This blog post will be centred around Chapter 4: Creating a World, in Screenplays: How to Write and Sell Them by Craig Batty. I am going to pick out questions I deem most relevant to my work and answer them with my world in mind.

Casting the world

• Which characters belong in the world? The characters in my world are working class Australians, whom all come from families that have been in Australia for generations. These are people that are unflinchingly entrenched in Australian customs and norms and as Australia changes they refuse to adapt. Because the world they live in is insular and stagnant, they are a reflection of this. Because they are bored and distant from mass-culture they are forced to create their own entertainment through Alcohol, Gambling, Violence and Sport. Their are few jobs in this world, because the industry has moved away and as a consequence education isn’t valued. The town understands that it is mostly self-sufficient and that not everyone has to contribute.
• Which characters don’t belong in the world? Characters that don’t belong in this world are characters who want something more. They understand that this town isn’t the centre of the universe and that beyond it other, greater, things exist. So specifically who doesn’t belong in this world? Anyone who hasn’t grown up there, anyone who hasn’t been moulded into its culture from a young age.
• When characters that don’t belong in the world still inhabit it, how do they and other characters react? The people who live in the world, the civilians, act with nastiness and hostility, they are apprehensive when it comes to outsiders because they see them as a threat to the community that they all live to uphold. An outsider has the ability to influence culture and create change-which to the people of a town is a bad thing. A foreign person in the town doesn’t react in any notable way, on the surface my town is quite regular, it’s not dystopian, but it is hostile. A foreign person would feel isolated and lonely.
• What relationships exist between the characters and their world? How does the world affect them on a daily basis? The relationship between the civilians and the world is significant. What inspired the conflict in my world was reading 1984 and seeing a film called Hot Fuzz. In 1984 people devote their lives to serving Big Brother, an authority figure and essentially they sacrifice their own happiness for the greater ‘good’ of the community (which is wholly dictated by Big Brother). In Hot Fuzz the community is so devoted to itself that the people in it become horrible and cruel- in order for the town to benefit. In my world I want to display a similar idea of this old, Australian beach town that is so insular, so withdrawn from the rest of the world, that the people in its community place their town, the idea of their down, above the individual needs and requirements of the citizens. For example, they place no value on education (something that would benefit the individuals) because there is no need for education in the town. No one eats healthy because there is no need too, everyone in the town has live in the town for ages, there is no one to impress hence the town doesn’t require you to eat well.

  Structuring the world

• Does the world have a specific, tangible hold on the plot – things that literally can or can’t happen? In terms of internal logic I think you can’t go against the culture of my world. You’re either a part of it or you’re not. You’re either in it or out of it.
• Does the world suggest – or demand – a specific type of emotional movement or arc? I think my story isn’t really about the world. The world is a backdrop to the story, it gives the story context and another point of interest. My story will not be about the world or the changing/progressing/evolving. Instead, my story will be about my protagonist (and as I wrote in a recent blog post) his decision on whether to stay in the derelict world of my town or return to his previous life (after his divorce).
• -What’s the pace or feel of the world, and how does that play out in the sequences and scenes you write? The nature of my world is slow, its a stagnant place that isn’t susceptible to change, this characteristic will feed into the story’s pacing. I know this is kind of a pretentious description but it will have drawn out novelistic pacing.
• Are actions affected by the world? What do characters feel they can and can’t do? You can’t have your own voice, your voice must fit in with the collective voice. Because the world finds importance within itself, civilians of the town can’t leave, they don’t want too.