By Mike Dean @deanonyc

A clean room and full fridge were always a given for the time home over college winter breaks. Time with family and friends always beat procrastinating on the couch and mountain dew supported all nighters. My favorite part of being home on break though, were the movies. Just me and the remote and any of the early 90’s best from Sneakers to A Few Good Men, and have to watch classics like Scarface, A Christmas Story, and too many others to name. At the time it was entertainment, and an escape. Movies seemed great because of jokes, explosions, or beautiful people saying their lines. Story, character, and tight writing were way too grown up concepts.

As I got older and baseball hats were just for nights and weekends my movie palate matured. I started to see through the smoke and mirrors of the machine of Hollywood. Anything edited the right way with the right music into a trailer could get anyone excited. The fluff was a harder and harder sell to me. I still couldn’t see the underlying story pattern no matter what laid on top of it that hit the chord. I laughed and years later would frown at inconsequential subplots that entertained, jokes that didn’t move the story ahead, and knowing a few more rewrites could have made a flop a great one.

As a fifth year senior, a second year finance guy, or whatever version of grownup I grew into, each December I’d relish that afternoon when shopping was done, or late night before having to go over the hills and through the woods to Grandma’s. I’d thank Santa for hidden gems I never heard of like Amongst Friends, Safemen, and a quirky comedy called Napolean Dynamite everyone swore by. There would always be one or two pieces of coal in my stocking from the disappointing ones. What was different from the college days and feeling robbed of my $2.50 lost forever to Blockbuster would be the five words that have ignited something in all of us. I could write something better.

My journey in recent years has me celebrating the triumphs of writers and directors with vision. It’s also found me dismissive and at times angry at the crap. Most of the crap is updated crap or a new spin on an old storyline that was crap. Irritation and angst in the college years have turned to knowledge gained and inspiration to right so many movie wrongs from over the years.

The hurdles for a writer like myself, or any of us in the aspiring category can be enormous. As December closes and memories of what got me excited in the first place to write a great story, the juices flow. The call to action to make something better harkens. Plot points in everyday life throw twists into the story of my own and all of our writing paths. I hang on for the payoff, which I know will be worth staying on the ride.

12/27/11

Happy December everyone! In the spirit of this month of holidays, Scripped has a challenge for all you TV fans in TV land.

Write a holiday themed 7 – 10 page “minisode” of a currently airing television series. Choose a series you are watching now: something you like so you know how to emulate the tone and style of the show (it might even help if you can get your hands on a script from that series – they’re out there somewhere!). Then set your episode around a December-ish holiday and voila! You can write a heart-felt family drama, a comedy of holiday antics or anything you’d like! Have fun with the characters in these story worlds without having to worry about establishing setting or backstory! Enjoy!

Please note: submissions will be possible beginning December 24th, so take that extra time to polish your work!

By Britt J.

Do you sometimes find yourself languishing in front of a blank computer screen, attempting to ‘will’ yourself into writing every last scene of your script completely from scratch?

If so, I’ve found that augmenting your screenwriting arsenal with a ‘passive-creative’ approach can often be helpful in eliminating this particular form of frustration as well as the screenwriter’s block that can often accompany it.

Here’s how it works:

Whenever you are about to create a brand new scene, first GET YOURSELF AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER!!!

(Film is primarily a visual medium. At this earliest stage of creating a scene from scratch – logical word processing and inspired visualization simply don’t mix all that well.)

Instead, spread out on a comfortable couch, bed, futon, hammock, yoga mat, etc.

Close your eyes and envision yourself in a darkened movie theater.

Then proceed to ‘watch’ the scene unfold on screen exactly as if you were a passive member of the audience and not the writer of a screenplay. (Repeated practice should make this easier and easier to do until it becomes fairly routine.)

Once you’ve set the tone of the basic storyline, allow your characters totally free reign to ‘do their thing’ while engaging with one other on screen.

If any part of the scene appears be getting caught in the mire or heading off in the wrong direction – simply back up your imaginary movie reel and once again resume a passive audience role while watching the scene play itself out a bit differently this time.

Remember, the experience should be a pleasurable one of discovery and entertainment – not work.

(A good sign that you’ve succeeded in getting out of your characters’ way is when their behavior and dialog occasionally turn out as refreshingly unexpected as they would in any film you’d be viewing for the very first time.)

When you reach the point where you’ve fallen in love with what you’ve just watched ‘on screen’ – I mean passionately enough to want to recommend the scene to all of your friends and co-workers – run as fast as you can to your nearest computer and try to get it all down in Scripped Writer format exactly as you envisioned it.

This includes all the action and physical gestures of the characters, their specific word-for-word dialog, and any spontaneous flashes of inspiration that may have altered the storyline a bit. Now is the time to take what you’ve just passive-creatively visualized and add it (in words) to the rest of your screenplay.

(Note: To avoid possibly losing portions of what you’ve just viewed – you might want to keep a micro cassette recorder handy to quickly reiterate all the details before heading off to your computer.)

Regularly enlisting the passive-creative part of your brain to view each and every scene in your film before you translate it into a script means that you’re far more likely to come up with freer-flowing action, more innovative twists and turns of plot, and dialog that is decidedly more natural.

Compare that to the traditional approach of self-consciously forcing yourself to conjure up entire scenes at your computer in an upright (read that “uptight”) position, with nothing in front of your eyes but endless strings of words on a monitor.

As a huge bonus, you’ll soon discover that the passive-creative writing approach eliminates the need to ever again have to write completely from scratch. (You’re simply dutifully recording into Scripped format what was already ‘written in your mind’ a few moments before!) And because it reduces the bulk of screenwriting into one of simply editing what is already entered into your computer — the possibility of screenwriter’s block is pretty much eliminated from the process.

Britt J. is a clinical psychologist, advertising copywriter, and novice screenwriter who happened upon the passive-creative writing method while writing scripts for TV spots many years ago.

© 2011 All rights reserved.

By Britt J.

Fear of finishing a screenplay can often suddenly strike in what appears to be a totally illogical manner – right at the moment when your creative juices are flowing just fine.

Unlike screenwriter’s block, this malady typically expresses itself as chronic avoidance, as opposed to frustration or struggle. It may consist of weeks, perhaps even months, when your back burner is turned down to such an imperceptible simmer that it’s beginning to look like your delectable stew might not even make it out of the pot.

Ever wonder why you frequently fall victim to such irrational self-sabotage? And why it’s generally your most promising scripts that continue to remain on hold?

I’d like to suggest that there may be a completely logical underlying process going on here –a rational, but inherently fixable process which is slightly more nuanced than a simple ‘fear of failure.’

If you’re a screenwriter who believes you might actually have a shot at someday succeeding in the industry – such a heady dream has likely been affording you a great deal of pleasure and comfort over the years. You may even have been viewing it as your ultimate ‘ace in the hole’ when it comes to an eventual career path – an aspiration you obviously wouldn’t want to let go of at any cost.

One surefire way to permanently protect such a cherished dream boils down to simple mathematical probabilities – i.e., playing the percentages – in which the likelihood of commercial success after completing a script has become far less motivating than holding onto the belief that recognition, fame, and fortune are right around the corner, merely awaiting your script’s completion.

While the dream itself guarantees the certainty of a happy ending – attempting to actualize it appears to offer only a remote possibility.   So why throw away a 100% certainty for a less than 25% probability? At face value it all seems quite rational to hang onto the dream at the expense of completing the script.

The best way out of this impasse is by re-thinking the logic and recognizing that the two outcomes are NOT mutually exclusive. And by this I mean that, after a sincere effort to turn your dream into a reality by trying to market your completed script to producers and studios, if it should happen that you don’t instantly land feet first into Hollywood as you had always envisioned you would, it does NOT have to signal the end of the dream.

It simply means that, at this particular moment in time, with this particular script, and for this particular combination of studios and reviewers who have seen it thus far – your original dream is still in the realization process — totally protected, safe, and well.

As Steven Pressfield argues in his book, The War of Art — specific dreams emerge within us for some kind of deeper, more meaningful purpose. They can be looked upon as personal guideposts to our innermost callings. And I believe that’s what makes our dreams indestructible unless we ourselves willfully choose to destroy them.

You need to ask yourself why you were inspired with the vision of writing and selling a screenplay and not, for example, of designing a perpetual motion machine.  It’s not accidental. There’s likely a reason behind it.

In contrast to all the comparatively trivial, short-lived, evanescent factors that may enter the picture – e.g., inadequate editing, inappropriate marketing, script reviewer myopia, film industry politics, and so on – your dream maintains a higher level of indestructibility and, ironically, a higher level of ‘reality’ than all these fleeting setbacks can ever have.

It is a gift that can never be taken away from you. And no matter how many times it may appear to have not succeeded – the actual truth is that your dream will still remain safely inside you, larger than life, as long as you let it. Otherwise it would never have been put there in the first place. Unlike the artificial, self-imposed time limits you might be inclined to set for yourself before labeling your goal to have ‘failed’ – in reality the time allotted for realizing your dreams is infinite.

The secret is to fully embrace the fact of your screenwriter dream’s indestructibility while you continue to move your script forward to completion.

By reminding yourself of this fact on a regular basis and truly embracing it at your very core being— ‘fear of finishing’ will hopefully and gradually become one less hurdle to have to overcome as a screenwriter.

Britt J. is a clinical psychologist, advertising copywriter, and novice screenwriter who experienced a few of her own ‘fear of finishing’ skirmishes in the past and was determined to finally do something about it.

© 2011 All rights reserved.

By Sean Ryan

I’ve mentioned previously how important the first ten pages are in your screenplay/script. This is not just important in getting the script read, it is also important if it gets made.  The opening ten minutes of a film are vital.  You need to hook your audience and open your story. Get the audience “interested and invested”. If you haven’t defined your story and characters, you risk losing the audience’s interest. I find a good exercise for this is to go back and watch the opening ten minutes of some of your favorite films. See how they play out and how much you know before the 11 minute mark. Keep an eye on that run time/dvd counter and see when your main characters are introduced, when the inciting incident of the story occurs (although it can happen in the first 15 pages/min).   If you get your hook/inciting interest in early, you increase the chance of hooking the audience’s interest.

Why so? Well imagine you watch a movie that spends the first ten pages only introducing characters but very little — if any — plot. With good actors it may work (on some level) but if your audience thinks for one second “where is this story/film going?” you’ve lost them. They’ve stepped back and out of the illusion of the film/world that you are creating. You need to keep them locked into your story. One great piece of advice a writer gave me is: “Fill the story with a wonder of ‘what happens next’”. Simple statement, but a very effective rule to keep in your mind as you plan/plot and write.

First of all let’s look at what we need in the opening 10 pages of our story, the necessities from a structure/formatting point of view, then we will look over how we get the essence of the story into the opening, how we make it as good as it can possibly be.

What should be in the first ten pages?

The exposition: Explain the rules of your story early. Who are the main characters and what is the story/plot about?  If possible, and you have one in your story, also introduce your villain. You don’t want your audience to be well into your film before you introduce your hero or villain, or any other main character for that matter.  If they are a key player and must be introduced later, try and provide a glimpse/hint of them beforehand. This is also a main element of character creation and writing. If you introduce a main character later in the story, we a) have no idea who she is or what she has to do with the hero/villain/story and b) if she is there for drama purposes and perhaps falls victim to something, why do we care?  We don’t know this person and haven’t invested ourselves in them. If we had met them earlier, we would already know who they are and have a brief idea of what part they can play.  Explain your story early, set the rules before the story gets into motion (or during the motion). In “Minority Report” we could have started with John Anderton being dragged into committing a murder in the opening scenes. But we would have known nothing about him, about this future, about this new method of predicting crime and how it all works. By the time the inciting incident occurs, we know the rules, we know the main players and we are ready to be taken on the ride.

The Hook and/or Inciting Incident: As mentioned, the inciting incident and hook can be one in the same thing. Example being the opening shark attack on the girl swimming in ‘Jaws’. We now know there is a killer in the water and we want to know more. We are hooked and we now have a fair idea of what the story will be about – the plot/story is in motion. You can have a hook before the story’s inciting incident. Another fine example is ‘Minority Report.’ The open scenes are purely to hook as well as being the exposition (the rules are explained and our interest in the future world and future crime prevention is established). But does the actual opening scene have any real plot involvement? Not really. The inciting incident in Minority report is when one of the pre-cogs shows Anderton a flash of a murder, they interact with him and show us a sign of things to come — the story is in motion.  Most people would state the inciting incident in that film is when Anderton is goes on the run, note that this is the first plot point or turning point.

Some of this was covered during the previous blog articles on the three act structure, but it is important to mention again here (with different examples), because it shows how important the opening pages can be, not just in content, but also in context.

Now back to the content and story of your first ten. Remember if you get people to read your script(s), be it for a competition or production, it is worth remembering that these people read a lot of scripts and unfortunately a lot of scripts are just bad. Fact of life. From the moment a reader picks up your masterpiece, they are looking for a reason to put in down, or dump it in the bin. Unfair I know, I’ve been there.   You have to give them a reason not to put it down. But how? Start your story strong, and then polish it as much as possible. Follow the structure and formatting tips, but above all, make it stand out, make it shine. Make sure it is all that it can be and then go back and make it even better. There is an unwritten rule, (well at this stage I’m sure it’s written down on a blog or social network) that if you have a single mistake on the first page the game is already over. I would imagine this is true. Also true is that if you don’t give that reader or producer a reason to read on, they will not make it past page 10. No matter how good you think it is, or even how good it actually is, it will end up in the dustbin/trash can/shredder. Have that in mind when you tackle your first ten.

Your first ten pages introduce a lot to that reader and tell them a lot about you, the writer:

a)      How good a writer you are.

b)      How professional you are.

c)       How good you are at writing action/description.

d)      How good you are at writing dialogue.

e)      How good you are at writing characters.

f)       How well you understand the craft screenwriting.

g)      Can you tell a story?

h)      Does your idea/screenplay work?

i)        All of the above!

It is a 10 page CV for your screenplay. It needs to be perfect, otherwise you won’t grab their interest and someone else will get the job. These people are professionals. If you submit the perfect story — the next Godfather — and you don’t have the right formatting, haven’t fixed those typos or just didn’t learn the craft and missed steps, why should they give you their time?

As someone one told me, if you are getting your work out there, do so with the notion that this is a one shot deal. Work with the idea that you “might” get it onto the right desk, to the right reader. Don’t blow it, because you didn’t wait until it was ready, until it was perfect. Put the idea in your head this might be a one shot deal for this script. Just take a chance of not getting it read because that same person read an earlier draft and wasn’t impressed. Make sure the version that lands on their lap is ready. So even if you don’t get that shot, you gave it your best and didn’t take a chance.

When you have the first ten pages perfect and feel it’s as good as it can be, use the same work practice for the rest of the script. All of it needs to be as good as the first ten pages. Because you are setting the bar, setting the expectations for the reader. If your quality or story drops off after the initial introduction to it, you have done yourself and your story an injustice. Remember the first ten pages can also be used as a pitch, as a sample of your script. I’ve often been asked to allow people to read the first 10 to 15 pages as it is a quick (as I said, script readers like to skim over scripts quickly) overview of your script. I made this mistake myself when I pitched a treatment and sent on a script to a producer. He loved the concept, loved the pitch, loved the start of the script and then didn’t think the script was compelling enough. My mistake? The opening ten pages was a mature draft. Polished and ready. The rest of the script was in first draft, it wasn’t ready. It was full of expositional dialogue and long scenes. It needed several rewrites to be ready for sending. So before you send out your first ten “ready” pages, make sure the rest of the script is as ready, in case you get a request to read the rest.

Have a big and interesting opening. I don’t mean a big set piece/battle with lots of special effects. Just start in a place within your story that holds interest that will pull the reader/viewer into the world you are creating with words, while doing the other items above. Even if this means playing with the timeline of the movie/script. Look at the movie ‘Swordfish’, big popcorn movie that may have faults. But study how it starts. It opens with a conversation about films and bank heists, then you are in the bank heist and things go wrong. We are intrigued by the opening scenes that give us the hook, characters, back story and all other exposition that we need to understand what is going on, now we need to know how this came about. We are hooked while doing it with a money shot explosion etc then the timeline shifts back to show us how all this came about. Had we followed the time line normally, and didn’t get to this scene until later in the film, with one of the plot/turning points, we may have lost interest earlier. Timeline shifting is done amazingly well in films like ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Memento’. Recently I’ve noticed a lot of television shows using it, but not as effectively. They seem to be using it as a tool to get some action/strong set piece in early, because a lot of the show’s story is slow. Hence they are using it as more of a gimmick that a hook. So open your story strong and try and do something in a unique way. Very hard to pull off these days as your readers/audience have seen so much and exposed to a lot more visual art than before. So even if your premise is not unique, try and tell it in a fresh way. Bottom line, you have to stand out from the crowd and there are a lot of people writing screenplays out there.

Treatment and outlines/synopsis/breakdowns are all well and down at getting the concept across, but it’s your actual script they will come looking for next…. and it better be more than ready.

Summary:

The first ten pages are the only ten pages and show the rest of your script the same love and care. If you start with high quality, make sure it lasts until the words “fade to black”. Make it as perfect as possible. Get people to read it and get feedback. Read it aloud to find those typos (I have found recently that reading early versions of my scripts to my kids has allowed me to pick up more typos than reading it a dozen times (more about this in a later article).

More reading:

http://www.createyourscreenplay.com/firsttenpages.htm

http://hubpages.com/hub/Make-the-First-Ten-Pages-of-Your-Script-Count

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-act-i-of-your-screenplay.html

http://thebitterscriptreader.blogspot.com/2010/05/your-first-ten-pages-cant-suck.html

http://www.writersstore.com/how-to-get-em-to-read-your-script

By Sean Ryan

Act 3: The resolution

Act 3 is all about the climax and resolution of your story. The act in which the hero gets the girl and saves the day and villain gets what they deserve. This is where you must give your audience their pay off. To tie up all loose ends and finish your story in a way that your audience comes away satisfied and doesn’t feel tricked or cheated.

Often writers concentrate so much on act 1 setting up the story and act 2, building in their confrontation, by the time they get to act three, the story is empty or they don’t show act three enough time or love. You see with a lot of modern comedies, they have a solid concept and great set-up, but by the time they get us to act 3, all the gags are gone. (Hot Tub Time machine, Invention of lying) Their simply wasn’t enough story to carry the film in its entirety and you’ve left your audience unsatisfied and sometimes even bored.

Your audience has invested their time and money in your film/story. Give them what they deserve. A big and satisfying finish. As a friend once said to me, make sure it’s firing on all cylinders right to the end (well until the final minutes). Don’t play all your cards before the ending. Save something for the ending. A perfect film script (if action) would hook early and build all the way to the climax of the movie, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat until the credits roll.

You don’t need to have plot points or twists in the final act.  These choices are all yours for your story. But you do need to have a climax. If you look at the film The Sixth Sense, everything was explained and resolved before that big reveal (which I won’t spoil). They gave the audience what they needed, what they wanted before the twist. The mother and son resolved their differences and his gift gave her something that she needed.

So the final act is yours. Put in a twist if you want, but give the audience the resolution(s) they want. Don’t leave loose ends and unexplained plot points. Today’s audience is far too sophisticated for tricks and sloppy writing. Look at the continued controversy that surrounded the final season of Lost. They padded the story with too many moments to keep the audience involved and by the end it was impossible to tie everything together. They left their audience cheated. If you have a big reveal or a big twist, your audience — or part of it at least — may see the ending coming. So don’t rely on a big Sixth Sense moment, which the Sixth Sense didn’t. If you watch that film again, we were too caught up with Cole’s story.  That’s top class storytelling. Even if your audience guesses it, you still keep them hooked until the end. This is the reason I wasn’t so sucked into the world of Shutter Island. Beautifully photographed and acted (I would go as far as to say, a master class of film making by Scorsese), but I found myself saying to my wife I hope this is not… (no spoilers). For me it was too obvious and the story relied on the reveal too much. Once I guessed it, I was sucked out of that world. It reminded me I was watching a movie (big mistake) and everything (for me) was playing towards the reveal at the end. My point? No cheap tricks.  Don’t think you are smarter than your audience. Write it with them in mind, or you are part of the audience. Put yourself in their shoes.

Act 3 must contain:

Climax (or the Second Culmination): This is where your story/plot reaches its maximum tension and you have the final confrontation between your protagonist and antagonist. This is the peak of your story’s emotional action. It should be satisfying, it should be justified and it should be big. You’ve been building towards this part of your film. The climax should occur half way through act three.  (15 of the 30 pages if 120 page script or page 105 overall). In the climax of Jaws we see Quint killed, Hooper presumed dead and Brody at his last stand and saving the day (as well as his own life). You can see how this is satisfying to the audience. They’ve hunted this killer and left the situation get out of hand. Now it looks too later. The shark killer is dead and our Hero must make his last stand or die trying. He is up against overwhelming odds and gone through hell to get there. Of course your hero could die and that itself (like many other things) is up to you. But if you want to satisfy your audience, you better remain focused on what you think they would like to see.

Denouement or aftermath: The short time at the end of a film where everything returns to normal – a period of calm. Here you show everything returning to how it should be (or setting up your sequel!). The hero returns home after finding the child. Not an important plot part of your movie, but it should give the audience what they want. We say the hero beat the villain and save the day, but know we want to see him meet his wife and daughter who he was fighting to get back to ala Con Air. In Jaws, Hooper swims the surface and the two men start to paddle their way back to shore.

By Sean Ryan

Act 2: The Confrontation

Act 2 can make or break your story. Keep it tight. Keep it interesting and keep it moving.  Remember Act 2 takes up 2 quarters of your film, don’t waste it. A lot of scripts and films fail in the 2^nd act by being slow and boring. Act 2 is often regarded as the hardest part of the screenplay, “the meat and potatoes” of the story, treat it as such.  Often writers have a cool concept, a great set-up and amazing climax in mind. But the middle of the movie is less thought out and less love is given to it. Believe me it shows in a lot of films. Why draw a beautiful picture and rush the painting?

Expect to spend the most amount of time on this act, not just because of the physical size, but you will find it will require the most amount of polish in rewrites and drafts. The 2^nd act is where your script/film can get locked into “just going through the motions” and wasting time until the next plot point/act  and climax.

Often you will see the second act broken into two parts of even length. i.e. 30 pages and 30 pages, divided by the midpoint. This essentially is the four act structure. I keep the 2^nd act as a whole and just treat the midpoint as the midpoint of the entire movie/script. This as ever, is a matter of choice.

Act 2 must contain:

Obstacles: The 2^nd act is filled with these.  As mentioned your hero is now “in a tree” so you throw rocks at him (or obstacles). Nothing should be too easy. They should have to work for everything and then hit another obstacle. In Jaws you may remember the mayor and town putting pressure on the beaches to stay open. So they are one of Brody’s many obstacles (and antagonists). Your hero should find themselves in confrontation after confrontation, whether than is physical or verbal. They come up against people and situations that are there to make life hard for them, to make them fail. Watch the average soap opera episode on television and witness the number of verbal/physical confrontations per show. Granted you have the occasional scene where the characters have a pint and a chat, sit down for dinner etc. But the money makers, the scenes that hold interest are the scenes that contain confrontation between the characters. This is usually because these people are such different character traits, there is no way they will ever get along. But have them at each other throats and people will watch it. So your obstacles can be events or people (or both). If you hero is chasing a ticking clock, your act 2 obstacles are the things preventing him from achieving his/her goal. If you are writing a slow paced human drama, it is much the same thing. It could be a character in your main character’s life who makes their life a misery. Someone that prevents them from living a happier life, or getting that job, getting that girl. Something they want/need but cannot get (easily).

First Culmination: The point in the story, just before the halfway mark where the hero appears to be at a stage of achieving their goal and then everything falls apart. Think of them now having the proof they need and then it falls into enemy hands. They were just there and now they have nothing (which means they will have to carry on and their path may change). In Jaws, this point is when Brody almost loses his own son (Mikey) to the shark and his knows now he has to act or else. Brody will have to make the choice to put the needs of others before his own, before his own fear (of the water as well as the shark)…

Midpoint: Often confused as an extra plot point, the midpoint is the halfway mark of the movie and it’s here that your hero is the furthest from their goal. This is the hero’s lowest point. All appears lost. The odds are too great and they can’t turn back. If you look at the midpoint in Jaws, this is when Sheriff Brody faces his fears and sets out (with Quint & Hooper) to hunt the shark. The movie has been leading up to this and now for Brody, there is no turning back. He is out of his safe zone (dry land). Up to this point in the story, your lead/hero may have been sucked into events that they had little or no control over and have been in turmoil to a point in the story that they have decided “enough is enough” and they turn the tables or discover something that justifies their crusade/journey.  Another fine example of a midpoint is the film version of The Fugitive,  at the midpoint Kimble is still being chased and will continue to be for the 2^nd act, so the overall plot remains the same, but now he has started his own investigation. The tide has turned (not completely), but although our hero is still running, he is running in a different direction. He is running towards resolution. So now we still have a chase, but a chase with another layer/level. Think of the midpoint as adding variety to your story. So not a plot/turning point that changes the direction of the action/story, but adds to it. Adds variety, helps to keep that long running 2^nd act interesting. Remember great scripts have great midpoints. (note: This variety need not only be another level to the story/action but could also be another level/change to your character).

Plot Point #2: This should appear at the end of the second act and mark the start of act 3. The plot point is (as before) an event that moves the plot in a (another) new direction. Thus keeping your story interesting and the keeping the/your audience watching. Plot point #2 in Jaws sees the shark attacking and the boat sinking. The hunters have become the hunted. Our hero’s are really up against it now and they will be very lucky to survive. In The Fugitive, Kimble learns it was his friend and we get that great learn “Where are you going?” “To see a friend”, during this plot/tuning point Gerard also starts to look for the same person. So by the time we reach the third act the story has turned and now both men are looking for the same person. The hunt has changed and we are moving towards the climax.

So by the end of Act Two your hero is in that tree and you’ve been throwing rocks at him. They started out in a bad place, turned the tides and everything looked hopeful, lost it all and now are turning the tables coming near the end of the act and building towards the climax of your story…

By Sean Ryan

Act 1: The set-up

I find the first act the easiest to write. You have an idea and set-up, all you have to do is write, write and write some more.

One very important point to remember about the first act, is that this is the first part your reader will look at (obvious I know), but you have to “hook” their interest and make them want to read more. It’s a stated fact that most readers will stop reading during the first 10 pages if they are not hooked. So your first ten pages might in fact be the most important pages of the script. Now this doesn’t mean you will get away with having a 100 average pages after this and you’ll be fine. The first ten pages show you have a story. That you can write and they set the quality bar that must be maintained for the rest of the script. Remember no script will ever be perfect as this is an art form and art by nature is subjective. So you will be very, very lucky for someone to love every line and every scene. You are allowed to slip up but not to fall over. Which means if you’re quality at the start is high and then you rush the rest of the script, you have a nice set-up and nothing else. The script is still going into the bin.

I once read that you should never ever (ever) allow a mistake on the first page. This is true, nothing screams amateur more than a typo, a grammatical error or structure/formatting mistake. You may think your story will stand out from the crowd and you will get that chance. You may. But remember if you are in a competition or have managed to get your script to a producer, their readers read scripts all day. They are like someone in a job interview. They are looking for ways to cut down the pile in front of them. Don’t give them an excuse. Make it as perfect as it can be, then polish it some more.

Act 1 must contain:

Opening shot/image: Set-up the tone of the story with the first scene/image on screen. Not essential by any means, but this can give you a little edge. Remember the opening scene of Fargo, snow swept landscapes? It set the visual scene/theme for the rest of the movie.  Images/visuals are powerful, use them. If you watch the TV series “Sons Of Anarchy (2008)” it’s first episode had a wonderful opening shot of two crows fighting on a road over scraps, as the headlights of a lone motorcycle drives towards them. This image signalled a change/conflict and right off the bat you know it concerns a motorcycle gang (as a lone rider returns).

For me it must contain the hook: The hook is by nature what it is by name. You must hook the interest of the reader/viewer which is easier said than done. It is always easier to hook your audience with something new, something they haven’t seen before or if you are telling your story in such a unique and interesting way, it doesn’t really matter if it’s been done before, because you are doing it so well. One could argue the hook in Jaws has us with the opening credits and that famous John Williams score. You should hook your reader/audience as soon as you can, by use of character or event. By definition the hook is a “quickly” understood premise. So you are hooking the audience’s interest in your story within the opening pages. Something that grabs them early in your story, catches their attention and makes them want to read on (to see more of your script/films). When you get your scripts out there into the big bad world, you will get asked a common question such as “I liked it, but what is the hook?”. Sounds like an easy question, but when you are put on the spot, it could be difficult to answer. I think the hook is an element of your script and shouldn’t be used as part of a pitch (or verbally or written). What you should be asked is what is the logline, what is the premise etc but just in case you get asked…

The hook for Jaws? A killer shark goes on a rampage. Not to be confused with the premise or the pitch (gets confusing I know).

Samples for “Jaws”:

Premise/synopsis: A Great White Shark decides to make the small beach resort town of Amity his private feeding grounds. This greatly frustrates the town police chief who wants to close the beaches to chase the shark away. He is thwarted in his efforts by the town’s mayor who finally relents when nothing else seems to work and the chief, a scientist, and an old fisherman with revenge on his mind take to the sea to kill the beast.

Hook: The menacing music, the tracking shot under water (foreshadows the attack) and includes the shark attack on the girl. Hence the hook here is combined with the Inciting incident (below). We are hooked, there is something in the water and it’s deadly. So for me at least, the Hook and Inciting Incident in your script are one of the same thing (but others may argue).

logline: After a series of grisly shark attacks, a sheriff struggles to protect his small beach community against the bloodthirsty monster, in spite of the greedy chamber of commerce.

Tagline: Don’t go in the water….

Pitch: A police chief, a scientist and a grizzled sailor set out to kill a shark that is menacing the seaside community of Amity island.

(Interestingly the synopsis for Alien, made four years later, was for all the world a tagline/pitch “Jaws in Space – you often hear these type of pitches, it’s Star Wars meets the Matrix, it’s just a simple way to compare work to successful films in an attempt to grab interest, but you better live up to the hype!)

More on premise/loglines/taglines/synopsis/pitches in later articles: But I figured you needed an example where to cut down confusion of what is a hook (for if and when you get that question and are put on the spot).

The exposition: Here you introduce the story, the characters, the situation and premise.  We should know the key players in the story and know where the story is going by page 10 (15 at the latest). Think about this for a minute. Do you think the audience will be still watching your film if by 20 minutes in they still don’t know who the hero is, or what the story is about? They’ll be bored and confused and you will have lost them. If you look at the first ten minutes of Jaws. We witness a shark attack. Meet Brody (and the town), they find the remains of the girl, and decide to close the beaches. The rules are set, the story is in motion and we know who the hero and villain are.

Inciting incident: This is an element that a lot of writers either miss or leave too late to inject into the story. This is an event that sets the plot of the film in motion. You are showing the audience where the story is heading. The plot will change but this is the start of your story plot. It should have happened by page 15 (if you’re writing a 120 page script) or to put it another way, half way through the first act. So you need to be efficient in your exposition (set-up). Spend too long introducing characters and situations and the audience may be left wondering “where is this story going?” (no matter how good your writing is).  In Jaws we witness the inciting incident in the opening minutes of the film, when the girl goes for a night swim and is attacked. Straight to the point, we know there is something in the water and it’s dangerous, long before Brody does. It is fair to think of the inciting incident as a “hook event” (as above), a moment of great interest that should/will grab the audience’s attention. So the inciting incident puts your plot into motion with an interesting “hook” event. Hence you may have an inciting incident that holds little interest, which means your plot is in motion, but no one will be interested (it’s not good).

Plot Point #1: This should appear at the end of the first act and mark the start of act 2. The plot point is an event that moves the plot in a new direction (also known as turning point in your story). Again something that many writers leave out or have it appear much too late in the story. You can drift a couple of minutes either side but in a 120 page script, plot point #1 should come before page 30 and not go past it. Think of a plot point as a method of keeping your audience interested in your story. They are interested because it changes. You are taking your hero and the audience on a ride. In Jaws we see this within a couple of events. Firstly when Brody witnesses the death of Alex on the beach (and Spielberg uses that classic Hitchcock zooming camera shot) and then with the arrival of Quint. The story has taken a new direction. There’s a killer in the water, Brody blames himself and now the experienced shark hunter is on the scene.

As I mentioned I find the first act the easiest to write, but as you can see there is a lot to get wrong. I think it’s the easiest to write because most of your initial ideas for you story will fall into this act (not the way everyone plans), but you should/will have a premise, concept, characters, events in your head or down on paper and a lot of which should be covered in the first 30 pages (unless you have your entire film planned before you start the script).

So by the end of Act one you would have put your hero in that tree. They started off nice and happy. Having a normal day until their world turned on its head and now….

By Sean Ryan

One tip for studying the three act structure and plot points is to watch a classic or your favourite film and keep an eye on the timeline/DVD counter.  As the story unfolds check out the film’s exposition, inciting incident, plot points, climax and three act structure. You will be surprised how subtle they can be in some stories, but they are there. I would recommend reading a lot of scripts and watching a lot of movies. Not for story ideas, but to learn how their stories are structured. Pick a film you know well and sit back with a pad and pen and make notes of act changes, plot points etc and build some examples of how acts end and plots change throughout the course of great films.

Lately I have started to physically split up scripts as I’m writing the first draft. I keep the three acts separate until I think the first draft is ready. I only move to the next act when I’m happy with the act before. All of which I find myself doing to avoid rushing into the next act. By all means keep notes on ideas that pop into your head. But polish each act before you move the story on.  I found this method forces me to focus on each act separately. Only moving on when I’m happy with the last act that came before. This doesn’t mean you won’t go back and polish other acts after you have drafted them. This is only your first draft; it won’t be ready for public consumption until at least the fourth or fifth draft. Remember a solid piece of advice someone gave me “writing is rewriting”. But more details about drafts and revising in later articles.

If you write freestyle as I call it and just sit down and let the story flow, without planning, you will more than likely miss plot points and act structures. Whereby if you plan your story in an outline or treatment, you will hit your targets better and save yourself (some) time and frustration later. I don’t mean plan every inch of the story before you write the script. But have the basics down on paper and help yourself keep the structure on first pass/draft. Later drafts can then be concerned with improved, not chopping, moving and fitting.

As always, the internet is full of material on screen writing and there are countless books on the subject, here are just a few I had booked marked in my web browser.

More reading:

The three act structure:

http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/pruter/film/threeact.htm

http://thescriptlab.com/the-formula/structure/three-acts

http://www.dvoted.net/Knowledge/Articles/Film-pre-production/Know-your-3-act-structure/

http://www.musik-therapie.at/PederHill/Structure&Plot.htm

A different opinion:

http://www.screenplaymastery.com/structure.htm

An opinion on avoiding the three acts structure:

http://www.writersstore.com/whats-wrong-with-the-3-act-structure

Inciting incident

http://www.suite101.com/content/what-is-an-inciting-incident-in-a-screenplay-a63139

http://www.ehow.com/how_4486793_create-inciting-incident-screenplay.html

The first ten pages:

http://www.hollywoodlitsales.com/cf/journal/dspJournal.cfm?intID=2744

Structure overview of a classic film: Jaws

http://thestorydepartment.com/structure-jaws/

Q&A with a top Hollywood development executive who wished to remain anonymous…

Q: What is the most important quality/asset a beginning screenwriter should have?

Not sure what the most important asset/quality would be, but I am a believer in the notion that very few screenwriters write a great first screenplay, and screenwriting is a learned craft, so one piece of advice I would have is to write as many (and varied) screenplays as possible. Don’t get hung up on perfecting that one great idea – you won’t improve your writing. Beyond that, I think that beginning writers need to learn the art of taking criticism- many writers become very defensive of their work (which is human nature), and have a tough time acknowledging any negative feedback. But there are some really good notes out there that shouldn’t get ignored. And remember – it’s the writer’s responsibility to try to understand what’s driving the reader’s criticism if they aren’t quite able to articulate it.

Q: How will the success of Bridesmaids change the way studios look at greenlighting and promoting female comedies?

The quick answer is: Bridesmaids will make it easier. The longer answer is that some executives probably consider Bridesmaids to be the exception not the rule, and are probably still wary to making a bet on a female-driven comedy, especially one that doesn’t feature a huge, established star.

Q: How many original spec screenplays did you buy last year? How many of those spec purchases are going into production?

I didn’t buy a single screenplay last year. I bought some pitches and hired some writers to write internally-generated ideas. It’s a hard time out there for specs, but successful original ideas like THE HANGOVER, BRIDESMAIDS, ZOMBIELAND, etc. will probably re-spark the demand for specs.

Q: How would I go about selling a movie idea to a studio?

There are some things that will help sell a movie to a studio (in no particular order):

• The bigger/simpler/catchier the idea, the better.
• The more complete the package, the better. I.e: a script is better than a pitch, script with a director attached is better than a script, etc.
• The international marketplace is becoming a bigger and bigger driver of a movie’s success, so whatever you can do to add international appeal (loosely defined), will help.
• Any sort of underlying material (article, book, remake, toy, life rights, etc.) will help.
• Attaching an influential producer usually helps.