scriptwriting

An introduction to Structure and The Elements of Storytelling.

Last week revised 1

• We work in a go anywhere, do-anything medium which shows the story rather than tells it.

• Drama is conflict and conflict is tension, argument and fisticuffs!

• A script is the map for production; in the end we are writing for the audience but in the first place we are writing for readers, distributors, producers, directors, cast and crew.

• A good script is a personal statement but it must be a good read and inspire others to want to make it!

Last week revised 2

• The components of a script are the scene, the scene line, the characters and their dialogue, and the screen directions. We change scene when we change location, POV or time.

• In the writing process we move from idea through synopsis, scene breakdown or treatment to the first draft script (sometimes with a script editor). Planning is imperative.

• In the production process many people will influence the outcome starting with the producer the director, the DOP and so on. It is a collaborative effort.

Dramatic structure

• Dramatic structure essentially refers to the SHAPE of the story. You can think of it as theskeleton upon which the ‘flesh’ of the story is hung.

• The skeleton or inner structure of a story has a variety of parts, just like the head, neck, shoulders, arms, spine, pelvis, legs feet.

• The most common structure is the three act structure.

• In simple terms this means the story has a Beginning, Middle and End.

• Film relies on it completely.

Three act structure

Act OneSet-up

Inciting Incidentor disturbance

Act TwoObstacles

Complications orTurning Points

Act ThreeCrisis

ClimaxResolution

Three act structure

• This is not the only way of structuring a dramatic story.

• There are many other approaches.

• In fact, structure probably doesn’t come first; story usually proceeds from the writer’s vision, theme, premise or passion.

• Structure is often ‘discovered’ and the story refined around it

Three act structure

Three act structure

Let’s look at the

classic western to

understand this

simply

Act OneJohn Wayne lives on

a ranch where happiness is his

UNTILthe outlaws ride over

the hill and wreck everything!

Act TwoHe goes nuts, hits the booze, falls for

Miss Kitty, sobers up and sets off across the badlands after the killers.

BUThis horse goes lame, he’s beaten and

robbed, his water runs out, he’s almost scalped, he’s bitten by a

rattler, and he suffers real pain …

Act ThreeUNTIL

He’s trapped the baddies, but they’ve got him surrounded. He fights and kills the boss, and sends the others

packing!CUT TO

the ranch, where happiness is on the mend, with Miss Kitty: a new home!

Tension

Time

Disturbance

Turning Points

Crisis

Climax

ResolutionObstacles

Time and tension

The elements

of

storytelling!

Balance!

• A set of relationships existing at the beginning of a drama.

• The balance in this situation should contain the possibilities for the major lines of action in the drama.

• Balance should imply stress.• A balanced situation should reveal the

strained equilibrium between two contrasting forces.

• The stability should be dynamic not static.

Disturbance!

• An event that upsets the balance. Possibly a person who appears and destroys established relationships.

• The world of the drama becomes distorted and the characters agitated.

• This situation of balance and the intervention of disturbance comprise the formal beginning of a story.

• A strong sort of beginning might involve a balance of a highly desirable sort and a disturbance that depends little or not at all on antecedent events.

• It might be the opposite: a situation of tension disturbed by a major new opportunity.

The protagonist

• The central CHARACTER. He/she is almost always a volitional character who causes incidents to occur.

• The protagonist might be two people or a group.

• The Protagonist should be central (focal) to the story, causing or receiving most of the action.

• He/she is usually most affected by the disturbance.

• He/she usually destroy the balance that was upset by the disturbance.

A plan

• The protagonist begins the activity of re-establishing balance; he/she normally has a plan. The plan is often articulated in a speech.

• It often involves a stake or goal.• The drama then unfolds through the interplay

of hope and fear that the protagonist will or will not accomplish that plan.

• There may be occasional plants or pointers of actions or directions that may be taken up later on.

obstacles

• An obstacle is any factor that imposes or impedes the progress of the Protagonist as he/she attempts to restore balance by carrying out the plan.

• Tension arises whenever a character confronts an obstacle.

• Obstacles force decisions on the major characters, producing dramatic action.

• It is the quality and kind of these obstacles which define the character. He/she must use force, intelligence, imagination, moral strength, etc.

Complications or turning points

• Dramatic stories usually contain complications (turning points; surprises) which may enter the story at any time. The initial disturbance is a special complication.

• A complication is any factor entering the world of the drama causing a change in the course of the action.

• They are unexpected, but credible and may effect the Protagonist in a positive or negative way. Complications may be a character or an event.

• COMPLICATIONS provide surprise and story tension.

Sub-story or sub plot

• These may or may not be used. Longer stories usually require them.

• Usually when we venture out into subplot it is to inform the main plot or some aspect of it or a character in it.

• A sub-story contains the same elements of storytelling but in less detail. Usually it contains some of the characters who are in the main story.

• The sub-story should reflect, contrast or affect the main story.

crises

• Crisis, along with climax are the most essential dramatic elements.

• All good dramas contain at least one major crisis and most proceed through a series of minor crises building to a major crisis and climax.

climax

• Climax tends to follow crisis in a causal, necessary relationship: one causes the other. It is that instant when the conflict is settled.

• It often involves discovery or realization for the characters and it can be a moment of reversal in the story.

• Some minor crises can be interrupted and the outcome unresolved. But every major crisis results in a major climax.

• Maybe one of the two forces in conflict wins or they reach an absolute stalemate. Or the stake falls into the right hands.

resolution

• Most of the story elements are kinds of characters, actions, scenes or events. But RESOLUTION, like BALANCE is essentially a situation.

• Resolution is a set of circumstances resulting from the CLIMAX. The Protagonist has won or lost, gained or missed the stake, reached or not reached his/her goal.

• During the resolution, all the characters who have been affected by the outcome/climax and the world of the drama settle into some new state of balance or permanent imbalance.

denouement

• The ending of a drama (the DENOUMENT) is a combination of the final Climax and the ensuing Resolution, the final unraveling and settlement of the complications and conflicts.

• The climax fixes the fate, insofar as the story is concerned of every character.

• The Resolution simply shows the resultant situation and gives a hint of the future.

In summary

• Story is just one way of structuring a plot. It is by far the most common way of ordering the plot of a drama.

• There are many variations of how these story elements can be ordered, altered and explored.

• This is not a FORMULA but a TOOL. Use it to discover how stories that please you are structured.

That’s a

wrapper!