elviro said:
Well, first of all, thank you everybody for your answers and feedback. And thank you for the suggestions, I'll check 'em.
On the other hand, of course I didn't expect to find a "total how-to" about plots. I just was thinking that maybe I had missed something, and there are some books that people here have suggested that I didn't know.
I have a kind of love/hate relationship with screenwriting books. What I think is that, apart from some classics that everyone should read, as McKee's, reading screenwriting books is good for many reasons, even if you have some experience.
I usually buy one, then read it and then try to forget it, so its rules doesn't affect me too much. Then I re-read it, bookmark the interesting bits and there is: a useful reference book. For even in the worst books, when you are blocked, it is useful to skim-read those bookmarks, they may prove useful and spark some idea or solution in your head.
But anyway, it's clear that script and film analysis is the best school.
Learn the "rules," then you can break them. If you break them before you know them, you're flying blind.
What you really need is some sense or idea of what makes drama work, why is one thing dramatic and another not? Until you can answer this question, you're not ready to write.
The secret is simple,
anticipation.
For example, let's say we're doing a simple stage play. Our opening scene has two characters enter and sit down on a divan and launch into some kind of discourse or other.
Nothing very dramatic in that.
Now let's try our opening scene again, and in our new rendition let's have a seedy looking character enter first carrying a box and on the box is the word, "Bomb." This character places his box under or behind the divan, and exits. Now our two characters make their entrance, just as before and take their places on the divan and launch into their discourse.
Much more drama here, and why? Because by leaving the box labelled "bomb" under or behind the divan, the audience knows it's going to explode at some point and they wonder how our two characters are going to surive. They are
anticipating the explosive moment. They can almost hear the bomb ticking. Some may want to stand up and scream, "There's a bomb under the divan!"
To complete the scene you have to resolve the issue, one way or another. You may have the bomb go off and injure our two characters; you may have them leave before it goes off, in the nick of time; they may discover the bomb, again in the nick of time, and dispose of it before it goes off. Whichever, but you do need to resolve the matter.
That's the essence of drama.
Place your characters in jeopardy (which they themselves may realize or may not, depending) and make the jeopardy appear to be something from which there is no escape. Now you've got your audience hooked, they simply have to stick with you until they see how you get them out of jeopardy. The best drama is when you make it appear there is no possible way out, and then reveal the way out in a surprising turn of events, surprsing but believable.
When we read screenplays we keep reading so long as we're asking ourselves "How is this character going to get out of this?" Our glue will be stronger if we happen to like the character and find them to be sympathetic.
So rather than come at it from the outside in by looking for instruction on how to plot, think of it from the inside out and learn what makes something dramatic. What you'll find is that the elements of dramatic situations are always the same: characters in jeopardy with no apparent or readily plausible way out.
I would suggest two books,
"The Art of Dramatic Writing," by Lajos Egri, A Touchstone Book by Simon and Shuster, ISBN 0-671-21332-6 and
"The Writer's Journey," by Christopher Vogler, Published by Michael Wiese Productions, ISBN0-941188070-1.
The knowkledge you seek, however, must be created within yourself by yourself ... and this creation does require study and practice. The more you study and the more you practice, the more it will build inside of you, until one day you'll realize it is there and you may use or apply it as you see fit.
This is why you don't see any books out there that "teach it." It isn't "teachable," but it is "learnable." We've all had to learn it. You can too. It will not happen overnight of course and may take a number of years, say five or so. Write five screenplays, read what you can of books and screenplays, and by the end of all that, you will know.
There are no shortcuts, but if you happen discover any let me know and we'll get rich together.
