How Anyone Can Become A Screenwriter: Lessons from Satyanshu Singh

National-award-winning screenwriter, Satyanshu Singh is the heart and brain behind critically acclaimed films like Chintu Ka Birthday, and festival favourite feature Tamaash.

He has also penned beautiful poems in the movie, Udaan and extends his love for cinema by teaching it to students through university lectures and workshops. With the popular comedic group AIB, he started ‘AIB First Draft’ a writer’s residential course where he provided mentorship on screenwriting.

Stories are clearly Satyanshu’s calling - however, the stories he has lived himself are just as interesting.

Starting Point with Screenwriting

Screenwriting if put simply is the art of writing scripts for movies, tv shows or any other content piece. From the character sketch to the dialogues - a screenwriter is responsible for writing something which will eventually be an audio-visual content piece.

Satyanshu Singh has conducted hundreds of workshops and lectures about screenwriting and has himself, done the screenplay for his film ‘Chintu ka Birthday’.

Let’s first understand, step by step how Mr Singh approaches this delicate craft of screenwriting with the recurrent example of his film, Chintu Ka Birthday:

Step 1: Begin with an idea - explore the larger theme or genre of your film.

Is it a love story? Is it a thriller? It is a coming-of-age film? Which genre does it fit or defy? Chintu Ka Birthday is a comedy-drama.

Step 2: Understand whether your story is plot-driven or character-driven.

Who does the heavy lifting in the film? Is the plot at the forefront of the characters? Chintu Ka Birthday is character-driven.

As we the story focuses more on each of the family characters and the emotional bond between all of them.

A film like Udaan is also character-driven. A film like Dune is plot-driven.

Step 3: Build your characters.

What are your characters like? What are their flaws? What are their attractive qualities? What makes them unique and original? What are their fears? What are their passions?

Always remember, that the character’s packaging (for example occupation, physical appearance, mannerisms, upbringing etc) should be unique and fresh but their core traits (values/beliefs) should be universal and relatable.

In Chintu Ka Birthday, the character of Madan Tiwary is played by the brilliant Vinay Pathak. What makes him unique? Illegally migrated with his family from a small town in Bihar to war-struck Iraq to earn a better livelihood working as a salesman for a water filter company.

What makes him relatable? His endearing role as a father is who wants to ensure his child celebrates and enjoys his birthday despite all odds - whether they’re financial problems or struck-in-war kinda problems.

“Jo hona hai ho jaye, Chintu ka birthday toh manakar hi rahenge”

“Come what may, we will celebrate Chintu’s birthday.”

Step 4: Before you get into further development of your script - decide your ending.

How does your story end? What lessons do your characters learn? Decide endings for each of your characters, which indirectly help decide the general ending of your story.

As you’re just in the initial stages of writing, keep a few options of how you would like to end your story. Know your ending so you can structure your story well.

Tip: Satyanshu talks about this basic structure in one of his screenwriting sessions with Tanmay Bhat - and the point he emphasises the most is practising every day, writing every day. You must write a scene every day and give yourself different instances between your characters.

The Structure to Screenwriting

There are different narrative structures that your film can adopt. Whether it’s a play or a feature film - time, place and action are the three main things a screenwriter must look into when fleshing out their story.

These three elements together are known as the ‘Three Unities’ derived from the Greek philosopher, Aristotle’s work - The Poetics. These three unities were understood as the rules of ancient storytelling, although, it remains relevant even today, with contemporary playwrights and screenwriters taking inspiration from them for their work.

The three unities are - Unity of Time, Unity of Place and Unity of Action.

Unity of Time: Your story takes place in the course of a single day and night.

Unity of Place: Your story takes place in a single physical space/setting.

Unity of Action: Your story follows one main action or plot with few to no diversions or subplots.

In Chintu Ka Birthday, we see how Satyanshu, follows these three unities skilfully. Following this thousand-year-old framework is not a hard-and-fast rule, neither is it ideal for every genre but there’s an important (and logical) reason why as a screenwriter you must befriend this choice - budgeting.

“Restrictions force you to come up with creative solutions.”

As an upcoming screenwriter when you’re pitching your script or planning to produce it independently it always helps when your story doesn’t depend on elaborate sets, or exotic locations to be executed.

The whole premise of the film takes place on the day of Chintu’s birthday - from the morning of him getting ready for school, to the attack of the Iraqis in the middle of the day followed by the night of celebrating his birthday.

The film is also set in and takes place in one setting - the Tiwary household in Iraq.

The entire story revolves around one action/plot - Chintu’s birthday. While there are many smaller sub-plots, they all work to further this plot line.

Having a script is just a step towards becoming a screenwriter. What follows is pitching your script to the right producer/director. We dive into the art of pitching the script and breaking into the script in our blog. Continue reading here: https://bit.ly/3uvVSwL