Popularity: 4%

Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations…

Geez… The emails just keep pouring in… WTF?

Anyway, from a majority of these emails, I see that many of you want to write a screenplay and even seem to have what you THINK is the first act all figured out but it’s the moving on to Acts 2 and 3 or Acts 2, 3, and 4 if you’re a 4 Act Structure screenwriter like me…

I’m sure you’ve seen these before but maybe dismissed them… Or, you looked at them and thought, WTF? And then dismissed them. LOL.

Now let’s revisit…

Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations…

Remember these? No? Well here they are:

1. Supplication

2. Deliverance

3. Crime pursued by vengeance

4. Vengeance taken for kin upon kin

5. Pursuit

6. Disaster

7. Falling prey to cruelty/misfortune

8. Revolt

9. Daring enterprise

10. Abduction

11. The enigma

12. Obtaining

13. Enmity of kin

14. Rivalry of kin

15. Murderous adultery

16. Madness

17. Fatal imprudence

18. Involuntary crimes of love

19. Slaying of kin unrecognized

20. Self-sacrifice for an ideal

21. Self-sacrifice for kin

22. All sacrificed for passion

23. Necessity of sacrificing loved ones

24. Rivalry of superior v. inferior

25. Adultery

26. Crimes of love

27. Discovery of the dishonor of a loved one

28. Obstacles to love

29. An enemy loved

30. Ambition

31. Conflict with a god

32. Mistaken jealousy

33. Erroneous judgment

34. Remorse

35. Recovery of a lost one

36. Loss of loved ones

Thanks Unk… Now what do I do with them?

Glad you asked.

First of all, you must learn to look at each of these 36 Dramatic Situations within the context of YOUR STORY. Hard at first I know but you just have to GUT IT OUT.

There are NO rules here… Don’t worry about acts or structure… Just get out a pen, pencil, paper, or for those of you less manually inclined, whatever computer program you use to write notes with and take a COLD HARD LOOK at every one of these situations to see if it just might fit within the confines of your story.

These 36 Dramatic Situations should simply start making your synapses SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP with brainstorming ideas… FREE ASSOCIATION! No need to worry if LOSS OF A LOVED ONE FITS in your story right now but go with it… Ask yourself, “What if?”

What if your Protagonist lost a loved one? What would happen? Could that drive the main plot? Could it be a subplot? What about other main characters? What if THEY lost a loved one? See where this takes you…

What I like to do is simply get a nice black roller ball pen and take 36 pieces of paper and write out ONE dramatic situation at the top of each page…

Then start brainstorming this situation within the context of your story… Don’t worry about what you come up with!

JUST DO IT!

Okay, okay… Now I’ll get email asking me how to brainstorm…

Let’s cut to the chase… I’m old school… I learned out to outline in high school (I even graduated!) and have since developed my own hybrid way of outlining that might not work for anyone else.

How do YOU take notes? Do you outline? Use that method.

Do you draw little balloons with lines to other little balloons? Cool. Use that method.

Do you just JOT DOWN WORDS? Cool, use THAT method!

Again, there are no rules… The idea is to PURGE your BRAIN of all that fucking STORY ACTIVITY that is going on up there! GET IT OUT AND GET IT DOWN!

Remember… WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR STORY! Not my story. Not some story you saw at the theater. Not some movie you love. YOUR STORY!

Go through all 36 Dramatic Situations with 36 pieces of paper. I highly recommend putting pen to paper for this exercise because I believe until we are born with a computer to do our coloring at the age of one, this exercise will work out much better for you.

Once you do this for all 36 situations, it’s time to relax! You should be mentally exhausted so put this shit away till tomorrow.

Is it tomorrow yet? Good.

Now some of your 36 situations are going to be a lot heavier than others i.e., MORE INFORMATION. Start browsing through one piece of paper at a time and start organizing all your notes. By now, there should be some very interesting plot developments that should be fucking SCREAMING AT YOU!

Get those down. Don’t worry about order… Just pick the ones you like best! Get them all down on yet another piece of paper or yes… You guessed it… Your favorite word processing program. Don’t worry about how many you like and put down. Don’t worry about order. Just make the list!

*NOTE: Don’t throw any of this stuff away… In fact, why don’t you have a nice folder with the name of your screenplay labeled on it to put all this stuff into?

Back to your list…

Based on pure numbers alone, by the time you’ve completed your list, you should have, AT THE VERY LEAST, 36 notes i.e., one for each dramatic situation. But you’re a writer, RIGHT? If so, you should have MORE.

My average list of notes is usually over a hundred… Remember, a screenplay can have anywhere from 40 to over 65 scenes, hint hint.

You guessed it… Take your list and start narrowing that bugger down to yet another list… By now, you should be real familiar with looking at THIS LIST within the context of YOUR STORY so be sure to have more pen and paper standing by should any new ideas be snap, crackling, and popping at you while you narrow down your list.

Again, don’t worry about order… Just find the situations, plot twists, etc. that you FEEL really will fit within the confines of YOUR STORY.

When I do this, I normally scrounge this list down to somewhere between 40 and 60 different situations. Almost one situation per scene, right?

WRONG.

Now the real work begins… But we’ll discuss that later… LOL.

Unk

Tags:




Wednesday: 30 August 2006|1439|Under Uncategorized

Print This Post Print This Post
 

Comments

3 Responses to “Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations…”

  1. wcdixon on Wednesday: 30 August 2006|1754

    Lol…thanks for the contribution…and link linked.

  2. Writing a Great Movie by Jeff Kitchen » The Unknown Screenwriter on Monday: 30 July 2007|1855

    [...] now… Often referring back to it when I've wanted to do a little brainstorming using the Georges Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations. In Writing A Great Movie, Jeff has really expanded Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations with modern [...]

  3. Writing a Great Movie by Jeff Kitchen : The Unknown Screenwriter on Saturday: 3 May 2008|1624

    [...] now… Often referring back to it when I’ve wanted to do a little brainstorming using the Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations. In Writing A Great Movie, Jeff has really expanded Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations with [...]

Leave a Reply