Screenwriting 101

Cyia · May 9, 2009

Somewhere around here, I saw recommendations for books about screenwriting. The following are notes from a book called Screenwriting 101, by Neill D. Hicks. I thought maybe they could be helpful to some of the posters or lurkers looking for some simple "how-to" information on the elements of a screenplay. (These are my own notes, paraphrased from the book, not direct quotes, so I think it's "fair use")

(The whole book is worth a read, btw - the scribble exercises are terrific.)

***[snip]Content removed by mod, sorry. In light of recent DMCA threats, all quoted/paraphrased content has to have a link to the original material to fall within fair use guidelines. We have to be safe rather than sorry.

The material laid out several principles of screenwriting including conflict and backstory which were then discussed below..***

Team 2012 · May 9, 2009

Speaking as working scriptwriters, we'd recommend using the internet instead of books... and also taking Big Systems about screenwriting with a grain of salt. That way lies 14 act structure and The Hero's Journey.

Much of this can be dispensed with in any given story. Backstory, for instance, is by no means a "backbone"... some stories don't even have any. There may or may not be the classic "protagonist/antagonist" relationship described here, and there certainly doesn't have to be a battle.

All the "three act" things amount to a adumbration of "Conflict-Tension-Resolve" or even just "Beginning-Middle-End". It's possible, in fact to have a film with no conflict at all, though that's an extreme.

The whole "character arc", "diamonds out of coal" self-development thing is completely unnecessary, as witness a jillion westerns where the hero does not change because of events, but makes events change because of him.

So why bother to say this? Because writers get locked into these things. Taking the map for the terrain. Having a story idea but getting online saying, "Gee, I have three protagonists...should I get rid of two or create a protagonist in chief position?"

Next step is often seeing whatever scheme has been absorbed as so universal that it gets read into anything (surely we've all seen many schema that cite all the great movies that use their paint-by-the-numbers scenario--often the same films some other guru is claiming used his templates.

And things get lost. How about humor? How about synthesis...not all films are about antagonism and slugging things out. This list sounds like it's written about films on TNT's "Movies For Guys Who Love Movies" list.
Try to fit an Ashton Kucher rom-com into it. The problem of course, is that somebody will...just like Hero's Journey people flip through hoops to find the shape-changers in a film. Or argue bitterly over which character is Pulp Fiction is THE progtagonist.

Sorry, we don't mean to be antagonistic to your post, either. But it's stuff young writers should take at a heavy discount.

Cyia · May 9, 2009

All stories have backstory, the only variable is whether or not that backstory is shown on screen. Characters don't spring fully formed like Athena, there are dimensions to them that come from the histories that only the writers know.

And there's antagonism even in romantic comedies. You're reading it with a very narrow view. All stories involve conflict. That conflict may be internal or external, it may involve a psychological struggle in place of a physical one or it may be a love triangle where the audience is rooting for one guy over another, but it's the same dynamic.

And you'd better hope your characters have an arc to them, otherwise you've wasted 2 hours of the audience's time on something static and that's just plain bad writing.

The Comedian · May 10, 2009

This is all very inspiring for someone like me, who is currently only thinking about dabbling in writing something (joining these forums is a small first step I guess). In my amateurish opinion the "buzzwords" here should not be taken as clearly defined parts of every story ever put on film, but a list of some of the dynamics driving a story.

They may be elements which in more layered and advanced stories are so internalised that they don't even register with us. If we are watching a complex story with a lot of characters, it is easy to forget that each of them is his or her own little protagonist (provided it is well written). It is also clear that some of the elements may be subverted or omitted, for example by not resolving main conflicts, perhaps as a thematic exploration of meaninglessness or the futility of individual action.
However, such experimentation can hardly be found in most films.

An Ashton Kutcher rom-com, plot from Wikipedia:

Tom Leezak (Kutcher) and Sarah McNerney (Murphy) fall in love and plan to get married, despite opposition from Sarah's uptight, rich family. When they do get married, and get a chance to prove Sarah's family wrong, they go on a European honeymoon and run into disaster after disaster. They have to decide whether the honeymoon from hell and a few pre-marital mistakes are worth throwing away their love and marriage.

I don't plan on seeing this, but just from this short description: There are clear goals, as the couple seeks the family's approval via a succesful honeymoon. Opposition is present in her parents, and my guess is that the internal need and personal change has something to do with Ashton Kutcher being a dope who matures a bit, while Brittany must realize how loveable he really is. The trip as an inciting incident forces them to come to terms with pre-marital mistakes (backstory) and overcome "disaster after disaster", resulting in self-revelation, as they learn that marriage really is worth it.

This being said, as a young aspiring writer I am well aware that we do not need more Ashton Kutcher movies, so I will take this with a heavy discount.

Goodwriterguy · May 11, 2009

Team 2012 said:
Speaking as working scriptwriters, we'd recommend using the internet instead of books... and also taking Big Systems about screenwriting with a grain of salt. That way lies 14 act structure and The Hero's Journey.

"Working scriptwriters" are all in London or Sydney, in Hollywood they're known as "screenwriters."

I think I've penned half a dozen screenplays in which the tales were erected on Mr. Vogler's paradigm ... and not a one of them is done in 14 acts, they're all three acts, as Mr. Vogler himself implores us to realize is the standard.

Team 2012 said:
Much of this can be dispensed with in any given story. Backstory, for instance, is by no means a "backbone"...

Did "Screewriting 101" or Mr. Vogler imply or say that it was? Besides, I think you meant "spine."

Team 2012 said:
some stories don't even have any. There may or may not be the classic "protagonist/antagonist" relationship described here, and there certainly doesn't have to be a battle.

Except there almost always is.

Generally, no conflict, no story.

Team 2012 said:
All the "three act" things amount to a adumbration of "Conflict-Tension-Resolve" or even just "Beginning-Middle-End". It's possible, in fact to have a film with no conflict at all, though that's an extreme.

Indeed. And hence not one that the generalities address.

Team 2012 said:
The whole "character arc", "diamonds out of coal" self-development thing is completely unnecessary, as witness a jillion westerns where the hero does not change because of events, but makes events change because of him.

So why bother to say this? Because writers get locked into these things. Taking the map for the terrain. Having a story idea but getting online saying, "Gee, I have three protagonists...should I get rid of two or create a protagonist in chief position?"

Next step is often seeing whatever scheme has been absorbed as so universal that it gets read into anything (surely we've all seen many schema that cite all the great movies that use their paint-by-the-numbers scenario--often the same films some other guru is claiming used his templates.

And things get lost. How about humor? How about synthesis...not all films are about antagonism and slugging things out. This list sounds like it's written about films on TNT's "Movies For Guys Who Love Movies" list.
Try to fit an Ashton Kucher rom-com into it. The problem of course, is that somebody will...just like Hero's Journey people flip through hoops to find the shape-changers in a film. Or argue bitterly over which character is Pulp Fiction is THE progtagonist.

Sorry, we don't mean to be antagonistic to your post, either. But it's stuff young writers should take at a heavy discount.

Uhh, it's "shape-shifter," not "shape-changer."

Books like "Screenwriting 101" and "The Writer's Journey" are clearly offered as generalities that describe maps of the fundmental attributes of dramatic architecture that appear or are employed in most movies, not all but most.

I think I'd prefer to sit in my comfy overstuffed with a good book in my hands than be at my computer monitor browsing the Web, which I've already done half the day. I might prefer to sit out on my deck and enjoy evening's fresh air too, with a book in my hands. A book you can keep, you can reach up and grab it off the shelf when you find yourself in need or needing to recall something, it's right there. The Web on the other hand will only be there if your power is ON and the site you wish to visit isn't too overloaded or has been scaled properly to handle the traffic. Otherwise, you'll be waiting.

It's easy to name this or that film which doesn't abide the paradigms that have come to us in books like "Screenwriting 101" or "The Writer's Journey," much harder to make a case regarding the great majority of films that do abide those dictums.

We have to start somewhere, and we can move from the general to the specific as we move from books such as these to the script we happen to be working on at the moment or planning to do in the near future.

It isn't so much a "heavy discount" that's needed, it's more that we ought to take such books for what they actually are -- expressions of conventional elements that form paradigms that are generally true.

Team 2012 · May 12, 2009

Actually, Goodwriter, if we can quibble with the nit you picked, "screenwriters" write for the screen. Many people, all of us, for instance write for television.

And if you'll look back up to the first post I think you'll see that the word used was "backbone". Okay. Please don't do this mindless sort of thing. It serves no purpose.

And, in fact...and please read this carefully... neither pro/antag nor conflict are NECESSARY. Understand that word, please. Usual, but not necessary. Please not "A Man And A Woman" or "Elvirat Madigan" if you want to see some exceptions.

All stories have backstory

No. They don't. At least not from the screenplay point of view. In his book on screenwriting Wells Root mentions a film in which Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum come to consciousness washed up on a Japanese-held island. He says this, "Her nuns habit and his marine uniform are all the backstory we need." And its very true.
Less extremely, take a look a much contemporary cinema. Guy Richie characters rarely have much of a past. How much reference is there in "Pretty Woman" to events taking place before the story itself. She's a whore, he's in a limo and office suite: all we have to know.

Almost all such general statements admit to exceptions.
But quite aside for that, we'd hate to think of post continuing to be met with this sort of petty cavilling. Especially when it's so obviously wrong, right on the face of it.

You say, in your erroneous quote here,

Did "Screewriting 101" or Mr. Vogler imply or say that it was? Besides, I think you meant "spine."

Now does it help anybody to point out that there is no such book as "Screewriting 101"? Please cut us some slack here, if you will.

Cyia · May 12, 2009

Team 2012 said:
And, in fact...and please read this carefully... neither pro/antag nor conflict are NECESSARY. Understand that word, please. Usual, but not necessary. Please not "A Man And A Woman" or "Elvirat Madigan" if you want to see some exceptions.

Conflict is essential to storytelling.

No. They don't. At least not from the screenplay point of view. In his book on screenwriting Wells Root mentions a film in which Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum come to consciousness washed up on a Japanese-held island. He says this, "Her nuns habit and his marine uniform are all the backstory we need." And its very true.

So... they had a backstory. I didn't say you have to tell the backstory, I said all stories have one, and they do. By virtue of existing, something came before the opening credits. The characters were engaged in some action prior to the time they appear on screen, part of the writer's job is to know where the characters came from, so they know where they're going next.

Every single element of the character's personality is part of his/her backstory. Is the person angry? Then there's a reason for that anger - even the audience doesn't know what it is. Are they eternal optimists? Then they've lived a life that lets them have that outlook.

In your example, they "washed up on shore", well that means they came out of the water. Before they were in the water, they were most likely on a boat. Backstory.[/quote]

Less extremely, take a look a much contemporary cinema. Guy Richie characters rarely have much of a past. How much reference is there in "Pretty Woman" to events taking place before the story itself. She's a whore, he's in a limo and office suite: all we have to know.

But in the course of Pretty Woman, you find out a lot of things about the characters... right down to knowing that she got good grades in school.

Now does it help anybody to point out that there is no such book as "Screewriting 101"? Please cut us some slack here, if you will.

If you read the opening post, you'd know better.

Screenwriting 101; Neill D. Hicks. Hicks is (or was) a professional screenwriter and screenwriting instructer at UCLA. (Senior Instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program)

Team 2012 · May 12, 2009

Conflict is essential to storytelling.

No. Not "essential" there are plenty of stories without conflict. The films I mentioned. Larry McMurtry's "Movin On"
They TELL you that, along with all the other grand sweeping statements, but it's not true, as you can figure out for yourself.

So there's something called SCREEwriting 101?
Sure it's us who have the reading problem here?

Nitpicking is a nuisance, but if you are WRONG when you do it it really bites you in the butt.

Getting good grades in school is not "back story". Naturally.

Let's try it this way. You;ve got a story time line. Generally expressed in some form of the "dramatic pyramid", skewed off the side, usually.

Now, you've got all this STORY on screen. And you might have a backstory traling off the left. Maybe even some future out there (perhaps told in little "where are they now" vignettes in the credit role, perhaps aluded to in the script...VO about future career accomplishments or "happily ever after" or whatever.

Now, look at that "animal". It kind of looks like the backstory is the tail, doesn't it? Certainly not the "backbone" of the story you're telling. The very fact you have to bring in "good grades" in school to make that point indicates just how trivial it is to the story you are telling.

Actually I think that most people realize instinctively, through the exercise of their intelligence, that backstory is not the backbone, spine, heart and soul, or whatever of most stories. And thinking of it that way (and incorporating whatever what one reads about "STORY") is harmful to a writer.

Cyia · May 12, 2009

You're not listening.

The backstory, even if it's not shown, doesn't mean strictly "what came before" as in a chain of events. It's the characters' backbone. It's the sum of their experiences and what made them into the characters you present in the screenplay. It's not a harmful way of structuring things at all, it's essential.

Here's a character ----> Joe

Right now, Joe is just a name. Assume you're writing a rom-com. Where does Joe fit in? Is he the current boyfriend, the star-crossed lover, the slacker, what?

You think about Joe and who he is (character development). Joe is a slacker. He doesn't work, but he's got a great house/apartment. He buys everyone's drinks at the bar. The first time the heroine meets him, he's on vacation in Bermuda.

Now, either Joe is independently wealthy, living above his means, sponging off parents (or someone else). You could go a darker route and make Joe a conman, or a very high end thief.

Your decisions on who Joe is when they meet give you his backstory.

"Joe, 35, sporting two-day stubble, cut-offs and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt stumbles out of a cabana as a half naked woman in a sheet throws his shoes at his head." may be all that shows up in the screenplay as far as character introduction, but the writer knows the events that led him to that cabana. There may or may not be a mention later of who the woman in the sheet was or why she was so angry, but the writer knows who she was and what he did to incur her wrath.

You have to know the characters' backstory so that you know what is and isn't in character as far as action and dialogue.

Sure Joe looks like a beachbum, but his speech could belie a different starting point. Maybe he uses colloquialisms distinct to a certain part of the country, maybe he can speak French, Latin and who knows what else because he was a professional student for 12 years and learned them all without graduating.

It's all backstory, and it's all integral to the development of the character. It's backbone because without it the character has nothing to hold him up except the stand behind his cardboard exterior.

DevelopmentExec · May 12, 2009

Team 2012 said:
And, in fact...and please read this carefully... neither pro/antag nor conflict are NECESSARY. Understand that word, please. Usual, but not necessary. Please not "A Man And A Woman" or "Elvirat Madigan" if you want to see some exceptions.

I think this statement shows either a lack of a grip on what constitutes conflict or a lack of understanding of what a story is.

There was definitely conflict in "A Man and a Woman"- Ann's internal struggle regarding her guilt for getting involved with another man is conflict. The fact that this causes them to separate is conflict.

I haven't seen Elvira Madigan, but just reading the short synopsis on IMDB, the inherent conflict is quite clear - Hedvig Jensen is a famous ropewalker and is known to her public as Elvira Madigan. She meets Lieutenant Sixten Sparre, a Swedish officer who is married and has two children. They both decide to run away, but since Sixten deserted the army, he cannot find any job and the couple encounters many hardships. Moreover, while on the run, Sixten meets a friend who tries to convince him to come back to his country and family

Add to that the fact that this is a biopic and Sparre killed Madigan, I can't fathom how film about these people and these events can be viewed as conflict free.

Conflict doesn't necessarily mean physical battle or verbal fight it doesn't even have to be external. Antagonist's don't have to be other characters. In the best stories - whether there's another character to serve as antagonist or not, the greatest obstacle a protagonist must overcome is his own internal flaw or fear or problem. The struggle to get out of one's own way always generates conflict.

Drama is conflict and at their core, stories are themes explored through conflict.

xhouseboy · May 13, 2009

Team 2012 said:
Actually, Goodwriter, if we can quibble with the nit you picked, "screenwriters" write for the screen. Many people, all of us, for instance write for television.

So just how many of you are there, if it's not too bold a question? You of the collective 'we' who post with one voice, this 'team' of TV 'working scriptwriters' who are also insistent that 'conflict' isn't a vital ingredient in drama?

And what's your genre?

endless rewrite · May 13, 2009

I thought we weren't allowed to use 'we'.

curious1980 · May 26, 2009

Cyia said:
All stories have backstory, the only variable is whether or not that backstory is shown on screen. Characters don't spring fully formed like Athena, there are dimensions to them that come from the histories that only the writers know.

And there's antagonism even in romantic comedies. You're reading it with a very narrow view. All stories involve conflict. That conflict may be internal or external, it may involve a psychological struggle in place of a physical one or it may be a love triangle where the audience is rooting for one guy over another, but it's the same dynamic.

And you'd better hope your characters have an arc to them, otherwise you've wasted 2 hours of the audience's time on something static and that's just plain bad writing.

I agree and obviously he/she didn't fully read what you said. All stories do have a back story. To know where your character is going you must know where they've come from. Most of the time it's not seen on screen but that doesn't mean it's there. When I write I think about a person's childhood and move upward. Of course all of that doesn't go into the play but I like to get a full sense of who the person is before I start writing.

Conflict is essential. I can't imagine anything else being more boring than watching someone for two hours go effortlessly through life without having any problems or cares in the world? I don't know about any of you...but that doesn't strike me as entertaining. I wanna see a struggle, someone fighting to hold on to their sanity, someone fighting to hold on to their loved one, or just fighting period. Obstacles are what make stories great. The character becomes someone you can relate to and inspires you. Without conflict...what's the point of the film?

Screenwriting 101

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Team 2012

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

The Comedian

Goodwriterguy

Team 2012

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

Team 2012

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

DevelopmentExec

xhouseboy

In the Yellow Woods

endless rewrite

curious1980