Stuff like this still seems manipulative and disingenuous to me, but I understand the thinking behind it.

(via The Story Department)

I think I’m 32 days late to the party (actually, 34 since it is now Saturday!), but Scott Myers has been spending the past month or so reading a screenplay a day. Great idea, but how can I possibly find another 2-3 hours to read a script every day and read Scott’s insight on it?! The least I could do is reread the “perfect” script - Chinatown.

There is some amazing writing on screen at the moment but it’s NOT at the cinema. There is a place where the story and characters are allowed – like a fine wine – to develop over time. If the cinematic art of screenwriting is dead it still lives and breathes on television. Shows like: THE WIRE, MAD MEN, BAND OF BROTHERS, THE SOPRANOS, SIX FEET UNDER, DEADWOOD, and GENERATION KILL arguably provide a powerful, much more meaningful experience than most movies released today. If story, as Robert McKee states, is the currency of human contact, then Hollywood is arguably bankrupt! Thankfully, there is gold to be found on the box at home.

Totally agree.

Cake Man rhapsodizes eloquently about the ready source of writing motivation that is the Internet:

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.

Well, that hurts.

Scott Myers makes a good case for tossing aside the supposed “rules” of proper screenplay prose — if it will make the story read better.

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.

Although Rands is speaking of his experience writing his second book, it could be applied to anyone setting out to write a big project…like a screenplay:

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.

By linking to this site that links to me, I’m attempting to create a feedback loop that will eventually cause the Internet to implode on itself.

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.

A FANTASTIC article on High Concept written by Alexandra Sokoloff:

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.

So apparently Clarice doing battle with Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs represents the Master of Two Worlds stage from Campbell’s interpretation of the Hero’s Journey paradigm. From Campbell himself:

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.

Mr. August offers up a short exercise to bring life to your characters:

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!

Eilis Mernagh ponders the method of throwing more writers at a bad story:

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.

Guest blogger and produced screenwriter Christopher Riley makes mountains of sense in regards to story structure:

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.

J.J. Patrow points out what most fans of story already know:

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.

Don’t quite see the point of these. Writers would be better served using a combination of SimpleNote and NotationalVelocity to capture notes and ideas during the day.

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

Seen this myself several times at CalArts:

One of the staples of many student scripts and films is nothing happens. (This is also true of many independent films.) The story and action just meander. Irwin Blacker taught at USC and I’m sure he saw more than his share of stories where there was page after page where nothing really significant happened. It usually boils down to a lack of conflict and a lack of meaning.

You mean you can’t write it in 31 days with the new super-improved 8-sequence method?

Well, I think the thing that people sometimes find surprising about source material, if you will – whether it’s a comic book adaptation, a remake of another film, whether it’s a sequel, these are all things I’ve done before, or an adaptation of a short story – the interesting thing about an original concept is that, particularly with this sort of ten-year gap, it took me from my initial set of ideas and to finishing the screenplay. By the time you get there, you’ve lived with those ideas for so long it really isn’t very different from working from somebody else’s story, for example. As with Memento, when I adapted my brother’s short story, the same thing happens. You take on the story as your own, and because the screenwriting process is a very long one for me, it takes years really to put a script together. By the time you get there at the end, it starts to feel a little bit irrelevant as to where you started. So, the experience has been quite similar in fact.

Christopher Nolan on writing original material.

New book from Linda Aronson:

The 21st-Century Screenplay is the long-awaited, much-expanded successor to the author’s internationally acclaimed Scriptwriting Updated. Many books in one, it offers a comprehensive, highly practical manual of screenwriting from the classic to the avant-garde, from The African Queen and Tootsie, to 21 Grams, Pulp Fiction, Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Can’t resist. Must read screenwriting how-to books…

playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-83) told biographer Lyle Leverich (Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams ) that if screenwriters had the control over their material that dramatists did, he would have written for the movies, because he “thought cinematically.”

Happy 4th of July everyone who loves well-told stories on film!

Indeed, the recession has given the movie studios a reason — or an excuse, depending on the perspective — to adjust in their favor how they employ screenwriters. When screenwriters do get a shot at work, they are increasingly subject to “sweepstakes pitching,” in which as many as a dozen are pitted against one another, with producers picking the one they like best. Or writers are often paid only for the first draft of the script in “one-step deals,” and no longer offered a fee for subsequent drafts, as in the past. Writers also are expected to produce elaborate outlines of the script before they are hired for the project, losing valuable time if they are not selected.

More recipes for disaster, more years ahead with sub-standard stories.

“In my opinion, it’s shortsighted,” said Nicole Clemens, head of the motion picture literary department for International Creative Management. “In terms of the development process, what’s unfortunate about the one-step deal is that the movie is often ‘found’ in the second or third draft.”

Since there is NO way the studios are going to risk altering their processes during this downtime, perhaps the answer is to make sure that the second or third draft isn’t required in the first place. Why not find the story within the first and stop wasting development execs time. And by first draft, of course that means the first draft anyone sees. In reality it should be the tenth or fifteenth actual draft.

Jeff in Philly reviews Dramatica and asks:

…Dramatica refers to “dynamic pairs” of story elements. Some of them are easy enough to grasp: Order/Chaos, Help/Hinder, etc. But many of the dymanic[sic.] pairs are more difficult to get, e.g. Possibility/Certainty (one might have expected Possibility/Impossibility).

To quickly clarify, the dynamic pair for Possibility is in fact Probability, not Certainty. The dynamic pair for Certainty is Potentiality. But for now, let’s pretend that Jeff meant to say “Possibility/Probability when one might have expected Possibility/Impossibility.”

The reason Impossibility is wrong is the same reason that a lack of Faith isn’t the same thing as Disbelief. There are positive and negative variations for every dramatic appreciation found in the theory. If for instance the theory tells you that your story will have an Overall Story Concern of Understanding, that could be that the characters in your story are having problems trying to understand what is going on (like in The Sixth Sense) or it could be that there is some massive misunderstanding going on (like in The Usual Suspects).

This applies to every term in the book and speaks to Dramatica’s flexibility and power in determining and helping form the structure of a story.

Back to the Possibility/Probability conundrum…

If you have a group of scientists who are at each other’s throats (murdering, sabotaging) because there is the Possibility that one of them will be known as the world’s greatest mind, the kind of thing that would resolve their problems is a focusing on the Probability that they’ll end up killing each other off before anyone ever hears of them. Focusing on the possibilities was what was causing them issues in the first place. Focusing on the likelihood of their endeavors is the only thing that could calm those deadly urges down.

Fighting fire with fire doesn’t work in resolving a story’s conflict. Using Impossibility would only drive them to murder each other even faster. What else would these fame-hungry scientists do if they knew that it was a virtual impossibility that anyone would ever mention their names along with Einstein or Newton? Impossibility would only lead to more desperation, more killing.

Come to think of it, this was simply supposed to be a quick link and explanation, but now it has the beginnings of a very cool and dark story! See what Dramatica does…

Now if this was a Shakespearean tragedy, this desperation ending would be great. But that would just mean that the problems affecting the scientists weren’t solved. Possibility leading to Impossibility over the course of 120 pages would only maintain the problem, not solve it. Happy endings tend to resolve the issues in a story, so in that case, Probability would be the way to go.

Either ending is fine, it’s really up to the Author. No need for Closing Images or Transformational Character Arcs™ here.

The point is there are two sides to the spectrum when it comes to dynamic pairs. It isn’t so much black and white as it is black and white AND color. The negative of a term (Impossibility is the negative of Possibility) is not the dynamic opposite of a term and will not resolve the story’s issues.

Christopher Nolan on what a waste of time research is:

I don’t actually tend to do a lot of research when I’m writing. I took the approach in writing Inception that I did when I was writing Memento about memory and memory loss, which is I tend to just examine my own process of, in this case dreaming, in Memento’s case memory and try and analyze how that works and how that might be changed and manipulated. How a rule set might emerge from my own process. I do know because I think a lot of what I find you want to do with research is just confirming things you want to do. If the research contradicts what you want to do, you tend to go ahead and do it anyway. So at a certain point I realized that if you’re trying to reach an audience, being as subjective as possible and really trying to write from something genuine is the way to go. Really it’s mostly from my own process, my own experience.

Translation: If you don’t have a story to tell, no amount of research will make it better.

Ed Catmull:

I do believe you want a vision, so you start off with a person who has a vision for a story. And we do things to try and protect that vision and its not easy to protect it, because they feel these pressures. They also have misconceptions about the creative process sometimes. We do have these people who we give a chance to on the belief they’re right, and can rise to the occasion, and we are wrong sometimes, because we can’t see what goes on in their heads. And our measure, because we can’t see inside people’s heads, is the team. If the team is functioning well, and healthy, it will solve the problem.

Starting with a person who has a vision for a story and then doing whatever you can to protect that vision? Sounds like a recipe for success to me.

As the Internet makes traditional news sources less and less relevant, trained journalists are making the switch to the wonderful world of screenwriting:

As an ink-stained scribbler the last 10 years, I’ve sat in the same chair in our family room, eating ham sandwiches, very much alone. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the amount of creative control I have in that process, and I like the one-on-one transaction with the reader,” says Eddie, a journalism graduate from Columbia University, who also pens an advice column for The Globe’s Life section…”But working on The Yard is a lot of fun and very social”

Yes, getting notes is a lot of fun.

Though this article is referring to the ultra-simple interpretation of structure as proposed by Field, it could very well apply to any theory:

If before reading this post you were completely unfamiliar with Syd Field and his impact on the film industry, you may be cursing him at this moment, blaming him for introducing “formula” to the wonderful world of cinema and destroying creativity. As a writer who has attempted to write within this structure, I must admit it can be very daunting. But keep in mind that Syd Field’s structure is just that – a structure. It’s like a wash line. It gives support, but it doesn’t limit the variety of what you can hang on it.

Wonderful image - a wash line of meaning from which everything that is colorful and different and unique about a story hangs from.

Bret Easton:

I don’t think films are a screenwriters medium. You don’t know how many times it was rewritten by someone else and they just got the credit. A film is really a director’s medium. I tend to go to movie’s where I like the director really more than whoever wrote it. The things that I’ve admired a lot lately have been on television.

Sadly, the best writing is on television. At least, sad for those who like great stories on 60-foot screens.

To be a screenwriter, you have to let go of control. That’s part of the process. Your writing is alone, but still writing a script is very collaborating. There are other demands coming in from the people who are paid to develop the idea, the director who has ideas, and if there are a couple of actors who want to have their say, you have to listen to them too. Screenwriting is just a very different story from writing a novel because, you’re right, and you have quote-unquote “the final cut on it.” Screenwriting goes through so many different levels of collaboration, that by the time you see it on the screen, it doesn’t really match up to what you initially did, and you have to be okay with that. And I am.

Screenplays are a medium steeped in compromise.

Michael Arndt on working at Pixar and why they wouldn’t let him work at home:

One person can have half an idea and another person will fill in the other half, and someone will come along and top it. There’s a sense when things are firing on all cylinders that the organic intelligence in the room is just much higher than even the smartest person in the room. Because suddenly you have this collective solving story problems much, much faster than any individual can solve them.

This may sound like a shocking statement, but I believe anybody can be a screenwriter. Everybody in the world has at least one interesting story in them. Life is too crazy not to have an awesome story in the vault. But the reality is, it takes a shitload of time to learn how to *tell* that story in the bastardized format that is a “screenplay.” How long it takes generally depends on how talented you are. For some people it only takes a couple of years. For others, it may take two decades to figure out. So a lot of screenwriting comes down to perseverance and a willingness to learn.

An entertaining list of screenwriting pitfalls follows.

Create a central character with whom you fall in love. Not necessarily romantic love, but that can work, too. The point is if you have at least one character in your story who you want to spend time with - or better yet need to spend time with - perhaps that could entice you back to the writing.

Screenwriter Neil Landau:

The first essential element in writing a screenplay is creating an iconic character. Think of a memorable movie, and it’s bound to have a memorable character at its center. That character isn’t perfect — those who contain a paradox and have good and bad sides are most human and interesting.

Every complete story is about one character.

There are only two types of stories and they’ve already been written: “I’m going on a journey” and some version of “boy meets girl.” Every story falls into one of those two categories, metaphorically they can fall into both; it’s the details that will set your story apart.

Ugh.

As far as Deus Ex Machina goes, the only reason this ever happens in a story is if the author has not adequately prepared for a meaningful ending.

There’s an art to adapting a work of fiction into a screenplay, and, like all creative endeavors, it has its own set of pitfalls. Issues of tone, pace and interior monologue — not to mention readers’ expectations — all number among the hurdles faced by the screenwriter who tackles a book or short story.

L.A. Times writer Paul Gaita takes a look at how Graham Yost went about adapting the short stories for broadcast audiences.

When I got the opportunity to do a series based on Elmore Leonard’s writing, I jumped on it because I’m a fan,” he said. “So, when I’m adapting it, I’m not thinking, ‘How can I make this better?’ It’s ‘How can I do justice to Elmore?’ which is a great and simple guiding principle.

It was written by eleven screenwriters. Eleven.

Beginning with the sound era, studios and films producers have longed for a way to eliminate the screenwriter from the filmmaking process. By and large, writers are prickly personalities who absorb too much time, demand too much credit and need to be kept clear of the set, where they might interfere with the director, who is, after all, the real auteur of the film. With The A-Team, a Fox film derived from a 1980s TV series, this dream now is a reality. The film seems nearly writer-free. Absolutely no time gets wasted on story, character development or logic.

I’m guessing this will get a goose-egg in the ‘ol story structure rating.

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (of Twilight fame) speaking to Bennington College’s graduating class of 2010:

I know one thing for certain that is in your future: Failure. … It’ll be dizzying, how many wrong routes you’ll choose. But I tell you this: As you’re lying there bleeding, remember me and remember this was supposed to happen and this is going to be really irritating particularly while you’re so down in the dumps, but see if you can also remember that this crushing blow will actually eventually be a good thing. … You pick yourself up enough times, and I’m quite an expert at this, and the falls won’t be as hard and getting up will be easier. And the shape of your dreams will become more and more clear and you’ll find yourself standing closer and closer to them.

Great concept for a screenwriting book:

Packed with over sixty 10-minute writing tools, The Coffee Break Screenwriter keeps it focused and keeps it simple. Now, writers can make real progress on their scripts with only ten minutes of stolen time. The writer receives guidance and tips at every stage of the often intimidating writing process with a relaxed, “ten minutes at a time” method that focuses the writer and pushes him or her forward. At each step, writers are encouraged to “Take Ten” and tackle an element of their scripts using the templates and tools provided. “What you’ve Accomplished” sections help writers review their progress. And “Ten Minute Lectures” distill and demystify old-school theory, allowing the writer to unblock and keep writing.

Available for pre-order on Amazon - comes out in September of 2010. From Pilar Alessandra, the consultant behind the entertaining On The Page Podcast.

From a screenwriter’s panel:

Half of your movie is the ending,” Hoffman said. “Half of your ending is the screenplay. It’s very, very important. To write a proper ending is hard. Endings are very, very difficult. They are sort of a miracle, and very, very hard to do. They are sort of the hallmark. I saw Chinatown again about a week and a half ago, and I realized what a classic ending that movie has. What a miracle ending, what a triumph.

Writing a good ending is one thing, writing a meaningful one is so much more important. The panelist offers up Chinatown as an example of a story with a great ending. The reason why he refers to it as a “miracle ending” is because there is deep meaning behind the events that unfold. While Jake was able to unravel the dark secrets of the larger picture, he himself was left unresolved, unable to understand why it all had occurred. Chinatown is a Personal Tragedy story with a beautiful ending.

Solid meaningful story structure was responsible for that.

One of the more ludicrous things ever said in regards to story structure:

Murphy argued that movies took the “three act structure” approach not because it was inherent, as most screenwriting teachers insist, but for financial reasons. Murphy observed that the bigger the budget, the more conservatively the film was written.

Both Memento and Fargo have solid story structures that are not any different than the same structure behind Hamlet or Star Wars or The Godfather. Structure exists to provide meaning. If a story is pointless or doesn’t seek to argue a point through character, plot, theme and genre, then yes, there is no need for structure.

There are many who use the concept of a “blockbuster” story structure to make money, but the very idea that structure exists because the end result is financial gain is simply astounding.

One of the best screenwriting blogs around, Go Into The Story, recently fielded a reader question in regards to the Dramatica theory of story. If you have read at least one article here, you know that I’m a huge fan of the concepts behind the theory. One of the main reasons why I have spent the past four years or so writing 200+ articles on the importance of meaningful story structure is because my overwhelming desire to share the amazing insights Dramatica has on why stories exist and what makes some better than others.

I took the opportunity on Scott’s blog to jump on my theoretical soapbox and elucidate on why I think an understanding of this theory is essential for writers:

Dramatica is a comprehensive holistic model of story that covers the structures beneath meaningful narrative fiction regardless of the medium. The concepts within accurately explain the timelessness of great plays like Hamlet and deeply moving novels like To Kill A Mockingbird as well as it does The Godfather or Star Wars. Great story is great story no matter how it is transported to an audience.

There have been many films made that are missing components Dramatica states are necessary for a meaningful story. Taken and Inglorious Basterds from 2009 are just two examples of films that found an audience without meaning. These popular movies relied on the charisma of their actors and the thrills of their set pieces to engage the public. But taken as a whole, both these films leave one feeling strangely empty as the credits roll.

Writers, at least those who wish to be great, aspire for something more with their writing — a connection that the mundane cannot provide. This is the kind of story Dramatica is trying to help writers write, the kind of story that lives on within the hearts and minds of those who have experienced it. These are the kinds of stories people want to see over and over again. When given an option on a Friday night between Brad Pitt’s Nazi scalper or Michael Corleone, most lovers of story would choose the latter. Dramatica explains why.

The only reason anyone has had trouble answering the questions posed by the theory is because there were significant inconsistencies with the story they were trying to tell. If you spend enough time with the theory and make the effort to really understand what it is trying to say, you start to realize that the reason great stories work out so well (Hamlet, Godfather, Chinatown, Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca), is because they had these inconsistencies worked out.

Every writer has his or her own personal blind spots. It is what drives them to write, compelling them with the need to say something worthwhile. Many writers don’t like Dramatica because it points out their blind spots. That is the main purpose of the theory. It says to writers, “Look, you’re not perfect, you’re actually missing an entire side to the argument you are trying to make, and if you leave it out the audience is going to call you out on it (by not going to see your movie). Dramatica won’t let you write an incomplete story. It is unbiased and non-formulaic in its presentation of the model of story.

Your 12 questions (see the original article here) are valid and covered by the theory. As far as the difference between what the Protagonist wants and what he needs, the theory goes into great depths to explain exactly why this dynamic exists and why a character would be so focused on their wants when focusing on their needs would really satisfy the problems in their lives. In addition, it forces you to decide what kind of ending you want, what you really want to say with your story. These are good things.

The reason so many of the terms seem obtuse is because the English language was created predominantly by males. As much as we’d like to pretend that we are the only ones that matter, there is another half of the population that sees the world in a completely different light. Dramatica tries to compensate for this male bias by using words or terms that are the closest approximation to what they really should be in accurately describing what goes on within a story. Again, it is a complete model of the human mind, both male and female. There will be some wonkiness to it as the systems for communication in our culture tend to favor one side over the other.

Dramatica really is the best model of story we have available to us today. It does not dictate style, pacing, or narrative (linear or non-linear). These highly subjective elements of writing are left up to the artist - the way it should be. It is always surprising how so many consider Dramatica formulaic or by-the-book storytelling when it makes great efforts to free writers from the creative shackles imposed by Field, McKee and Snyder. Unlike Snyder who dictates you have to have a Dark Night of the Soul moment or that the Final Image must be directly related to the Opening Image, Dramatica leaves the particulars of how a story should be presented up to the creativity of the author.

Even so, Dramatica accounts for all these previous paradigms and moves on to tell you, “You know what? You want to write something unique, something different, something the world has never seen before, well then here you go. Here’s how to make it work, now you go do the actual writing. Just know that if you try and write something meaningless or broken, I’m going to call you out on it.”

From Alex Epstein’s book Crafty Screenwriting:

But this isn’t a question of three act structure. It’s a question of giving away too much in the middle and not holding enough back for the end. Worry about whether your story is taking too long to get off the ground, or if you’re introducing new characters so fast we don’t get to know them well enough. Worry about whether your middle drags, or gets too complicated, or if you are running out of complications and your hero is going to defeat his enemy too quickly and easily. Worry about whether your ending feels rushed, or if you’ve got more than one scene that feels like an ending.

Mr. Epstein is criticizing the classic screenwriting rule that all screenplays should be neatly divided into three acts, and to a certain extent he is right. There is some good advice there.

But to dive further into the reason why these acts exist, it becomes apparent that these shifts in dramatic context are absolutely essential. When examining a story’s central problem it becomes apparent that there are four separate contexts that can be taken. For instance, if you take a problematic activity like say “Catching a Murderer”, you can see that there will be problems with learning what violent acts were committed, understanding why someone would do that and what his or her plans are, and with running the investigation or doing the legwork required to get this criminal out in the open. Those are three contexts right there - three dramatic movements. The only thing missing now is the final movement, the actual “catching” of the criminal. Those are four major movements, four acts that lead to a story’s conclusion (i.e. problem solved).

This is a very simplistic approach to a story, but if stories are indeed about solving problems then with the above understanding it becomes quite obvious that these four movements are essential towards a story’s construction. A story isn’t finished until the problems that created it are evaluated from all angles. An audience will call you on it if you leave out a major portion of your argument.

There aren’t three acts anyways, there really are four acts in a complete story, as was covered in this linked item concerning Michael Hague’s Screenplay Structure. What is usually considered the 2nd act is actually two acts that many unconsciously combine into one. There isn’t beginning, middle and end; there is potential, resistance, conflict, and outcome. Try reading a Calvin and Hobbes comic by leaving out one of the panels. There is a natural rhythm there that is based on our own human psychology.

Structure is not a device to organize your storytelling into 30 page increments. It is a carrier wave for the message you are trying to deliver. You can’t just ignore it because you think you are better than it. It is an essential part of what it is you are trying to say.

Lee Matthias on why screenplays, particularly spec scripts, need to say more than they eventually will:

Screenplays must communicate their meaning fully and clearly or risk losing their reader and the sale because of the potential casting of somebody like George Spelvin (non-actor extraordinaire), rather than Harrison Ford, not to mention other deficiencies like insufficient information, critical logic lapses, or merely a lack of emphasis. It may look like a duck, it may walk like a duck, but on the page, until it talks like a duck, it ain’t a duck!

Communicating the story is more important than being particularly clever with subtext. They are blueprints after all, not the final product.

Screenwriter William Martell takes an in-depth look at how Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe took a great spec-script and turned it into Robin Hood. He challenges the idea that the director is always right, and offers up a nice (if not hopelessly impossible) solution to the problem of destroying a great story.

In addition, he makes a really good point about writing spec scripts:

Writing a spec script is a big gamble where the odds are against you - such a small percentage of spec scripts sell that it seems crazy to write one. Except unlike buying a lotto ticket, the reason a spec script becomes one of those one in a million winners is something *we control* - the writing. Sure, there’s a timing factor, too - but if you have written a great script it’s going to stand so far above all of those crappy ones that your odds are suddenly much better. We control the odds. We are responsible for writing the best possible screenplay… or it doesn’t sell to anyone in the first place.

Unfortunately, there is only so much creative control you can have over a collaborative medium.

ScriptShadow relates a most depressing prediction of what it takes to sell your first spec script, but then adds:

…if that sounds like the most miserable experience ever to you, then I’m going to be honest here. You probably aren’t cut out for screenwriting. Because this is how people usually find success in this business. And for those who stick around, it’s wonderful, because you realize at some point that it was never about the spec sale in the first place. It was about your love of writing.

Your love of writing is what it is all about.

New blog discovery — two writers covering the transition from screenwriter to novelist. Usually we only hear of writers taking the reverse path.

Novels have more complex plots, characters and settings, which require more effort to write comprehensive coverage. Novels lend themselves to a more fully-rendered experience - they are an artistic end, not a means-to-an artistic end as screenplays are. That last remark may sound harsh, but it’s not meant to be. Screenplays by their very nature are intended to be translated and produced into films by a slew of artists before they are consumed by a mass audience. Novels are already the result of an artistic vision. They don’t rely on anyone interpreting them other than for whom they were written: the reader.

I tend to call this theory the “tyranny of the narrative” and it’s a variant of the media-bias meme we’ve all been hearing for, what, 30 years now, and it works something like this: After more than a century of Hollywood movies, and a good 60 years of television in the homes — about 30 or 40 years of that in a constant 24/7 stream of varied programming — the species known as Homo americanus has become pretty darn sophisticated in the trappings of the story. Instinctively, it seems, we know all about protagonists, antagonists, narrative conflict, subplots and exposition, all leading to resolution. It’s the stuff we eat, drink and breathe every day from “Avatar” to the NBA playoffs to, I would argue, the news of the day.

The human mind is a machine built for meaning. A complete story (or “narrative” as referred to in the above article) is the carrier wave for that greater understanding.

Stories will always persist, because the mechanism that interprets them will never change.

From the LA Times, a quick look at how top writers are helping combat vets write their own stories. Several writing exercises are offered:

Go around the table and tell something about yourself, but inject a lie ; that teaches participants how to capture an audience. Write a letter to a person about an unresolved issue; that teaches how to face fear and self-doubt. Read what you’re writing out loud. Does the dialogue sound like people really talk?

Write in a journal. Write under the deadline of a kitchen timer. Listen to a song and create a character. Listen to a different song and write a scene featuring that character.

Alessandro and Larry Andries (“The Pacific”) walk their group, equipped with pen and paper, across the street to the crowded Grove, with instructions to find two people, watch them and write a two-character scene. Be back in an hour and a half. They have homework. Write a monologue — a single shot, two people in frame, one is you at your age talking to the 16-year-old version of you who’s sleeping in the bed. One page.

Sascha Rothchild:

The amazing thing about writing a spec script is that for that moment you’re your own boss,

Which is really why so many people turn to writing as a means of finally expressing themselves. If only the spec script could survive on its own, without fear of constant rewrites and meaningless notes.

You can and should write the spec exactly how you want to write it. Only worry about expressing your memorable voice, characters and tone. Make it a spec that is so good and so original it has to sell. And if it doesn’t sell for whatever reason but is a great sample, you can use it to get open writing jobs.

Or you could just take it for what it is — a unique look into your own unique soul.

Interesting thoughts on how the writer relates to game development:

Once the game has been written, of course the writer of the game is free to do any and all of the above things, but only after the game is written. The game will tell you what the story should be like and what dialogue should be written (if any), how the characters should be described to the player and how the game should be coded. There will be great games made that don’t use this method—they will be exceptions to the rule. They will be happy accidents. To guarantee a consistent generation of quality games, developers need to start with writing—not stories, not characters, not dialogue, but games.

Inexperienced screenwriters may believe that structure inhibits creativity, but experienced writers know that following a template helps them to problem identify, generate ideas, select good ideas and develop them to reach that all important words-on-paper first draft – structure is not a hindrance but an enhancer of creative output.

Tell it.

Encouraging news from Iowa this week:

Ibsen was over 50 when he wrote, A Dolls House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, and An Enemy of the People. Those are his masterpieces. Though Ibsen began writing plays as a teenager, today I doubt many people have heard, read or seen any of the plays he wrote in his first 30 plus years of writing.

(via Scott W. Smith)

Melanie Anne Phillips on presenting the first incarnation of Dramatica to story guru Robert McKee:

Back in the early 1990’s, just after we developed the first version of Dramatica, we invited McKee to come by our offices and give us his feedback. We were just starting out in the field and were kind of in awe of him, as he was the leading “guru” of the time. So, it was with nervous but eager anticipation that we awaited his comments while we demoed the Dramatica software and explained the concepts behind our Dramatica theory of story. When it was over, he bolted up from his chair, proclaimed that this was the exact kind of crap he had been fighting against for all those years, and stormed out of the room. We were crushed. Our hero had just pronounced that we were less than worthless – we were the enemies of all writers.

Which is the unfortunate response typically displayed by someone who isn’t willing to take the time to fully understand the concepts behind this groundbreaking theory for the 21st century.

It took many years after that before we really had a lock on the idea that structure is logical, storytelling is passionate. And that structure is a carrier wave that delivers the storytelling experience.

When you really understand a project’s DNA, it’s much easier to write and rewrite. You know exactly what types of scenes, moments and lines of dialogue belong in your movie, and which don’t. Every scene in your screenplay can change, but it still feels like the movie.

The most important take-away from this article is that his favorite film is Aliens, which means he is rad.

According to every source running this story, before this was posted there were exactly two places you could do that: Lucasfilm’s archive and the library of the Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico. No copies were allowed to be made.

There goes my afternoon.

(via BigShinyRobot)

Screenwriter Danny Strong:

I thought this could be such a great movie. And I thought even if they don’t buy it as a pitch, I’m going to write it. And even if no one likes it, I will have had the experience of writing what I think is a really, really interesting film. And that was all I cared about. And I think that’s how screenwriters, and I think writers of any kind, need to approach their work of this may never make a dime. No one may ever read this, but the experience of writing it was incredibly rewarding for me and there’s nothing else I would have enjoyed spending my time doing more than getting to write this. And I think that should be the standard for what a writer chooses to do.

Screenwriter-turned-novelist Alexandra Sokoloff:

Although it’s sometimes sheer agony, writing a novel is about seven billion times more satisfying than writing a script, for the simple reason that when you finish a novel, it’s a complete work. When you finish a script, it’s just the beginning of a process that may never amount to anything except a paycheck. For me, there’s no comparison.

(via Women on Writing)

Janice Hally asks:

“Experts” have painstakingly taken apart screenplays, discovered similarities and made pronouncements about the perfect structure for a story or screenplay. Many of them make a living passing on all that they have learned to students of the subject, who are eager to learn the secret of what makes a great script, great. This may work in retrospect, but how much use is it to the writer who is creating a screenplay from beginning to end rather than a student dissecting the finished work?

Well for one, it’s far more helpful to understand the mechanics behind a successful character arc than it is to “lie back and visualize the story”; the latter, of course, being sage advice from Hally. What about the advice given to “develop a strong synopsis of the story, its theme, and its outcome”? Wouldn’t it be nice to know what actually creates a meaningful outcome instead of one that just ends? Or are you just supposed to make your best guess?

If writers’ instincts are not allowed freedom of expression, then nothing original will ever be written

Comprehending the difference between Protagonist and Main Character doesn’t stifle creativity, it encourages it! Analyzing a great film like The Wrestler opens up a world of possibilities when you fully realize why it feels the way it does when he takes that last leap off the top rope. Why wouldn’t you want to learn as much as you possibly can? The more you know about the mechanics behind effective storytelling, the greater the well will be from you to draw from when it comes to putting those words to pages.

Of course you should be “entertained” and “moved” when writing, but if that writing lacks purpose, the end result will lack an audience. Guaranteed.

Lastly, writing stories is absolutely like a recipe for cake. It is true that you can’t take a bite of cake and then use that experience to determine how it was put together. Many try. But you can learn what the individual ingredients themselves are and then combine those together into your own unique and meaningful recipe.

Ignorance as a pretext for individuality is simply a recipe for great disappointment and failure.

Stephen J. Cannell:

There’s something that happens in the movie business that doesn’t happen in the TV business that I find absurd, writers seem to be interchangeable. ‘He’s a writer, let him take a shot!” As opposed to the idea that there are writers that are right for certain projects. I think they would be so much better off if they had said, ‘Who are the best writers for this movie?’ instead of ‘Hey, this guy is available and he had a hit last year.’ That’s not the best way to pick a writer.

Which is why, for the most part, the writing for TV (HBO and friends) is superior.

(via The Underdog)

In defining a well-constructed 2nd act, Gideon brings up an interesting point:

At this time, the subplots are also fleshed out to add dimension to the main story. These are often love stories by lazy default, but make sure they relate to the main character’s struggle and central theme in some way. Otherwise you run the risk of writing two concurrent stories.

This “love story”, or subplot as many people refer to it, is really something very important known as the Relationship Throughline. It’s important because it signifies the heart of the story and provides the subjective view on the story’s central problem. This throughline is not an option, especially if you have any desire to write a complete story that people will love and cherish for all time. In fact, leaving it out guarantees that your story will easily be forgotten.

The easy way to connect this essential throughline to your “main character’s struggle” and central theme of the story is by using the Dramatica theory of story. Once you select what kind of personal issues your Main Character faces and then add in the central theme of your story, the program will automatically tell you what kind of issues this “love story” should explore. You can, of course, write about something completely different, but chances are the end result will be a mish-mash of nonsense that really won’t mesh well together.

An exhaustive look at Lew’s Screenwriting Colony is a fascinating look at someone who loves teaching screenwriting. In addition, there are several gems of inspiration here and there:

I’m not a big fan at all of sitting in front of the keyboard until beads of blood pop out on your forehead. Most writers will tell you how hard it is…For me, hard is being on the end of a shovel helping build an irrigation canal. That’s hard. I mean, how much better does it get? — you get paid to dream. I think that joy of the whole thing really comes across. I want people to accept that and have that for themselves because what a wonderfully fulfilling life it can be. And you’re never out of a job, You may not be getting paid, but you always have stuff to do.

Dramatica theory co-creator Chris Huntley will be talking screenplays in Santa Monica this Saturday, May 8th during the Screenwriter’s Toolbox seminar.

This full day of seminars and interactive workshops is for new and experienced filmmakers who want to better understand and strengthen their craft and business skills. Featuring topics ranging from pitching and story conceptualization to screenwriting and script development, this professional development program is designed to give independent filmmakers a working knowledge of the latest industry tools and information that can save them time and money as well as avoid costly mistakes during production.

The insane part comes with the registration fee — only 55$ (45$ pre-reg) for an entire day of story structure instruction. The cost-to-value is almost incomprehensible, especially when you compare it to the usually well-overpriced fare from other screenwriting experts.

If you’ve got an idea for a story, but aren’t sure exactly how to start or how best to construct it, then sign up now.

Film is fast – stories tend to be less than two hours long. That encourages brevity, which actually plays to a key strength of mine; I’m too lazy to write long…I like that kind of work - boiling things down to create a headier brew. Film demands you do that because you don’t have time.

More from Matt Bird’s excellent Storyteller’s Rulebook series:

the central conflict has to begin in the very first scene, before we’ve even had a chance to get to know the character. First-time writers balk at this rule. Can’t we get to know the person for a few scenes before we know the problem? Nope. Because the movie isn’t about the person. It’s about the person’s problem.

The examples he uses is Malcom Crowe (Bruce Willis) and his perception problem in The Sixth Sense. Malcom has a certain way of seeing things, and it’s not right. In fact, it is so bad that it actually becomes the source of all his angst. The story is about bringing him to the point where he sees things the way they really are, and then giving him the opportunity to remain blind to it, or to change and move on.

But this isn’t the only problem in the story. Because of the way this story is set up, the problem he suffers from is also the problem everyone else in the story suffers from. The “A story line” brings everyone together because there is an erroneous perception of who and what the young and troubled Cole (Haley Joel Osment) is all about. Some perceive him as a freak. Others perceive him to be the victim of some parental abuse. Like Malcom’s personal journey of growth, the story at large is all about bringing everyone to an understanding of what is really going on with Cole and his ability to communicate with those who have moved on.

This is what makes this film so powerful and so memorable. It’s not simply one major reversal at the end. There is something meaningful going on: a look at a problem both subjectively (from Malcom’s point-of-view) and objectively (from everyone else’s point-of-view of Cole). A solution is offered, along with the results of employing that key component of resolution.

Stories are about solving problems. When coupled with a solution and effective journey to get there, an argument is made as to the best way of approaching and solving these problems. Stories like The Sixth Sense persist because there is something meaningful being said.

In the latest I Am Entertainment magazine, Chris Huntley elaborates on a common mistake screenwriters make:

There’s a myth in story writing that says, “Your main character needs to transform into something else.” I call it a myth because it’s partially wrong and partially right. In every story you want a character to transform, but the thing is, it doesn’t always have to be the main character who makes the transformation. You can have the impact character transform, or the antagonist, while the main character remains steadfast. Many Bible stories are like that, where you have all these people who just stayed the course, while those around them changed or transformed. Many writers, because of different story paradigms, don’t allow for that.

A wonderful video of Main Characters who don’t transform can be found in my article on What Character Arc Really Means.

“Storytelling is the primary civilizing instrument in culture,” he [story guru Robert McKee] said. He then quoted Aristotle: “‘When the storytelling goes bad in society, the result is decadence.’ The way out,” he continued, “is through great storytelling. It sensitizes society to the humanity in other people. Writers of the 21st Century will have to work harder. They can’t sell out. And if they don’t sell out, they’ll have the potential to do something of beauty and value.”

And the path to great storytelling is found by writing complete stories.

This funk is a dark time for me as an aspiring screenwriter because this is when thoughts of giving up become the strongest. Usually I come up with an idea for my next script and the demons go away. I have to say it’s getting harder to keep pursuing this crazy endeavor. I enjoy writing stories and creating characters that exist only in my mind. This drives me more than the money or fame, if there is such a thing for a screenwriter. So as I bathe in self pity and doubt about my screenwriting career, an idea pops into my head for my next script, and I just keep writing.

Keep writing.

When we, as audience, watch a story, we hope to learn that we should or should not use a particular approach, so that we may grow from that experience in our own lives. But how can that point be made if a Character does not finishntire what she starts. We may see the element as failing, but the argument is left open that perhaps if only the Character who started with that element had stuck with it she would have succeeded.

Making the point that from a purely objective view, characters don’t change.. This might seem counter-intuitive as we’ve alwas been told that characters must “arc”, but for an Author’s argument to remain solid the pieces he or she uses must not phase in and out. The characters are there to argue the particular effectiveness of certain approaches.

Subjectively it’s an entirely different ballgame, but from this perspective it is clear — characters do not change.

Cinematical on the HBO movie about Dr. Jack Kevorkian:

Levinson and Mazer’s goal is not to pass judgment one way or another on Kevorkian’s belief that terminally ill people should have the right to chose how they exit this world — nor is it to craft a chronological biopic about the doctor’s life. No, the mission here is to pull back the curtain on a name we all know and then illuminate the man behind it; to show how he lived his life and who he lived it with.

Whether it was their goal or not, they absolutely passed judgment on Kevorkian’s attempts to bring euthanasia to the people. It’s pretty clear who they believe the good guys and who the bad guys are in this situation. And if there is one complaint that can be found in this terrific film, it is that it is heavily weighted towards one side. The argument still works (the story works), but I think it would have been even more powerful if the “good” the elephant-pin-wearing baddies thought they were trying to accomplish was shown in an equal light.

Regardless, the film was great. If nothing else, see it for Pacino’s emotionally charged dilemma-facing scene at the end.

The art of screenwriting is on a life-support machine and is heading for a Flatline City. The screenwriter has been slain; murdered and replaced by join-the-dots-committee-product churned out by countless producers, executive producers, associate producers and an army of techno-geeks. Have the machines finally won and terminated the screenwriter? Is Hollywood guilty as charged? I say yes!

Telling you what you already know, but what you also know in your heart-of-hearts must change.

From MovieMaker magazine:

1. DON’T LOOK BACK. Francis Ford Coppola told us that when he takes on a large, complex project, he starts on page one and keeps writing. He never looks back and rewrites a scene or act until he’s done with the entire first draft. He said, “How do I know my characters fully unless I’ve seen what my characters go through and how their situations are resolved? Once I’ve learned that, I can go back to page one and rewrite the entire script, informed by knowing in advance the eventual outcome.”

Note-to-self as I work through the molasses of my own rewrite.

I associate this lack of story telling craft in the universities subjects today, to a previous generation of Australian filmmakers that made films for purposes of their own undisciplined imagination’s indulgence rather than story. In my opinion this most likely happened because the funding for most films was subsidised by the government and therefore not for profit. As a result of this, filmmakers were under no pressure to produce films that would draw audiences to the cinemas. Rather for artistic acclaim to themselves. Generations later, film students and teachers have a local industry in which the majority of films, to that matter the most successful or well-known ones, are unstructured or unconventionally plotted. At times utterly defying story telling conventions. These are admired and glorified in the academia subsequently enlarging in the minds of young students the rift between filmmaker and storyteller.

What a nightmare.

Most aspiring writers’ scripts don’t have a high enough “story density.” Story density is the amount of good storytelling you can cram into 110 pages. For beginning writers, there is often too much dead space between the good shit in their script. For some, it might be cumbersome language or style. For others, it might mean the antagonist’s plan in their action script doesn’t have enough twists. In a non goal-oriented script, it might mean a sequence goes slightly astray and wastes our time.

This is another way of saying write complete stories. Complete Stories can barely be told in 110 pages. At least at 120 you had some breathing room. If you have “dead space” chances are you are missing key components of your story’s structure.

Gideon covers the “holistic” rewrite of a screenplay. While most of his suggestions focus on storytelling (which I always consider to be completely subjective and individual to any writer), he does bring up a good point about the structure of a story:

This is the connective tissue that links all the story elements into an overall story. Connection is such a vital story component because humans process and learn information by forming relationships between them. We link images to other images, dialogue to events, locations to time, objects to people, and any permutations of these, to give us a deeper understanding of story. By establishing these connections within your story, you also connect with your audience. These connections are particularly useful in non-linear narratives, because if the audience can follow them, they aren’t confused by the order in which events are executed.

That’s the reason why films like Memento or Eternal Sunshine work as well as they do. There is a logical consistency with how the films are structured. Telling a linear or non-linear story is a storytelling device which again, is completely up to the writer and has nothing to do with the actual structure itself. In other words, Memento will still mean the same thing whether it was told linearly or non-linearly. The experience will be different, but the argument being made is the same.

For example, the problems affecting the Main Character personally are inherently connected to the problems affecting everyone in the story. Whether or not the actual connections are on the surface, or are something much deeper, is completely dependent on whether or not the Main Character undergoes a transformational change. This has nothing to do with what order the story is told in, but rather has everything to do with what the author is trying to say.

In the end, all that matters is the sum total of the events that unfold in a story, or as Gideon puts it, the “holistic” view of the story structure. Separating what you want to say from how you go about saying it is the key.

Even if it can be pulled off, creative types know that audiences will see their work differently. To watch a 3-D film is to experience a movie at a higher pitch, with objects and people flying off the screen. Even within genres that lend themselves to 3-D, such as horror, filmmakers worry about the sub-genres that are more 3-D-resistant, like a subtle ghost story. In a 3-D-crazed era, they fear that these movies will get made the wrong way or not be made at all.

Focus on a solid story and the rest will work itself out.

Just when you think you’ve stumbled upon yet another blog post extolling the virtues of Hero’s Journey, someone comes along and hits you with a startling revelation:

So where does structure come from? For me, the answer has to do with something I talked about before: the structure of a movie is simply the structure of a problem. All peoples have found that all problems, if they’re big enough, tend to be solved by following a similar set of tasks, and overcoming a predictable series of setbacks along the way. A believable story about any person solving any problem should show these steps. If someone tells you that your story has a structure problem, it’s because some of those steps are missing. They’re not telling you that you broke some arbitrary rules, they’re saying that what you wrote doesn’t ring true.

Screenwriter Matt Bird gets it. Stories are about solving problems. The Hero’s Journey, Save the Cat!, McKee, Michael Hague — these popular paradigms only show one way of solving a problem. There are thousands and thousands of different story structures that show alternative approaches towards solving problems. Restricting yourself to one of the aforementioned popular “blockbuster” paradigms can only serve to regurgitate the same old experience.

Francis Ford Coppola:

“I was very unhappy during (the shooting of) The Godfather, I had been told by everyone that my ideas for it were so bad— and I didn’t have a hell of a lot of confidence in myself—I was only about 30 years old or so. And I was just hanging on by my wits. You know I had no indication that this nightmare was going to turn into a successful film, much less a film that was to become a classic. So I always feel for young people working—remember that those times when you feel that your ideas aren’t good— or people are putting down your ideas, or you’re getting fired that those are the same ideas that you’re going to be celebrated for 30 years later. So you almost have to have courage.”

(via Screenwriting From Iowa)

BigThink published a new video interview with Robert McKee that is so completely wrong I’m not even sure where to start.

stories involve characters in conflict with their social or physical world, in personal relationships with friends, family, lovers, and an inner conflict within their own natures between themselves, their subconscious mind, their body, their emotions, and so forth. The novelist tends to be interested in inner conflicts; characters in conflict with their own contradictory natures, their own contradictory desires, their emotions. Playwrights tend to be more interested in personal relationships, of family, friends, lovers—because the theater is a form for dialogue, primarily. And talk is the way in which people in personal relationships work those relationships out for better or worse, right? And so the power and the beauty of the theater is personal conflicts. The power and beauty in film is the extra personal conflicts of characters in conflict with their physical world and their social world.

Personal relationships work themselves out primarily in talk??

While McKee does go on to say that each medium can handle all three, he then quickly dismisses it by saying you’ve got to figure out what kind of writer you want to be. If you want to focus on writing inner conflict you should stick to novels. “Extra-personal” conflict, you should stick to screenplays.

Let’s get this straight. Stories, complete stories, have inner conflicts, personal relationships in conflict, and extra-personal conflicts. As a point of fact there is actually a fourth source of conflict that most people often blend into the personal relationships conflict, but for now it’s enough to understand that complete stories need all of these if they want to endure. All four sources of conflict exist in every story regardless of medium.

Hamlet has his own inner turmoil with over-thinking things, his relationship with his father’s pushy Ghost, and the attitudes surrounding his Uncle’s new found position. Star Wars has spaceships shooting lasers at each other (extra-personal), Luke’s struggle with trying to prove himself all the time (“I’m not such a bad pilot myself”) and the conflict that arises with his relationship with Ben and whether or not one should trust one’s instinct (“the Force”).

Two completely different stories. Two completely different mediums.

The same exact mechanism.

You don’t need to stick to novels if you want to explore inner conflicts. You don’t need to write plays if you want to focus on relationships. What you need is to understand how stories actually work, how meaningful stories work, and then write them as best you can.

Anything else is destructive towards aspiring artists.

This guy sounds familiar to me.

Norgren told increasingly depressed reporters that he’s been thinking about giving screenwriting a try for months. He purchased Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations Of Screenwriting and recently became a two-year subscriber to Creative Screenwriting magazine. Last Thursday, Norgren moved the card table from his garage to a spot near his living room window that he said would be “perfect for getting some work done.”

People change in stories about people changing, not in every story. Not every story is *A Christmas Carol*. You get this crap about “story” because of these chuckleheads out there running script classes, who really prey on confusion about art and people’s genuine desire to learn. It’s shameful what they’ve done to discourse about motion pictures and to film itself. Writers literally get fired in this business because they aren’t providing enough “journey” in a story that doesn’t call for any. There are no general rules to any sort of writing. Each work has its own inherent rules. You discover them. You don’t import them.

I don’t think “chuckleheads” are trying to rip people off as much as they’re trying to share the excitement over what they consider to be the “keys” to story. I don’t think it’s a fair assessment, but I understand the point he is getting at. And I love the idea that each work has its own inherent rules.

Not quite sure when this article was written as there is no date stamp, but John Truby pleads the case for more elaborate story structure:

While the vast majority of screenwriters are off pounding out their simple three-act scripts, top screenwriters are using fundamentally different techniques. Three-act structure is designed to give you the same script everyone else is writing. Plus it tells you nothing about what Hollywood wants to buy. So using the old three-act structure paradigm virtually guarantees failure.

So glad to see 30-60-90 going the way of the Dodo.

But Truby leaves out a major part of meaningful story structure when he goes on to describe two elements of story:

One of the most important blockbuster elements is what I call the ‘double track line.’ Hit films always have a character line and an action line, or, to put it another way, a personal story and a case to be solved. The character line, or personal story, refers to some kind of struggle the hero must go through to make a character change and grow as a human being. The action line, or case, involves the trouble the hero must deal with to save the day. The audience wants to see both of these lines play out over the course of the story. Having only the personal line gives you a ‘character study.’ Having only the action line gives you a ‘plot piece.’ Neither will be a popular success.

I totally agree with this, but he’s only giving us half the picture. With the “action line” and “character line” he has accurately pointed out the Overall Story Throughline and the Main Character Throughline respectively, but he has left out two other “lines.” If you have read my article on Writing Complete Stories you know that in addition to these two throughlines, meaningful stories also need to have an Impact Character Throughline and a Relationship Story Throughline.

Main Characters cannot exist without an Impact Character. Red doesn’t exist without Andy, Woody doesn’t exist without Buzz. Main Characters need to grow and that growth comes from the opposing world-view provided by the second most important character in a story. Main Characters do not exist in a vacuum. When they do, you get stories like Taken where there is no meaningful growth to speak of.

You need to have the complete picture if you want to write something memorable.

From kottke, thoughts on why Agatha Christie’s nonlinear approach to writing is not all that surprising:

I don’t know why this approach seems so surprising. From all that I’ve read about how book authors work, writing a book is like sanding wood…you can’t just start with the extra-fine sandpaper and expect a smooth surface.

The Arc of Awesome occurs when the main character is so awesome that his awesomeness causes the entire world of the movie to arc. He can’t arc because he started the movie amazingly awesome, so obviously there’s nowhere for him to go other than to continue being awesome. The best you’ll get in an Arc of Awesome is that you’ll keep peeling back layers of awesomeness to see even more awesomeness underneath.

Filmmaker Keith Calder has identified the Steadfast Main Character, albeit in a more entertaining fashion than I’m used to reading (or writing!). Last year, I put together a video showcasing Main Characters who don’t change, i.e. characters who don’t undergo a major transformational change as prescribed by gurus like McKee.

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to read how filmmakers and writers are embracing this concept. The tyranny of the Hero’s Journey is finally coming to an end.

Screenwriter Bill Martell:

I think the main “rule” in screenwriting is to do everything on purpose. So if your character does not have a character arc - that’s because this particular story will only work if they do not have a character arc… not because you are a lazy writer or a bad writer and just didn’t make the protag human. Anything you do in a screenplay must be on purpose - you did it for a specific reason that you can articulate… when you get into that development meeting and they ask why there’s no character arc.

I love this. Write what you want, as long as there is a purpose to it.

A wordy explanation of a simple, yet helpful, way to look at structuring a story by writing five sentences with three words each — character/action/object.

What this kind of outline does is force you to think through the story before you write it. You spot problems before you waste two hundred or two thousand (or more) words on them. Suddenly, writing becomes a breeze. It really does.

What this simplification is basically doing is boiling down the major shifts in dramatic potential into three concrete words. The first represents the Inciting Incident, the next three represent the major act turns (One into Two, Midpoint, Two into Three) and finally the Concluding Event.

When structuring my own stories, I always figure out these plot drivers first as they represent the tent poles everything else hangs off of. The last event is perhaps the most important as it is fundamental towards writing a story with a Meaningful Ending.

While this approach still leaves out the mountain of thematic material that must be present as well in a complete story, it is a quick technique to insure that, at the very least, you’re headed in the right direction. Structure maintains focus.

if you write a screenplay and you try to sell it and you fail – you cannot say the American dream has failed you. BUT,” he stresses, his voice booming, “if you get a degree in English, go to screenwriting workshops, write 50 screenplays over 15 years, teach writing to kids, study the structure of films, network with other screenwriters, bust your ass to get an agent, etc etc etc.. I feel like even if you don’t write the next great movie that something good will come from all this dedication. Maybe it’s not what you originally wanted but it will be something good. Dedication always pays off even if it is through some other avenue. Right now we live in a culture where people value quick fame over quality. This is not teaching people the right lessons to achieve the real American Dream.

Anyone interested in the future of storytelling would do well to watch this video for Alice on iPad immediately. If, after watching this, you don’t have at least sixteen ideas of how you could incorporate this kind of interactivity into your own stories, then you are not fit for what is come. The next decade in narrative fiction is not for the cynical.

(via Daring Fireball)

Filmmaker Stu Maschwitz (who I’m pretty sure was a student at CalArts when I was there) has written up the best article on reading and/or writing screenplays on an iPad. John August’s advice on iPad screenplays was just the beginning. Stu documents extensively the different programs he has tried and which ones he finds the most helpful. He settled on ReaddleDocs which looks decent enough.

It is fairly priced at $4.99, and while not a standout in UI design (the icon is unfortunate, and the mechanics of organizing files are convoluted), it somehow has nailed exactly the amount of information I want on my screen when reading a script.

Still, what I really want is a virtual red pen. Writing in the margins is fine, but what I really need to something that I can instantly annotate — either by clicking on the problem text or swiping a red circle around it. When reading it the old school way (with paper and pointy-brads) I usually mark the corner of each page with corrections on it. The perfect iPad reader should be able to provide the user with a summary page, outlining all corrections with links to the individual pages.

If I didn’t already have two jobs and an iPhone/iPad app in the works, I’d totally jump on it.

By now, everybody has read all the screenwriting books and knows just what to expect in terms of “inciting incidents,” “plot points,” “midpoints” and all that structural jazz. As a result, screenplays have become formulaic, structurally predictable and mechanical. You might say, “Your plot points are showing.” Structure needs to be seamless, invisible. You need to defy your readers’ expectations of What Happens Next, both plot-wise and structure-wise.

Screenwriter/producer Neil Landau makes a good case for tossing aside the formulas that broadcast their intentions well in advance. Stories need to have structure if they have any intention of communicating some greater meaning. Structure is not a tool to guarantee a sell. Instead, structure’s purpose is to foster an author’s point-of-view on an audience.

If the author has nothing to say then structure is unnecessary.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been running over the differences between Protagonists and Main Characters, breaking free from simple Archetypal Characters, and hopefully clearing up any confusion regarding these fundamental concepts of narrative fiction.

When it comes to examples of stories where the Main Character isn’t the Protagonist, I usually center on To Kill A Mockingbird or The Shawshank Redemption. To me, they seem the most obvious examples and usually are stories that authors are familiar with. The Terminator and Zombieland are some other examples, and I’ve even used Casablanca (check this huge messageboard thread for the results of that). But there are many more that I’ve forgotten.

When an author sets out to write a story where the central character is not the one driving the plot, they will often place the responsibility of a Protagonist with the other principal character in a story, the Impact Character. Because both Main and Impact Characters share a relationship that represents the heart of the story, it makes sense that at least one of them should be leading the charge towards solving the story’s bigger problem.

The Dramatica Tip of the Month for April 2010 illuminates even more:

• Road to Perdition: The story goal is to protect Sullivan’s son from the organized crime families. Father (Tom Hanks) is the Impact Character and protagonist. His son is the Main Character.
• Sherlock Holmes novels, generally: The story goal is to solve the case. Holmes is the protagonist/Impact Character. Watson is the Main Character. NOTE: This is NOT true for the Robert Downey Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes, which has an MC Protagonist.
• The Terminator: The story goal is to protect Sarah Connor. Kyle Reese is the protagonist/Impact Character. Sarah Connor is the Main Character.
• The Great Gatsby: The story goal is to win the love of Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby is the protagonist/Impact Character. The writer Nick Carraway is the Main Character.
• All About Eve: The story goal is to become a star and be famous. Though these are complex characters, Eve Harrington is the IC/Pursue character. Margo Channing is the Main Character.
• The Shawshank Redemption: The story goal is to escape prison. Red is the Main Character. Andy is the protagonist/Impact Character.

What about your story? Before you can identify the Protagonist, you first need to know what the Goal of your story is. The person pursuing this goal is the Protagonist.

Every complete story has one Central Goal that each character is connected to. Some will be for it, some will be against it. Some will help see to its successful end, while others will just get in the way. These conflicts exist in order to illuminate the logical “objective” view of the author’s intended message. But what about the characters themselves? Don’t they have their own personal goals?

Melanie Anne-Phillips, one of the co-creators of the Dramatica theory of story has a thought:

Personal Goals are the motivating reasons your characters care about and/or participate in the effort to achieve or prevent the overall goal.  In other words, they see the main story goal as a means to an end, not as an end itself.

Simple, yet meaningful. The Personal Goals motivate the drive towards achieving the larger Story Goal.

Writing is making a comeback all over our society. Look at how much people e-mail or text-message now rather than talk on the phone. Look at how much communication happens via text-message or blogging. Writing is today’s currency for good ideas.

From the ever inspiring Rework.

In the most recent screenwriting newsletter from Screenplay.com, Armando Saldaña-Mora discusses how to use the Dramatica theory of story to break free from the stereotypical concepts of Protagonist and Antagonist:

The beauty of the Dramatica archetypes is that they’re only constricted to a single function, not to a single personality. They’re not stereotypes. We can create interesting characters just by changing their traits while leaving their function.

Quite often, people get locked into a certain understanding of the concepts they use when writing a story. Once an author truly understands what motivates their characters, they can then use that information to then create more complex, more true-to-life characters. Protagonist and Antagonist are a good starting point, but moving beyond that is where the future of storytelling lies.

When answering questions about character Motivations, Methodologies, Evaluations, and Purposes, Dramatica is focusing on the Objective View. So, from that perspective of standing outside the story and looking in, we not only can, but MUST know our character’s Purposes. If we do not, how can we frame a cogent argument about the relative value of human qualities to our audience?

This is the God’s eye view of your story. From this perspective, the They perspective, there are no secrets, no hidden motivations as to why characters do the things they do. All is known and an author therefore must know where each and every character stands in the larger scheme of things.

Context is the key to meaning.

Designer Chad Hagen:

Staying creative is hard work. Honestly, I don’t think when I got into art school I was very talented at all. I struggled to stand out. I struggled to stay in school. Staying creative was hard work. BUT, the one thing that kept me focused was my desire to be good. I wanted to be really good. I wanted to be as good as those people that WERE talented. I used to think I would eventually, if I worked hard enough, master art like a math equation and then I could relax and just make great stuff and let everything else follow. That time definitely never came, and I know now I never want it to, because the most important thing that keeps me creative is my wanting to be good.

Just read the news about his passing. Depressing, especially after seeing some of the previews for Treme tonight

“He was an enormous talent,” Simon, who co-created “Treme,” said in an obituary he wrote for distribution by HBO. “He loved words and he loved an argument — but not in any angry or mean-spirited way. He loved to argue ideas. He delighted in it, and he was confident that something smarter and deeper always came from a good argument.”

Pro screenwriter John August writes of his adventures in getting PDF-versions of scripts onto the iPad. I have yet to check out GoodReader, but because you can’t really go wrong with following August’s advice on many other things, I’m sure this will be great (for now).

Most interesting though was this comment about the Final Draft for iPad:

I got to be a member of one of the many focus groups Final Draft had about the future iPad app. The good news: they are serious about the iPad. The bad news: They haven’t even really begun building the app (as of two weeks ago). And based on most of their questions for us, they wanted to know how LITTLE they could incorporate into Final Draft for iPad and still call it a 1.0 release.

Personally, I’m a bigger fan of Screenwriter, but any effort to make writing stories on an iPad any easier (or cooler) is worth linking to.

Stories are a response to an inequity. By that I mean there would not be the need for stories if there were not any imbalances. Stories are arguments that show how to cope (or not cope) with inequities. To completely make the argument, the inequity must be explored from all the perspectives available to us in real life (I, You, We, and They). They must also be explored in all the contexts in which it might appear…Theme-wise, part of your argument is to establish a value system for the closed world of your story. This includes showing what works to resolve the inequity, what does not work, what is relatively better and what is relatively worse.

I covered this in greater detail in my article last year on Writing Complete Stories, but was reminded of this MailList nugget from Chris Huntley while fumbling through my Evernote collection on the new iPad.

Just discovered an interesting blog on writing or at least someone involved in the art of writing. I’m not sure if I completely follow what he has to say, but this paragraph struck me as particularly interesting, especially in light of the many conversations I’ve been having this week in regards to applying specific story structure to writing endeavors:

For twenty-nine years now I’ve been trying to adapt to methods of sorts and not even once have I succeeded. I can walk through the steps plan maybe once, but after that, unless people whip me, I feel like putting aside the method, and improvising and adapting as I go. To me personally this is the best way of doing things, but not to everybody. Some people work semi-consciously according to methods, others unconsciously by practical experience, and people like myself purely consciously by analysis.

I think I would tend to agree with this. It has been my experience that the best way to approach a story is to pour everything you can into the planning of the thing, making sure that you are absolutely clear about what it is you want to say. Then, when it comes to actually writing the thing, you toss that aside knowing that your subconscious will guide you in the right direction.

Of course, when you get stuck, like everyone does, you’ll always have that highly accurate model to refer to.

1. Get to the point. 2. Write a draft. Then let it rest. 3. Cut down your text. 4. Be relatable and honest. 5. Don’t care too much what others may think. 6. Read a lot. 7. Write a lot.

Which reminds me, my six weeks between drafts is up…

As this YouTube video on the soon-to-be-released iPad clearly shows, my best friend for the past year is about to be retired. Sure, I’ll miss the battery that never needed to be recharged and screen that could be read anywhere regardless of the light situation. But present me with the opportunity to read whatever I want in color, whenever I want and I’m more than happy to part ways.

This site will also be infinitely better on an iPad. Once I figure out how to stop serving up Flash video…

NYTimes opinion piece with advice for young composers. Linked for my students and for those writing the next great screenplay:

Make sure you’re always doing some work that is yours and yours alone—not composed for the approval of teachers or colleagues. There’s a chasm between writing in school and writing in the real world. Regardless of what you’re doing in school, you should always write something that’s not subject to grades. You may learn a lot comparing what you write for yourself to write for others. Guidance can be helpful at times, but I have never found authority to inspire creativity.

(via Authentic Boredom)

Over at the DoneDealPro Messageboard, I’m called out for giving “horrifically bad information.”, there is a discussion going on regarding the differences between the Main Character and the Protagonist.

In the past, the terms Protagonist and Main Character were used interchangeably. This represents an old way of thinking, in much the same way that many considered the Earth the center of the universe or that witches were made of wood. This way of thinking must be dissolved if the art of storytelling has any intention of growing beyond the stifling Hero’s Journey paradigm.

I’ve covered this before in my articles on Main Characters that are not Protagonists and the differences between the two, but the concept itself is really quite simple:

• Main Character is a point of view
• The Protagonist pursues the Story Goal

Sometimes these two are the same, as in the case of Star Wars or District 9, and sometimes they are not, as evidenced by To Kill A Mockingbird or The Shawshank Redemption. One way is not any better than the other. However, it is important to understand the difference between the two if you want to know what is really going on inside of a story.

One represents the Objective Drive (Protagonist) in the story, the other represents the Subjective Drive (Main Character). Blending the two is helpful and perhaps even necessary in more entertainment-driven works of fiction like animated films or sci-fi action/adventures. But it is in quieter, more subtle and dare I say, more meaningfully complex films like The Lives of Others or The Counterfeiters, that such old ways of thinking prove their uselessness.

Dictionary entries are great for Scrabble, not for fiction.