Published in: Story Structure

Published in: Story Structure

(via The Story Department)

Totally agree.

I come from a new generation of (aspiring) screenwriters. We are, more often than not, computer-based writers, having abandoned pens, notepads, and moleskin notebooks for writing software and inestimable laptops. We spend (or ask our parents to spend) hundreds of thousands of dollars on screenwriting degrees. We read books and articles and watch documentaries about the industry and expect Hollywood to seek us out – and are frequently upset when it doesn’t. Ours is a new approach to writing, perhaps an over-informed one, but undeniably an ambitious one. We have the above tools at our disposal that earlier writers didn’t. And of course, we have another, which we grew up using every day. Something very precious. Something as valuable as writing software, how-to books, and university screenwriting courses. We have the internet.

Published in: Writing

None of the highlighted scene description above can be shown on the screen or heard in dialogue. Much of it is, in effect, ‘directing’ the actors. Two supposed rules - broken. But in service to the story. To convey to the reader the importance of what’s happening in the moment.

I imagine this rule about “show, don’t tell” was created because there were so many writers out there who are not Alan Ball and who abused the ability to communicate directly with a reader.

Don’t write a book. Even better, stop thinking about writing a book. Your endless internal debate and self-conjured guilt about that book you haven’t written yet is a sensational waste of your time. My guess is if you took all the time that you’ve spent considering writing a book and translated that into actual writing time, you’d be a quarter of your way into writing that book you’re not writing.

The article is great, including this last little thought about part-time writers and the motivation that comes from being so:

While the idea of writing books for a living is appealing, my impression is that if I stopped being a software engineering manager, my voice would quickly become an echo of how things used to be rather than how they are. Thanks, no.

I came across StoryFanatic completely by accident. It’s a site that delves deep into screenwriting theory, in particular the Dramatica theory. I was superficially aware of Dramatica, but after being amazed at the insightfulness of some of the many articles on StoryFanatic, I’m now reading the Dramatica book and finding it fascinating.

But with movies, the high concept premise has a couple of incredibly practical considerations. It suggests a built-in marketing campaign - and it is such a good idea that you could shoot it on a low budget and still have a movie that people would go see. That doesn’t mean anyone’s GOING to shoot it on a low budget, because we are after all talking about Hollywood. But you COULD shoot it on a low budget. It is the idea that is golden.

Most articles regarding this subject regurgitate the same old, same ol’ when it comes to helping writers find that choice idea. Something about the way Alexandra writes simply compels you to follow along. Very motivating piece.

Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back – not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other, yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other – is the talent of the master. The Cosmic Dancer, declares Nietzsche, does not rest heavily in a single spot, but gaily, lightly, turns and leaps from one position to another. It is possible to speak from only one point at a time, but that does not invalidate the insights of the rest. The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment. His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live but willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him; he becomes, that is to say, an anonymity.

Clarice does NOT transform. She is not acting out-of-character in those final scenes. To interpret her character this way is to completely misunderstand What Character Arc Really Means. In fact, Clarice’s actions show very clearly that she is still behaving the way she has from the very beginning, that she is still driven by the screaming of those lambs. That is the whole point of the entire story.

I would agree though that the complete 188 Hero’s Journey steps do give you more that four acts, plot points and mid-point. But not as many as the 510+ stages of the Hero’s Journey.

If you’re having a hard time finding a character’s voice, get him talking about something unrelated to the scene at hand. Let your hero knock back a beer with his college roommate. Have your corporate spy meet-cute a potential suitor at a ski lodge. Pick situations that couldn’t possibly fit in your actual movie. You just want to get your character talking so that you can eavesdrop.

I never do this because I’m too interested in how the characters interact with the plot from a structural standpoint. But since John August has a reasonable amount of success and David Milch suggested the same process, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea!

I always get worried if there are more than three writers. Even three is pushing it, and may not even reflect the true number of writers involved. As Nikki Finke pointed out, the recent A-Team movie had 11 writers working on various drafts of the script, from experienced screenwriter Bruce Feirstein to a spec-script rookie called Jayson Rothwell. In the end, the only credited writers were Skip Woods, Brian Bloom and Joe Carnahan. As in, the movie’s director Joe Carnahan. It’s actually surprising that the finished movie makes any sense at all (it does, barely).

The problem with multiple screenwriters is that each comes to the project with their preconceptions and thematic issues that they wish to explore. In trying to force their personal perspective on a work-in-progress, the meaning that hopefully existed in the first place becomes clouded and obfuscated with disharmonious thematics. Stories should come from ONE writer, one mind (not including the rare team of two writers who basically exist as one).

If the story doesn’t work, toss it out and take a look at the next.

I aspire to create films that explore and expand the boundaries of cinema in all its forms. If I could craft a story with no structure, or with some radically new structure heretofore unknown to humankind, I’d love to do it and take home the Nobel in Screenwriting. But I don’t want to commit the cardinal sin of the would-be entertainer, boring the audience. And I must tell you that having read thousands of scripts, and watched many, many films, and worked with hundreds of students on their stories, and written an award-winning European film, and written scripts for Hollywood studios, and written scripts for the Web, I’ve made this observation. Stories without structure don’t work. They don’t sustain audience interest from beginning to end. They bore.

Writers who think they can write without structure generally have no intention of communicating anything to an audience — there is nothing they are trying to say with their work. Structure-less stories are only entertaining for those who write them, a self-conscious endeavor that rivals the world’s oldest self-stimulating exercise in wasted potential.

Published in: Story Structure

Published in: Story Structure

The generic construction of the “Hollywood Three-Part Screenplay” is fairly straightforward. It doesn’t require too much discussion. I don’t mean to imply that the nuances of screenplay writing are simple, but learning to recognize the essential building blocks of the Hollywood screenplay and their proper order is fairly basic. And this basic knowledge is what most screenplay books seek to impart. The result is that they end up parroting each other. Sure, the average author may bring a more accessible voice, a particular emphasis on character or genre, a unique set of details, or even a set of fresh terms for pre-existing structural components, but the meat of the subject goes unchanged.

It is true that many of these gurus cover the same basic three-act structure, but the problem isn’t that they are rehashing the same thing over and over again, the problem is that they seldom ask Why?. This is why many writers reject their “rules.” Why follow what this guy says if he doesn’t take the time to actually explain why this pattern exists?

This sequence exists because it represents the same sort of thought process that goes on within a human mind as it seeks out to solve a particular problem. Character, plot, theme and genre are simply manifestations of this development of thought made external for the consumption of others. There is nothing wrong with what these gurus are saying. What they point out is in fact a reality of all stories — at least, those stories that seek to argue a particular approach towards resolving issues.

The truth of the matter is that there are actually four evenly spaced, equally at length, acts. This is why Field modified his book later to show the Midpoint in the Second act. Four acts are what is necessary to fully explore the issues at hand.

There is one error to point out though. In the super small charts that accompany the article, the Inciting Incident is placed right up against the First Act Turning Point. This is a point of constant confusion. The Inciting Incident is supposed to be the event or choice that begins the problems in a story. This is not the same thing as the event that turns the First Act into the Second. Often these are mistaken for the same plot point.

The Inciting Incident of Star Wars is Vader’s attack on Leia’s ship. The First Act Turning Point is when Luke’s Aunt and Uncle get fried. The Inciting Incident of The Godfather is Don Corleone’s decision not to go with the drug trade. The First Act Turning Point is Michael’s decision to join the family business. The key is finding out when problems start — that’s the domain of the Inciting Incident.

A professional screenwriting program like Screenwriter is the only way to really write something of import.