A screenplay is not a collection of words

Screenplays are made out of words, right? Sure. But they aren’t verbal things. They are shapes. Those shapes are made out of screenplay structure. That screenplay structure is forged by the screenplay plot. The screenplay plot is a product of the screenplay story.

Understand that

THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY

What?!

How have all the stories ever told and all the films ever made been the same story?

As you’ve heard from many screenwriting gurus, all films iterate the same (or similar) story according to a million similar designing principles, which are linked to the screenplay genre.

Nothing new about this then. This is the hero with a thousand faces. A story archetype.

So:

1.      You put your hero in a tree.

2.      You throw stones at them.

3.      You get them down from the tree.

That’s it. Your three-act structure.

So what’s the tree? It’s the shape and structure of the adventure. It must be climbed, or the hero will remain ordinary in their ordinary world. They will remain weak and untested. The hero will gain nothing – neither love nor acclaim nor power nor fulfilment. Not good.

So you, the screenwriter, send the hero of your film script up that tree (inciting incident) – once our guy has overcome their fear and realise they have no option (acceptance of the call).

Now you, the screenwriter, throw stones at them. A lot of stones. The more the merrier.

The climb is tough, and it’s gonna get a lot tougher up there. Fear of heights kicks in, and a realisation of the consequences of failure: death or terrible injury down there. But our guy goes on because s/he can find all those juicy rewards up there. And much is at stake. Maybe only climbing the tree will stop it being cut down – a cataclysm. So s/he dedicates to the task. There is a commitment, also driven by the fear of failure. Then comes the problem of branches becoming twigs. So now they won’t take our guy’s weight. So some of them snap (allies or enemies). Danger! Our guy must test them to see if they will take their weight. But now … s/he gets stuck (belly of the beast). S/he can neither climb any higher now get down (point of no return). At this point the hero is furthest from home, and the most at risk (the dark night of the soul, characterised by rising action that sets up the final conflict to come: getting back down). And now …. you, the screenwriter, dear amazing screenwriter, must somehow get our guy down from the tree, strengthened or reborn by the test or quest.

None of this stuff is new. Screenwriters can read about this journey in a hundred books written by screenwriting and drama teachers. Screenwriter Joseph Campbell narrated this in his book ‘The Hero With 1000 Faces’, and Christpher Vogler picked up the thread very well.

Below you’ll find four images that map the structure of screenplay, and all drama in slightly different ways. See if you can spot the overlaps, and how they all say something similar.

I like the way Chris Vogler differentiates between the hero’s journey at the top of his screenplay structure diagram and the character arc at the bottom. This enables you to map the two things onto one another. We see how different phases of the hero’s journey correspond the different states of mind and heart, and thus action taken by the hero.

Remember: action (the plot) drives character change, which in turn changes the plot.

Whilst Tarantino and a few others ignore this template deliberately and get away with it, the structure is useful for new screenwriters, and indeed screenwriters who are further down the road (or up that tree) who have been hired to write a film script intended to make money.

So read this stuff and, more importantly, apply it to your screenwriting. The more practice you have the better you’ll get at experimenting in your screenplays and scripts.

Happy screenwriting.