Session 2 - The Principles of Screenwriting

These accompany the lecture for this session.

A scriptwriter is a storyteller, like a novelist, playwright or short story writer. To write a screenplay you must be a craftsperson, which can be taught, and talented that cannot be taught – but it can be nutured and developed. The craft helps you understand and apply screen language, the talent is the ability to interpret the world around you, coherently, creatively, dramatically, with meaning and originality. If you can achieve all that you're a writer whether you are paid to write or not. To help you achieve this let's spend this week looking at dramatic structure.

Firstly let's look at the origins of dramatic structure.

Although preceded in 1894 by Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, the first hand cranked camera and projection device, it was the Lumiere brothers a year later who should be crowned the fathers of modern cinema by bringing out their own, improved camera projector and by making films themselves. They made dozens of short films capturing everyday Parisian life but it was their film, Watering the Gardener that in our opinion (and those before us) earns the brothers their title. In this charming little film a straw hatted gardener waters flowers using a hosepipe. Suddenly the water stops. Behind him stands a naughty prankster standing on the pipe. The gardener looks closely at the end of the pipe, the boys release the flow and the gardener gets a soaking and the boy is punished with a spanking. It has historical significance because for the first time ever a drama, with a simple 3 act structure, was submitted to celluloid.

This little film played to audiences of hundreds and easily stands up to the millions of 50 second movies uploaded onto YouTube today.

Film is only one hundred and fourteen years old, a mere infant compared to every other forms of drama. It of course began with the Greeks. They are the inventors of the dramatic form and structure that we must follow today. In other words they wrote the rulebook and we must follow it. This might sound dogmatic but by learning the rules you are then free to interpret them in your own way, using your own imagination, your own stories, telling the world something you think we need to know.

So let's look at the rules.

• ALL films have conflict.
   
• ALL films have a theme to be explored.
   
• ALL films have an emotional journey.
   
• ALL films follow a basic three-act structure.

Of course there are exceptions to the rules, plenty of films lacking one of the above are in circulation but to all those films and film makers, the response is simple: They are not very good.

In last week's session we looked at conflict. The basic principle of conflict being that your main protagonist has a goal or goals she or he want to reach, obstacles stand in their way, and by trying to overcome the obstacles they either reach their goal or not, a changed person. But how does your character get there, what happens to them on the way and how is it all resolved? As a writer, do you need a map to guide you on your way? Some writers write instinctively and have a natural, sometimes unexplored or analyzed ability to structure stories, but we're going to assume that, like many, you need a map and that map is called the three act structure.

We will be illustrating the text with the film 'Erin Brochovich' This is our movie of the week.

Act One

In first act, we meet the Main Protagonist. The main protagonist is the character at the heart of the story and it is their story that dominates the film. Films that use one main protagonist are usually but not exclusively the more powerful because there is enough screen time to explore their story thoroughly. There are examples of multi storylined films such as Magnolia that are the exception to the rule but for our purposes.  We would recommend that you develop ideas that feature one main protagonist before attempting something more complicated.

Furthermore, there are plenty of films that appear to have two main protagonists such as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Thelma and Louise, London to Brighton but we would argue that they either have exactly the same goals, or one of the character leads and the other follows. In Thelma and Louise, it is Louise who shoots the rapist and must flee to Texas and Thelma decides to go with her. Because Louise has no choice but to leave, she is ultimately the main protagonist.  Indeed, it is she who is more thoroughly explored during the course of the film.

So, in the first act we meet the Main Protagonist, a woman, a man, boy or girl, human, animal or alien. They are a certain type of person; with views, feelings, opinions and emotions of their own that define how they approach the world but not just any world, a clearly defined one in which your protagonist belongs and knows.

In Erin Brochovich, we meet Erin, in her 30s, a gorgeous if trashy, intelligent, white embittered divorcee, mother of two living in a shabby flat, in a grotty town, in debt a desperate to find a job. As you will note, in that short paragraph, we have described what type of person Erin is, her circumstances, and what she is trying to do. This is the ground you must cover at the beginning of every one of your screenplays.

Now, if we were merely describing Erin's life it would not be dramatic.  However, by introducing goals from the onset (in this case the want of a job) we are already asking our audience to make an investment.  We are already creating drama. However, to really create drama, we must make sure that something happens.

That something is called

The Inciting Incident

The Inciting Incident is the first important event and is the primary cause for the drama that follows. It could be a bomb going off, the start of war, it could be a woman discovering her husband is unfaithful by finding a receipt from the jewelers, subtle or unsubtle, the inciting incident changes your main protagonist's life forever.

In Erin Brochovich, Erin fails again to get a job.  Moodily, she drives away in her car and is hit by another car. The car crash is the inciting incident.

Let's look at another example, by returning to Thelma and Louise.

Working class, white mid America. Louise is a waitress in a diner and lives alone. Thelma is a bored young housewife. Both are indirectly mistreated by the men in their lives. Thelma and Louise get the chance to go away for the weekend. They stop off at a bar and a man takes Thelma outside and tries to rape her.

Inciting incident: In her attempt to rescue Thelma, Louise, provoked by the rapist, shoots and kills him. Louise's life will never be the same.

It is possible to have the inciting incident before the drama.  For example in The Big Chill old but estranged college friends' lives are shattered by the suicide of one their gang. The title sequence shows their friend's corpse being prepared for burial.  As result of the suicide, the friends are reunited at the funeral and the drama begins.

The first act doesn't end here. Your main protagonist naturally reacts to the inciting incident because, in a moment, their lives have changed.  They therefore have no choice but to adjust and formulate a new set of plans and goals than the ones they woke up with. They will formulate new goals according to the type of person they are and, in broad terms, attempting one or two things as a result of the inciting incident: they are either trying to improve their lives or they are trying to get back to the life they had before.

In Erin Brochavich, her former goal was to get a job.  That's not possible without a car and she doesn't have any money to buy a new one. So her new goal is to sue the other driver but she loses her temper in court and loses her case.

An over-riding principle of scriptwriting is that the goals need to be almost impossible to reach and the obstacles almost impossible to overcome.  In fact, the goals must be progressively harder to reach as the drama continues. The harder it is for your main protagonist the better your drama will be.

In Erin Brochavich her attempt to sue fails and she does not achieve her first goal. Her plan must change and a new goal appears. Having lost her case, Erin is desperate. She tells the lawyer who represented her that he MUST give her a job. Being the determined lady that she is, the lawyer is browbeaten into employing her. Do you see through this example, how Erin's goals and obstacles change every few minutes, every time she tries to resolve her problems an even bigger one comes her way.

In the case of Erin Brochavich, we are still not ready to begin writing the second act because life is going to get harder for her yet again.  She must come up with another plan.  Again, character led, Erin discovers a dormant case where working class people like herself are trying to sue a powerful corporation over water contamination.  She decides to champion their cause and it is this story that the film is really about. This is the over arching problem. This time Erin is determined to win.

The new plan, which is the over arching story that emerges as a result of the inciting incident, is when act one turns into act two.

Before continuing we want to highlight an important point.  Moments ago, we used the words 'being the determined lady that she is' and described how Erin lost her court case because she lost her temper. This illustrates how everything that happens in a drama is character led. If she wasn't so gobby and argumentative she might have won her case.  If she wasn't determined, she would not have got a job with her lawyer.  If she didn't believe in justice she would've ignored the dormant case and gone home.  Because of who she is, this particular, unique story exists. Some films are plot led such as The Bourne Identity but the plot still unfolds in a particular way because of who the main protagonist is.

Before tackling act two, let's recap.

In Act one, you establish your main protagonist and the world they know: An inciting incident changes that world forever: new goals appear, and when the hardest goal to achieve occurs, when the single over arching question or problem needs to be resolved, act two begins:

One final example to really drive our point home: In Jaws, the quiet life of the coastal policeman is preoccupied with minor misdemeanors. His world is shattered when Jaws attacks a girl. His first goal is to maintain or easily regain the status quo by keeping the beaches open but then the shark attacks again.  He knows that the only solution is to somehow destroy the shark, thus really taking him out of his comfort zone.

Act Two:

Before we move on remember that drama is about an emotional journey as well as a physical one. Without it your drama is meaningless. Let's look at the emotional journeys or themes explored in some films.

Thelma and Louise – both are repressed, poor and disadvantaged at the start. They learn how to liberate and love themselves.

The Big Chill – A group of educated, middle aged white Americans believe that life is a lot tougher than they ever thought it would be.  This scares them but, in the aftermath of their friend's death, they learn to grow up and accept life as it really is.

Erin Brochavich - She is an angry, directionless victim who believes nothing good happens in the world at the start of the film.  She learns that by standing up for people similar to herself, by fighting for the truth and what is right, that life can be good and meaningful.

So our main protagonist is one type of person at the beginning of the film and an entirely different type of person at the end, in other words they change.

Act Two

Remember:

• During act two, your main protagonist is trying desperately to find a resolution to the overarching problem or conflict and that is almost impossible to achieve.
   
• Your main protagonists' conflicts and goals exist because of who they are as characters because it is the main protagonist who must ultimately learn a lesson and change.
   

Now let's move on and look at the main story beats in act two.

Firstly:

Your main protagonist will try all manner of things to overcome the main obstacle and achieve their goal but they are trying to achieve this without fundamentally changing as a person.  They are trying to keep things as normal and familiar to themselves as possible. This sounds natural doesn't it? Why wouldn't it be?  Your main protagonist is human after all, and if they're not, then they display human characteristics. You will be familiar with the expression 'I learnt that the hard way' so it applies to dramatic characters.  People don't like to change.  People try to stay the same and maintain the status quo.  So in the last part of act one or the first part of the act two, your main protagonist attempts to solve problems without experiencing fundamental change.

And because they are trying to reach their goals whilst trying to normalize life, there is space to introduce the sub plots.

Sub plots

Sub plots serve the main plot by reflecting, expanding and wrestling with the central theme of the story and they involve characters on the same 'side' but in conflict with your main protagonist.  In other words, they have a different solution to the over arching problem: They could be a policeman's boss, partner, a child of the main protagonist, a parent or a best friend or all the above. It is possible to follow sub plots as part of the antagonist's story simply - but be aware that ultimately the story isn't about them and we don't want to empathize too much with the enemy!

In Erin Brochavich, the sub plots are two-fold: Firstly, she meets the first decent man in her life and begins a relationship with him and he agrees to look after her kids whilst she works. At first this works like a dream and Erin begins her journey of change – where she begins to see the decency in human beings through her new boyfriend. But inevitably, conflict sets in: Her boyfriend has needs and feels ignored as she becomes increasingly embroiled in the case. Secondly, her children also feel neglected and want her home.

This makes life even harder for your main protagonist. In Erin's case, not only must she do battle with a powerful corporation she must also try and keep her boyfriend and kids happy. Boy, has she got a lot on her plate!

Remember, that your sub plots MUST relate to the central plot but offer new arguments and insights that feed into the over arching drama or problem.

As your sub plots develop, so your main protagonist's over arching problem must increase in difficulty, thus compelling your main protagonist to keep going, to remain unstinting in their desire to achieve their main goal. Your drama will come to a very abrupt ending if your main protagonist just gives up. It therefore follows that your main protagonist must have NO CHOICE but to continue. In many films, they literally have no choice because to give up would mean certain death. In Erin Brochavich, a very character led drama, she has no choice because of her beliefs and principles mean so much to her.  This is substantiated by the fact that if she were to walk away from her job her kids would go hungry.

What happens next?

All characters meet a point of no return, when the burdens become so great and the problem so large that there is no way forward or back for your main protagonist. This is called the act two midway point. It is at the point where your characters realizes that there is no turning back. The act two midway point in Jaws is when the policeman, the scientist and the hunter set off to hunt down the shark. The policeman, our main protagonist, will not be coming home until Jaws is destroyed. In Erin Brochavich she realizes, reluctantly, that she can't stop on her quest because the complainants in the case are totally dependent on her, even though it means missing the first words her baby girl spoke. She has to decide – walk away or stay. Erin decides to stay.

But it's not over yet, not by a long chalk.

Of course as your main protagonist has her goals so your antagonist has his / her or its goal: In Jaws the goal of the shark is to eat people and he keeps on eating people until he is stopped.

Just as your main protagonist realizes or decides that there is no turning back ,so things get worse again. I stress the words IT GETS WORSE. If the problem is too easy to solve then your drama is weak.  Remember what' been said:  problems must get progressively worse and they get worse because your antagonist gains ground, and is now beginning to succeed. Just as your main protagonist is pulling out all the stops, so of course is the antagonist. Your antagonist -  whether it's a shark, a volcano, a violent husband (or Erin’s case a powerful company) -  works just as hard as your protagonist. The harder the antagonist works, the greater the conflict, the better the drama.

This terrible situation might well be compounded by the sub plots: in Erin’s case, her boyfriend and children make it clear that they don't love her anymore because she has let them down. At her lowest point, at her loneliest, they turn their backs on her. And what's even worse is she deserves it because she has been neglecting them. Can it get any worse for Erin?

The main protagonist must feel that all is lost and it must seem, in global terms, that she or he is right.  The lowest point for her is usually the highest point for your antagonist, and it is now that they are at their most powerful and it is at this point that your antagonist delivers their most decisive blow.

At this dark point, your main protagonist has one principle question that they ask themselves: Have they the inner strength, the physical strength, the wit and resources to overcome this huge obstacle? Not only must they find it within themselves but they must also come up with one last possible solution to their problem.

In Erin's case, she has gathered all the evidence she possibly can but has had the case taken off her by a powerful but insensitive lawyer - and her boyfriend has left her. She finds it within herself to win the case back and present a winning argument. Now it's down to the courts to decide if she and her claimants win or not. In Jaws the experienced shark hunter has gone crazy and has died, the scientist is missing, so the policeman must face Jaws alone.

Act Two turns into Act three when there is one principle question to answer: Will your main protagonist succeed or fail? And there is one principle answer to that question because all other avenues have been explored. The really good films leave us guessing.

Act three

Act three is the shortest act of all.  During act three, the single overarching question, the one that was established at the end of act one, is finally answered. Your main protagonist resolves that question and either wins or loses. In Erin Brochavich she wins the case, keeps her job but she does not get back together with her boyfriend, which is the price she pays. In Jaws the shark dies.

In both, as we've originally stated, your character is a different person than the one at the beginning of the film. At the start of Jaws the policeman, fresh from New York, feels like an outsider in this seaward facing, rural community.  By battling with nature, he feels as though he belongs.

Again, good adult dramas often insure that the main protagonist doesn't win hands down.  There is usually some sacrifice that they have had to make. It is perfectly fine, however, to write totally happy endings for children.

And so we reach the end. 

Task One:

• Watch L’Arroseur Arosee – Watering the Gardener on YouTube, search for it by simply typing in the title.
   

Task Two:

• Watch two feature films and write a five hundred-word synopsis of each one. Describe the first act, the inciting incident, the central goal, the break into act two, the main beats of act two, including the sub plots, the break into act three and the conclusion.
   
• We would recommend repeating this exercise as often as you can in your own time.
   

Task Three:

• Write a 500 word short story that pursues the three act structure.

Post your work (task three only) to the forum for this session. And critique the work of at least two of your fellow students in the anthology for this session.

Please note that any work you post to the course forum is available to the public under a Creative Commons License.

Erin Brochovich