this sounds ridiculous even to a guy who knows jack about screenwriting....

preyer · Jan 18, 2008

okay, maybe 'jack' is a bit overstated. i'm still learning. just about done with 'save the cat.' interesting, fun read. i'll check out a few more how-to's to see how they compare, but i'm thinking that most of them will say roughly the same thing.

unless you're this guy:

http://www.writersstore.com/article.php?articles_id=555

between the two, i think i'll be looking more into syd field than this guy's ideas, which seem to be all over the place. (anyone got a spare copy laying around they're not using?)

anyway, am i the only one who thinks this guy is a bit on the kooky side or what?

RylenolFlu · Jan 18, 2008

I read this article a little while ago and quite honestly it has stuck with me. It's just refreshing to hear someone say that stories can live outside of the three act structure. He suggests looking at the problem of the screenplay as opposed to going nuts about fitting events into neat act breaks and plot points. While I agree that structure is necessary to carry out a well told story, I think that creativity can bloom more freely when you remove certain strictures.

krano · Jan 18, 2008

i never read this guy's method before, but i picked up on something similar through Writing the Charactered Centered Screenplay and my own intuition. when i wrote my first script, i established a rigid structure from the very beginning. yeah, it was easier to write beacause all events were in a clear, consequential sequence, but when i finished it and reread it a week later, i realized how "dead" my characters were.

i think by contriving a set, fixed structure from the beginning, the character's actions become forced. eventually, i do establish a structure, but i let it resemble a three act structure on its own free will.

really, though, everyone has their own creative process, so do whatever feels right.

preyer · Jan 18, 2008

refreshing in the 'i really believe this' kind of way or refreshing in the 'hey, by the way, i've also got my own how-to book on screenwriting' sense?

he goes on about the act structure as being arbitrary, then goes into a 'natural structure.' sorry, ry, i just think he's contradicting himself.

he's got a list of movies which, he claims, has no three act structure at all. (funny, he mentions 'star wars,' which is the very definiton of the hero's journey tale and, indeed, can be broken in three acts seemingly pretty easily, though i've yet to do it. considering that the three act structure in films have been around since, oh, since film practically began, i think, it's absurd to think lucas, having gone to film school, didn't conceive of having three acts in his movie/s.) his samples seem to strain at proving his point, but i'm not sure i buy it. okay, i'm positive i don't buy it.

some will claim that you can go to any high concept film's 17th minute and find the exact same points in each (proportionally speaking, i assume). besides, most mainstream films absolutely can be broken into three acts and it's pretty clear where the act breaks and plot points are.

isn't looking at a screenplay's problems often very much centered around *not* hitting the right beats? i suppose mr. bonnet doesn't believe in those, either?

do you have an example of being freed creatively by removing certain strictures?

FinbarReilly · Jan 18, 2008

That guy is so talking out of his nether regiions...

The three act structure (introduce the problem, get a handle on the problem, solve the problem) has been with us since Day One. It's a big part of the Hero's Journey (a la Campbell), and it even applies to TV (the first two "acts" set up the problem, the next three or four deal with it, and the last two solve it and/or deal with the complications it causes).

Heck, even most myths follow it (Trojan War: Paris steals Helen and the heroes gather in Act 1, the War is fought in Act 2, and Troy is sacked in Act 3).

This guy is scary....

FR

krano · Jan 18, 2008

if you think about, a three act structure is natural: beginning, middle, end (i think read it in the Poetics).

a possible interpretation of what this "guru" is saying is that it's not necessarily a good idea to force the breaks in your story, but to let the natural divisions of beginning, middle, and end develop on their own.

RylenolFlu · Jan 18, 2008

Well, I wasn't meaning that I buy into the "forget the 3 act thing", I fully see the necessity of having structure in film writing. I agree more with his philosophy in terms of the creating the story part. I think Bonnet recommends just letting the story evolve "naturally", as he puts it, and then once the story is fleshed out the screenwriter can decide how to map it out over the 3 act. I'm a relative newcomer to serious screenwriting (as in really trying to make a living someday out of it), but the idea of letting go of structure during the "drawing up the story" period might help certain people achieve a better sense of creativity.

preyer · Jan 18, 2008

being a guy wholly intending to do 'high concept'/mainstream stuff, i believe in, say, the B story. in that, there's a place for that to begin, not just 'wherever feels right.' true, a lot is intuition, but it's that intuition that's been broken down to specific beats, right?

i know it seems that adhering to a strict three act structure appears limiting, it appears to contain less creativity... but doesn't it also work, and usually work a helluva lot better than taking your best guess at it?

obviously, i'm not seeing the holistic beauty of this 'method.' maybe in his book he would make it clear. i'm almost tempted, and a bit afraid, to read a few more of his articles.

krano · Jan 18, 2008

preyer said:
being a guy wholly intending to do 'high concept'/mainstream stuff, i believe in, say, the B story.

i too would guess this is the source of the difference. i think bonnet's method is geared toward character driven stories like The Barbarian Invasions versus Die Hard, at least early on in the writing process.

Plot Device · Jan 18, 2008

I could ALMOST agree with what this guy is saying. But my feeling is that the human mind needs to pace itself through its ingestion of a story. The 3-act structure allows the brain to pace itself through. To me it's kinda like eating a seven-course meal at a fine dining restaurant--anyone here every done that? Seven courses is a LOT of food! You need no less than two hours to eat your way through all that, and you MUST pace yourself. Not all meals are seven course, just like not all films are three acts. But ALL films have SOME kind of structure to them, and the need of such structure is to service the audience and their need to digest at a reasonable pace.

I agree with him that not all films SHOULD be three acts. But in spite of his insistence upo some leeway, three acts is the standard -- the norm. And my feeling about most aspects of art and artsianship is that you need to master the basics FIRST before you head off into the realm of the rare and the unorthodox.

cynicallad · Jan 18, 2008

I know him as that guy with the stupid flyers hung up in every coffee shop in the 30 mile zone.

nmstevens · Jan 18, 2008

Plot Device said:
I could ALMOST agree with what this guy is saying. But my feeling is that the human mind needs to pace itself through its ingestion of a story. The 3-act structure allows the brain to pace itself through. To me it's kinda like eating a seven-course meal at a fine dining restaurant--anyone here every done that? Seven courses is a LOT of food! You need no less than two hours to eat your way through all that, and you MUST pace yourself. Not all meals are seven course, just like not all films are three acts. But ALL films have SOME kind of structure to them, and the need of such structure is to service the audience and their need to digest at a reasonable pace.

I agree with him that not all films SHOULD be three acts. But in spite of his insistence upo some leeway, three acts is the standard -- the norm. And my feeling about most aspects of art and artsianship is that you need to master the basics FIRST before you head off into the realm of the rare and the unorthodox.

I think that what this guy is saying is a lot of nonsense and he starts off, as far as I'm concerned, by blowing all of his credibility by conflating definitions.

Yeah, thanks Mister smart guy -- we know that there are one act plays and two act plays and three act plays and TV shows with seven acts and feature films have no "official act breaks" except maybe a few long movies like Gone With the Wind that had intermissions -- which Made "Gone With the Wind" what? A "Two Act" movie?

Baloney. That particular literal usage of the term "act" has no relationship to what we speak about when we speak about "three act structure" -- which clearly intersects exactly the same kinds of innate structural story elements that he then goes on to talk about in his own patent-pending story formulae that he's trying to peddle himself.

It's more than simply "beginning, middle, and end."

The First Act establishes the premise, sets up the central problem and gets things underway.

The Second Act carries the events of the story to what's known, in classical terms as "the climax" -- which isn't the high point but the "apparently insoluble problem"

The Third Act solves the problem (or fails to) and encompasses the denoument.

Or, if it were a horse race, the First Act brings the horses up to the starting gate, identifies who's racing who, who the jockies are, and fires the starting pistol. They're off.

Second Act is the bulk of the race. Who gains on who, who falls. Who almost falls. Who comes from behind.

Third Act is the home stretch when the long shot you bet your life savings on and is now in last place -- and he comes from behind until a few lengths from the finish line he is now neck and neck with the horse favored to win and maybe he wins -- or maybe he doesn't.

This is stuff that they were teaching in basic dramatic theory when this guy was in diapers. There's nothing new or special about and it doesn't have anything to do with when the curtains rise or fall -- any more than it has to do with some Hollywood genius's idea of what page some Plot Point 2.3 should fall.

It is absolutely intrinsic to basic dramatic structure.

NMS

preyer · Jan 19, 2008

besides, wouldn't GWTW be proportionally 'correct' in a three act structure? act II starts with the outbreak of the civil war. hm, not sure where act III breaks (when rhett comes back into the picture?), but i'm sure it's in there somewhere. that's a tough one to me (and i'd just watched the dumb thing again a few weeks ago). i mean, it's a huge book and a huge movie that had legendary production problems (i think everyone and his cousin in hollywood took turns directing it at some point).

i think you're right, plot, there needs to be a suitable pacing involved for it to work to its maximum... if you're going for the big score. i'd have to suffer to rewatch it, but maybe b.o. stampedes like 'the blair with project' didn't have a B story, which gives hope to those with a different goal. i personally can make any of my novel ideas fit quite nicely into the three act structure even though at the time that was the furthest thing from my mind. in other words, i intuitively kind of 'know' the novel story structure. and isn't it this 'intuitiveness' that makes us all believe we're good storytellers? so what if people put a label on specific processes and says this goes here, that goes there? doesn't knowing this, whether we use it or not, make us *better* storytellers?

that's what's got my panties in a bunch here, that on the surface mr. bonnet suggests it all a bunch of horse hockey. i don't believe it is, especially for modern movies. or any movie for that matter. he'll seems to be saying 'forget all that bullshit about acts' out one side of his face and later, as nm points out, trying to sell his method out the other side, which seems to be more of the same basic structure just with his own vernacular involved to hide the fact he's got nothing.

is his method a recipe for disaster? probably not. like i said, it's probably not really different than any 'credible' screenwriter's method, just a lot looser. probably a lot sloppier. like in a novel, everything has to be very concise. good gravy, i've figured that much out by now. but, like i always say about novels, 'write in an active voice, not passive,' there are always those few examples to 'prove' me wrong. so, it's not enough for me and every editor with a blog on the subject to say active, not passive, some writers will find an article about how it doesn't make a bit of difference and potentially hurt that writer's abilities to get more work published. a lot of examples by the article writer 'proving' his POV on the subject, fueling those who don't want to learn their craft and think (or hopes against reality) anything goes.

Higgins · Apr 8, 2008

FinbarReilly said:
That guy is so talking out of his nether regiions...

The three act structure (introduce the problem, get a handle on the problem, solve the problem) has been with us since Day One. It's a big part of the Hero's Journey (a la Campbell), and it even applies to TV (the first two "acts" set up the problem, the next three or four deal with it, and the last two solve it and/or deal with the complications it causes).

Heck, even most myths follow it (Trojan War: Paris steals Helen and the heroes gather in Act 1, the War is fought in Act 2, and Troy is sacked in Act 3).

This guy is scary....

FR

The Trojan war as summarized doesn't correspond to any one script. In the Iliad for Example act 1 is Achilles gets mad, act 2 is things go very wrong for the greeks and act 3 is Achilles takes his vengeance and act 4 is he shows he is humane after all.

icerose · Apr 8, 2008

I don't set out with a specific structure or anything, I just write the story as I see it. If it has a serious story problem, chances are it lies with the structure. Like one fell too short and I was missing most of my first and part of my second act.

I write the story first, and then edit and revise. Things seem to fall into place the more I practice writing and the more I read.

I suppose you would call it a natural order. I'm a big fan of the "Do what works for you." method.

CDarklock · Apr 10, 2008

It seems to me that this guy is 100% correct: the three-act story structure is an arbitrary division. So is the five-act structure. Indeed, any division of the story at all is arbitrary. A story has one act: the story. You may decide certain parts of the story are significant, and divide the story at those parts... but someone else might not agree with you on which parts are significant.

To use the Star Wars example, most people would divide the story into three parts quite easily by encompassing the flights of the Millennium Falcon near the end of each act: one to Alderaan but actually ending up at the Death Star, one from the Death Star to the rebel base on Yavin's moon, and one to assist Luke with the battle around the Death Star. But there are still other division points; you might divide at the purchase of the droids, or the rescue of the princess, or any number of other places. You can arbitrarily turn Star Wars into a story of however many acts you like. You can even divide it in two pieces rather effectively by placing the single important event at Ben's lightsaber duel with Darth Vader.

Regardless of what the writer may think of the structure, ultimately the reader imposes a structure of his own upon the story. A sufficiently rich story can be divided in many ways; indeed, I would argue that if your story ONLY fits into a three act structure, it's almost certainly a bad story. There's just not enough in it.

jonpiper · Apr 10, 2008

nmstevens said:
. . . that particular literal usage of the term "act" has no relationship to what we speak about when we speak about "three act structure" -- which clearly intersects exactly the same kinds of innate structural story elements that he then goes on to talk about in his own patent-pending story formulae that he's trying to peddle himself.

It's more than simply "beginning, middle, and end."

The First Act establishes the premise, sets up the central problem and gets things underway.

The Second Act carries the events of the story to what's known, in classical terms as "the climax" -- which isn't the high point but the "apparently insoluble problem"

The Third Act solves the problem (or fails to) and encompasses the denoument.

. . .

This is stuff that they were teaching in basic dramatic theory when this guy was in diapers. There's nothing new or special about and it doesn't have anything to do with when the curtains rise or fall -- any more than it has to do with some Hollywood genius's idea of what page some Plot Point 2.3 should fall.

It is absolutely intrinsic to basic dramatic structure.

NMS

Why don't we refer to these sections or parts -- or whatever we want to call them -- as something other than acts? Can't we call these time periods in the story something else so they aren't confused with the traditional acts that originally were established for bathroom breaks and scene changes?

Do we all agree that every story must have an established premise and a central problem that gets things underway? That we must carry the events of the story to what's known, in classical terms as "the climax" -- which isn't the high point but the "apparently insoluble problem?" Finally, do we agree that the problem must be (or fail to be) resolved.

Do we all agree that the above contents must be presented in the time sequence suggested by "dramatic theory?" Can we perhaps establish the premise after the events of the story are underway?

CDarklock · Apr 10, 2008

jonpiper said:
Do we all agree that every story must have an established premise and a central problem that gets things underway?

That's rather like saying "every story must be a story". It's impossible to break the rule, because the rule is circular. It's a tautology.

Imagine that you try to write a story without establishing a premise. Well, guess what? The lack of a premise is your premise. So you have a premise after all.

The central problem is very much the same sort of thing. If there isn't one... why, that's the problem. So you do have a problem.

Some people have said that every story must have a main character. If you don't have one... why, the character is simply an unusual kind of main character. I've heard the opinion stated that in certain works, the world is the main character. Or time is the main character. Or the reader is the main character. So this rule, too, means nothing. It's just an arbitrary bucket, and you compel yourself to fill that bucket with something. You can step entirely outside the bounds of logic and reason to fill that bucket, so long as it's filled.

If you like a particular set of buckets, great. Use them. But at the core, they're just your own personal set of arbitrary choices. They have no more cosmic power or validity than any other set of arbitrary choices.

jonpiper · Apr 10, 2008

CDarklock said:
That's rather like saying "every story must be a story". It's impossible to break the rule, because the rule is circular. It's a tautology.

Imagine that you try to write a story without establishing a premise. Well, guess what? The lack of a premise is your premise. So you have a premise after all.

The lack of a premise may be my premise or my basis for my story; however, I don't understand how that can be the premise of my story. That's like saying you're serving nothing for dinner. What is dinner without food? Oh, that's my idea of a dinner. We all sit around the table and have a discussion without eating.

At any rate, must I establish the premise in the first time period of the screenplay? Must every story be built around the same framework in the same order?
Establish premise and central problem. Carry events to the climax. Solve the problem.

CDarklock · Apr 10, 2008

jonpiper said:
At any rate, must I establish the premise in the first time period of the screenplay? Must every story be built around the same framework in the same order?

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

No.

No story need be built around any framework. A framework is a tool. Use the one that fits your job. When someone else comes along, he'll try to cram your job into his own framework - because when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There is no one framework. There will never be one framework. Trying to find the one framework is doomed to failure, and most people will self-delude rather than admit their folly.

jonpiper · Apr 10, 2008

Some argue that there is a fundamental structure which all stories are built upon. They say that according to "dramatic theory," certain things must happen at the beginning of the story, other things during the middle, etc.

It's good to hear some opposing views.

Anyone know of good screenplays that don't follow the "normal" structure?

ricetalks · Apr 12, 2008

Psycho. We don't even meet the main character (Anthony Perkins) for the forst 1/2 hr of the film.

Pulp Fiction. You're going to have to bend your 3 act structure to all hell to try and get it to fit this pic.

Apocalyse Now. Does anyone really believe that Martin Sheen's overwhelming driving force is the pursuit of Col. Curtz up the river?

The Way We Were. Does that really fit a three act structure? What's the inciting incident? What is the overwhelming drive of the central character?

I'm sure I can think of more.

The best book I have come across for writing screenplays and screenplay and story structure is "How To Build A Great SCreenplay" by David Howard. I find Syd Field's book okay as a first introduction to the ideas of structure but too simplistic and dogmatic to be of any real long term value. Especially when you are dealing with a more compilcated film.

ricetalks · Apr 12, 2008

"How to Build A Great Screenplay" I find has laid out a much more practical hand-on approach to working out story structure. It is much more condusive to the organic way most people work on a screenplay or struggle with their stories as they emerge.

nmstevens · Apr 12, 2008

jonpiper said:
Why don't we refer to these sections or parts -- or whatever we want to call them -- as something other than acts? Can't we call these time periods in the story something else so they aren't confused with the traditional acts that originally were established for bathroom breaks and scene changes?

Do we all agree that every story must have an established premise and a central problem that gets things underway? That we must carry the events of the story to what's known, in classical terms as "the climax" -- which isn't the high point but the "apparently insoluble problem?" Finally, do we agree that the problem must be (or fail to be) resolved.

Do we all agree that the above contents must be presented in the time sequence suggested by "dramatic theory?" Can we perhaps establish the premise after the events of the story are underway?

Who, exactly, are these people who are "confused" by the concept of the "three act structure" because they think that it only refers to when the curtain comes up or down or when the commercial breaks come?

Before we start re-inventing the wheel, wouldn't it first be incumbent upon us to conclude that there's something confusing about the concept of the wheel?

NMS

nmstevens · Apr 12, 2008

ricetalks said:
Psycho. We don't even meet the main character (Anthony Perkins) for the forst 1/2 hr of the film.

Pulp Fiction. You're going to have to bend your 3 act structure to all hell to try and get it to fit this pic.

Apocalyse Now. Does anyone really believe that Martin Sheen's overwhelming driving force is the pursuit of Col. Curtz up the river?

The Way We Were. Does that really fit a three act structure? What's the inciting incident? What is the overwhelming drive of the central character?

I'm sure I can think of more.

The best book I have come across for writing screenplays and screenplay and story structure is "How To Build A Great SCreenplay" by David Howard. I find Syd Field's book okay as a first introduction to the ideas of structure but too simplistic and dogmatic to be of any real long term value. Especially when you are dealing with a more compilcated film.

There are a number of movies that consist, in various ways, of multiple stories, sometimes sequential, sometimes overlapping, that sometimes literally overlap and sometimes are only connected thematically.

It isn't correct to say that Norman Bates is the protagonist of Pyscho. If you start at the beginning, clearly Miriam is the protagonist. Her need drives the story. In that story, Norman acts as a sort of "mentor" character, who ultimately convinces her to go back and face the music.

And then she's killed -- and a new story starts. And in *that* story, Norman takes over -- and it's a story about loyal son Norman trying to do the right thing in the face of a lunatic mother.

But that story doesn't run through to the end. At a certain point, a new protagonist emerges -- Miriam's sister. Once she's on the scene, trying to find out what happened to her murdered sister, we're no longer on Norman's side. We're on her side. At that point, Norman becomes an obstacle to *her* achieving her goal -- of finding out the truth of what went on in that motel and what's hidden in that house.

It's really three separate stories.

And a lot of movies do that. Something like Radio Days consists of multiple stories -- not told sequentially, but broken up into pieces - the stories of the kid growing up, his parents, his unmarried sister, the story of the cigarette girl who ultimately becomes a big success in radio. All separate stories interwoven, but linked together by the common thread of the connection to that popular medium -- radio -- that's now completely vanished.

And, of course, Pulp Fiction does the same thing. Multiple stories, told non-sequentially, linked by common characters, themes and motifs.

Where one might think that there is an absence of story, very often what you find is simply much more sophisticated story-telling going on.

NMS

this sounds ridiculous even to a guy who knows jack about screenwriting....

preyer

excessively spartan

RylenolFlu

krano

preyer

excessively spartan

FinbarReilly

krano

RylenolFlu

preyer

excessively spartan

krano

Plot Device

A woman said to write like a man.

cynicallad

nmstevens

What happened?

preyer

excessively spartan

Higgins

icerose

Lost in School Work

CDarklock

Yes!

jonpiper

CDarklock

Yes!

jonpiper

CDarklock

Yes!

jonpiper

ricetalks

ricetalks

nmstevens

What happened?

nmstevens

What happened?