Not relevant. Not essential. That’s my word processor’s dictionary definition for extraneous.

When I finished the final draft of my novel, the word count was 93,259. I knew that the process of polishing, reading aloud, would lead to word trimming. Today, I’m coming up on the midpoint of the novel, that crucial scene that in script writing structure brings a reversal of fortune or revelation that changes the direction of the story. Syd Field [Screenplay] advises that writing a story towards the midpoint keeps the second act from sagging. [I'm not a screenwriter, but I had a fiction writing teacher who encouraged her students to learn about screenwriting to help with structuring a novel.]

That crucial midpoint scene in my novel is the one that earns the characterization — Suburban Noir. One of my POV characters, a Silicon Valley mother, commits an appalling act.

As I approach that scene, my word count is 90,186. I knew I would be trimming, I knew I had extraneous words. There were adjectives to be deleted, despite previous attention to those pesky symbols that sometimes indicate lazy writing. I had hoped to bring the novel down to a marketable 90,000 words, but wasn’t sure I could because I knew I’d be adding phrases, sentences, clarity, here and there.

So it looks like I’m headed toward a sub-ninety thousand word count. I’m very pleased, and I attribute some of this to flash fiction and the discipline of telling a story in less than a thousand words.

“The hardest thing about writing is knowing what to write.”

Now we’re starting to get into some serious writing. Chapter four is titled “Four Pages,” and is the first time Syd Field introduces you to the concept of a treatment. What is a treatment? According to Syd it’s “a narrative synopsis of a story line.” In other words, its a basic explanation of the story from beginning to end.

For the exercise at the end of the chapter, Syd has you write out a four page treatment. Syd calls it a “kick in the ass” exercise because it’s the first time he asks his students to take the vague, “amorphous” idea, and give it some serious structure and backbone. And this is true, in more ways than one.

This chapter is by far my most favorite of the book. Mainly, because Syd shares an experience he went through writing one of his screenplays that is almost to a T what I went through the first time I sat down to writer a screenplay. He talks about sitting down with a general idea, a good amount of research, and just giving it a go. “Banging my head on the typewriter” he called it. But it didn’t work. He never took the time to plan out his story, give it structure, plot it out. He just started writing and hoped it would all come together.

I know that’s the same way a lot of new writers start out too. I know I did. Sure, maybe there are a few people who can write a screenplay that way. If it turns out any good, more power to them. But those people are the exception, not the rule. It is possible to write a screenplay like that, but it’s not going to be a pleasant experience. And if you don’t enjoy it, it’s not likely you’re going to come back any do it again.

I’ve gotten a lot better are planning out and really putting time into fleshing out a treatment. In a lot of ways, I do it in tandem with my 52 points, because I end up writing so much description into each of the points. But the bottom line is that I end up spending a lot more time with my 52 points than I should. So I essence I need to to get better at working out a treatment.

One of the nice things about this chapter is that Syd goes to great lengths to remind the reader/writer that everything they’re about to write is completely flexible. This is just an exercise, an attempt to add another layer of structure to your idea before the actual screenwriting occurs. The ideas and concepts fleshed out at this point can, and will likely, change. It kind of takes the pressure off, reminding you that this isn’t a make or break moment, it’s just a step forward in the writing process. He also remind you not to show your treatment to anyone. The point of this exercise isn’t to get feedback, it’s just to get your head working around putting more structure into your story line.

Syd gives a nice outline of how to structure a four page treatment to sort of ease you into the treatment writing process. Buy the book if you want to know more about that.

Since I’m going to be putting in a good deal of time on this, it might take a day or two, maybe longer, before I have the whole thing completed. I’ll post my progress as i move along, but I’m not expecting to have this all done at once. I’ll likely chew on a lot of things for a while as I try to plan out how the second act is going to work. Fortunately, with “Pride is Forever” I already have a lot of real life events that I can choose to use if I need to.

Until next time, keep writing!
-Steve

P.S. I didn’t just jack that image because it had the word “Treatment” in it. KCRW’s “The Treatment” is a great radio show for writers and film makers in general. A free podcast of each episode is available in iTunes for those who want to check it out. I encourage you to do so.

The chapter three exercise in “The Screenwriter’s Workbook” is to create your own version of the paradigm. I started out by trying to actually write on the PDF of the paradigm on Syd’s website, which you can find here. However, editing a PDF is tough, and even after converting it to a JPEG, I ran into some problems. Instead, I just wrote it out and you can map it to where it goes yourself.

Here is a jpeg of what the paradigm looks like:

Syd Field's Paradigm

This version is a bit more complicated than the one Syd asks you to fill out for chapter three. This one has a mid point, dramatic context labels, story summary, and some other information. However, as a point of reference, you can see all the elements I’m going to cover.

The exercise for chapter three just asks you to have a premiss for act one, act two, and act three. And to have the plot points for act one and two.

Here’s how I decided “Pride is Forever” will break down:

Act One: Doug, an up and coming track runner, is asked to run in an event he’s never competed in before, the steeplechase.
Plot Point One: Doug beats the Big Ten champion.
Act Two: Doug gets better and better as he continues to train at the steeplechase, running the event at whatever track meet he can.
Plot Point Two: Doug finishes with a time good enough to allow him to run at the Olympic Qualifiers.
Act Three: Doug competes to make the Olympic Team.

You’ll notice every element involves a track event, or running in general. That might seem boing. But remember, the premiss of the screenplay is Doug making the Olympic team. All of the key events in the story, at least at this level, involve track events, and how Doug finishes. These are the main elements that the rest of the screenplay will be built around.

At this point I’m not concerned with what happens in between the main elements. I’m thinking high level. Looking at the big picture. And doing whatever upper management jargon you can think up. I’ll get to the beats that occur in act one, act two, and act three later. There will be a lot of time spent planning how things lead up to the plot points. But that’s for later. Specifically, next chapter. And I’ll get to that tomorrow.

Until next time, keep writing!
-Steve

Set up. Confrontation. Resolution.

Chapter four of “The Screenwriter’s Workbook” is titled The Paradigm. It’s the first chapter where you begin to get into some of the inner workings of how Syd suggests writers structure their screenplay. It’s the first time you’re introduced to the three act screenplay structure, as well as plot points one and two, and what they’re used for. It’s a great chapter to read, even as a refresher, since it outlines the purpose of each acts, and Syd uses some great movies to make his point (Collateral, Thelma & Louise, The Shawkshank Redemption).

Syd goes to great pains to explain that the structure he outlines in The Paradigm is not set in stone. He explains that The Paradigm “…is only a model, an example or conceptual scheme.” This was something I failed to grasp when I first started to use The Paradigm as a tool to help structure my screenplays. In fact, if you look back in the blog, you can even see instances of where I write about struggling with it. I was too concerned with “hitting my marks” instead of making sure that the story was working.

Syd uses “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” as an example to show how the The Paradigm works. Act one is life in the Shire. Plot point one is Frodo and Sam leaving the Shire. Act two is the trip to Rivendell and the Fellowship being formed. Plot point two is when The Fellowship leaves Lothlorien. Act three is Frodo and Sam beginning their journey. It’s a perfect illustration of a beginning, middle, and end. Set up. Confrontation. Resolution.

Syd gets a lot of heat for this “formula,” as do screenwriters who follow it, but like I’ve stated before I think it’s a technique/exercise that really opens up the world of screenwriting to the first time or inexperienced screenwriter. It’s something that really gets a screenwriter thinking about how to structure their story. None of the paradigm is set in stone. It’s flexible. And can bend to meet the need of the story. But I still think it’s a great exercise for a writer to go through, even if it only serves as a starting point for them to start to flesh out how their story is going to move.

The exercise at the end of chapter four is to take your story idea and structure it using the paradigm. I’ve written about how “Pride is Forever” could be structured a bit in some posts a few weeks ago, so I’ve already got a good grasp on how I want it to work. Regardless, I’m still going to take the paradigm worksheet available on Syd Field’s web site and build it out. I’ll post up my results tomorrow.

Until next time, keep writing!
-Steve

Chapter Two of Syd Field’s “The Screenwriter’s Workbook” is titled About Structure. In my view it’s one of the most important chapters of the book, if not thee most important chapter. WIthout structure you’ve just got a series of scenes. A bunch of montages. A cavalcade of skits. A group of ideas. Structure provides the foundation that brings those elements together, and guides the viewer through them with some sort of narrative. I’m waxing poetic a bit here, but you get my drift.

The exercise at the end of the chapter is relatively weak. It asks you to watch a few movies and then break down their structure into a beginning, middle, and end. I’m not belittling what Syd is asking you to do in chapter two, it’s just a bit basic for someone who’s written a few screenplays, studied screenplay structure, or in my case already done the exercise for a previous screenplay.

Instead of doing the exercise I wanted to take a moment to talk a bit more about structure and why it’s important. As I was rereading chapter two, I realized that the problem I ran into with my uncle Doug, in regard to setting up “Pride is Forever,” was that he didn’t know about structure, specifically screenplay structure. He though that, along with most people, a screenplay is just a series of events. You write one event. The next event. The event after that. Then the end. Everything works out perfectly and it’s totally engrossing.

I just recently got in touch with a fraternity brother of mine, Nick. We haven’t talked in years. Nick lives in the Florida Keys and teaches wake boarding, kite surfing, and all sorts of other water based hobbies and activities. He’s quite accomplished in his field and has been featured in many demo videos for a lot of the companies that make the equipment he uses. If you’ve been to a surf shop it’s likely you’ve seen him in any of the videos playing there. Anyway, my point is, Nick’s put together quite a nice life for himself since college.

While we were catching up he asked what I was doing now. I filled him in on the whole IT thing and it’s lack of excitement. So we moved into free time, hobbies, and whatnot. Video games. Movies. Reading. Then we arrived at writing. I guess he does a lot of small short stories and stuff. I told him I wrote screenplays as a hobby. Instantly he wanted to share an idea he had for a horror movie. I don’t think this experience is that out of the ordinary for screenwriters. You tell someone that you write screenplays (be it a hobby or a job) and they want to tell you what they think would be a great screenplay. While it’s fun for an amateur like me, I can imagine that it’s really a pain in the ass for professionals. Anyway, I told him I’d love to hear it, since that’s pretty much what this whole blog is about, and I figured maybe I could lure him into writing it.

A few days later he sent me the “outline” he had for the script. I use quotes around the word outline there for a reason, it wasn’t an outline. What he sent was 6 episodes, each dealing with a different character and a different scenario. The overall gist of the story was that something happens and people just start snapping all over the world. He picked a few places people snap and then describes what happens. But it wasn’t an outline. It was a series of events.

The events were interesting to read, but there was no narrative that connected them together. There was no structure. They were completely independent from each other. I told him he needed to come up with something that connects these events together. I suggested he develop a character who is stuck in the middle of what is going on. Someone that isn’t effected by whatever is happening. Sort of like the survivors in “28 Days Later.” If the movie was just a series of events where zombies show up and tear apart various people in England it wouldn’t have been much of a movie. Instead, we follow a lone survivor as he tries to piece together what happened, while meeting other survivors, and fighting off the various threats they encounter.

I then told Nick that whatever character he comes up with should have some sort of pressing need. Something to drive them along. Maybe it’s a father who just arrived in town from a business trip and is trying to get home to his family to see if they’re okay. Or a cop who’s trying to protect an important witness. Or maybe a teacher on a field trip trying to keep all her students safe. It could be anything. But some sort of character needs to be able to drift into the various events he described.

That got Nick’s mind moving. He hadn’t thought about his story that way. He didn’t realize that there needed to be some over arching narrative that the smaller events would play into. Nick’s a smart guy, and if he wants to put his mind to it and set aside some time could turn his idea into a screenplay no problem. I’m not saying he’ll write a good screenplay, but he can definitely write it. To help him along I asked for his address and sent him a copy of “The Screenwriter’s Workbook,” though he doesn’t know it yet.

Chapter Three in “The Screenwriter’s Workbook” is called The Paradigm. I’ve talked about this a few times before, but the paradigm is a tool Syd Field has his students use to create somewhat of a skeleton to hang the rest of the story along. It’s the first time you run into plot points, mid points, pinches, acts, and all the other elements that will go into creating a proper structure for your screenplay.

I’m going to re-read the chapter tonight and post a bit on the results of the exercise tomorrow.

Until next time, keep writing!
-Steve

At this point in my “screenwriting career” I find I really like the rewriting process.  When I first started to write SP’s, I hated to rewrite, and defended  my first draft through a LOT of query rejections.

And, now I’m going to contradict myself and say that I ”hate” the rewriting process.

Because it is so damn hard to figure out what is wrong. 

Do you have a “nagging feeling” that something is just not right with your script?   That’s  probably because there’s something wrong with your script!   The challenge is figuring out what that “something” is!

In my reference library, there is the book “The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver” by Syd Field.   This book has been a huge help to me.  Mr. Field addresses problems of plot, character and structure.    And the beauty of the book is it’s available in paperback so it doesn’t cost a fortune.

Rewriting.  Love it or hate it, it’s with us to stay. 

Writing is rewriting.  Someone said that…  Don’t know who.

So, when are we through rewriting a project?     To me, there are three times when a writer can stop with the rewriting!

1. When the story shows up on the silver screen! 
2. When you can think of nothing more to change to  make it better!
3. When you are just flat out sick of it.

During the last two months of this year, I will continue to rewrite existing projects.  Then in January, I’m going to start a new screenplay.   So, right now, it’s time to go rewrite something!  Today,  I’m working on “Revenge”.  When I’m done, I’ll upload some samples for you to peruse!

According to Syd Field’s book Screenplay, it is on page 25 that the first Plot Point should occur. And he’s right. It works. Here’s a few examples of page 25 moments through movie history…

CASABLANCA, min. 25: Ilsa and Victor Laszlo enter Rick’s bar for the first time. Up until this point, Rick has continually pointed out to others that he sticks his neck out for no one — his goal is to merely stay out of trouble. He seems unfazed by others, be they Nazi Majors, Police Captains or beautiful women. But when Ilsa and Rick’s eyes lock at min 25, we know the stakes have been raised — he might stick his neck out for this one. This Plot Point ushers us into ACT II, where he will cease merely existing and CHOOSE to seduce Ilsa away from Victor — he’ll stick his neck out now, but only to pursue selfish desires. The second Plot Point, at the start of ACT III, will be the moment Rick springs his plan to get Ilsa and Victor onto a plane into action and he becomes the opposite of what he was at the beginning. Not only has he been reborn as a man who will stick his neck out, he’ll stick it out for a cause bigger than himself or Ilsa.

SOME LIKE IT HOT, min 25:  We learn of Joe and Jerry’s choice to flee town with the all-women band by cutting to them, in drag, on the train platform. Up to that point, they’d been exhausting every other option to avoid being rubbed-out by the mob.  With nothing left to lose, they CHOOSE to leave Chicago, and their dignity, behind. It’s also at minute 25 that we first see Marilyn Monroe as she boards the train, and the camera gives her a head-to-toe goings-over that lets us know, in the language of cinema, that her intellect is respected above all else.

THE GRADUATE, min 25:  Ben calls Mrs. Robinson and invites her to a hotel. Back at minute 12, she had tried to seduce him (in a scene you may have seen referenced several thousand times). But he resists her smokey, smokey charms because…well…it would turn future, family dinners into etiquette nightmares. But then her gin-soaked husband lectures Ben about making the most of his youth — playing the field, and so on — and his parents throw him the world’s lamest, birthday, pool-party. Seeing the adults around him trapped in a lifestyle he’s not eager to embrace, he CHOOSES to call Mrs. Robinson at minute 25 as a way of procrastinating his own perceived decent into his parent’s stolid existence (see: dictionary definition of “passive-aggressive”).

MORE EXAMPLES…

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, min 25:  Indiana Jones walks into Marion’s bar, gaining the world’s worst sidekick and the bronze medallion that leads him to the Ark. But first they have a Casablanca moment with the genders reversed — he left her and now she’s the drunk with a bar — “Of all the Mongolian gin joints in the world, he had to walk into mine.”

GROUNDHOG DAY, min 25: Phil wakes-up to “I Got You Babe” for the third time. He’s already lived the same day over again once, but at minute 25, he realizes this problem isn’t going away. He CHOOSES to stop going through the motions and actively changes his behavior. He refuses to cover Punxsuntawney Phil and begins his journey of…doing stuff without consequences…

On page 25, your character should make a CHOICE that changes the direction of the story and sends it on an irreversible journey towards the film’s climax. Some films have this moment happen at minute 27 or 29, and that’s fine. But in your script, discipline yourself and make Readers, Agents and Producers know you’ve got a handle on your story by sticking Plot Point One on good ol’ 25.

Thanks for reading. Tune in tomorrow for another tip from Screenplay that I’ll be discussing. And feel free to leave your own thoughts in the “Comments” section!

– Benjamin

This screenwriting tip comes from this week’s book, Screenplay by Syd Field:

A lot of people don’t believe that you need to have an ending before you start writing. “My characters,” people say, “will determine the ending.” Or, “My ending grows out of my story.” Or, “I’ll know my ending when I get to it.” Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. At least not in a screenplay. Why? Because you have only about 110 pages to tell your story. That’s not a lot of pages to be able to tell your story the way you want to tell it. THE ENDING IS THE FIRST THING YOU MUST KNOW BEFORE YOU BEGIN WRITING.  Why?  Everything is related in the screenplay, as it is in life. You don’t have to know the specific details of your ending when you sit down to write your screenplay, but you have to know what happens and how it affects the characters.” – Syd Field

I couldn’t agree more with this idea. Screenplays are stories. Stories convey morals and ideas. Morals and ideas are conveyed by showing the RESULTS of actions chosen by a protagonist at the start of a story. If you don’t know where your story is going, then you don’t REALLY KNOW what your story is about. Why would I want to read a story whose author had such a weak grasp of their own ideas that they didn’t even know what they wanted to say when they sat down to write? Great scripts contain echoes of early dialog and actions in their climax — everything that’s come before culminates in an ending that is the thesis of the film.

Take the nearly perfect film “BROADCAST NEWS”.

One of the first scenes shows Jane, the protagonist, giving a speech to her fellow journalist about the dangers of entertainment passing for news.  To make her point, she shows them a clip from the evening news that’s embarrassingly lowbrow and the audience of journalists gets way too into it. She chastises them…

JANE: I know it’s good film. I know it’s fun. I like fun. It’s just not news!

By the end of the film, she has succumb to the charms of Tom, a handsome but empty-headed anchor. And when she confesses to her best friend Aaron that she may be in love with Tom, he gives her a speech that perfectly mirrors the one she gave at the opening of the film…

Aaron: I know you care about him. I’ve never seen you like this about anyone so please don’t take it the wrong way when I tell you that Tom, while being a very nice guy, is the devil.

When James L. Brooks sat down to write this classic screenplay, he didn’t just start writing stuff that happens to Jane and hope he’d stumble upon a brilliant turn of plot. No. He decided that he would write the story of a principled woman who would be seduced by mediocrity. And at the end, she would have to decide to give up her love for her principles. HE KNEW THE END.  And once he knew the end, how would he start his story? By having her state the very principles she would later be tempted to throw away.

Thanks for reading. Tune in tomorrow for another tip from Screenplay that I’ll be discussing. And feel free to leave your own thoughts in the “Comments” section!

– Benjamin

Yesterday I wrote a bit about how I start fleshing out a story with 12 Beats. Today, I’m going to write about what I do with those 12 beats once I have them.

I’ve written quite a few times about Syd Field’s “Three Act Screenplay” method. I’ve found this technique has helped me put together and structure my screenplays more than anything else. The gist of his method is to break down your screenplay into four parts (Act One, Act Two A, Act Two B, and Act Three), each with 14 beats. If you multiply 14 by 4 you get 56, hence, 56 points.

Now what I like to do is take the 12 beats I’ve already put together and split into 4 groups, and use them as the basis for each of the four parts of the screenplay. Beats 1-3 will contain Act One. Beats 4-6 will contain Act Two. Beats 7-9 will contain Act Two B. And Beats 10-12 will contain Act Three.

I’m going to use Served Cold to show you how I’d map the beats for Act One into the 14 point in Syd’s method. For example:

Beat 1 – Meet Fisher and his team.
Beat 2 – Fisher needs to come up with money to pay for his brother’s treatment.
Beat 3 – Fisher and his team rob a bank.

These three beats are the main story elements of Act One. All I need to do now is flesh them out into 14 points (or, in essence, smaller beats). To get started I’ll take each beat and plug it into one of the 14 points. For example:

1. Meet Fisher and his team.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. Fisher needs to come up with money to pay for his brother’s treatment.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11. Fisher and his team rob a bank.
12.
13.
14.

This gives me three points already filled out. However, a story beat is much bigger than the point for an act. So what I’ll do is take the beat and then flesh it out a bit. For example:

1. Meet Ryan.
2. Meet Carter.
3. Meet Biggs.
4. Meet Worm.
5. The team robs a small credit union.

What I’ve done is take the first beat and flesh it out into 5 points. This introduces Fisher and his team, and shows them working together.

Next, I’ll take beat 2 and map it onto a few more points. For example:

6. Fisher visit is brother.
7. Fisher with Adele.
8. Fisher talks to Quinn about a big score.
9. Fisher is hesitant to take the score, talks it over with Manny.
10. Fisher visit his brother in the hospital, finds out his mother owes 250k in medical bills.

I’ve taken beat 2 and fleshed it out over 5 points. This only leaves the final beat left to flesh out over the last 4 points.

11. Fisher and his team prepare.
12. Fisher and his team enter the bank.
13. Problems getting into the vault.
14. A narrow escape just before the police arrive.

And with that I’ve taken beat three and fleshed it out over four points. I’ve now got 14 points to base my first act around.

Typically at this point I’ll look at how all the points for act one flow. I’ll shift them around, change them, and continue to tinker with them until I’m satisfied. After that I’ll move on to Act Two A, then Act Two B, and finish with Act Three.

This process can sometimes take weeks to complete. It’s a long process, but the time spent here can greatly ease how much time you actually spend writing. After I’ve settled on my 56 points, I’ll then go back and flesh each of them out into scenes with more detailed notes. And once I’m done with that, then I’ll start writing the screenplay in earnest.

Using these two methods might help you start to put together your screenplays. Maybe they won’t. Different things work for different writers. But the important thing is to keep experiments until you find what works for you. This will often change over time, and one method won’t fit for every story out there. But with at least a rotating plate of brain storming exercises you’ll have the tools you need at your disposal to properly plan out, and then execute your screenplay.

Until next time, keep writing!
-Steve

Each time I start a new screenplay, be it from scratch or as a revision of an existing project, I approach it from a scientific standpoint. I study what methods and techniques help me as a writer and which ones don’t. Over time I’ve been able to put together somewhat of a formula that seems to work well for me, and I figured now is as good a time as any to write about it in a two parts. Tonight I’m posting part one, 12 Beats.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I like to try new screenplay structuring methods that I come across. Whether it’s a blogpost, book, or just something described to me by a friend, I enjoy going through the exercise of trying out new storybuilding methods. Usually I’ll take an existing story (something that I’ve already written), or adapt a movie I’m extremely familiar with, and see how the method works out. Sometimes the new method works great. Other times it doesn’t. But I typically walk away with at least one part I found beneficial and I eventually come back to again in one way, shape, or form.

Over time (and most recently with Served Cold), I’ve put together a method that seems to work well enough for me. It takes the core components from Joseph Campbell, “The Hero’s Journey” and Syd Field’s “Three Act Screenplay,” and uses them in a way that provides me the structure I need to flesh out the details.

I start with the frame work that Campbell defined (for more info see this post), but in a more genre agnostic manner. In other words, I don’t frame it with the standard 12 steps he outlines, since that is limited almost specifically to action or adventure movies. Instead, I take the 12 steps and cut them into four basic acts. Steps 1-3 are Act One. Steps 4-6 are Act Two A. Steps 7-9 are Act Two B. And steps 10-12 are Act Three. You might be able to see where I’m going with this. Each act has three main beats, and I keep in mind that each beat needs to be accomplished in 10 pages. The theory here is that all 12 beats will add up to roughly 120 pages.

Doing this accomplishes two things. First, if forces me to simplify my story into 12 major beats. If I can’t do this, it’s likely my story is too big, or too complicated. I’ll take a look at it, figure out what I need to change, and keep tweaking it until I can fit it into the 12 major beats. Second, these 12 beats give me the skeleton I’m going to hang the rest of my story on. If I can’t get the skeleton right, then I know I don’t have a strong enough foundation to build a proper screenplay around.

Once I settle on my 12 beats, I’m ready to take that framework an adapt it into the next step in the process, “56 Points,” which utilizes a lot of Syd Field’s “Three Act Screenplay” method. However, I’ll go into that with my next post.

Until next time, keep writing!
-Steve

I would encourage every writer to build their own reference library.   And it doesn’t have to cost an arm and leg.

I’ll share one thing that I  do…  Everytime I get a forty-percent off coupon from “Borders”,  I try to treat myself to a  new reference book.   After awhile, you’ll develop a nice library.   Let me tell you, my writing library, though small, looks good.  I may even have to start a second shelf pretty soon! 

Another thing you can do is buy ”gently used” previously owned books.  These can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of a new book.    Used book stores are a great source but if there are no used bookstores near your home, there are also some great on-line sites that have a huge number of  books from booksellers all over the world.

You are invited to check out my “Favorite Links” for two of my favorite on-line sites:  ABE Books.com  (ABE stands for the American Book Exchange) and Amazon.com.

My reference library includes books that are specific to writing screenplays such as The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier, The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver by Syd Field ,  Screenwriting 434 by Lew Hunter, and Story by Robert McKee. 

It  also includes books which are just about writing.   Titles include Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Anne Klauser,  Writing Fiction, A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway, 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald B. Tobias, and From Where You Dream – the Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler.

Having problems getting ideas?  There are some books available which are great for getting the creative juices flowing.  Two titles in my library include Naming the World, edited by Bret Anthony Johnston, and The Writer’s Idea Book by Jack Heffron.

I just picked up a book yesterday from Borders (with a 40% off coupon) titled Make a Scene, Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time  by Jordan E. Rosenfeld.   In fact, I think I’ll sign off this “post” and go read it!

But before I do that, I’d like to remind you that even if you’re broke and can’t afford to buy a book, public libraries are a great resource for every writer, whether seasoned or just starting out!

Below is a two part video on how to get started with screenwriting. I wanted to show people how easy (and potentially cheap) it is to get started with screenwriting. The videos won’t help you write a candidate for Best Original Screenplay, but it will show you some of the tools that can help start you down that path.

Part One:

Part Two:

Books:
“Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting” by Syd Field
“The Screenwriter’s Workbook” by Syd Field
“Screenplay: Writing the Picture” by Robin U. Russin and William Missouri Downs
“How NOT to Write a Screenplay” by Denny Martin Flinn

Software:
Final Draft
Movie Magic Screenwriter
Montage
Celtx

After spending the better part of Saturday waiting in line outside a local La Habra market to purchase and have roasted a giant burlap bag of New Mexico’s famed Hatch chiles, my house, which previously smelled of paint, now smells entirely of chile.

It took me through early afternoon today to skin, seed, stem, cut up, freeze, and begin dehydrating 30 lbs. of fresh roasted chiles which eventually be used in chile verde, rellenos, tamales, eggs and any other food which will be enhanced by their addition.

Eventually, I will grind up some of the dried chiles into Cassy’s soon-to-be-famous “Hatch Green Chile Powder,” which I will then sell for $1,000 an ounce to interested parties, because this is all a lot of damn work.

When I wasn’t amicably killing time exchanging recipes with other Hatch zealots outside the supermarket yesterday, I was photographing the roasting process and people in the long line that snaked around the market’s parking lot. Some enthusiasts came from 60 miles away, showing up as early as 6 am for one of the very few August Hatch chile roastings in the county.

Supposedly, this was a two-day roasting, scheduled from 8 to 2 pm each day. However the store sold all 400 bags of chiles before the roasters were even fired up. Fortunately for the late sleepers, another 300 bags arrived at 10:30. These were spoken for in less than 45 minutes.

Blackening a bag of chiles in a giant drum roaster only takes minutes. But most Hatch lovers — who are primarily from Latino families — purchase 2-3 bags. And while bags are limited to three per person, there is no cap on how many family members may individually fill their shopping cart full of chiles.

This day began short-handed on roasters and manpower. Another roaster showed up mid-day, before the natives got too restless, but unless you were one of the first in line, the average wait to get your chiles roasted was about 3-4 hours on a damp, hot day.

Experienced shoppers arrived with bottles of frozen water and folding chairs. I stocked sunscreen, heavy camera equipment, a copy of Syd Field’s “Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting,” and a Fresno State University “GO BULLDOGS” visor.

At one point, I talked the distracted manger of the supermarket into letting me climb onto the building’s roof, so that I could catch an aerial view of the roasting and the long line of shopping carts containing burlap bags of crisp green chiles. But I got more than I bargained for when I was presented with not one but two 20 to 25-foot narrow fire escape-type ladders to ascend. With the aid of a far younger, thinner and more nimble store employee named Vanessa, I managed to drag myself up.

Unfortunately, the roof had a 3-foot wide, burning aluminum lip. This presented too precarious a situation to photograph anything other than what the newspaper business calls “Hail Marys.” These are images are caught when you hold a camera out or aloft, prefocus it, and then pray for an image after you press the shutter button.

By the time I had painfully lowered myself down the two levels of ladders, my cart had almost arrived at Roasting Central, courtesy of watchful care of two ladies who were among those who had the foresight to bring colorful parasols, and were thoughtful enough to shoo me off to shoot photographs while they kept my place in line.

It was with no small amount of satisfaction that I finally watched my chiles tumble out of the roaster, blackened and smoking of chile oil at exactly 1:55 pm. I also felt like I’d just dodged a bullet. Because of the slowness of the operation and the late arrival of additional chiles, many of those in line had been informed by store management that they would probably have to return early Sunday to put in more hours in yet another long line. But, by the time I had loaded cameras and chiles in my trunk, I heard the far-away roars and cheers from the hot and grumbling crowd on the other side of the large parking lot. The roasting apparently would continue until the last chile had been blackened.

Today I’m going to over screenwriting again, since it is the most important part of the entire production. After you’ve already written the script, you take a break, maybe even feel some sort of accomplishment for following something all the way through.

I didn’t really. I just felt like some intense pressure that had been looming over me was going to give me a week off. Now you come back to it and start rewriting. So how do you know when you’re done rewriting, you don’t. Some will tell you that you’ll have a feeling when you’re done. Others will tell you, you’re never done. I felt it was done but could always be polished, so I rewrote a little bit everyday while getting the rest of the production ready.

After finishing your screenplay, you might feel the need to send it to some of your closest friends or a script doctor. Avoid it. That’s just the weak part of your mind either wanting fained compliments to make you feel good or an “expert” opinion to tell you how you should feel about it.

You just finished your first of many, many drafts. Why not wait till the third or fourth draft before you do this. If you send your friends a crappy first draft, how excited do you think they’ll be to read your sixth draft?

Why spend $200-300 on a script doctor on something you already know needs work. Save them till the end.

Some will tell you to rewrite your entire script you need to do a complete rewrite. Well, I tried that. Guess what, it was a complete rewrite. It was an almost entirely new script. When you rewrite the script from the beginning, how much do you want to follow the last gameplan. Kind of boring, at least for me.

It was like reliving past experiences, so the only way to make it any fun is to make different choices to see what happens. So my new script was completely different. Now, there were some good things to come out of it.

I took a few of the ideas and used them in my old draft, but most of it was just successful in a writing excercise.

So I went back to the original, and never sent that script to anyone. Why? Anyone? No? Okay, I already told you but I’ll tell you again…Don’t send the first draft to anyone!

“But Steve wasn’t that technically the second draft or some shit”?

Well said, but it was more like a first draft in the sense that it was completely different and would need polishing in a completely new way.

Now I didn’t follow my advice, because I didn’t have the advice till I made the mistake…which is how I got the advice.

I not only sent my first draft to a script doctor, but all 250 pages of it. Wow, I don’t think you need an idiot like me to tell you to never do that. But just to let you know, I like to make my own mistakes rather than follow rules from a screenwriting book at Barnes & Noble.

Follow Syd Field or Robert McKee if you want, I just like to make mistakes first then read their books after I’d made a few screenplays so I can look more objectively than just follow blindly.

Anyway, not only did the scriptdoctor complain about how long it was, I had to pay an extra $50. The script doctor bascially told me things I already knew, too long, too many characters, etc.

He told me it was really funny, but needed to get some serious cuts. Which may be the hardest part of the screenwriting process, cutting your favorite scenes. You love them, they may be the funniest part of the movie. But if they’re not necessary, you’re gonna have to cut them.

My friends told me it was funny and didn’t think it was too long. But they don’t know how long a movie’s supposed to be. When they read the new 90 page version they thought it was too short.

Hopefully you’ll get lucky and have that one friend who’s completely honest. He let me know my first draft was all over the place.

Pretty much all the advice I got were things I’d already come to terms with. It’s just nice to have the validation. That’s mostly what you’ll pay a scriptdoctor for, to validate the little things you already believe in the back of your head.

I only paid for one scriptdoctor, one time. The best way to go about it two pay for two scriptdoctors, two times. But I actually wanted to make a movie this year, so I skimped on that.

I knew what I wanted and that’s all that mattered. I did find outside sources for criticism though.

Triggerstreet.com enables you to have horrible screenwriters critique you as you critique other horrible screenwriters. I’m sure there’s some decent one’s there, I just haven’t seen any. And if I seem pessimistic I’m not. If you had read a screenplay about a prostitute that convinces a 70 foot cyclops to kill everyone last man on earth and it wasn’t even the worst of the screenplays you’d read, than you might feel the same way as me.

I’m not sure what else I can tell you. Write, the rewrite as many times as possible before you shoot it. Get outside opinions, keep it around 90 pages, and don’t be predictable.

I’ll never understand why people want to make a movie that’s already been made a hundred times. Where does that passion come from?

Know you’re talents and your…non talents. I’m awesome at dialogue, but I’m not good at…something? Maybe I’m good at everything. That’s the kind of self confidence that get’s a movie made.

By the way, if you suck at dialogue, than there may be no hope for you. Unless you’re writing Rumble in the Bronx II chances are you will whither into obscurity. So if it’s possible, learn to write realistic dialogue.

Also, read your script aloud to someone, you’ll be able to tell when they’re bored or if they think something’s funny.

And oh yeah, WRITE! Don’t think about writing, that’s thinking. Just write! Bad writing doesn’t hurt anyone unless it’s the final draft or somebody read it. But you’re still better than all the thinkers out there, or the talkers. You wrote so you’re a writer.

The only time you should stay away from writing is when you’ve finished a new draft, stay away from it for a few weeks. That way it’s fresh when you come back to it. If you still laugh at a line, get excited during an action scene, or wince during a horror moment. It’s good, and best of all you wrote it.

I didn’t come up with all this, some of it is sound advice I regurgitated from the greats. But I used all of it so I know it works.

That’s it for today, next time I’ll get to the actual making of the movie.

Jean-Claude Carrière e Pascal Bonitzer nos trazem o eficiente Prática do Roteiro Cinematográfico e posso afirmar que é simplesmente indispensável para diretores e roteiristas. Não se trata de mais um livro sobre “Como escrever para o cinema”, mas de um compromisso sério com o ensino do roteiro.

Carrière chega a sugerir vários exercícios para serem aproveitados em sala de aula e defende que o ofício do cinema pode ser aprendido na escola. Mas deixa um aviso, falta o estudo do roteiro. Para Carrière poucas universidades possuem cursos para roteiristas, e o debate entre os alunos deveria acontecer mesmo sem a presença de professores ou orientadores.

A preocupação em criar novos e bons roteiristas e também de deixar textos sobre roteiro aparece em todo o livro. Outro assunto que chama a atenção é a diferença entre o romance e o roteiro. Tanto Carrière quanto Bonitzer se debruçam sobre o assunto e afirmam que o roteirista está mais perto de ser um diretor do que de ser um romancista.

Cena de Os amantes da Pont-Neuf

Com menos de 150 páginas, Prática do Roteiro Cinematográfico é facilmente digerido do início ao fim. Mas não se trata de uma leitura tão simples quanto os livros de Syd Field. A parte conduzida por Pascal Bonitzer (roteirista do filme Os amantes da Pont-Neuf) merece uma atenção especial e várias relidas. Nada que dificulte a compreensão do texto, apenas exige do leitor que acompanhe a linha de pensamento do roteirista. Bonitzer usa exemplos extraídos de Buñuel, Antonioni, Hitchcook e até de … Rambo!

Jean-Claude Carrière

O último capítulo fala exatamente da importância de um bom final. Nesse momento as idéias de Pascal Bonitzer se aproximam do pensamento de Syd Field. Os dois mundos não estão tão distantes assim. Os dois concordam que é preciso saber o fim antes de rabiscar qualquer palavra no papel.

Se você realmente quer escrever um roteiro não fique só com esse livro, leia A Linguagem Secreta do Cinema escrito por Jean-Claude Carrière.

I Tivo’d Goodfellas off Turner Classic Movies a while back and finally had a chance to watch it this week. I hadn’t seen it in at least 10 years and I always thought it was a great movie.

It was even better than I remembered.

Where to begin? I was struck with the moving camera and the exhilaration of forward propulsion. I had remembered this from years ago, but it blew me away all over again. For all the praise and excitement Paul Thomas Anderson gets for this (and rightfully so) for Boogie Nights, etc., Scorsese has always done this. I just had to be reminded. The feeling of hurtling forward through space and story is amazing. Besides camera movement, the use of music and editing to achieve this is phenomenal. The paranoia of the climactic sequence (circling helicopters, etc.) is palpable. Brilliant.

The characters and performances are excellent and feel just as real and authentic as Coppola’s Godfather movies. Scorsese’s mother steals the movie for me every single time (as Joe Pesci’s mother) because my wife has an Italian great-aunt who is exactly that character. Exactly.

I love this movie.

But the more I think about it afterwards, I am struck most by all the rules this movie breaks, especially in the writing. And these aren’t exceptions – the screenplay basically breaks all the major rules of the classical screenwriting paradigm. Think about it:

• Passive protagonist. Don’t get me wrong, Ray Liotta’s character does stuff. But he’s not your classic goal-oriented protagonist. He doesn’t drive the story. Other than survival and greed, he doesn’t want anything. He has no dramatic need. The story is not about that.
• Lack of a clear and specific antagonist. The movie is full of conflict, but there is no ultimate force to be overcome. Different characters serve as antagonists in various scenes, but there is no personified antagonist for the movie as a whole.
• Extensive use of voice-over. You could argue that with a nonclassical protagonist and the lack of a specific antagonist, the force really driving this story is… the voice-over. This is astonishing. Widely regarded as a “cheat,” voice-over – and its relationship to what is onscreen – really propels this story. And the voice-over doesn’t even follow the rules – we get v.o. from different characters in the movie at different times.
• Structure. Classical structure is designed to provide a familiar, intuitive template for the viewer. A context. So at all times we know where the character is now, where he wants to be, and exactly what stands between him and his goal. With classical structure we already know the shape of the story. We know what the character wants and what he has to do to get it, so that when the end finally comes, it feels like “the end” to us, and we know intuitively that the story is over. But Goodfellas doesn’t work that way.

The movie feels to me like a tight straight line of events with a propulsion of their own, like a force of nature. But after marveling at the “exhilarating sense of propulsion” through the movie but then realizing that it has no specific antagonist or classical protagonist, I am left with the question: what drives this story? How does it work?

The classical screenwriting paradigm would say that structure drives the story, but that falls apart here as well. The movie doesn’t have the traditional shape and feel of the three-act structure. I suppose somebody could break the script apart and find Syd Field’s plot points in there and everything, but the story isn’t told with that emphasis. It doesn’t feel that way for me. For me, the entire movie feels like a giant Act One, where we get a sense of the character in his environment and all the essential variables of his story are introduced until events finally come to a head, requiring the character to finally begin to act to control his own destiny. Ray Liotta’s character does a lot of stuff in the movie, but he doesn’t actually do anything to drive the story until after he is arrested. His sole affirmative, active “act” is this: he decides to testify against the mob in return for police protection. Once he does this, the movie is over. And even this single event is treated obliquely – we simply see him and his wife talking to a federal officer, and then he is on the stand ratting out his old pals. The decision to do this – the character’s one active story act – takes place offscreen. Talk about breaking the rules. But the really shocking thing is this: it works. Why? Because the story is not about the goal-oriented protagonist or about a human’s control of his destiny. It is about something else.

But wait! There’s more. Not only does the whole movie feel like a giant Act One to me, it also at the same time feels like a giant Act Two. Like the perfect Act Two, the one that is nothing but a straight, tight line. Where we are being shot forward out of a cannon and one event follows another and we cannot look away. Where we are moving so fast that we can’t imagine where the story is going but we sure know it is going in exactly the right direction. We are on the edge of our seats.

What am I getting at here? That we all want the same thing – to create a well-told story. That is the goal. The traditional rules of classical three-act structure, the active protagonist, a clear and specific antagonist,… these are tools that have been developed to help us reach that goal. But remember this: the rules themselves are not the goal. Following the rules is not the goal. The traditional rules are merely one set of tools, one set among many others. Goodfellas gives us a breathless, exhilarating story experience. How does it do this? It uses tools. Just not the same tools. Not the usual tools.

So remember this: the rules are not the goal. If the rules help, then follow them. If not, make different tools. It can be done.

With act one of Served Cold in the can, I’ve been laying the formal ground work for act two. Many people I know agree that act two is the toughest act to structure and/or write. I’m not going to go into reasons why this is, but what I will do is talk a bit about how I’m going about writing it for Served Cold.

Free screenwriting has been a real godsend for me in regard to exploring what parts of the story to set in act two. I’ve already explored all of the plot points that will occur in act two while doing my free screenwriting. So for me, it’s really just filling in the blanks.

What I’ve done is take the core elements and placed them in some what of a beat sheet. I set up a textpad file with 14 points, and start plugging them in. From there I will flesh them out and rearrange them accordingly. This allows me to start to put together a really high level view of what I want to do for the act.

Using Syd Fields “Three Act Screenplay” methodology, I split act two into part A and part B, which means I actually have two files I’m working within. So that’s a total of 28 beats I’m roughing out.

Currently, and this is subject to change, act two A breaks down like this:

1. Meet the bad guys. Garnier’s filled in that the money is missing. We end with him saying “Un–fucking–” and cut to…

2. Flashback to the money in the vault, coming in with Fisher saying “–believable.” Fisher is hesitant, it’s way more than they planned on, but they grab the money and we see their escape.

3. Koteric meets Lim at the scene. We get back story on who the money really belonged to, and that the FBI is after Garnier. This is a chance for us to really get an understand of who Garnier is, and what his organization is doing without someone having to spell it out to us directly in dialog.

4. Quick call of Fisher making a wire transfer to pay off the medical bill before he and Adele go out on their date. While they nab Fisher, he manages to really hurt two of them (Bruno and Issac), and does his best allow Adele to escape.

5. Fisher is tied to a chair. We see they’ve got his whole crew. Quinn is tossed down in front of them dead. The stakes are laid out. They’re going to do jobs for Garnier. They stop, or they fail, and they die. End of story.

6. Fisher calls Adele. Let’s him know he’s alright, and that he won’t be able to see her for a while. No he’s not in jail, just in some trouble he’s got to figure out how to get out of.

7. Planning of the ice heist. It’s at a big mansion on Jefferson. It’s the Hecker-Smiley Mansion, law offices… specifically, law offices that Gambini and the Detroit Partnership uses (though Fisher doesn’t know this, and neither do we). There is a big party Friday night. Fisher and the crew plan a con to get in, and make their way to the top floor to get the diamonds out of a safe that Worm has to crack. Escape is smooth after that, they just leave in the workvan. No one will even know they were there.

8. PINCH 1 – Diamond Heist – The crew hits up the Hecker-Smiley Mansion and steals the gems in an elaborate heist. However, things don’t go as perfect as they should. Private security on the lawn notices a light on in the top floor, wants someone to check it out. Probably some of the guests up there getting fresh. Go shoo them out. The guard goes up and discovers the heist. Worm and the guard struggle, and Worm is tossed down a flight of stairs. The guard gets one round off at Biggs, hitting him in the leg. Carter and Fisher have their sites on the guard, mexican standoff. Finally, Fisher puts a bullet in the guards forehead. Ultimately, they get away, with the gems.

9. Fisher and the crew crash a doctor’s office. Biggs gets stitched up (including a hot iron to cauterize the wound) and Worm get’s an ankle brace (mild fracture). Fisher leaves the doctor with some dough, but the doc says to keep it, and that he can’t do this anymore. It’s not like five years ago, he’s got a family, a practice, he just can’t risk it…and maybe it’s time for Fisher to do the same. Fisher forces the money on the Doc, no hard feelings, and walks.

10. Fisher tosses the ice on Garnier’s desk. Garnier tells them of the next job. They’re going to hit Detroit Metro Bank and Trust. Fisher flips out, says that’s the Partnership’s bank. Garnier is aware of that. Fisher finds out the diamonds also belonged to the partnership. The money will be there Thursday night. Fisher get’s the plans and whatever else Garnier’s team has (and they have EVERYTHING).

11. Fisher breaks it down for his team. All of them look upset. Fisher keeps them focused. They go over a rough outline of possible routes. Duties are split up.

12. Fisher doing recon on the bank, looks frustrated. Get’s a call from his mother. It’s Shawn. Fisher heads over. Stopping at the comic store first.

13. Fisher talks to Shawn. Rough day at school. Picked on. Shoved to the floor. Fisher gives him the comic books he picked up. On the way out he leaves an envelope of money on the counter. Tells his mother he wants him out of the school, and into a private school before the end of the semester. And that this is not up for debate.

14. MIDPOINT – Fisher talks to Manny. Fisher isn’t sure what to do. Manny tells him to play the only card he’s got. And that’s Koteric and the FBI.

Now, some of these are pretty detailed, some are really simple, but you can see my thought process as I go about fleshing things out. When I feel satisfied, I’ll boil each beat down to one or two lines, and then move into notecard planning in Final Draft.

However, before I do that I want to make sure I have act two B fleshed out as well. This way I can see the pacing over the whole act before I actually start writing. Now, I’m not done with this yet, but I’ll post up what I’ve got so you can see how it grows:

1. Fisher asks Koteric for help.

2. More planning. They’ve got a get a seucirty scan of the security system. Everything runs through a junction box in a utility building across the street. Fisher and Carter hit it up, do the scan while avoiding security, and get out.

3. Surprise visit with Adele. They go back to Fisher’s place.

4.

5. Koteric and joint FBI/DPD team set up sting.

6.

7. PINCH TWO Start of Heist.

8. Heist goes to hell. Firefight. Fisher owns a couple of guys.

9. Hand off goes to shit. Everyone dies.

10. Funeral.

11. Fisher at the dock. We’re lead to believe Fisher is killed.

12. A surprise visit to Manny.

13. Guns and more guns.

14. PLOT POINT TWO – Fisher meets with Gambini.

Lots of these beats are really bare. Some of them are blank. I’ve shuffled certain points between the acts, but all in all, you can start to get a feeling for the peaks and valleys of act two.

Now, a lot of the beats I’ve got in my two lists came from the stuff I fiddled with while I was doing my free screenwriting. And this has helped my development IMMENSELY. I’ve been able to see visually in my head how things will look. I’ve been able to see on paper how things will work. But most importantly, I know how some things already work. The pressure to develop is gone. If anything, I’m almost too relaxed while I work on act two.

It’s going to take me a few more days, likely through the weekend, to finish fleshing out act two, but when I complete it I will post it up. This way, if anyone is interested, they can see how the beats translate into the actual screenplay.

Until then…

Enjoy.
-Steve

The plot points at the end of Acts I and II hold the paradigm in place. They are the anchors of your story line.

Plot point is a function of the main character. Follow the main character in a story and you’ll find the plot points at the end of Acts I and II.
—Syd Field, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting

Hey! I found out what he means by ‘context’ and ‘content’!

Field uses ‘context’ to mean the basic purpose of each act. The context of Act I is getting us into the story. The context of Act II is conflict and confrontation. The context of Act III—you guessed it—is resolution.

And the ‘content’ is what you stick into the Acts.

Well, that’s easy.

We’ve already studied the context, so let’s launch ourselves into the content, the most important elements of which are the plot points at the end of Acts I and II. Field describes these two all-important plot points as the events or actions that “spin” the story around. They’re like your canines: only two of them, evenly spaced, but they hold your entire dental structure together (ask your dentist).

If you recall, we discussed once long ago Plotting by Handel’s Largo. Stories need to get more complex as they go along, as you get the reader used to the tension and they start thinking about being done. You have to keep yanking them back in. You can think of the three dramatic upheavals in Handel’s Largo in terms of the Acts. Act I has an introduction plus one dramatic upheaval: the plot point at the end. Act II has two dramatic upheavals (raise the ante!): the second plus the plot point at the end. Act III starts out deceptively—you think that last plot point has solved things, that it’s finally shown the characters how to get out of this mess alive. But no! Act III is organized around the big disaster, the final catastrophe that says, like the Grim Reaper, “Nobody gets out alive.” Whether or not you make room for a solution, whether you choose comedy or tragedy, is just a question of how close you put the disaster to the very end. Either the Grim Reaper’s right or you’ve got time to show how they’re wrong.

So here you are, chugging along down the track in a direction. You started out with a main character and their need not to knock over their dominoes, and you threw a problem at them to upset them. Your hook was your first domino going down. Oh, no! Don’t knock over that first domino! Too late. So now things are falling in some particular direction.

Then about a quarter (absolutely no more than a third) of the way through your story you come to a place where the dominoes are a little further apart, and it looks like that last one’s going to go down without quite touching the one after it. Whew! Thank goodness we got through that. And by the skin of our teeth. But wait. . .no! no! The falling domino’s just caught the edge of the next one, and now the reader realizes that little extra space was there because the row of dominoes went around a corner!

Canine.

So now you’re headed in a different direction, and the dominoes are falling faster than ever. The reader’s rushing to keep up with them. It’s just one minor plot point after another, and everywhere the reader looks things are going wrong. You’re right in the middle of your story, and the dominoes take a bad curve! (The reader’s startled, but less surprised this time.) They’re faster now! The chaos is getting out of control! They come to another corner, almost stop, go around it—and suddenly there are two rows of dominoes!

Canine.

But the two rows have a beauty of symmetry that’s visible now, and that is their solution. You’re about three-quarters (absolutely no less than two-thirds) of the way through your story. The dominoes run into each other, knock each other down, and stop. They’re are done. The rest of the line remains upright, undaunted, ready for another day. The reader is ready to weep with relief. Yes, there was damage, yes, there was trauma, yes, we suffered, but the rest of the line is safe now. And it’s always possible to rebuild—

Except for the fact that the table the dominoes stand on is not a table, at all, it’s a board balanced on a single foot, and now that the dominoes all stand on one side, there’s no help for it. It’s tipping. . .it’s tipping. . .holy domino, there it goes. . .

All the dominoes on the floor at once, a total and complete catastrophe. The reader was so focused on stopping the falling of the dominoes, they never even considered how much worse it could possibly be. The whole thing could be destroyed. There’s no rebuilding now. This story is O.V.E.R.

And it might very well be. That’s your decision. You can walk away and leave the reader standing there over the pile of dominoes sobbing into a handkerchief, cursing the day they were born, wondering if it’s too late to move to a cave in Tibet and shave their head. Or you can take pity and throw the poor dog a bone. Shine one little ray of sunshine through a window so they can see: life is not dominoes. They’re standing in a room crying over a pile of spilt toys.

There’s actually a whole other world going on out there.

THE BOOK

SCREENPLAY: The Foundations of Screenwriting

by SYD FIELD

WHY THIS BOOK?

This is the foundation of the canon; the one on every insecure screenwriter’s bookshelf (including mine) that announces “Not only am I a real writer — I swear ! — I’m also schooled in the classics.” It’s only fitting that this be the first book I break down. Field wrote “Screenplay” in 1979. It was the first book devoted entirely to the art of screenwriting, and it made key distinctions between that form of writing and all others. Up to that point, no one had given the art of filmmaking enough respect to bother analyzing what made screenplays tick. Back in film school it was required reading and I skimmed it to the point that I could reference its main points on a test. But having now written several screenplays myself, and having read piles of scripts for agents and producers, I’m curious to see if there are deeper, more complex ideas in this book that’s now been whittled down in the minds of most film students to the introduction of the three-act concept.

WHAT’S IN IT

First off, let me commend Syd Field for figuring out the three-act-screenplay structure. It’s a good start in the quest to demystify the workings of good films, and it’s the jumping-off point for many, far superior books on screenwriting (it’s also deluded thousands of agents and producers into thinking they have a voice in the creative process). But reading Screenplay in 2009 to learn to write a screenplay is akin to reading Beowulf while preparing to write video game code. Struggling to get through its 300 + pages, I started to feel badly for the author — he was doing the best he could with very little precedent to work from. In desperation for respectability and sources, he quotes everyone from Cat Stevens to Henry James to Joseph Campell, with an occasional, desperate invocation of the New World Dictionary.  Like so many procrastinated thesis papers I wrote in college, Field’s book contains a couple of good points that are propped-up with unstructured ideas he restates over and over and mixes with random trivia.   He keeps jumping from one iconic film to the next and it’s hard to keep his points straight — I get it; “Chinatown” is a great film. But it’s not the film to use as an example when you’re teaching a new writer how to structure a screenplay! Nor is “Annie Hall”! To remain relevant, he’s also added a few “newer” films to the modern edition such as “Seabiscuit” and “Cold Mountain” — film titles I don’t tend to hear getting tossed around by writers I respect.

Syd Field doesn’t write his book like a screenwriter. His approach to dissecting the structural elements of screenplays, while ground-breaking, reads academically. Experienced scriptwriters will gain the insight reading “Screenplay” that seasoned novelists will have reading “Shrunk and White”, i.e., it contains the fundamentals, but it’s not going to help you compose a great piece of writing. His patented “inciting incident” (the idea that screenplays begin with an event that ushers the protagonist into the main story) is about as helpful as mentioning that every complete sentence contains a verb.  Any writer with a speck of talent is already going to instinctually know that these sorts of elements are part of a successful film, and anyone who doesn’t shouldn’t be writing to begin with.

SCREENWRITING SECRETS

Well…Syd Field’s screenwriting secrets stopped being secrets around 1982 and are now closer to dogma. But they’re still nifty to know. When I first learned about Field’s THREE ACT STRUCTURE in film school, it was a revelation. From that point on, I couldn’t get enough of watching the time counter on the VCR hit 25 minutes, just as a movie’s first plot point is revealed. It’s still a thrilling feeling to hit that magic page count when writing — a feeling that you’re on the right path. But “Screenplay” could be cut down to a 50 page manual.

THE THREE-ACT-STRUCTURE IN A NUTSHELL…

A script’s FIRST ACT has 25 pages, during which we learn about our hero, their desires, and the world in which they inhabit.Around page 25, PLOT POINT #1 occurs. This is an event that either happens to the hero, or it’s a choice made by them, that leads them into a new reality where they go after what they desire. The SECOND ACT is usually about 60 pages long and is all about the protagonist encountering numerous obstacles in the way of their goal. Around page 90, PLOT POINT #2 occurs. This is a final choice made by the hero to make one last push to achieve their goal. The last twenty to thirty pages that follow constitute the THIRD ACT – the climax of the film — during which the hero succeeds or fails.  That’s it!  Pretty simple, right?  Now try doing it.

IN CONCLUSION

Screenplay feels more analytical than tutorial. It gives film studies professors and hollywood producers the terminology to speak coherenly about parts of a film, but the book doesn’t take too many steps towards helping the actual screenwriters, who are up late at night, searching for a way out of a narrative hole they’ve dug for themselves somewhere in Act 2 (as I knock him, I use the very system he devised). And while it does have some fine ideas about how to write characters and scenes, many others have done so much better. Still, if all that “Screenplay” ends-up giving the world is the three-act-concept, then it’s done enough.

SHOULD YOU READ IT?     WEAK CONSIDER