You’ve heard it a million times and by now you’ve committed it to memory: screenplays are structure. It’s what brought you to this site and what you hope to learn more about. Clever dialogue, fancy locales, witty prose, all of it pales in importance when put up against the backbone of a truly great story.
One of the first screenwriters to really pound this idea home (at least to me) was William Goldman. I’m sure someone before him mentioned it once or twice, but I think he was the one who made it popular. To prove it, here’s the first of a three-parter from 1984 where he discusses some of his thoughts on screenwriting:
Without too much surprise he talks about the spine of a piece and how you really have to know where you’re headed when you’re writing a story. He touches on some things that I’ve tried to explore here, among them the importance of the order of things. What he is really talking about here is that the way in which things are presented has a meaning to it; take one piece out and the whole story becomes meaningless.
The videos are not overwhelmingly informative (YouTube has parts two and three), but it is entertaining listening to a screenwriter who definitely has an opinion on how things should be.
Of course, my favorite quote out of the whole piece is this gem:
“One of the reasons why there are no happy screenwriters is because you have all these people who think they can write better than you.”
So true.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Andrew // Feb 6, 2008 at 11:41 am
Thanks for posting the clip. It’s great to hear William Goldman talking about screenwriting with so much energy, passion, and real-world smarts. It’s amazing to think about the run of success he had back in the 70s when you see the film clips and everyone is now a classic. It’s also interesting to note that there’s nothing he said back in 1984 that doesn’t ring true today.
On a related note, I know from reading the blog that you’re a fan of Deadwood. Someone has been posting lectures from David Milch over at:
http://theideaofthewriter.blogspot.com/
Milch is equally passionate and smart but a little scary because he is into writing from the id and NOT working with outlines. It’s amazing stuff even if, like me, you have no intention of giving up outlining the spine of the story in Dramatica.
2 Jim // Feb 6, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Well, thanks to Andrew there won’t be any posts here for awhile…I’ve got some watching to do.
Thanks!
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