By WHAT do you (in parallels) structure? (woof-woof!)

Posted by 22111
Sep 2, 2022 at 01:17 PM

Sorry, above, I was mislead by the French, “multiple” is without an end-s in English, of course, and I don’t know either why I put in that parenthesis. Also, and foremost, I wasn’t specific enough, sorry again.

Now, “it’s the language, stupid!”, Marilyn could have said, and whilst most synonyms ain’t interchangeable, most languages ain’t, either.

What I tried to express above, was that your real outline should be the “trame”, which is a French expression which here perfectly (sic!) “gets it” (“trifft es” in German, “es treffen”: try google for “es treffen”, with the double-quotes, and you’ll get some hint of what I’m speaking about here…: there, again, is no equivalent within the “major” lingos, again…).

On “langenscheidt.com” - which is one of the very best web dicos you can get -, “trame” is translated, into German, by “Schuss” (i.e. in weaving), “Raster” (ditto), “Hintergrund” (i.e. “background”), “Grundlage” (which you might translate by “the base of it all”), but then, what could you do with those German or French terms? Just translate it for you, by: “Ariadne’s thread”.

Some languages help (sic!) with feeling (sic!), and some others rather help with condensing, with objectifying, and that’s indeed German vs. English. Now, just-feeling obviously isn’t good, the Germans have proven that assertion some Century ago, but just the matter-of-fact of all things isn’t that helpful either, at the end of the day it seems.

Then, you’ll have, just for an example, 100, max. 120 pages of a screenplay (or of any other, “modern” “book”, “publication”, to ABSTRACT the sum of what you feel, AND of what you will have thoroughly analyzed (if everything went well up to then, that is), and that’s sort of SANITATION: perfect, since perfectly needed, and put into the right shape to work; just compare “Tightrope” (Eastwood’s 1984 effort) or “Frantic” (Polanski’s 1988 laisser-aller) with what the audience would have justifiably expected from both tries.

Thus, too much “feeling” obviously isn’t good at all, but most of Hollywood’s major productions then show a blatant lack of it, and so the key word in the above post, sorry again, should have been, “SUBTEXT”.

Now, yes, I’ve got able to “word” in English, by some practice - descriptions, dialogue… -, but then, for finding, and developing (sic!) the “subtext”, I revert to my mother language, and then, when I try to “transpose”, I invariably found that the “target language” just doesn’t offer the necessary verbal instruments: at the end of the day, it’s the CONCEPTS which ain’t there… and which are there within that language which had been a “target” language for philosophers all over the world, for Centuries, pre-33 that is, and indeed…

That being said: No, I’m not speaking of “writing” here, i.e. of what “they” nowadays call “creative writing” - oh my God! -, but of ALL, of EVERY writing, of all putting down of words, in and re any subject:

Since, what’s that (French) “trame” indeed? It’s the ESSENCE, the “why”, the COMPLETENESS of FACTS, the not-leaving-pertinent(sic!)-so-called-“details”-out, it’s about the EXPLANATION of “what’s going on”.

It’s about not FRAMING your reader / viewer / “user” anymore, but of honestly presenting them all of what’s your capable of TELLING, on your subject, and that’s then the invitation to your reader / viewer / (info) “user”, to START-FROM-THERE… instead of “framing” them, i.e. of trying to lead’em astray, be it by ellipsing (i.e. deliberately hiding pertinent facts, motives, elements of any kind), be it by outright lying (and the “Covid” (mostly government- and/or corporate-paid) “science” just gave us the most blatant example of this obscene, collective whoring, if ever such a proof had still been required… for some naïves…):

And THEN only, you condense what you’ve got to - honestly - say, into, in the case of a screenplay e.g., some 1-page-per-minute; in other words, you do not leave out the pertinent elements, but just those your “audience” will easily be able to infer by themselves, ONCE you will have presented the pertinent ones, be that in, or between your lines…

And there, we just speak of “elegance” of style, of savoir-faire of the “author” of what the “public” will then read… but it’ll have come to an end, with all-embracing manipulation of what then your “public” could infer from what you will have told them:

Since in those days, “journalists”, for example, were just like “the ideal teacher”: they informed you, AND incited you to then develop your own thoughts, upon REAL facts: to the very better of your own, and to the very better of humanity overall: it was the idea, then, of “humanism” - remember?!

For most of you: obviously not…: How else could you fathom today’s ubiquitous framing, instead of instructing, meliorating your, and “their”, “audience”, as their, and YOURS, new normality?

Yesterday, I read the “teaser” to this - paid - obscenity: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/technik-motor/digital/ulysses-software-soll-autoren-zum-schreiben-von-bestsellern-verhelfen-18275015.html : “Ulysses-Software : So entsteht ein Bestseller” - “Ulysses App - The Way Bestselling Books are Made”, by some “Michael Spehr”... and ALL of their, “political”, “news” handling is of the same, abysmal, quality:

Those people FRAME you, today, instead of giving you ALL the elements of then processing your own judgment.

The very best Chancellor Germany ever had (i.e. Schmidt), once said that journalists are fellows who know neither any “homebase” nor any other notion of value to which they could ever turn, for some spiritual guidance (“heimatlose Gesellen”, he said)...

Don’t ape such people: Build any outline you build, by the “subtext”: by what seems true to you: errors being acceptable, but framings, lies will never be.

Since even “facts” are just some deliberate “selections”... while the ESSENCE of those “facts” is what you’re summoned to convey, as any writer, with those double quotes, designating the “creative” ones, or then the “factual” ones, which nowadays and by their overwhelming majority try to be good servants to the miserable-in-power, in order to participate in their good-life.

Most of Third Reich’s whores are forgotten now, and even abandoned, abhorred by their respective families; most of today’s writers of all kinds will meet the same fate, and that’s why some “contributors” of this forum, who feel that, without being yet able to discern it, would like me to be silenced.

And for the “executive resume”: Don’t outline by the currently-obvious-to-you, all the less by some, be it yours, be it some third-party’s who you pays or who who eat their ass in hope of once being rewarded: Try to analyze better, and then try to convey the essence of your honest try.

And people will love you for it. And some will even take example.

It’s not about the feeling-of-your-audience, as I erroneously advanced above: it’s about “directing” their NATURAL feelings, by always-honest-but-not-naïve anymore (i.e. “beyond natural German”) submission - Strategia del ragno (Bertolucci 1970), anyone?

Or then, make us laugh our pants off, but don’t overcrowd the ranks of those pathetics who think we’re all idiots: you will not even survive in the memory of your offspring, except by’em being embarrassed about you.

At the end of the day, the secret lays in honesty-plus-something-new, and whenever your contribution lacks the former element, you’re just another one of “their” whores, and when the latter element is missing or fails, you’re irrelevant.

No wonder then that some “contributors” (?) around here literally hate me, then…

And yes, writing English dialogues, after having done the necessary musings in German, seems perfect - what’s the secondary language in the U.S.: Spanish? Well… they might call it the “normative power of the factual”, then? Yeah…

Don’t lose your time by outlining the obvious, the obvious only rarely being the real info. And that’s why, among many other things and projects, most screenplays fail.

Outline by the essence, dear.