The Goal of the Screenwriter

1. Primary goal of filmmaker is to elicit emotion in audience.

2. Primary goal of screenwriter is to elicit emotion in reader.
3. In order to succeed, your screenplay needs to accomplish the
following objective: Have a sympathetic character overcome a series
of increasingly difficult obstacles and achieve a compelling
desire.
4. The 4 stages of any screenplay are:
o Story concept
o characters
o Plot structure
o Individual scenes
5. Avoid writers block by brainstorming for many ideas then edit the
ideas to improve quality
6. See two movies a week
o see the good ones twice or more
o analyse the emotional reactions
7. Read 2 screenplays a week - particularly genres you want to write
in.
Story Concept

1. Every story starts with a What if...? This will lead to either a
unique, compelling character, or situation - or both?
2. The vast majority of Hollywood movies are about characters pursuing
outer motivations - visible goals with clearly defined finish
lines.
3. Any workable story concept can be expressed in a single sentence:
It is a story about a who wants to . The first blank
identifies the hero/protagonist of the story, the second states
that hero's outer motivation.
4. Effective outer motivations share these qualities:
o It is visible
o It has a clearly implied endpoint
o The hero will pursue it until the end of the story
o The hero must desperately want to achieve it
o The hero must actively pursue it
o It's within the hero's power to achieve it
o The hero must put everything on the line to achieve it
5. The primary sources of story ideas are:
o Personal experience
o Headlines
o Other movies
o Adaptions of books, plays, and short stories
o Contemporary true stories and historical events.

6. The principles and pitfalls of adapting fictional stories are:

o Great literature doesn't mean great cinema
o Your allegiance must be to your screenplay, not to the
original source
o Adapting your own novels and plays is seldom wise
o Movies must conform to a budget
o Commerciality is the major concern of film financiers
o Genre is critical
o Movies portray a condensed period of time
o Screenplays may only reveal what the audience will hear and
see o the screen
o Prose style is nearly irrelevant in screenwriting.

7. The principles and pitfalls of adapting true stories are:

o A story isn't appropriate for adaption just because it's true
o A true story is often more effective as a documentary film or
a news item
 o Reality rarely conforms to the principles of a well-written
screenplay
o Period pieces are much more difficult to sell

8. Commercial potential means the ability to convince the people in

power that producing the screenplay will result in profits or high
ratings.

9. Artistic potential means the ability to do something meaningful

that's of deeper value to humanity than simply entertaining the
audience.

10. The five essential elements of any film story are:

o A hero
o Empathy
o Desire
o Conflict
o Risk

11. Five story elements that will greatly increase commercial

potential are:
o A high concept
o A commercial goal:
▪ To win
▪ To stop
▪ To escape
▪ To deliver
▪ To retreive
o Originality combined with familiarity
o Character arc
o Theme

12. The three questions to ask before developing any story

concept, in order to resolve any conflict between artistry and
commerciality, are:
o Do I want to spend at least the next year of my life writing
this screenplay?
o Does this story concept have commercial potential?
o Even if it lacks commercial potential, am I truly so
passionate about the story that I'm determined to write it
anyway?
Character development

1. The four facets of character are:

o Physical makeup
o Personality
o Role
o Background

2. The three essential methods for creating immediate empathy with

your hero are:
o Sympathy - a victim of undeserved misfortune
o Jeopardy - in danger of losing something of great value to the
hero
o Likeability - possessing one or more of these qualities:
▪ Kind, good-hearted, and generous
▪ Well-liked by other characters
▪ Funny

3. Qualities for strengthening empathy and identification are:

o A high level of skill
o In touch with his/her own power
o Power over other people
o Power to do what needs to be done, without hesitation
o Power to express one's feelings regardless of others' opinions
o Superpowers
o Living or working in a familiar setting
o Familiar flaws and foibles
o Serving as the eyes of the audience

4. The primary methods for ensuring original characters are:

o Research
o Go against cliché
o Play off other characters
o Cast the character

5. The two levels of motivation are:

o Outer motivation: What the character visibly hopes to
accomplish by the end of the movie
 o Inner motivation: The reason for the outer motivation, which
the character thinks will lead to self-worth

6. The sources of conflict are:

o Outer conflict: Obstacles created by nature or other
characters
o Inner conflict: Obstacles coming from within the character

7. The four categories of primary character are:

o Hero: The main character, whose motivation drives the plot and
with whom we most strongly empathize
o Nemesis: The character who most stands in the way of the
hero's achieving her outer motivation
o Reflection: The character who most supports the hero's outer
motivation or is in the same basic situation
o Romance: The sexual or romantic object of at least part of the
hero's outer motivation, who must alternatively support and be
at a cross-purpose to the hero.

8. Additional ground rules for creating primary characters:

o Characters must be people or anthropomorphized animals,
creatures, or cyborgs
o Inner motivation and conflict may be explored for any or all
of the primary characters, or for none of them.
o It is not necessary to have characters in all four of the
primary categories
o A character cannot occupy more than one category
o A character cannot change categories
o More than one character can occupy any of the categories

9. Secondary characters are added for logic, credibility, greater

conflict for the hero, greater support for the hero, or more
complexity to the story.
Theme & Character Arc

1. Theme is a universal statement the movie makes about the human

condition, which goes beyond the plot. It is the screenwriters
prescription for how one should live one's life in order to be more
fulfilled, more evolved, more individuated, or a better person.
2. Theme emerges when the hero's similarity to the nemesis and
difference from the reflection are revealed.
3. Character growth begins when the hero recognizes her own similarity
to the nemesis and difference from the reflection.
4. Theme grows out of the writer's unconscious, is developed through
the characters' unconscious, and is received by the audience's
unconscious.
5. Theme must grow out of the story concept; it must never be imposed
on it.
Structure

1. Structure consists of the events in the plot of a screenplay and

their position relative to one another. Proper structure occurs
when the right thing happens at the right time to elicit maximum
emotion.

2. A properly structured film story has three acts, determined by:

o The screenwriter's goals:
▪ Act 1 - establishing setting, character, situation, and
the hero's outer motivation.
▪ Act 2 - building up the hurdles and obstacles to that
motivation.
▪ Act 3 - resolving the hero's outer motivation.
o The three distinct segments or stages to the hero's outer
motivation.
o The necessary quarter-half-quarter proportion for the three
acts.

3. Two additional elements must be present in Act 1 & Act 3:

o The Setup:
▪ The "before" picture of the hero
▪ We see the hero living his everyday life before anything
new happens to get the story moving forward.
▪ If there is an arc for the hero, we see him emotionally
stuck, mired within his inner conflict.
o The Aftermath
▪ The "after" picture of the hero
▪ Shows the new life the hero will now live after having
resolved the outer motivation.
▪ If there is an arc for the hero, we see him rewarded for
having overcome his inner conflict (or stuck once again,
if he's a tragic figure who failed to overcome it).

4. The opening of your screenplay must seduce the reader in the first
ten pages by:
o Transporting readers from the world they occupy into the world
you've created, usually employing one of the four opening
sequences:
▪ Broad to narrow
▪ Narrow to broad
▪ Black screen
▪ Narration
o Using title cards when necessary to establish time and/or
location
 o Avoiding any mention of the opening credits
o Introducing the hero
o Creating empathy with the hero
o Showing the hero living her everyday life
o Giving a glimpse of the hero's inner conflict
o Presenting the hero with some opportunity by the 10-percent
mark
o Taking the hero into some new situation with this opportunity.

5. There are at least seven types of setups you can employ, alone or
in combination, to open your screenplay:
o The action hero introduction
o The everyday hero introduction
o The new arrival
o Outside action
o The prologue
o The flashback
o Bookends

6. An effective ending to your screenplay will include:

o A satisfying climax that clearly resolves the hero's outer
motivation
o An aftermath revealing the new life the hero will now live.

7. As you define the three acts to the screenplay, including the

setup, opportunity, climax, and aftermath, you will begin employing
the more specific structural principles and devices for maximizing
emotion:
o Ensure that every scene, event, and character in the
screenplay contributes to the hero's outer motivation.
o Early in your screenplay, show the audience where the story is
headed.
o Build the conflict by making each successive hurdle and
obstacle for your hero greater and more provocative than the
previous one.
o Accelerate the pace of the story by providing the exposition
early in screenplay, then having the obstacles come up more
frequently as the story moves forward.
o Create peaks and valleys to the action and the humor, so that
high emotional moments in your screenplay are followed by
scenes with less impact.
o Give the story both humor and seriousness
o Create anticipation in the reader
o Give the audience superior position
o Surprise the audience and occasionally reverse the
anticipation
o Create curiosity in the reader
o Make the story credible by:
▪ Limiting yourself to a single fantasy element
▪ Making the story internally logical
▪ Clearly defining the limits to the characters' abilities
o Foreshadow the major events of the screenplay
o Echo particular situations, objects and lines of dialogue to
illustrate character growth and change
o Teach the audience how to do something, vicariously
o Pose a threat to one of the characters
o Maximize the use of time by:
▪ Condensing the time span of the story
▪ Announcing the time span
▪ Creating a ticking clock.
Scene Writing

1. The overall rules and guidelines for putting the words on the page
and eliciting maximum emotion with your screenwriting style are:
o You must create a movie in the mind of the reader
o Scripts are action, description, and dialogue only - nothing
goes on the page that doesn't go on the screen
o There are three uses for any screenplay:
▪ A proposal for a movie you hope to get made (the
submission script - and and the only one that concerns
you)
▪ A blueprint of a movie that is being made (the shooting
script)
▪ A record of a film that has already been shot (for
postproduction)
o Before submitting any script, be certain there's nothing that
you know can be improved
o Improper format reduces the reader's emotional involvement

2. To ensure proper format, obtain a good formatting program

3. Write character and setting description that is concise, clever,

provocative, and detailed, and that conveys the essence of a
character or setting rather than mere physical description, which
might limit casting.

4. Clarity is your primary goal when writing action:

o Use everyday, straightforward language
o Use action words
o Ask others to read the scene to verify that it's clear
o Omit any mention of the credit sequences or musical score
o Make no reference to special effects - simply describe what
the audience will see and hear
o Use detail to create vivid images

5. Ask the following questions about any scene before writing

dialogue:
o What is my objective within the scene?
o How will the scene end?
o What is each character's objective within the scene?
o What is each character's attitude within the scene?
o How will the scene begin?
6. With each successive rewrite, polish the dialogue so that it:
o Contributes to the scene's objective and the overall outer
motivation for your hero
o Is consistent with the characters
o Reveals character background, inner motivation, conflict, or
theme, when appropriate.
o Is as clever, funny, original, provocative, interesting, and
enjoyable to read as is appropriate.

7. Conduct a reading of your screenplay to elevate the story and style

8. After each new draft, apply the following checklist to each scene
in your script:
o How does the scene contribute to the hero's outer motivation?
o Does the scene have its own beginning, middle, and end?
o Does the scene thrust the reader into the following scenes?
o What is each character's objective within the scene?
o What is each character's attitude within the scene?
o Does the scene contain action, not just dialogue?
o Does the scene serve multiple functions?
Exceptions to the rule

1. Three types of screenplays use a story approach other than the

hero/outer motivation model:
o Biographies tell a character's full life story - not simply a
single incident or two from the character's life.
▪ Successful biographies usually have some desire that
unites all of the episodes in the hero's life.
▪ This thread is most often a love story.
o Arena stories put their heroes in some new, conflict-filled
situation, where their desire is simply to survive physically
or emotionally.
▪ The hero's situation should be given some clear or
predictable endpoint
▪ Love stories are secondary, and either don't involve
pursuit or the pursuit consumes only a portion of the
story
o Feminine-mode movies portray a hero whose primary goal is the
resolution of a non-romantic relationship.
▪ The relationship will be with a parent, child, best
friend, or group of friends or relatives.
▪ The stories are almost always location-bound - the hero
goes to visit or stay with the person with whom he is out
of balance
▪ Any romantic relationship is secondary to the non-
romantic one
▪ Two frequently used time spans in feminine-mode movies
are:
▪ Three stages of the characters lives, covering a
long span of time.
▪ An abbreviation span of time defined by some
external situation, like a terminal illness or a
holiday visit.
2. Screenplays in all three of the categories presented are extremely
difficult to sell, due primarily to their weak box-office
performance when compared to traditional story modes.
3. To determine if a film is an exception to the rule, ask the
following questions in this order:
o Is it about a hero pursuing a clearly define outer motivation?
If yes, then it's not an exception. If no, then ask:
o Does it follow a hero for nearly all of his life, through a
series of visible goals? If yes, it's a biography. If no, then
ask:
o Does the screenplay put a hero in a situation filled with
conflict, just to see if she can survive physically and/or
emotionally? If yes, it's an arena story. If no, then ask:
o Is the hero's primary goal the resolution of a non-romantic
relationship? If yes, it's a feminine-mode movie.
o If the answer to all of these questions is no, it's a rarity
that doesn't fit into any of the above categories.