Using Thematic Language to Make Readers Love your Script
Anyone who’s read Hamnet, The Substance, or any other award-nominated script likely walks away thinking “wow, I really enjoyed reading that.” But why? There are millions of scripts out there with exciting plot twists and deep character development. What is it that makes certain scripts feel special?
Theme.
While I could prattle on about the importance of a good theme or topic in scripts, and that even the most mundane, run-of-the-mill Prime Video series has at least a generic theme, I’m not going to patronise you. Instead, I will assume you know what a dramatic theme is so we can get on with the fun bit of implementing it in our actual writing.
28 YEARS LATER
(spoilers ahead for 28 Years Later and The Bone Temple)
As a writer, Alex Garland is a man of few words. The words he does use, however, are uniquely impactful. As an audience member of 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, even the most casual of us develops a sense that something deeply spiritual is happening in this not-zombie apocalypse. From a boy on a pilgrimage to seek aid from a wise old healer, to an impossible birth. From an enormous structure made of the bones of the dead, to a man getting literally crucified, both films tap into something deep in the (particularly Christian) psyche.
That deep spiritual connection doesn’t come from the finished film. The finished film is a manifestation of strong thematic foundations. When reading the script, the sense of almost fanatic religious fervour screams out of every page.
Did you know, for example, that a swarm of infected in this universe is called a ‘congregation’? No? That’s because it’s only ever addressed in action lines. By referring to a swarm of (effectively) zombies as a congregation it completely changes how a reader feels about them. Yes, they’re rabid flesh-eating monsters, but they’re also distinctly human.
Calling them a congregation is more than just lip-service to theme, it’s symptomatic of its innate essence within the story. When reading scripts of newer writers, it can be easy to ask the question, ‘why is this happening here?’ or ‘is there a reason your character behaves this way?’ A lot of the time, there could be completely valid answers.
The answer as a writer isn’t to explain why it’s important, but to make the reader feel it’s important. That way, when Spike and Isla are attacked while sleeping at an altar, the reader recognises the icons of a biblical sacrifice. More importantly, it helps us rationalise a zombie miraculously giving birth. And, most importantly, when Dr Kelson stops an alpha in its tracks using a blow-dart instead of a machine gun, we feel something with truly profound implications has happened.
All this is an exceptionally long-winded way of saying that, to write a producible script, writers should focus less on the chain of events and more on what those events say about their theme. That way, when a young boy’s pilgrimage to save his mother’s life ends with him placing her skull on an altar made of thousands of corpses, it’s not disgusting, it’s profoundly moving.
THE SUBSTANCE
Now, what Garland does with these films may feel like an extreme case where each word is imbued with theme, so there is another example I really want to highlight here, and that’s The Substance. A movie that has a shimmering, beautiful disgust right through it, The Substance uses language to a similar, though less pervasive effect. When you watch the film, you’ll likely know which scenes use heightened, unusual, and distinctly squelchy language in its original script form.
We’re talking turkey cooking.
We’re talking egg frying.
We’re definitely talking Arthritis leg correcting.
And, of course, the Monstro Elisasue.
The juxtaposition of the beauty and the grotesque rears itself at key moments, but has the decency to stay at bay for most of the film. Yes, it is gross watching a fully grown man slap his lips over some expensive seafood, but too much and you’ll turn the readers stomach. Coralie Fargeat balances it to perfection, keeping the audience engaged with the theme without over-indulging in its grizzly elements.
HAMNET
That links quite nicely into the last script I want to talk about on this topic, which is the frankly dense script for Hamnet. Density isn’t a theme, but the way Chloe Zhao uses density goes against every academic teaching of screenwriting. It’s beautifully written.
The imagery is abstract. “The overwhelming soundscape begins to merge with the opera, as if the thick canopy has swallowed the mournful singer.” Good luck pointing a camera at THAT. And while it’s true, you can’t point a camera at that, what you can do is hire some of the best filmmakers in the world to create an image that feels like how that image is meant to make you feel.
Certainly, in its later acts (spoilers), Hamnet is about grief. Not just any grief, the grief over the loss of a child. Thankfully, due to the advances of modern science, that’s a vanishingly rare experience in the world today. Yet, as a dramatic theme, Zhao and original author Maggie O’Connell tap into something oppressive, intangible, and yet instantly recognisable with this script. It’s so beautifully done that, when the inevitable happens, we feel that loss with Agnes and Will. Of course we do, the action lines are written like prose, frequently referring to characters anticipations, unperformed ‘wants’ and more. In most scripts, writing the things actors don’t do would be career suicide, but in a story that’s so much about the interior lives of its characters, the script of Hamnet demands it.
But again, as with both 28 Years Later and The Substance, Hamnet never truly forgets what it is. It’s a screenplay. It uses its theme to elevate the form, not undermine it. While we do spend a lot of time in the interior lives of the characters, it’s never at the expense of the knowledge that this will, funding permitted, become a filmable script.
Your theme isn’t just something that sits in your story, it’s something that jumps out of your script. By thinking less about “what can be seen” and more about how what can be seen makes the reader feel, you’ll write a script that reads the way you imagine the finished film. And who wouldn’t produce that?!
