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ОглавлениеChapter 2
Seven Steps to
Story Structure
The three most vital elements in any good film are the script, the script, the script.
— Alfred Hitchcock
JEAN PAUL SARTRE once said that the freedom of Bach’s musical genius came from his tremendous discipline and technique. It is the same with good writing. Even though writing comes from within and the work begins there, as we have explored in chapter one, craft is essential. Many wonderful and inspired story ideas may have the short life of a mayfly. Monet, the impressionist painter, once remarked to his friend, the great poet, Mallarme, “I have many ideas for poems, but somehow they never seem to come out quite right.” Whereupon, Mallarme quipped, “That is because poetry is not written with ideas, but with words!”
The handicap under which most beginning writers struggle is that they don’t know how to write. I was no exception to this rule.
— P. G. Wodehouse
Story must be captured by craft. It is only through craft and discipline that you can achieve the pure freedom of creative expression. In terms of the craft of writing, three things matter: structure, structure, and structure!
In Hollywood, there is a lot of mystique and frenzy over story structure: what it is, how to nail the structure of the story, and so on. What is story structure then? Simply put, the order of your scenes — that is, the order of what your main character does. Remember Aristotle: Plot is character. It is the order of your story that becomes the structure. Professionals work from structure to dialogue and not the other way round. So, simply put, story structure is the sequence of scenes.
Before writing my first film, The Christmas Wife, I used index cards to designate each individual scene: which characters are present and what is the purpose of the scene in one or two sentences. Then I could easily re-arrange the order of scenes at will. This proved helpful when I was learning the craft of screenwriting where story structure is so important. I have noticed with students, for instance, that beginning writers often make the mistake of revealing too much too soon. It’s a little like meeting someone at a party — the less they say about themselves, the more interesting they seem. Or the other way round. As the old vaudevillians knew, always leave them asking for more. Using the index cards, you might move some exposition in scene two to the second act, thereby heightening the mystery of both character and plot. In Casablanca — the little B- movie that became a classic — the lovers’ past unravels a little bit at a time, heightening the mystery of what actually happened in Paris between Bogart and Bergman. Not knowing the whole story keeps the audience attentive, wanting more.
“The basis of a novel is a story, and a story is a narrative of events arranged in a time sequence,” says E. M. Forster, author of Howard’s End and A Room with a View.
I can’t resist sharing an anecdote about once meeting E. M. Forster. I was on my honeymoon in England with my husband, the Indian novelist Raja Rao. We were invited for tea by Mr. Forster at his bachelor digs at Kings College, Cambridge. What I remember most was Forster’s bare modesty and elegant simplicity as he prepared tea for us on a gas burner in his rooms. As we sat together, he said that many had asked him why he stopped writing after publishing only a few novels, and he had told them, “It’s very simple, really. I had nothing more to say.” It was only later that same year when, having read all five of his novels, that I realized this modest gentleman had written a veritable masterpiece, Howard’s End. Here was one who had mastered the craft of writing story.
Forster remarked once, “Plot reveals human intentions. A plot is a narrative of events. The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died and the queen died of grief is a plot. A story answers what happened next; a plot tells us why.” The why of what happens is connected with character and character motivations. It is impossible to separate plot from character. Aristotle was right.
Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, was an amazing man. I met him and his wife, Jean Erdman, in New York, and had the great fortune to spend time with them. He wrote of the hero’s journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell outlined the structure of myth in this way: The opening stage includes the call to adventure, meeting the mentor, and the journey. Once into the adventure, the challenges involve: finding allies and guides, facing ordeals, resisting temptations, braving enemies, enduring the dark night of the soul, surviving the supreme ordeal, and achieving the goal. The concluding steps are: the return journey, resurrection, celebration, accepting a role of service, and, finally, merging two worlds.
George Lucas pays tribute to Campbell’s hero’s journey as a great influence when he wrote the Star Wars films. Many writers could do worse than adopt the myth structure as a model for creating their stories. It will lift an ordinary story and give it mythic, universal qualities.
Before I talk about the Seven Steps to Story Structure, it might be a good idea to focus on what should be included in the early part of your story. Again, remember that what applies to screenwriting is also helpful in writing other narrative forms. In screenwriting, for instance, within the first ten to twenty minutes of the screenplay or film, the following should be revealed:
• The setting: time and place of the story
• Genre of story: drama, comedy, mystery, etc.
• Introduction of main character or main characters.
• Inciting incident
• The problem of the story.
There is nothing more frustrating than to begin reading a novel or viewing a film and discover half an hour later that the genre promised at the opening of the story is not the one the novel or film delivers. Another example might be watching what is purported to be a serious drama and discovering much later that it is actually a farce. There are of course legitimate mixed genres, such as comedy-dramas like Terms of Endearment or mystery-comedies like Gosford Park. But whatever the genre, just be straight with your reader or audience from the start. You don’t want to alienate them. Never betray your audience. Once you’ve lost them, it’s difficult to entice them back.
It is also distracting if you cannot orient yourself as to where and when the story takes place. If watching a film that has not disclosed setting, I keep looking at car license plates to find a clue to where I am, and cannot settle and open to the story until such exposition is resolved. Of course, once in a while, there will be a notable exception to this rule, as in Samuel Beckett’s existentialist play, Waiting for Godot, where it serves the story for the audience to be as lost as the characters are. Generally, however, it is best to provide the necessary exposition of where, when, how, and what.
Every story in any genre must have a problem. For example, Dr. Zhivago by Pasternak is set in early twentieth-century Russia just before and during the Russian revolution. Yuri, the hero of the novel, is torn between an aristocratic life of beauty, love, and poetry — and the Revolution. He is also torn between a conventional marriage and a mistress he loves. Life versus the destruction of life is the ongoing theme of this great novel and film.
A few years ago I wrote an original story for Disney Studios which became a film starring Dolly Parton titled Unlikely Angel. The story is about a country western singer (Who) who dies and goes to heaven (Where). However, she is having trouble earning her wings because she is still too attached to earth and earthly pleasures (Problem). She is assigned by St. Peter (Who) to return to earth on a mission, her last chance before being sent below to the other place (Genre: romantic comedy). The mission is this: She must return to earth and be a nanny to a troubled family. If she succeeds in helping them before Christmas, she will be allowed to remain in Heaven, earning her wings at last.
Another valuable tool, structurally, is the ticking clock. This ups the ante, intensifying the action of your story. In Unlikely Angel, the ticking clock is that Dolly has only two weeks before Christmas for her mission to be accomplished or she goes to hell. In the Oscarwinning script Sideways, it is a few days before the wedding. High Noon is another of many examples, along with virtually everything directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Please note that all stories benefit from the ticking clock, not only those in the mystery or thriller genre.
So, in the first 11 minutes of the Disney family film cited above, the setting is introduced (that is, the world of the story), the genre (romantic comedy), the main characters (Dolly, St. Peter, and the family), and the problem. These join together to launch the inciting incident or first major beat of the story. This is when Dolly suddenly drops down to earth, landing plop in front of the motherless family’s home (Where). Lift off. The ride has begun!
Perhaps I should say more about the inciting incident. Stories today, as films, must offer an inciting incident within ten to twenty minutes of the opening. This means that the setting, genre, main characters, and problem have been clearly introduced. The inciting incident is akin to sitting in a roller coaster, then suddenly experiencing that first jolt or movement. In the Oscar-winning screenplay and film, Witness, it’s the moment the young Amish boy, played by Lukas Haas, witnesses the murder. The car crash at the beginning of the Oscar winner Crash is another example. We know what kind of story it is and what the problem is. The ride has begun!
The inciting incident is the first beat of your story. A beat is a dramatic moment which either enhances character or advances plot. I first learned of beats while studying acting in New York with Broadway actress, Uta Hagen, who was also a fine teacher. I highly recommend her book, Respect for Acting, for writers as well as actors, as it is a great tool for developing both character and story beats.
The first scene I did in Hagen’s class was a scene from Hamlet where I played Ophelia. I had already studied and been directed by B. Iden Payne, once director of Stratford-on-Avon, England, so I felt confident of my Shakespearean style. Of course, Hagen mercilessly tore me to shreds, saying “I want you to play an Ophelia I believe goes to the bathroom!” After recovering from initial shock and my regional actor’s pride, I realized that I had much to learn. My abstractly romantic Ophelia did not walk on this earth. Lesson: Characters must be three-dimensional, grounded, and not just an extension of the writer’s projected aesthetic imagination.
I also encourage students and clients to enroll in an improvisational acting class, especially for dramatic writing such as plays and screenplays. It is important to experience that dialogue and action in a play or film must be in the present, spontaneously happening now, unlike a novel which might be introspective or taking place in the past. Improvisation is a valuable tool for learning this.
In New York, I acted for a year and a half in an improvisational troupe which played off-Broadway in Greenwich Village. We performed for live audiences and never knew exactly what we might say or do. It was spontaneous and fun. I still regard this as the best acting class I ever had, as well as a superb prep for play- writing and screenwriting. Why? Because when you have to think on your feet in the midst of a situation with another person, what you say must come directly from you. There is no time to rationalize or try and remember what to say, it is happening now. And now is when all good plays and screenplays take place.
The Way of Story approach to writing includes the whole of you, not just the rational mind. You must bring all of you to the table: body and guts, feelings, intuition — yes, even your dreams. A writer must make use of all his resources, and they are blessedly manifold as we shall explore in the upcoming chapters.
The following steps, inspired by a talk by John Truby, should help clarify your story’s structure. After first listing the following steps, I will later illustrate with examples.
THE SEVEN STEPS TO STORY STRUCTURE
1. Problem/Need of main character: He will be very aware of the problem but not how to solve it. Need is inside, often hidden. Something is missing in the main character or protagonist which is usually based on a character flaw.
2. Desire: A particular goal. Here it is important to distinguish between Need and Desire. A lion is hungry; this is his need. Then he sees a gazelle running: the gazelle is the specific desire. To fulfill his need, he must obtain his desire. Though need and desire are linked, they are not the same thing.
3. Opponent: Competing for the same or opposite goal and/ or same territory. There may be both external and internal opponents.
4. The Plan: A set of guidelines the hero/heroine or protagonist uses to overcome the opponent or antagonist and reach his goal, obtaining his specific desire. Things inevitably go wrong, and the hero has to re-group, finding new solutions. There will be many milestones before the final battle.
5. Final Battle: The conflicts get more and more intense. The Final Battle is the last conflict.
6. Self-Revelation: The lies are stripped away. The hero undergoes a profound change where he learns something fundamental about who he is, and his place in the world. The best stories will also have a moral revelation. That is, not just who he is but how he should act with others.
7. A New Life begins: The hero is either at a higher or lower level than at the beginning of the story. This may be either positive or negative. A test question might be: how has my main character changed in some fundamental way?
(Please note that Steps 5-7 most often take place in the last ten minutes of a film story.)
Now, let us examine each step using David Mamet’s 1982 Oscar-winning screenplay adaptation of The Verdict, a novel by Barry Reed, to illustrate. The Verdict is an excellent example of a well-structured story.
1. Problem/Need of main character: The Verdict opens with Frank Galvin (Paul Newman), an alcoholic lawyer in Boston, who is dropping by funeral homes to get work from bereaved widows. Here is a man obviously at the bottom of the barrel. At first glance, you might say that Frank’s need is to stop drinking, but the need is usually deeper than the surface or first look. Later on it is revealed that Frank Galvin was once an idealistic lawyer who believed in justice and was at the top of his profession. He lost his faith in justice during a corrupt case where bribes won the day. When he confronted his boss and tried to do the right thing, he was stripped of everything: job and marriage. So his need is to believe in justice again. Alcoholism is merely the symptom of the underlying problem or need.
2. Desire is always a particular goal, never general. Remember the hungry lion and the running gazelle. Frank Galvin is given the case of a young girl who due to medical negligence in a Catholic hospital is now a vegetable for life. Frank Galvin wants to win this case, that’s his specific desire. His need is to believe in justice again. This is why he surprises himself by turning down the generous settlement offer from the Catholic Church and insists on going to trial. Sometimes the need is unconscious, unknown even to the hero. The desire, on the other hand, will always be conscious and specific.
3. Opponent will be competing for the same goal or territory. In The Verdict, Frank is fighting the institution of the Catholic Church that owns the hospital where medical negligence has been done to his client. Specifically, the opponent is a villainous attorney, portrayed by James Mason, who combats Frank both in and out of the courtroom. It is a David and Goliath story, long popular in Hollywood films, and a familiar American myth where the little guy takes on the mighty corporation or power and wins the day. (Erin Brockovich with Julia Roberts, Elijah Wood as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, or Gary Cooper in High Noon are three examples.)
4. The Plan: A set of guidelines the hero uses to overcome the opponent and reach the goal. Things inevitably go wrong, and new solutions must be found. Frank has Dr. Gruber, an expert witness, to testify, but the powerful defense attorney (James Mason) representing the Catholic Church gets to him first. Dr. Gruber has now left the country, and the Judge, also bought by the Church, refuses to grant an extension. Even Frank’s mistress (Charlotte Rampling) is discovered to be on the payroll of the opposing side, as an informer. One by one, Frank’s case is crucified. It appears all is lost, with no where to turn, and then…
5. The Final Battle provides the final conflict: It’s never over until it’s over. The day before the end of the trial, Frank discovers a missing witness and flies to New York to convince her to testify. She does and wins the day. David has killed Goliath.
6. Self-Revelation. Here, as in the best of stories, there is a moral revelation: Justice for the poor and downtrodden against the mighty power machines. Doing the right thing.
7. A New Life Begins. Frank Galvin wins the case against insurmountable odds, and with it, re-discovers his belief in justice, and is thereby transformed. Though his specific desire is to win the case, his real need is to believe in justice again, and, consequently, in himself. Now a new life begins, full of hope and promise.
Also here, as in the best of stories, there is a moral revelation: justice for the poor and downtrodden against the mighty power machines. Doing the right thing.
It was said earlier that Step 7: A New Life, might be either positive or negative. A negative example would be the Billy Wilder classic, Sunset Boulevard, when fading screen star Norma Desmond discovers she’s been living a lie and goes mad, killing the messenger played by William Holden.
Let’s take another example, the 1999 Oscar-nominated screenplay and film by M. Night Shyamalan, The Sixth Sense.
1. Problem/Need: Bruce Willis, a noted child psychologist, once failed with a young boy who grows up to be a psychotic killer, seen in the bathroom scene at the beginning of the movie. So his need is to redeem himself from this failure and not fail again.
2. Desire : To succeed with his current patient, the young boy played by Haley Joel Osment (nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor).
3. Opponent: Here the opponent is really fear, both inner and outer: the boy’s fear to reveal himself as one who sees dead people, and the psychologist’s acceptance that he is one as well.
4. The Plan: To overcome the fear by confronting the ghosts the boy sees.
5. The Final Battle: The B-story of the young girl who has been killed.
6. Self-Revelation: The lies have been stripped away. Willis realizes that he himself is dead, and a ghost himself.
7. A New Life: Willis must let go of his earthly life, releasing his wife, and move on.
Incidentally, one can draw on some of the structure points above as a guide to making each separate scene in your story work. Simply use the seven steps as a check list for each scene.
Another tool focuses on structuring each scene by adapting the following five points:
FIVE POINTS IN MAKING A GOOD SCENE
1. Character’s intention: What does he want and why? In Witness, Harrison Ford’s specific desire is to protect the witness and find the killer. His need, however is to love and to expand his world view via the Amish widow played by Kelly McGillis.
2. Desire is what drives scene and story, but it is the need that gives your story its depth.
3. Opponent: Who wants to stop this character getting what he wants and why.
4. The Plan: Determine the plan of each scene from your main character’s viewpoint. For instance, the hero says, “I want” and the opponent says, “No”.
An indirect plan might be where your text becomes subtext. That is, the main character of a scene says one thing while really meaning something else.
5. Overall pacing: Conflict of action (what the main character is doing) and conflict of being (who the character is). For instance, in Witness, the soft love scenes are contrasted with the fast action crime scenes.
“I try to be conscious about the rhythms of storytelling.”
— Michael Mann (director of Traffic)
It is a good idea to contrast your scenes after writing your first draft. Alternate the types of scenes. (Sometimes screenwriters use index cards for this purpose as earlier described. Each card will have a sentence or two describing the scene.) To alternate scenes, for instance, have a fast-paced action scene follow a quiet scene, an indoor scene follow one outdoors, noisy follow quiet, dark scene follow a light scene, and so on.
SET UPS AND PAY OFFS
One of the best ways to create a powerful emotional response in your reader and audience is to utilize Set Ups and Pay Offs. Casually introduce something at the beginning of your story, the significance of which is only later — usually at the end — understood. Anton Chekhov once said, “If you introduce a gun in Act I, it has to go off in Act III” as shown in his play, The Seagull.
The set up can be a metaphor which reveals theme as in Citizen Kane where the young boy is brutally taken from his home while playing with his sled named Rosebud. At the end of his life, though now wealthy, his last word is “Rosebud.” Though the world is puzzled as to its meaning, the audience knows that Rosebud symbolizes a lost childhood, a home he was never to find again.
It can also be a major plot device as in Sixth Sense where in the first five minutes of the film we see an intruder fire a shot at Bruce Willis before killing himself. It’s only at the very end of the film that we realize the consequences of the opening event. This is an “aha!” experience, and quite powerful.
Recently I was invited by the Santa Barbara Women’s Club to a screening of my film, The Christmas Wife, which came out several years back. It was confirming to hear, as several of the two hundred women and men approached me, how surprised and moved they were by the ending of the film. Here, too, is an example of set up and pay off. The early scene in the escort service office appears insignificant until the final moments of the film where it provides a startling discovery.
Both Presumed Innocent by novelist Scott Turow, later a film starring Harrison Ford, and LA Confidential have powerful endings thanks to well executed set ups and pay offs. In both these films, the clues to who did it are everywhere, though you can’t quite put it together until the end. Both writers here earned their pay off.
If pay offs are not well executed, they become cheap devices: plot devices which appear from nowhere, leaving the audience with a feeling not of “aha” but of being cheated, manipulated. For the pay offs to work, the set ups must be clearly, if discreetly, there. When honestly done, they are worth their weight in gold because of the emotional power they bring.
When I started writing feature films in Hollywood for major studios, I began to learn the three-act structure. Movies seen in the theatres are generally written with an Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3 format.
Here is the breakdown in pages for a feature screenplay, usually about one and a half to two hours:
Act 1: pages 1-30
Act 2: pages 30-90
Act 3: pages 90-120
Later on, I discovered that this was also helpful in early drafts of movies for network television — even though television movies are written in seven acts.
A teleplay for a two-hour television movie will usually be about one hundred and ten pages divided into seven acts, sixteen pages in each act. Why seven acts? Because of the commercial breaks required for television. Once the commercial breaks for television movies were twelve minutes for every two-hour movie — now they are about twenty minutes. This means about twenty minutes of commercials are shown for every two-hour movie.
So, even when writing television movies, I would first write a three-act structured script and only later split it up into the required seven-act structure demanded for television two-hour movies. This is because the three-act structure affords a solid foundation to work from, and, quite simply, you have a better film. I have learned now that the basic three-act structure also serves the play or novel, especially today when media has so influenced plays and novels.
Again, the basic three-act structure for writing a feature screenplay is applicable to all forms of narrative writing. Obviously the page number count given below may differ for other forms of writing narrative. It is interesting to observe that plays were once written in three acts but no longer are. I cannot help but ponder if perhaps we may have lost something when plays became shorter, and de-structured, as it were.
Here again is the basic three-act structure for screenplays with some added guidelines:
Act 1 (pages1-30): Introduction of setting (time and place), genre (type of story), main characters, and the basic problem. The hero knows the problem and what he has to do. Set ups are also laid down here for later pay-offs, i.e., the sled, Rosebud, in Citizen Kane.
Act 2 (pages 30-90): Escalating conflicts resulting in the Final Battle at the end of Act 2.
Act 3 (pages 90-110 or 120): Resolution and lesson, preferably a moral lesson of the main character.
Here is a Script Table for those interested in writing for television or film:
| Approximate Page Numbers | Running Time | Act Length | |
| 30 | 1/2 -hour teleplay | 2 Acts/15 pages | |
| 60 | 1-hour teleplay | 4 acts/15 pages | |
| 90 | 90-minute teleplay | 6 acts/15 pages | |
| 110 | 2-hour teleplay | 7 acts/16 pages | |
| 120-150 | 2-hour feature screenplay | Basic 3-act structure |
Here is a further breakdown of Story Structure for the onehour drama series such as I wrote for the popular television series, Touched by an Angel.
| Page breakdown for 1-hour drama series for television | |
| 1-3 | Cold opening (before credits) |
| 4-18 | Act 1 |
| 19-31 | Act 2 |
| 32-46 | Act 3 |
| 47-56 | Act 4 |
| [52-54 | Revelation] |
If you have ever seen a Touched by an Angel episode, you may notice that the revelation at the end of the show — that is, when Della Reese or Roma Downey reveal themselves to be angels and white light surrounds them, will occur precisely at the same time each week, pages 52-54: Revelation. So when I wrote for this show, I had to honor the above table structure precisely. Perhaps this provides a hint as to why television shows sometimes seem so formulaic and predictable. They are meant to be! Television audiences tend to like what is familiar.
A caution is given here. Though structure is important, even very important, please do not forget that story is much more than the sequence of events. It is the inner psychological state of the main character which fuels or drives the external plot.
Here is a humorous example of how structure pays off from a colleague, Frank Daniel, who taught first at Columbia University and then at University of Southern California Film Department in Los Angeles, where I also taught for several years.
Cohen is sitting at the bedside of his wife, who is dying. Suddenly she says to her husband, “Cohen, I must tell you something.” And he says, “Sarah, please.” But she goes on, “No, I must confess. I was unfaithful to you.” “Sarah,” he says, “don’t get so excited.” She goes on, “But I slept with all your friends and everyone in the town!” Then he says, “Sarah, why do you think I put the poison in your coffee?”
Now, imagine this story told in its time continuity. The audience sees everything and then, as she is dying, she confesses to what we have already seen. Here, it is structure (order of your scenes) that makes the joke or story work. There is a difference between the logic of life and the structure of a good of a good story.
EXERCISE
Take five to ten minutes and make up a story, any story, from your memory or something new that wants to come through. Limit it to one page. Don’t rewrite, just do a rough first draft of the story. Now focusing on structure, play around with changing the order of your scenes. For instance, something revealed in the beginning is now shifted to near the end of the story. See how this heightens mystery and adds an exciting twist.
EXERCISE
Re-read your story applying the 7 Steps to Story Structure.
• Problem/Need of main character
• Desire (specific)
• Opponent
• The Plan
• The Final Battle
• Self-Revelation
• A New Life
EXERCISE
Answer the following two questions, using your story. Try to complete each one in one sentence.
1. This is a story about …. .
2. The moral dilemma of this story is …
In the pursuit of any craft, there is much to learn. Discovering more about your story can seem an endless journey, but one well worth the effort.
It is time to approach the Story Outline which takes the journey from the initial vision to the marketplace. In the film Julia, Julia (Vanessa Redgrave) turns to playwright Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) and says, “Be very bold.” Excellent advice for any writer! Read on.
