

Breaking that down, you can see the Dramatic Rhythm moving back and forth between the character and the environment in an escalating pattern of action-reaction.

1. Environment action: Pruning shears nick character’s finger.
2. Character reaction: Lunges back in pain, stepping on rake.
3. Environment action: Rake konks her in the back of the head.
4. Character reaction: Lunges forward from the impact.
5. Environment action: Trips her on something.
6. Character reaction : Falls face first.
7. Environment action: Catches her face with the gardening soil.
8. Character reaction: Gets up with face full of dirt. Dog confused.

A scene like this, done in flashback, might be a fun way to convey the origin story of a wealthy woman who invented cosmetic mud masks. But I digress…

If Dramatic Rhythm is the back and forth energy in a scene between two opposing forces, how does it play out in dialogue scenes? After all, human interaction is more nuanced than the slapstick comedy described above. How would you use Dramatic Rhythm to increase the entertainment value of a scene between two people?

A Sample Scene

Well, it just so happens that Noah G., a talented writer friend of mine currently studying film at USC sent me this short script for some feedback. Here’s the first page:

The Rewrite

My approach to rewriting for Dramatic Rhythm involved roughly three steps.

1. Look for places where the emotional ping pong feels off rhythm. In this scene, Caroline’s reactions seemed like a good place to start.
2. Take entertaining moments that are currently described in a more literary way, and try to increase emotional impact by physicalizing and visualizing them.
3. Look for setup and payoff opportunities.

Here is the first page, rewritten with Dramatic Rhythm in mind.

What Changed?

Here’s a blow by blow.

First we added this visual to the description…

Both the ring, and her worried body language help clarify their relationship, and create a setup we can pay off later. (See below.)

Carol’s reaction to Michael action of seeming to acknowledge the problem in their relationship looks like a candidate for enhancement.

We do that by having her reach out to him.

The added affection of her reaction increases the dramatic contrast of Michael’s next action, which reveals he’s not even listening.

Adding a physicalization also helps bring that beat out.

Notice how the original reveal that Michael’s actually been talking on the phone the whole time…

Is made more visually explicit by revealing the bluetooth headset.

This gives us a cleaner dramatic window for Caroline’s reaction. Notice how Caroline’s next beat here is being emphasized not by changing changing her reaction, but rather by changing the writing AROUND it.

Two more beats I thought could use some emphasis are Caroline’s satisfaction when she thinks Michael is actually listening, and the reversal when she realizes he’s STILL just talking on the phone. Here’s the original…

In the rewrite, I expanded her beat by adding a line, and Michael’s beat by adding a dismissive gesture like so:

Now the rhythm feels cleaner, and it’s Caroline’s turn to react and move the scene forward.

As a last touch at the end, we payed off the Engagement ring we set up in the description at the beginning.

Because the rewrite explicitly set up the engagement ring at the beginning of the scene, the image of the abandoned ring has more dramatic significance now.

As a reaction, having phone obsessed Michael finally putting his phone down seems like a fitting way to convey the emotional weight of his situation is sinking in.

Summary

So in sum, to enhance the Dramatic Rhythm of the scene:

1. Follow the emotional ping pong back and forth so as to detect and fix disturbances in the rhythm.
2. When adding reactions/actions to smooth out the rhythm, look for ways to physicalize or visualize the dramatic beats.
3. Look for setups and payoff opportunities, which can give the scene a little more structure.

That’s about it. Hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into how the “sausage gets made,” and how Dramatic Rhythm can take scenes that could use a boost, and enhance their emotion and entertainment value.

Enjoy.