“Experts” have painstakingly taken apart screenplays, discovered similarities and made pronouncements about the perfect structure for a story or screenplay. Many of them make a living passing on all that they have learned to students of the subject, who are eager to learn the secret of what makes a great script, great.
This may work in retrospect, but how much use is it to the writer who is creating a screenplay from beginning to end rather than a student dissecting the finished work?
Three Act Structure
Budding writers will read a lot about the “Three Act Structure” accompanied to varying degrees by graphs, and “x marks the spot” guides, with page counts or minute counts, charting the dramatic development the “ideal” story should follow.
What does this actually all boil down to? The earth shattering news that every story has…
- A beginning
- A middle
- And an End
The beginning is where you introduce your characters and get the story off and running. The middle is where the story hots up with conflicts, chaos, whatever… drama. The end is where the characters and story end up after the drama.
This is not exactly a revolutionary concept. There must be more to story structure than this, surely.
The Secret Formula
Thousands of words have been written, analyzing successful scripts and working out their "formulas". Grouping and sub-grouping scripts into genres, each with their own rules and step-by-step guides. However, writing is not a recipe for cake. The only way a writer can reproduce the quality and effect of an Oscar-winning screenplay is to re-type the same screenplay word for word. Producing something that can be analyzed as being “like” the original Oscar-winning screenplay is not going to guarantee it success. In fact probably the opposite is true. This may not seem logical, but success isn’t logical. And no amount of logic can take the place of talent and an instinct for drama.
The Magic Ingredient
The magic ingredient that determines the success of any piece of writing – screenplay, stage play, or novel - is the writer. A writer’s unique ability to build intrigue, emotion, pathos or comedy in his or her writing is the key to successful writing. Grabbing the audience, engaging them, making them attached to the characters, gripping them tightly to the twists and turns of the story, and holding them until the final line delivers the satisfaction that they’ve been holding their breath for, is what makes a script work. It’s down to the writer’s instinct.
Steps to Help the Writer’s Instinct Flourish
Any writer looking for a step-by-step guide to writing the perfect screenplay, should follow this one:
- Take time to develop interesting, fully rounded characters who will help to bring the story alive.
- Develop a strong synopsis of the story, its themes, and its outcome.
- Make notes of the “big moments” of plot movement or development, where the plot can twist and turn.
- If there are several story threads, make notes of where they will cross, connect and affect each other.
- Then most importantly, lie back and VISUALIZE the story. Allow the drama to play itself out.
The writer, should be entertained, moved, and even surprised, by what unfolds, if this process is not fun, moving, and surprising for the writer, then the story will never do any of these things for the audience.
If writers’ instincts are not allowed freedom of expression, then nothing original will ever be written.
Writing screenplays is not a mathematical formula. It’s an opportunity for people with talent to express themselves creatively and constantly entertain, move and surprise themselves and the audience in the process.
The secret “Magic Ingredient” of screenplay writing is you.
Find out more more about the basics of writing for stage or screen.
Janice Hally - Janice Hally has written more than 300 broadcast hours of prime-time TV drama in the UK, as well as fiction and non-fiction books.
