Act One: Show how the flaw is a problem. Inciting Incident: Show how the protag will be forced to face the flaw. Act Two Up: Show how the protag attempts to solve the problem without facing the flaw. Midpoint: Show how the protag accepts the flaw. Act Two Down: Show how the protag fails to…
Read more5 STAR ESCALATION
Escalation keeps the story interesting. An individual escalation really works when it is set up as the thing we hope doesn’t ever happen. Then when it happens, we know the most shit has just hit the biggest fan. Rinse, then repeat until the end of act two.
Read more“I WILL MAKE UP MY OWN RULES OF SCREENWRITING”
Fair enough. Change up your structure, overwrite the dialogue, have dual protagonists. Make it work. Pro tip: Do not ignore the fact that it has to be coherent and interesting.
Read moreIT’S UP TO YOU
Say you’ve got 70 actual scenes. It doesn’t matter, really. There’s no magic number. The point is, you have a limited amount of time. 70 beats looks like quite a lot, until you try to fit everything into them. You have to choose. Say one of your big beats is that your protag with Asperger’s…
Read moreSHOW, DON’T HINT
It’s okay to plainly state your intent. It’s a pretty good idea, actually, because subtle little brushstrokes are open to a lot of misinterpretation, or worse, not being interpreted at all. Showing is better than telling, but telling is better than hinting. There is no point in constructing an elaborate thematic device and leaving it…
Read moreI get a lot of resistance about my wrathful judgment of flashbacks. Here’s the caveat. Flashbacks are not the enemy. Unless they are lazy. Then they are the enemy. Like any other expositional scene that spoon feeds the reader information. A good flashback is dramatic and illuminating, like the flashbacks in The Usual Suspects, to…
Read moreHOW MANY THINGS IS YOUR SCRIPT ABOUT?
LET’S TALK ABOUT OTHER KINDS OF STRUCTURE
There are some. I leave it to Linda Aronson to explain how they work, because I can’t fit it in a gif. Except this one. And I get really down on writers starting out with big ambitions about complicated structure because, frankly, it’s hard enough to do one protagonist and one linear storyline to good…
Read moreNotes from a Screenreader: The Wonkavator
Notes from a Screenreader: The Wonkavator nywift: Photo via Go Into the Story. Willy Wonka: No, it’s a Wonkavator. An elevator can only go up and down, but the Wonkavator can go sideways, and slantways, and longways, and backways… A screenplay should not be a Wonkavator, even if it isn’t linear. What you want in…
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