In previous essays, I’ve mentioned that I’ve had to learn that unnecessary backstory should be dispensed with in the interests of getting to the story-proper as quickly as possible. I’ve also talked about the need to judiciously seed the backstory throughout my plays (at the moments when they become most relevant).
Flashbacks
This week I’ve been thinking about time in audio drama, and, to begin with, how I can provide back story when it is called for.
The best way, in my opinion, is through judicious and provocative lines of dialog. Here’s an example…
David is a doctor, giving a statement to Dan, a police officer who he’s known since he was a kid.
DAVID: She looked so small and helpless. Pale. And the paleness made the bruises stand out.
DAN: I remember when you used to sport bruises like that.
DAVID: Don’t… I don’t want to talk about that.
DAN: I’m telling you this as a friend, Dave. What happened to you as a kid gives you motive. Now that the father’s turned up dead…
DAVID: Should I be talking to a lawyer?
DAN: (PAUSES) Yeah. Yeah, you should.
Here the lines don’t give away too much. They tell us that David was the victim of abuse as a child and that this gives him a motive in a murder investigation. No more is relevant at this point in the story, so no more is given.
Another technique is, of course, the flashback. My early scripts are full of flashbacks. Now I avoid them, and if you can find a way to live without them, you probably should too. To quote an adage, Flashbacks don’t just halt the momentum of the story, they put the story into reverse. And while they can be used to good effect, they more frequently broadcast that a script is amateur or lazy (providing an unnecessary backstory dump). To get away with an extended flashback it needs to be essential to the story, contain intrinsic interest and conflict (so that we want to see it), and be dramatized (not merely retold).
In audio drama, transitioning into and out of a flashback can be tricky. Transitions include the horribly cliché harp glissando (which, while on-the-nose, at least has the benefit of recognizably coding the scene), a line of situating-narration (NARRATOR: Back in the fall of 1956…), an addition of reverb faded out as the scene begins (suggesting the past or present coming into focus), cross fading to the past, or a simple scene change with dialog and characters that place the scene in its temporal context.
Here’s a, hopefully, useful example of a flashback scene…
David is now being interviewed by the police.
INTERROGATOR: Tell me about that house on Weir Street.
DAVID: I grew up there. I always hated that place.
INTERROGATOR: Mustn’t have been easy. You remember much?
SOUND: (FADE IN) BIRDS ETC. IN DISTANCE. FOOTSTEPS ON PORCH. DOOR OPENS AND SHUTS (BLOCKING OUT THE OUTSIDE NOISES) – ESTABLISH UNDER
YOUNG DAVID: Mum! Mum! I got great news. I’m allowed to sit for the…
FATHER: (SLURRING) I said ‘shut up’. What do you know about any of it?
MOTHER: I know that job is killing you. You never used to drink like this.
FATHER: I told you to shut up.
SOUND: SLAP.
FATHER: It’s about time you were reminded who’s in charge here, Sally. It’s about time I…
YOUNG DAVID: Stop it! Stop hurting her.
MOTHER: David!
FATHER: Looks like you both could use a lesson in the right way to talk to your old man.
YOUNG DAVID: I hate you!
FATHER: Why you! Come here.
SOUND: SLAP
YOUNG DAVID: (PAUSE) (THROUGH TEARS) I hate you, and one day I’m gonna kill you. And kill everyone like you. People who hurt women and hurt kids. I’m gonna kill you and everyone like you.
INTERROGATOR: (BREAKING IN) David? David, did you hear my question?
DAVID: Yeah, sorry. I was… Look I really don’t remember much from back then.
INTERROGATOR: Just that you didn’t like that house?
DAVID: Yeah.
In this case the flashback does more than communicate that David was an abused kid. It tells us he made threats against his father, and abusers generally, and more, that he wants to keep this information from the police. For the audience it raises the question of whether he, in fact, could be the vigilante the police are trying to find.
While I really do believe flashbacks are best avoided, if you are going to do one, then it should be dramatized, to the point, and give the audience information that is essential to the story and couldn’t otherwise be supplied.
Tracking Time
Speaking of time, flashbacks aren’t the only problematic elements of scriptwriting that trip me up. Timekeeping is especially easy to get wrong.
I have bungled this so often that it bears repetition; timekeeping is especially easy to get wrong. In fact, it is so easy to mess up that I now make it a rule to include a story-based time-stamp in my SCENE descriptions (alongside the location information) and build myself a timeline of my story to avoid the problems that can arise.
What’s the danger, here? Everything from having so much happening in a single day that my protagonist has to move faster than light to be able to do it (travelling impossible distances across town etc. in no time at all) to creating weather for the wrong season, to having my protagonist fight her way through peak hour traffic on a Sunday morning (because I lost track of what day it was) to announcing that it is somehow the middle of the night when the action began in the early morning.
When these errors show up, it’s always embarrassing.
But it’s not enough to keep track of the time, myself. I need to communicate the time to my audience. This can involve everything from narration, voice over, dialog, to sound effects or some combination of each.
It’s also something that I want to signal without labouring the point.
SOUND can help; birdsong at dawn; crickets in the evening; sizzling bacon as a background to breakfast, the gong of a clock; drive-time radio announcements.
Having characters comment on recognizable milestones of the day works as well; the lunch-time rush, peak-hour traffic, kids coming home from school, the lights turning on at twilight. You can even have characters, unobtrusively ask each other the time “I’ve been sitting in this car so long, my legs have lost their feeling. What time is it?”
Narration can briefly signpost the time and day for the audience – “Tuesday, 2:15…”, “Twenty minutes later…”, “Wednesday morning…”, “3:20 AM…” “A cold wind at midnight blew…” etc., and voice over can do the same; “It was nearly three o’clock when I…”
Event Order
There’s at least one more embarrassing time-based trap that I have been known to fall into, and it’s to mess up the order in which small actions take place. A character puts the papers in the safe after it has been locked. A character switches off the inside light after the door has been shut on their way out. A character opens a door that was previously established as being open already. And yes, I’ve done all of these.
This kind of mistake shouldn’t be confused with employing non-linear time in a play (which is a different (and increasingly popular) skill entirely.
Even more subtle is the tendency to mess up human reactions. Generally speaking, when something happens, we experience the reaction to that event physically first, emotionally, second, and then finally at the volitional level (of human choice and free-action). The tiger springs out and I freeze, feel the fear wash over me, and then turn to run. I don’t turn to run, feel the fear, and freeze with fright.
In a script, where the murderer is standing over the dead body of Mrs. Standish when Nellie, the serving girl, walks into the room, this works…
SOUND: CRASH OF SERVING TRAY BEING DROPPED.
MURDERER: Now Nellie, don’t look so frightened. You’ve dropped Mrs. Standish’s dinner. It will all be over in a moment.
NELLIE: Mrs Standish. She’s… I need to run. I need to…
SOUND: FOOTSTEPS RUNNING AWAY DOWN HALL.
In this case the physical reaction (Nellie drops the tray) comes before the emotional reaction (that the murderer comments on), and Nellie’s choice to run away (her speech and volitional reaction). We recognize the psychological reality of this and the temporal priority to be given to each element of the reaction.
However, the following reaction, which does not occur in the right order, does not ring true…
SOUND: FOOTSTEPS RUNNING AWAY DOWN HALL.
MURDERER: Now Nellie, don’t look so frightened. It will all be over in a moment.
NELLIE: Mrs Standish. She’s… I need to run. I need to…
SOUND: CRASH OF SERVING TRAY BEING DROPPED.
These kinds of obvious problems in a script are very embarrassing to uncover. They often occur in the process of rewriting and revision – where I insert some new action or reaction without fully considering the context of the scene or situation. It can also happen where, because I know what I mean to write, I overlook what I have actually written.
In my case, at least, these errors usually only come to light when a fresh pair of eyes looks at my work. It’s why I recommend creating or being part of a writing group, or finding some “beta” readers who you trust to look for, and inform you of, your mistakes.
Of course, you mightn’t make mistakes (in which case you are incredibly talented, and I envy you immensely, or you are… well, possibly a bit deluded about the quality of your work). 😀
Anyway, losing track of time is easy to do and can ruin my writing. Thankfully, it is very easy to fix.
Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2020 .
