Playing the Numbers Game

Using Screenplay Outlines to help Edit your Story.

Is YOUR story hitting the beats?

Most writers create broad outlines for their work at the Story Development Stage.

Or second draft stage if they write blind and sculpt a story backwards.

Screenwriters would have you believe that they track the Action Line for a story much more rigorously.

There any SO many examples of how a story should track - from a Basic 3 Act to a 22 point revelation sequence and everything in between.

Blake Snyder has summarised the key stages in a typical Hollywood movie in a useful flow chart in his book ‘Save the Cat’ - which is available here: http://www.blakesnyder.com/tools

It goes something like this: there are 15 steps in the screenplay format and each one corresponds to approx. position in the manuscript, so that the entire story is completed in 110 pages = 110 minutes on the screen for a movie.

THE BLAKE SNYDER BEAT SHEET

1. Opening Image (1):

2. Theme Stated (5):

3. Set-Up (1-10):

4. Catalyst (12):

5. Debate (12-25):

6. Break into Two (25)

7. B Story (30):

8. Fun and Games (30-55):

9. Midpoint (55):

10. Bad Guys Close In (55-75):

11. All Is Lost (75):

12. Dark Night of the Soul (75-85):

13. Break into Three (85):

14. Finale (85-110):

15. Final Image (110):

This is a classical 4 Act structure- Turning points at about 25% and 50% and 75% of the script with the Black Moment in the last act. But having been through a few examples with recent films, I have to say that this basic structure is still valid.

Procrastination

Tomorrow morning I am going to print out my WIP, take it to the Post Office and mail it to the lovely editor who 'suggested' that I should avoid 'over-editing.'

Drat. BUSTED!

Does there EVER come a point where you think the text is truly finished and perfect?

I suspect not.

And of course, you will ALWAYS think of some wonderful plot twist or revelation AFTER you have sent it in, and you know your package is sitting in the stack for the next X months impatiently waiting its turn.

So. Time to bit the bullet and mail it.

Or maybe wait until next week? When I am jazzed about the next story?

Abnormal brain kicking in again.

What's playing on my YouTube right now? Madeline Peyroux. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl-cVgAU8K8&feature=PlayList&p=4F1D642A6F9D7B46&index=59

* pic of the brilliant Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, ex Corbis

A different approach to Story Structure

Robert Browne has been taking a different slant on story structure, and I pick out a few salient points for my education and delight.

THE GENTLE ART OF LOVEMAKING

We're often reminded in how-to books that the typical story is broken into three acts:

Set-up, Confrontation, and Resolution.

But what if we were to refer to the three acts in this way: Seduction, Foreplay, and Climax.

We want to create a successful story with a satisfying ending -- one that keeps our partners wanting more -- we must pay careful attention to these three words.

SEDUCTION

The beginning of a story, any story, cannot and should not be referred to as anything other than a seduction.

It is our job to make our audience want us.

We must create characters that our audience won't mind, figuratively speaking, getting into bed with. Particularly the lead.

Is he or she someone we find attractive?

Does he have a problem or flaws we can relate to?

Are his life circumstances universal yet unique enough to pique our interest?

Mystery. Every story should be a mystery. Remember the girl in college the guys all wanted but knew so little about?

A big part of her allure was that hint of mystery she carried.

No matter what genre you're writing in, you should never, never, never put all of your cards on the table at the beginning of the game.

Instead you must reveal them one at a time, each new card offering a clue to the mystery of our characters and their stories.

The third and most important element of seduction is giving your characters a goal.

And not just your lead.

Every single character you write should have a goal of some kind. Put two characters with opposing goals in a room and you have drama.

But the goal of your hero must be compelling enough to intrigue us and hold our interest.

In The Fugitive, Harrison Ford is wrongly convicted of killing his wife, escapes to find her killer, and soon discovers he's being hunted by a relentless cop who doesn't care whether or not Ford is guilty. All three elements of seduction are satisfied and guess what?

We're hooked.

For thoughts on Foreplay and Climax go here; http://www.bksp.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=127&Itemid=1

'Every time you sit down to write, you must remember that your audience is your partner, your lover, and in order to make them happy you must seduce, thrill and, most importantly, satisfy.'

Interesting.

What's playing on my YouTube at the moment? Goldfrapp. [The video is mad. ]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPyso87fZU&feature=user

Still Editing

Overused words.

Everyone does it, and if you like me, don't realise that you are doing it until someone else reads the pages.

I use this cheatsheet * using the 'FIND' function in Word -then run the spellcheck on the text, which hopefully will pick up any horrors. Search and replace is a killer.

Some might be valid of course, but at least I have decided to keep them.

*and - but (can indicate run-on sentences)
*that (unnecessary in most sentences) instead of which, and vice versa
*that (when you mean "who")
*just
*very
*nearly - almost
*really
*seem - appear
*felt - feel
*begin - began
*would - should - could
*quite
*few
*rather
*thing
*stuff
*anyway
*because
"*ly" adverbs
*so
*then
*even
*only
*down - up (as in sit down, stand up - can be redundant)
*got - get

So you see, that is why I need all the help I can get!

http://www.inkalicious.com/cheatsheets.php#editing

Point of View Tuesday

Headhopping.
Changing point of view from the hero[ Him ] to the heroine [Her] and back again.

I have 14 pages in my revised first chapter. The only POV are the hero's and heroine's - this is a short contemporary and I want to focus on the two main characters.

The POV shifts are as follows;

Her. 1,2,3 - main intro. sets out her external and internal conflicts. location one

Him. 4,5,6,7.5 - main intro. external, hints at internal conflict. location two

First meeting. Page 6.

Her. 7.5,8 - first meet reaction- location one

Him. 9,10 - impact to him of first meeting

Her. 11, 12,13,14- her story takes off from here - ends with the first plot point - action starts.

There are space breaks and scene breaks between the POV changes, but I am now wondering if I should revise again to make this a single POV after they first meet.

Thoughts?

What's playing on my YouTube right now? North and South- Mr Armitage. In the Deep. Never saw it coming. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DnJLgyonhNA