“A relentless focus on the Inner Game is the key to writing a successful screenplay.”
Sandy Frank
The Inner Game of Screenwriting
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…
Traditional Nursery Rhyme
Tiger Woods won a golf tournament yesterday. Once upon a time, that wasn’t a big deal. But considering he hasn’t won a tournament in more than two years it was a big deal. Back in 2009 Tiger Woods was the most dominate player in the game and had won 71 PGA Golf Tournaments.
But at the end of November 2009 his life and golf game (his inner & outer life if you will) spiraled downward after a string of extramarital affairs came to light and tainted his marriage, and his image. A costly divorce and a loss of major sponsors followed. Then the two-year drought.
Tiger’s only 36-years-old and there is much to his life story that has yet to be written. Time will tell if this victory signals the beginning of The Tiger Woods Redemption.
But Tiger’s well published life is a fitting metaphor for a book I just finished reading called The Inner Game of Screenwriting by Sandy Frank. Sandy is a former Wall Street Corporate lawyer and four time Emmy-winning writer for The David Letterman Show. Sandy writes that,”The Outer Game is what we usually think of as plot. It’s what’s going on onscreen, out in the world.” (To continue the sports metaphor, Rocky wants to beat the champ—Outer—but he also wants to prove to himself—Inner—that he’s not the bum his ex-trainer said he was.)
Sandy is not the first writer to talk about the inner/outer story. Here’s how one screenwriting book unpacked it back in 1994:
“Screenplays often tell two main stories, The Outside/Action Story is driven by the goal. It is sometimes referred to as the spine. The Inside/Emotion Story usually derives from a relationship and is generally driven by the need. It is sometimes referred to as the heart of the story or the emotional through-line.”
David Trottier
The Screenwriter’s Bible (now in its 5th edition)
But what I like about Sandy’s book is his continuing emphasis on the importance of the inner story. His often repeated mantra:
“A relentless focus on the Inner Game is the key to writing a successful screenplay.”
Sandy goes as far as saying “The Head is important, but what really sells the film to an audience is the Heart.” As of today, I have spent a full month writing about emotions in regard to screenwriting and filmmaking. A subject that some books on screenwriting (and interviews with screenwriters) don’t touch on at all or only give it a passing mention. But if you’re looking for a missing key to screenwriting, I think it is spelled e-m-o-t-i-o-n. (But I’m open to being proven wrong.)
What I like most about Sandy’s book The Inner Game of Screenwriting is chapter four, The Morph of Archetypes. He says the three most common archetypes are Evolution, Devolution, and Staying the Course. I’ll unpack those with examples tomorrow in part two of this post, but for now let me just say that Tiger’s story is one where he evolved professionally into one of the most dominate athletes ever, and then he professionally and personally devolved. That is what’s so fascinating about his story.
But his story is our story. We may not rise as high as Tiger or fall as far as Tiger, but we have moments in the sun and we all stumble at times. (Though neither usually become international news.) And one of the reasons that drama has endured throughout history (from the ancient Greek amphitheaters to the movie theaters of today) is we like to see others wrestle with life.
“All of us human beings have flaws and try to overcome them. We watch movies to see characters struggle with that same ordeal. Even if the problems are different, the process is the same…We all have our problems. Maybe we’re selfish, or cowardly, or overbearing. Unless we’re perfect, we’ve got shortcomings, and if we’re good people we try to overcome them.”
Sandy Frank
The Inner Game of Screenwriting
Sure sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and there have been plenty of movies that provide two hours of mindless, joyful entertainment—like an amusement ride. Movies that only have solid Outer Story. But I think that the movies that stick with us—and the ones we return to again and again—do touch an emotional cord, and do so by having, “A relentless focus on the Inner Game.”
When Tiger sank that final shot to win yesterday, the sudden outburst of applause from the crowd and Tiger’s own emotional reaction, wasn’t simply because it was another victory in the game of golf—it was because it potentially symbolizes that he’s got his life back together.
Our great hope is that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. Especially when the Humpty Dumpty is us.
Gary Ross ends his screenplay for Seabiscuit with these words spoken by Red (Tobey Maguire): “You know, everybody thinks we found this broken down horse and we fixed him, but we didn’t…He fixed us. Everyone of us. And, I guess in a way, we kind of fixed each other too.”
P.S. Here’s a clip from the movie Tin Cup that’s a excellent example of an outer game and inner game doing battle—and just happens to fit the golf theme for today:
Related Post:
Sneaky Long Screenwriting (A post about golfer Zack Johnson—from Cedar Rapids, Iowa—when he beat Tiger Woods at the Master’s back in 2008. Ironically, yesterday Tiger beat Zack by one stroke.)
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Scott –
This series of posts on emotion is really hitting home — especially today’s look at the “inner game.” I watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” over the weekend, and once again experienced that annual kick in the throat. This film delivers perhaps the most famous collective emotional wallop in Hollywood history, and today’s post nicely put a bow on how it does that — the elegantly constructed, head-on collision of the Outer Game (George’s actual life in Bedford Falls) and the Inner Game (his disdain for that life, voiced throughout the film, until he triumphs over that flaw…with a little help from Clarence, of course.)
Hadn’t been able to see the physics at work that clearly until now. Gracias!
John