Today we're talking about how to structure your screenplay. Welcome to Film Riot, this is where we take the mystery out of the effects and techniques, go and save your favorite Hollywood film, hella la. Ryan Conley. If you didn't know, we have a writing class on our store called Writing 101. It's over 30 minutes of content with some great assets along with it, and it's taught by Seth Worley, who is one of the best writers I know. My favorite thing about it is that it's something that's coming from someone who very much understands the low-to-no-budget filmmaking world, but also knows how to pitch and craft stories for Hollywood, so it really is a perfect mix.
But enough of singing Seth's praises. The great news is that is that we are now working on writing 201 with Seth, which will be coming out within the next few months. So to celebrate that, today we wanted to hook you up with a peek at writing 101. Seth has some great info there, so I'm going to shut up and get to it.
So it usually starts with you having an idea, right? Maybe it's a concept, maybe it's a character, maybe a scene, a moment, an image, a punchline, a twist, a location, an object. Or if you're like me, it usually starts with a pile of ideas.
Like an archaeologist has adventures, and maybe he's looking for a way to make a good idea. And if you're like me, you're looking for a way to make a good idea. And if you're like me, you're looking for a way to make a good idea. And if you're like for the Ark of the Covenant, I want to be cool if there was a part with a huge rolling boulder, and a fight in a burning tavern, I want to fight by a plane, oh and there should be a girl, but she should totally kick ass, she shouldn't be helpless, and there should be a chase involving a truck. See in this early stage your ideas are kind of like Tribbles from Star Trek, seemingly growing and growing off of each other.
You can actually read this happening in the transcripts from the initial story meeting for Raiders of the Lost Ark that happened between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan. Literally it was just three brilliant guys sitting around having an idea fest. This is one of the most fun stages of writing, especially if you're collaborating with someone.
It's just an idea fest. Until it's not. Because eventually the ideas stop flowing, but it's long before the story is complete.
How much of your story is complete at this point can vary project to project, but the ideas stop growing and you're far from a finished story. So what do you do? Well, you gotta grow some ideas. I once had a professor tell me that comedy can never be injected, it can only be extracted. Meaning, comedy is rarely often brought into the situation from an outside source.
It's found in what is already happening, what is already going on, the current situation. I think this totally applies to building an organic story. Because you can't really tell a good story what to be. Think back to the Idea Fest. How it felt like the story was just revealing itself to you, like someone was just beaming it to your brain from an alternate dimension.
It didn't feel like you were making it up. It felt like you were transcribing it, relaying it from somewhere else. So when your story suddenly stops telling itself what it is, You gotta get it to talk, and you do that by asking it questions. And there's all kinds of questions you can ask, which is exactly what we're gonna focus on once we get some basics out of the way. You know about Joseph Campbell, right?
Of course you do. You know all about his theory of the monomyth, or the hero's journey, which he first introduced in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he basically says, Hey humanity, you know every great story we've ever told each other? Well, they're all kind of the same.
He breaks all our mythic narratives into three acts. Departure, initiation, and return. Then he breaks it down even further into 17 stages. The departure consists of the call to adventure, refusal of the call, supernatural aid, crossing the threshold, and belly of the whale. Then the initiation brings us the road of trials, the meeting with the goddess, woman is temptress, atonement with the father, apotheosis, and the ultimate boon.
The return is where we get refusal of the return, the magic flight, Rescue from Without, The Crossing of the Return Threshold, Master of Two Worlds, and Freedom to Live. Consequently, this is also the complete track listing for my debut album The Legend of Metal Myth, Rise of the Thunder Maiden. This is essentially the template that has led to the general three-act structure we see in movies today.
The standard three-act structure comes in, you ready for this? Three acts. So to summarize every book on screenwriting ever, the first act begins by introducing the hero in their normal world, their everyday life. In Toy Story, Woody the Cowboy is Andy's favorite toy. And his life is perfect.
Then comes the inciting incident, something that throws off the balance of the hero's world. Talking about Toy Story again, this is the arrival of Buzz Lightyear. Woody Status'favorite toy is now threatened.
Then something and or someone says, Go on an adventure. Do something about this. Beckoning the hero to embark upon an adventure to fix what's been broken. In The Hobbit, Gandalf shows up and literally says, We're going on an adventure.
Like, literally, he just says that. The hero then refuses and plays hard to get. This is in every action movie ever. Anyone asks a weary old soldier or cop to help, and he says, I quit that a long time ago.
But then he's like, alright, I'll help. And he leaves, and we break into Act 2. The first part of Act 2 is basically where people who edit movie trailers get all their footage. This is what Blake Snyder calls the fun in games, and the promise of the premise. In most superhero movies, this is where the hero is discovering their powers via hilarious hijinks. culminating in their first crime-fighting outing and or saving of a life.
It's also where the B story comes in. The B story is a second ...strand of the story that supports the greater story. It often comes with a fun new character or a fun new prop.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, this would be the arrival of Marion. In Die Hard, it's the arrival of Al. Sometimes it's even the arrival of the villain. In Star Trek, this is when Nero comes back into our story.
So everyone is having fun, and the movie trailer people are happy, they're cutting the trailer. But then, right at the midpoint of the story, everything changes. Things get real.
Vulcan blows up, the cops show up. Sometimes the hero actually accomplishes what he wanted to accomplish, only to realize that it doesn't do anything. Or it actually makes things worse.
Blake Snyder says it can be a false victory or even a false defeat. The second part of Act 2 is basically one big shitstorm. A symphony of failure and catastrophe. Ultimately putting our hero in worse shape than they've been ever.
Which brings us to the Dark Knight of the Soul. Time to give up. Everything is terrible. In Mission Impossible 3, Ethan witnesses his wife Julia seemingly killed right before his eyes.
There's no reason to keep going. But then something happens. Very often it comes from the B story, something that gives us a fighting chance, a breakthrough, our only shot.
Sometimes it's not actually a hopeful thing, it's just a further conflict to keep things going. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's when Marion is kidnapped and Indy has to pursue the German sub to get her back. Which brings us to Act 3, where the final battle happens. In a lot of cases, Act 3 actually brings us back to the setting from Act 1, but in a new context. That setting can be physical, thematic, or emotional, or it can just be a totally different place.
Again, these aren't rules, they're just formulas. Finally, there's a resolution and our hero settles into their new normal. Things are kind of like what they were before, but better. Or they're worse.
Either way, things will never be the same again. The end. Okay, so what's the practical application here to our pile of ideas? It gives us questions to ask our story. Look at each idea.
You've seen a lot of movies. What part of the movie do you feel like this would happen? You can always change it later. It just helps to put it somewhere.
Once you start dropping things into your story timeline, you'll start to notice where the holes are. Then you can fill them. Go put the ideas from your idea pile into a 3x structure of your own.
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Logo. So there you go. If you want to see the full Writing 101 class, jump over to our store right here.
And in case you didn't know or missed it, Seth has his Story Clock notebook out for pre-order now, which you can find a link for that in the notes below as well. And I'll see you next week when the bad guy kills my boo with motor oil.