WEDNESDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

HOW YOU TELL THE STORY

It's not just the story we tell, it's how we tell it.

You may have noticed the chapter titles in Tarantino's INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and wondered what kind of stange structure that is... and is it something you might want to use in your new screenplay. You know, so you won't fall into that cookie cutter trap of the standard Hollywood three act structure.

Maybe you've heard that screenwriting guru John Truby says Three Act Structure (which he believes was created by some story analyst) is the death of Hollywood... the reason why so many films suck these days. Problem with that is that the Three Act Structure was *not* invented by some Hollywood story analyst at all...

The Three Act Structure is only 2,400 years old. Everyone from those old Greek dramatists to Shakespeare (his plays were broken into 5 acts for printing purposes) to Checkhov (Anton, not that guy on Star Trek) to every classic film you can think of to that awful film with Adam Sandler you saw last week, uses the 3 Act structure.

And everyone in Hollywood uses it. Go to a script meeting, and the note you'll get will be about how Act 1 drags or Act 2 is soft or something. They're all about the Three Act Structure - it's been in Hollywood since the first feature. You may use some other method - but they won't really care. You will still get notes about beefing up Act 2.

I'm one of those people who believe it's so basic, it's hard not to use the Three Act Structure. When you tell a bedtime story, it uses the Three Act Structure. When you tell your spouse how your day went, it's probably in Three Acts. It's too basic to ignore.

Act 1: Introduces the conflict (a person has a problem).
Act 2: Conflict and escalation of the conflict (person struggles with the problem).
Act 3: Resolution of the conflict (person solves the problem, or the problem solves the person).

But what about those chapters in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS? Hey, and that Spanish movie TIME CRIMES where time gets all mixed up? Certainly a great movie like MEMENTO proves that Truby is right and 2,400 years of drama are wrong?

I'm glad you asked that...

WHAT, WHY, and HOW?

Most stories are about WHAT happens, Chris Nolan's MEMENTO is about WHY things happen. Murder mysteries start with a crime and then the detective probes the past to find the events leading up to that crime... ending with the solution to the crime. MEMENTO begins with a murder and takes us back through the past, focusing on motives, until we discover WHY the murder occurred. In order to make the audience feel the confusion of Leonard's short term memory loss, the film opens with the end then goes BACKWARDS scene-by-scene to show you HOW that end came to be. We finally get to the spark that set off the story - and that's the end of the film!

Though MEMENTO may seem like some bizarre structure because the story is told backwards, it's actually a traditional three acts. Act One introduces the problem: Leonard kills the man that he thinks murdered his wife. Act Two escalates the conflict: Piece by piece we learn about the wife's murder, the suspects, and we begin to wonder if Leonard shot the right guy! Act Three resolves the conflict: Because we're moving BACKWARDS we eventually get to the wife's murder and learn why she was killed. This answers the WHY question, resolving the conflict in a very unexpected way.

The backwards storytelling is a technique *in addition to* Aristotle's standard Three Act Structure, which I call the "story form" and in the STRUCTURING YOUR STORY Blue Book, I call *structuring" - which is something in addition to however many acts or whatever you have. Structuring is the order of scenes for maximum impact on the audience. The great thing about MEMENTO being told in reverse chronology is that the audience feels exactly what the protagonist is feeling - they don't know what happened 5 minutes ago, either! There are hundreds of ways to tell a story, and we get to decide which way works best for this particular story. We still have that underlying dramatic structure of introducing the conflict, struggling with the conflict, then resolving the conflict... but we don't stop there. We keep going and keep making creative decisions - including *how* we tell our story.

An episode of ER worked backwards scene-by-scene to show the result of sleep deprivation on a doctor... and how it leads to an operating room accident that results in the death of a patient. The backwards story-telling method not only disorients the audience (making us feel as punch-drunk as Dr.Luka Kovac (Goran Visnjic), it also makes us jump to several conclusions (just as the doctor will jump to some conclusions while diagnosing a patient which will lead to disaster). Did he sleep with Moria Tierney at the Christmas party? Did he sleep with the intern in his charge? Did he get into a fight with an elf? Did someone intentionally destroy Gedde Wantanabe's Menorah? Given only part of the information, disoriented because the story is told backwards, we keep jumping to the wrong conclusion... so we understand how Dr. Kovac could jump to the wrong diagnosis under similar circumstances. Like in MEMENTO the technique is used to put us in the protagonist's shoes.

Remember, we want to give the audience an emotional experience, and the method we use to tell our story is critical. HOW we give the audience information is just as important as the information itself. You may conceal information to create suspense and reveal it later. In my original script for THE BASE, the base commander blames our hero for the death of his son during Desert Storm. The most interesting way to give the audience this information was in a series of flashbacks parceled out a bit at a time throughout the script so that the backstory ran parallel to the main story... and made the hero's responsibility in the death a mystery right up until very close top the end. PETULIA (1968) intertwines past and present stories in a love story about an abused wife's affair with her doctor... holding information until the exact moment when it will have maximum impact on the audience.

CHRONOLOGY HAS NOTHING
TO DO WITH IT!

Nic Roeg films like DON'T LOOK NOW throw chronology out the window, bouncing through time from event to event, using the impact of each scene on the protagonist as the basis for its three act structure. Lem Dobbs' THE LIMEY scatters chronology to show the way memory and emotions play off each other - the same short scene has different emotional impact depending on where we see it in the story. Atom Egoyan's EXOTICA gives us several seemingly unrelated characters and reveals their relationships as the film progresses, surprising us when we finally learn the connection between a stripper and her favorite customer at the end of the film. My unproduced script THE LAST STAND begins in the middle of the story and alternates flashbacks and present day scenes to work simultaneously towards the beginning and end of the story from that middle scene. This was the best way to tell the story.

HOW you tell the story is just as important as the story itself. By using a backwards scene-by-scene form (like that episode of SEINFELD where Elaine's bra-less friend gets married in India) MEMENTO gives the audience Leonard's short term memory loss - we have no idea who these people are or whether we can trust them or how we came to be here. The FORM of the screenplay helps to tell the story...

Just as using the chapter titles in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS makes the story seem different and interesting. Finding the form in which you tell your story is an important choice. Deciding the order of your scenes is an important choice. HOW you tell the story is part of telling the story.

Just as having a great idea does not insure that you have a great script... or having great dialogue doesn't insure that you will have a great script, or having any other single element will insure that you have a great script - having that very basic Three Act Structure doesn't make your script suddenly brilliant. It's one of *hundreds* of elements you need to get right. Blaming the Three Act Structure is exactly the same kind of generalization that Truby criticizes when scoffs at the Hollywood belief that all successful films must a happy ending. (Which no one in Hollywood actually believes - see CASABLANCA or the latest horror sequel for proof.) The problem isn't the Three Act Structure, it's *stopping* at the Three Act Structure. It's not using your creativity to build on that structure, and find an interesting way to tell your story. Chapters? Backwards? Non-chron? Multiple Points Of View? Rewinds? Skipping Ahead? Fantasy Scenes? Use your imagination! Find the best way to tell your story!

You don't have to use any of these strange storytelling techniques, but you *do* have to make your script interesting and exciting to read. You want to make your script *memorable*.

Are you using the most interesting method to tell your story? Does the FORM of your story add to the audience's experience?

If you want to use chapters, use chapters!

Much more on this in the STRUCTURING YOUR STORY Blue Book!

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THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES

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GOT STRUCTURE?!

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William Goldman says the most important single element of any screenplay is structure. It’s the skeleton under the flesh and blood of your story. Without it, you have a spineless, formless, mess... a slug! How do you make sure your structure is strong enough to support your story? How do you prevent your story from becoming a slug? This Blue Book explores different types of popular structures from the basic three act structure to more obscure methods like leap-frogging. We also look at structure as a verb as well as a noun, and techniques for structuring your story for maximum emotional impact. Most of the other books just look at *structure* and ignore the art of *structuring* your story. Techniques to make your story a page turner... instead of a slug!

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I WRITE PICTURES!

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DESCRIPTION & VOICE Blue Book.

IS HALF OF YOUR STORY IN TROUBLE?

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WHAT IS A SCENE?

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SUBPLOTS?

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ACT TWO SOLUTIONS!

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All About Endings!

GRAND FINALES Blue Book!

The Perfect Ending For Your Story!

The First Ten Pages Of Your Screenplay Are Critical,
But What About The Last 10 Pages?

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All About LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING!

LOGLINES, TREATMENTS, and PITCHING! Blue Book!

Distilling Your Screenplay!

Loglines, Treatments, Pitching, Look Books, Pitch Decks, One Pagers, Rip-O-Matics?

You have written a brilliant 110 page screenplay, but how do you get anyone to read it? You need to distill it down into some form of verbal moonshine or story rocket fuel that will ignite that bored development executive or manager or agent and get them to request your screenplay. But how do you shrink those 110 pages into a 25 word logline or a 2 minute elevator pitch or a one page synopsis or a short paragraph? This 100,000 word book shows you how! Everything you need to know! From common logline mistakes (and how to solve them) to how your pitch can reveal story problems to the 4 types of pitches!

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READY TO BREAK IN?

THE BUISINESS SIDE

*** BREAKING IN BLUE BOOK *** - For Kindle!

Should really be called the BUSINESS BLUE BOOK because it covers almost everything you will need to know for your screenwriting career: from thinking like a producer and learning to speak their language, to query letters and finding a manager or agent, to making connections (at home and in Hollywood) and networking, to the different kinds of meetings you are will have at Studios, to the difference between a producer and a studio, to landing an assignment at that meeting and what is required of you when you are working under contract, to contracts and options and lawyers and... when to run from a deal! Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!

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