How To Write A Story: FREE Film School Week Eight
How did your 10 page screenplay turn out from week six? Feeling good? Or is something missing? Something not right but you just don’t know exactly what?
And then you got frustrated and turned to your bookshelf. You took down your copy of Writing Screenplays That Sell and blew the dust off it. You coughed as the dust billowed up and into your face. That always happens and yet you always blow the dust off every damn time.
Anyway, the book gave you all kinds of insights and you started to get excited about improving your screenplay. New ideas are fired up, as you read about structure and character development. You started making notes.
Making notes made you feel productive again. It was great to break through the frustration after getting stuck, then feeling confused and hopeless.
The method from the book released you. You felt re-energised. This lasted for days as you introduced layers of complexity into the character, their relationships, their past history and so on. The script now had a more solid structure too, with clear turning points and an arc.
Finally, you were writing like a pro
Except at the end of this process, something still wasn’t right. In fact, was this new draft even any better? The plot seems confused and the ending forced.
The main character has an inner objective and an outer objective but the two somehow don’t connect. The ending now just seems fake and nothing to do with the original idea. It’s definitely an ending but it somehow doesn’t resonate as true emotion. It just doesn’t feel right for reasons you somehow can’t explain to yourself.
And yet it all seemed so promising when you were filling in the beats as instructed by the book. I mean, it’s like you were trying to force this on your story because the book said to. And those new ideas have taken the story away from what you first intended – they’re different stories!
The feeling sucked. You did all this work and it seems like you just went backwards. And now you feel even more confused about what your story is about and how to write it.
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But and Therefore
This is very straightforward advice from South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. And it’s one of the most useful tips I’ve ever used when writing a screenplay. It’s so simple and obvious it almost seems too easy to be true. Especially after you spent years studying these ‘how to’ screenwriting manuals like I did.
It’s THAT simple?! Nooooooooo…!
I didn’t want to believe it.
And then… and then… and then…
Matt and Trey say they know that if they read a script and it basically goes: something happens and then something else happens and then something else happens and then… (and so on) it sucks.
But don’t all stories essentially depict a series of events, one happening after another?
Yes but what the “and then…” method of story writing creates is what are known as episodic stories. In writing, this is generally known as a terrible sin.
It’s also something common in biopics, biographies and autobiographies. That’s because they are by nature like an illustrated CV of a famous person. And a CV is basically a career history in list form.
Bob did this. Then he did that. Then he did something else.
This form of storytelling is often less engaging than more twisting and turning types of story. At least with a biographical story we have the famous personality that we want to know more about. Essentially, that’s what attracts us to those films.
Putting “therefore” or “but” between each story beat makes a big difference. Let’s look at what that difference is.
The Life of Jim, An Episodic Story
Jim woke up and scratched his head. And then he took a shower and got dressed. And then Jim went out to a cafe for breakfast.
And then Jim opened his laptop and read some more complaints about the Hydrogen One. And then Jim’s mother called and talked about his sister’s wedding. And then Jim got bored.
And then Jim bought some new sunglasses. And then he drove his car to the park. And then he logged in to his online bank and checked he still had the money from the people who complained.
And then Jim watched a YouTube video about penguins. And then he took his dog out for a walk. And then he had lunch…
The Life Of Jim, A Story with Consequences
Jim woke up and scratched his head. He kept scratching his head as he walked to the cafe and right the way through breakfast. He scratched his head so much the waitress even remarked on it. Apparently, so many customers had been scratching their heads recently because there’s a “head bug thing going round”.
Therefore, Jim booked himself an appointment with his doctor. Because although Jim wouldn’t describe himself as a nervous type, he hated the idea of some unknown creature feasting on his scalp.
But Jim’s doctor wasn’t available until the following week, therefore Jim went to the pharmacy to see if they could give him something to treat this itching. But as he was about to ask for a remedy, the pharmacist started to scratch his head too.
Therefore, Jim made an excuse and quickly left the pharmacy. But as he rushed back onto the street, he almost bumped into a lady rushing in. Therefore, Jim was about to apologize but he saw that she was scratching her head too.
Therefore, Jim was about to follow the lady back into the pharmacy to eavesdrop on her conversation with the pharmacist but when he looked around he saw the whole street was full of ordinary people… all scratching their heads.
Using this tool
OK, so I just made these stories up as I typed for the purposes of illustrating the difference. In the second story, I just took the first event of the first story and gave it a consequence. And that consequence also had a consequence which led to more consequences…
Most people watching the film adaptation of The Life if Jim, An Episodic Story would quickly get bored. They would begin to wonder what exactly was the point of this story. Why am I watching this? Or, “Why are the filmmakers telling me this story?”
The episodic story appears spineless, directionless, just a random sequence of events.
But hopefully the film adaptation of The Life of Jim, A Story with Consequences is more likely to retain an audience’s attention. You can see that simply by adding therefore and but the story has some kind of structure. The second story feels like it is going somewhere, and it feels more developed even though I spent an equal amount of time on both.
Reading the second story, you might just have started to want to know what happens. Humans are curious creatures, so even this story I made up as I went along might just have you wanting to know why everyone is scratching their heads.
By contrast, the first story seems to be going nowhere. The feeling you get from the first story is that you could watch this film for eternity and Jim would just continue going about his daily life, as always.
No structure
What we are seeing is that the first story has no structure. I’ve exaggerated this in the story to make my point but it is surprising how often in films characters’ actions have no consequences. Even in films whose scripts must have cost small fortunes to develop.
The ‘therefore and but’ technique helps you to cut through all that screenwriting 101 mumbo jumbo and see if your characters’ actions have consequences. Legendary Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman said screenwriting is about structure. And what Matt Stone and Trey Parker are saying is that structure is about consequences.
FREE Film School: Week Eight Task
Your week eight task is to go back to that 1st draft 10 page screenplay you wrote 2 weeks ago. You’ve had a week away from it, which will help you see it with fresher eyes.
Now, go through your story and see if your character’s actions have consequences. How many therefores and buts are there? Could you add more? How episodic is your story?
Can you think of ways to turn some and thens into a therefore or a but? Feel free to make changes.
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