Seducing the Audience

Marlene Dietrich seduced every camera lens ever put in front of her. She made it look effortless. She was a natural. Yesterday, a blog led me to an interview with with Alan Moore where he discusses seducing the audience as opposed to demanding they see your perspective. Seduction? This is a new screenwriting concept for me.

Moore said "in the story, in the telling of it, the dialogue, the characters, I introduce myself to the reader, I talk to them interestingly, fascinatingly, calmingly, I get them to sort of follow me up the alleyways of the narrative until they are so far within it that they probably can't find their way out, and then you can do whatever you want to them."

I took his comments to heart and started reading at the beginning of a completed project with one question in mind: "am I seducing the audience?". Four pages later, there was no doubt about it. I had reeled the audience in. Very cool. I strutted around with script in hand saying, "oh yeah" and "you got 'em right there".

Hmm. But what kind of a seductress am I? Am I a natural that seduces in first draft? Or, do I have to work on it?

So I started at the beginning of a first draft I'm working on. Ususally, I'm not too critical until I start the second draft. First draft is a "get the outline in screenplay form" stage for me.

In this particular project, I was going about the story in kind of a "Regarding Henry" fashion. You may recall that in the screenplay, Henry gets shot on page eight. Page eight! The story is intelligently written and explores people as they change to meet the challenges of a tragedy.

So, I got started. Okay, first eight pages, did I seduce the audience? No, not yet. I went further. Got to page fifteen. Did I seduce my audience? Nope, still waiting to be seduced. I went on through page twenty five and quit.

It's a good story. It's a strong story. It's a compelling story. But it doesn't seduce the audience. I am not a natural seductress. I have to work on it. It takes time and multiple drafts. The interesting thing here is that even though I didn't verbalize it as "seducing the audience", I knew it had to be done.