Chris Chan’s Writing Workshop: Frank Costanza & Efficient Scene Writing

Chris Chan’s Writing Workshop: Frank Costanza & Efficient Scene Writing 

 

I was watching some justly uncelebrated crime shows recently, and I realized just how poorly some of the scenes where the detectives question the suspects were written.  Going from the dialogue alone, it was impossible to tell anything about the suspects.  There was nothing to distinguish the characters, nothing to make them unique.  Elsewhere in the episode, when the screenwriter tried to “develop” the characters, the characters droned on about themselves to tell the audience what made them unique individuals.  In the end, none of them were that memorable.

 

In contrast, a really skilled writer can create dialogue that tells you all you need to know about a character and more. Paired with a talented actor, in less than a minute, the viewer may not know the character’s third-grade teacher or political viewpoints, but it’s obvious what the heart and soul of a character is.

 

For an example of this, let’s not look at a mystery, but at a scene from the classic sitcom Seinfeld.  Here, George Costanza and his father Frank are at the diner, and George wants to ask his father what he was doing in the city the other day:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3fCt0Smfks

 

Forty-eight seconds.  In this length of time, you get a brilliant picture of the man who is Frank Constanza.  Even if you never saw another episode of Seinfeld, you’d have a pretty strong grasp of Frank Costanza’s personality.  In his first line, he apparently comments right out of the blue, that of all the aspects that might impress him about Manhattan, he most appreciates the absence of mosquitos.  For the first fifteen seconds, Frank’s pretty calm, reflecting on insect populations, comparing Manhattan favorably to Queens.  This exemplifies a trait expanded upon in a different episode: Frank cannot abide infestation.  This bit of conversation illustrates his dislike for bugs, and he appears to be taking pleasure in being far from insects.  At this point, he seems to be a fairly laid-back man.

 

Five seconds later, George mentions his father’s recent trip into the city, and Frank’s temper changes immediately. “YOUR MOTHER HAS TO TELL YOU EVERY MOVE I MAKE!”  What does this tell us?  It illustrates Frank’s mercurial temper, but the use of “your mother” and his tone immediately provide us with insight into his relationship with his wife.  Any regular Seinfeld watcher knows how flammable their marriage is, but for people unfamiliar with these characterizations, this one line of dialogue tells us everything we need to know about their marriage.  Now, to survive in a marriage with Frank, his wife would have to be either extremely meek and tolerant, or just as temperamental as he is.  To work comedy-wise, it would have to be the latter (and we know this to be the case if we’ve seen the show), so we now know the basic character of Frank’s wife.

 

Not only that, but when we ask ourselves, “When you’re raised by a father like this, how does his son turn out?” we get a pretty fair estimation of the essence of George Costanza.  As we can see in this scene, George walks on eggshells with his father, but he’s not afraid of him.  He clearly doesn’t hate him.  George even seems to show concern for his father, but he has to be cautious about questioning him.  Yes, his father has a temper, but their relationship doesn’t appear to be fueled by animosity.  It follows then, that while anger is a defining character trait of Frank Costanza, he is neither cruel nor abusive.  Indeed, in order to be funny, Frank’s anger must be played for laughs, which means that nobody can ever be actually hurt by it.  It follows, therefore, that Frank may rage frequently and he often rants, but the Costanza household is not scarred by hatred, only constantly punctuated by arguments.

 

Moving forward, we see Frank obsess over Jerry and Elaine not saying “hello” to him.  Taken independently, we know nothing about Jerry and Elaine from this clip– not their ages, ethnicities, or their relationships with each other.  We do know from the dialogue that Frank is not particularly fond of Elaine, though his assessment of her as “supercilious” is not necessarily accurate, only his personal take on her.  Furthermore, Frank is clearly closer to Jerry, as the thought of a snub from Jerry seems deeply hurtful to him.  Jerry must therefore be able to abide Frank’s temper as well.

 

Frank cannot bear to be disrespected.  He clearly believes he deserves the courtesy of a “hello.”  At the same time, he’s utterly unaware of the fact that he’s drawing attention to himself in a crowded diner.  He’s so focused on being denied the “hello” he thinks he deserves that he doesn’t even hear George’s question about meeting with a man in a cape, a sartorial decision that George clearly finds ridiculous.

 

There is a lot more that can be extracted in a deep dive of this scene, but for now, this is enough for the purposes of this blog post.  Not counting the three-second guitar riff at the beginning, in forty-five seconds, this scene provides a thorough picture of the essence of Frank Costanza, and his relationships with his son, his wife, Jerry, and Elaine.  We now know how he should be written as a comedic character, and we know how he responds to questions– he ignores them, in order to focus on his own obsessions.  It’s a brilliantly information-dense example of character description, brought to life by two highly skilled comedic performers at the top of their game.

 

When writing scenes regarding questioning and interactions, mystery writers (or writers in any genre) would do well to have this question in their minds at all times: “HOW (Clap) COULD (Clap) JERRY (Clap) NOT (Clap) SAY (Clap) HELLO (Clap)?”  It’s a reminder on how to cram so much about a character in so little time.

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, will be released on November 5^th.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.