Great post. Whether you want to call them rules or principles, I see writers all the time who don’t bother to learn HOW to write the types of things they wish to write, yet wonder why they just never can seem to break into the markets.

Learn the rules or “principles” first, then you can eventually try breaking them.

Suzanne Lieurance
The Working Writer’s Coach
http://www.workingwriterscoach.com

I DA MAN? I never been DA MAN before. It feels strange but thanks… LOL.

Scott,

Eloquent? Damn. I need to work harder! LOL. Thanks, I appreciate that.

Ryan R,

Now that’s eloquent.

Unk

To pacify that inner boozy beret wearing anarchist rebel , just change the word RULE to PRINCIPLE.

Principles are not etched in stone. The artist will not be tempted to break a principle. A rule begs to be broken. As screenwriters we ask ourselves to push limits. It’s in our nature.

The aim of our art is to be transparent. When you break a rule simply to break a rule – you draw attention away from the work and onto yourself. The reader says, ‘wow, this kid can pull a mean kick flip,’ and now back to our story.

Simplicity is the most complicated thing to achieve. To master the complications we face as screenwriters we have to simplify and we can’t do that if we are unable to master a screenplay’s basic necessities.

Beginning. Middle. End.

That shit’s hard. Been hard since the beginning, is hard now, and will be hard until the end.

You can write Memento II and riff like Tarantino but that’s exactly what will stand out about your work. The reader will say, ‘wow, this writer writes like Tarantino,’ and now back to our story.

Why hire an impressionist when they can hire real deals?

It’s so simple, it’s stupid. Be you. You don’t need to pay Dr. Phil for that shit. You don’t have to endorse Nike to Just Do It. If you can master yourself then you’ve got a leg up on the competition. Know your strengths. Know your limitations. Milk and improve.

If we adhere to the principles, it should keep us from having to rely on rules.

Thanks for the tips.

Scottie screenwriter

I think I know what you’re getting at…

I FEEL like you’re trying to say that screenwriting is an art and as an artist, we owe it to ourselves, our careers, our future, and our audiences, to keep pushing. Experiment. Try new things. Attack stories differently and we all benefit from that experience.

And I agree completely.

I just like starting out with what I consider a solid success-oriented structure as simply the roadmap and no more.

The roadmap, outline, beat sheet, sequence plan, whatever you want to call it is (for me), and always has been, just that set of blueprints you create and then go and get approved so you can get a permit and start building.

At any time, the owner (the characters) can change their minds… They decide that the bathroom needs to be larger. More closet space. A wine cellar… LOL. Whatever. So when that happens, the builder (the screenwriter) LETS them make those decisions and tweaks the blueprints to reflect those decisions. Just like you end up tweaking the solid, success-oriented structure you start out with as your basic story plan or outline.

You let the characters run amok and do what they HAVE to do and thereby, your solid, success-oriented structure begins to change. Sometimes DRASTICALLY — sometimes not.

But because you are the writer AND the characters, your deviation usually makes sense and serves the existing structure very well.

Organic structure is RISK.

When you make those decisions yourself — without the owner’s permission, you certainly take a risk but one that is probably going to get the owners pissed off i.e., they want it their way so you have to go back to the drawing board. Why? Because it’s YOUR idea. It’s YOUR deviation. It’s not organic i.e., it doesn’t work for the rest of the house. It’s simply FUNCTIONAL. It’s an easy deviation. You saw it someplace else and thought it would work here. You thought it might be cool. You knew it would be so cool that the owners wouldn’t mind.

And of course anyone can work that way and you can bet your ass they certainly do — I see it all the time.

But that’s once again where, in my opinion, screenwriters go wrong because they stick something in the structure that’s functional. It works but it’s not necessarily the best thing for the story. One could argue of course that only the AUTHOR knows what’s best for his or her story and to a degree, that is certainly TRUE.

But only to the degree where the author is the one making the movie. To the degree where the author is the one financing the movie.

Because remember… We’re talking spec scripts. Send out too many spec scripts with faulty structure or structure that doesn’t work and see how many people in the business will no longer read your specs.

Happens every fucking day.

They really don’t care what risks you took. All they know is that they read a story that didn’t work for them.

Sell a screenplay that started out with a success-oriented structure and you’ve gone quite far with helping your career. Keep writing and selling screenplays that start from success-oriented structure and your career is going to flourish and have longevity.

And maybe an award or two along the way.

Unk

Hard to say about the husband and wife since I don’t know the story you’re telling.

But if the inciting incident does happen to the wife and you have the husband simply along for the ride, you’ve got to show us that. Show us HOW he is along for the ride. Show us the wife making decisions. Keep showing us HER reaction to action and again, the husband simply is along for the ride.

Show the Antagonist going after the wife.

Do it enough in the beginning and we’ll get it — then keep it going and let the wife resolve the central question of the story at the end or answer that question by allowing her to reach her goal.

Don’t cheat US out of that and more importantly, don’t cheat the wife out of it either.

Unk

We essentially agree on almost everything – LOL!

But what you said above is pretty much a large part of how I write, which also hearkens back to KING. Get your characters into something and watch them get out of it. So we do agree, it’s just the semantics that is our big chew toy, as you said.

But yeah, I get ya . . . tho’ I wouldn’t necessarily say that RISK to me means a different kind of structure . . . I guess I only think of structure in terms of how it serves the story, that’s me, and sometimes a riskier story means a riskier structure, and sometimes it doesn’t . . .

To be clear, I BELIEVE in GOOD STRUCTURE . . . I know you know that, but I felt I hadda just say it out loud. I also think all my scripts are structured pretty damn good, too. So to be clear, I wasn’t arguing against structure – I’m probably only quibbling over exactly the essence of it, of course.

We are haggling over semantics, exactly as you said, but what fun it is!

I get what you’re saying about, a well structured script with other weak elements means the dialogue / character stuff, you can fix easily, as long as you dig the story . . . totally get that, with your producers hat on, that makes perfect sense.

Me, I guess I still rant and rave like a geeky fanboy consumer rather than a producer, and that’s something I should look at when I think about my long term goals and ambitions.

Scottie,

Interesting thing about MEMENTO, if I was told correctly, it played at the festivals and all the distributers loved it, but no one picked it up because they didn’t figure it had an audience. So the prodco got some funds together and started a separate company which distributed it itself, and it ended up making a nice amount of money, audiences got it, and it gave Nolan a hell’ve a career start.

That’s what I was told, anyway. I love how BATMAN RETURNS was structured, myself.

I hear what you’re saying but I am still of the opinion — all things being equal — that I would rather see a well structured script than a script that makes no sense.

I would rather see a well structured script with weak dialogue because dialogue can be easily fixed.

However, a script with so many story elements out of place so that it is now fragmented and barely makes sense when you finish reading it?

FUGHEDABOUDIT.

I’ll take a well structured script over that script any day of the week.

I wholeheartedly agree that if one simply follows good structure and the situations, events, and obstacles contain no real imagination — that screenplay doesn’t have a chance in hell of being sold but to ME, it’s still better off than a script without good structure but still comparably written.

Why?

Because I could help that writer rework those situations, events, and obstacles — amp and crank them up so that they’re bigger — stuff we’ve never seen before. I can help them tweak the dialogue with more subtext. It’s easier to find the gold in a well structured script — plain and simple.

The same script with no discernable structure would most likely require the writer — all things being equal — to start from scratch.

The way you’re coming across to me with your comments is that RISK means a different kind of structure. LOL. I think the worst thing a spec screenwriter can do before they TRY to sell a script is to not use good structure.

RISK is in the eye of the beholder… We simply don’t agree on RISK. I’m all for risk but I let my characters take all the RISK. My job is to lay the foundation i.e., the structure — their job is to get through the story the best way they can.

NO RISK would be (for me) to structure out your story — push the characters around the game board until they get to the end.

Sounds a little boring to be sure BUT if that script has good structure and the situations, events, and obstacles are imaginative — stuff that we’ve not seen — that’s a script I wouldn’t mind helping someone tweak to perfection i.e., “the illusion of perfection…”

Whereas RISK to me is giving my characters their head. Letting them GO. Letting them feel their way through the story RATHER than making them follow the structure.

To me… That IS GREAT WORK. So I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree — AGAIN. LOL.

Scott,

INTENSE? Now that’s funny. This ain’t intense… This is semantics.

But I like your comment and basically agree with it.

Good stuff.

We’re not done are we? LOL.

Unk