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chapter one

THE SCREENWRITER’S GOAL

You wake up one bright, chipper morning, lift the shade to see squirrels frolicking on the fence outside, and Bam! It hits you.

The perfect new idea for a movie.

This is it. Breakthrough time.

Without even stopping to nuke yesterday’s stale coffee, you scurry to your desk, pounce on the keyboard, and let those fingers fly. And yes! Script pages start pouring out.

Bless sudden inspiration. It’s a thrilling source of creative energy, a jolt like no other.

Until about page forty-eight.

Pause.

Chin scratch. Now what does the hero do? Press iron? Text his girlfriend? Take a nap?

Uhh… don’t have a clue.

And once again that eternal truth gets revealed: no plan, no Oscar.

It’s a fact of the writing life. To really give any new story a fighting chance, mapping out in advance exactly how your plot will develop — from first page to last — remains essential for success. Launching into a project without a well-considered roadmap most often leads to another half-finished screenplay or novel dropping into the bottom drawer, never to be seen again.

Well, there’s a concept I call Hero Goal Sequences_® that can conquer the bottom drawer.

This paradigm offers the best story-building tool anywhere. And it works for novels as well as feature film scripts.

A fine story is an elegant tapestry woven from many interlocking, brightly colored threads. Each strand by itself means nothing. Only when interlaced to realize a carefully planned pattern do all the threads join and become art.

STORY RITUAL

According to Noah Webster, ritual means “Any formal customary observance, prescribed form or… ceremonial procedure.”

A prescribed form. That’s screenwriting in a nutshell, and Hero Goal Sequences_® on the nose.

Understanding the ceremonial way we enjoy storytelling allows us to demystify the basic concept of all narrative writing, which is that every good tale ever told is made up of a series of prescribed steps through a ritual structure of story that speaks to the very way we experience life itself.

This is why story architecture, or the ordering of plot events, remains so critically important for screenplays.

WHY WE WATCH

Watching a really good movie is a kick like no other. Imagine how diminished life would feel if suddenly we didn’t have motion pictures any more.

But in order for us to write effectively we must understand the primary, personal reason why each member of the audience sits there enduring those pre-show countdown commercials waiting for the feature to begin.

So why do we go to the movies?

To be entertained. Sure.

And to experience those adventures we probably never will know in real life. Yes.

We go to laugh. Absolutely. We go to cry. The stunning international success of Titanic is based on nailing that reason down cold.

But the answer to this question contains our basic purpose as storytellers, so we need it distilled down to its simplest form.

We go to the movies to feel deeply.

We go because we want all manner of emotion to wash over us. That’s what successful motion pictures do. Dramas or comedies, they lead us to touch our inner humanity and experience a catharsis of feeling.

Everything a screenwriter sets out to accomplish begins with the focused, simple, paramount goal of leading an audience into a meaningful experience of feeling deeply.

EVERY TALE A MYTH

Good movies command our attention with intriguing heroes and the seemingly insurmountable problems they must overcome. But every well-conceived story also has a larger personal impact on us because underneath the plot, every movie offers some object lesson in the way we should live our lives.

Whether it’s a good film or an awful one, we search out the message inside the story. We can’t help ourselves. The human brain arrives at birth hardwired to seek meaning in everything. And the way people respond to storytelling originates right here, in our common need to find the significance of all experience.

So, consciously or unconsciously, an audience will dig into each film story seeking the point, whether any theme has been intentionally put there by the screenwriter or not.

We owe audiences nothing less than our best and most true observations of life.

Every movie made is a myth about a hero who confronts staid social customs in an attempt to change them — or who sets out to protect valued ideals in order to preserve them.

Myths hold meaning. And screenwriters must know how meaning gets conveyed in a movie.

THEME AND WHERE TO FIND IT

The message inside a myth is called the “theme,” and in any screen story theme can most often be found within the human frailties of the hero.

When a writer constructs some fictional hero to face a daunting journey, she builds into this character a personal flaw or failing. Then along the way, while the character struggles to overcome this shortcoming in order to achieve her story goal, the theme of the film emerges.

Whether it’s a big action extravaganza or the small exploration of a relationship, what your hero learns about how to improve his own inner emotional life will be the gift of significance presented to the audience.

Think of a screen story as the hero’s emotional journey of growth from immaturity to maturity. Each hero’s tale is a voyage that parallels our natural passage through this world.

Many great film artists build cinematic narratives around a character who overcomes wrong-headedness in his relationships with others to discover the truth about who he really is. Author and top Hollywood script consultant Michael Hauge calls this progressive discovery of personal truth the hero’s inner journey: a transformation from identity, the state of hiding behind a self-protective mask, to essence, where the hero at last reaches an unmasked, emotionally honest and fulfilled existence.

In the sweet romantic adventure Shrek we’re introduced to a gentle ogre who lives alone deep in the swamp. He wants only to be left in isolated peace. If anyone intrudes into Shrek’s domain, he scares them away. By so doing, Shrek gives people exactly what they expect from an ogre, and it allows him to hide his true wounded feelings of rejection.

Shrek thinks he prefers to live in solitude. But when his swamp gets invaded by scores of fairytale creatures driven from their own homes by Lord Farquaad, the only way Shrek can evict them is to sally forth on a grand adventure and fetch a princess. Along the way, this loveable ogre learns that in order to achieve genuine happiness he must risk revealing his true heart to others.

We all fear the pain of rejection when we commit to emotional openness. But accepting some suffering in life is necessary to live fully. So at last Shrek musters the courage to honestly declare his feelings to Princess Fiona, and his candor allows true love to enter his world.

We find the theme of Shrek revealed through the hero’s personal character growth: in order to find love, we must be willing to accept some pain and remain emotionally open.

Many films build their themes around explorations of love. One of the most studied movies ever made, Citizen Kane, presents an unspoken thematic question in the very first scene when Charles Foster Kane dies alone in his palace, Xanadu. We wonder how a man who possesses absolutely everything money can buy could end up dying alone.

And we discover that throughout his life Kane longed to be loved. But he was never able to give love in return.

“He never gave himself away,” friend Jedediah Leland says of Kane, “He never gave anything away. He just left you a tip.” Wanting love without giving it is mere vanity. So when Charlie Kane’s unresolved character flaw of self-centeredness results in a lonely death, the meaning of the movie emerges: in order to receive love, we must first give love freely to others.

But what about films that stay on the surface of life? What’s the theme of, say, an early Bond movie? This charming one-dimensional hero lived only to triumph over the bad guys. And he never lost. So the message in any early Bond film has to be: good always triumphs over evil.

From shallow genres come shallow themes, but we must note that there is a theme, even in a James Bond movie.

Today Bond has been overhauled to make this iconic character more interesting and he has finally been given human flaws and inner conflicts that allow new 007 stories to contain deeper themes about love and the hollowness of revenge.

So the screenwriter’s goal is to design from beginning to end a captivating, meaningful journey for a troubled hero — a journey that leads the audience to discover some universal human truth and experience strong emotion.

SUMMING UP

• Before you dive into writing screenplay pages, it’s important to think through your story idea completely and create an effective outline with Hero Goal Sequences_®.

• A story communicates to an audience through a prescribed ritual of presentation. This makes screenplay structure, or the ordering of plot events, critically important in movies.

• Everyone longs to feel deeply, and screenwriters must allow people to participate emotionally in each story.

• In every tale told the audience will unconsciously seek out a meaning whether the writer actually has one in mind or not. So good movies must deliver a carefully crafted, true message about life. Movies communicate what’s good and evil, right and wrong, and every screenwriter bares the responsibility to offer a meaning under her story that reflects human truth.

• The specific message of each film is called its “theme,” and it resides within the character flaw of the hero. How the central character must grow as a person in order to resolve the plot conflict reveals the theme.

EXERCISE:

Off the top of your head, write down three first names.

For example:

1 Elenora

2 Clifford

3 Henrietta

Now to each name assign a job or primary life pursuit that seems to fit the name. The job can be ANY human endeavor.

1 Elenora — Correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

2 Clifford — Fine dining restauranteur.

3 Henrietta — Junior high school gym teacher.

Next, assign to each character a THEME WITH AN EMOTIONAL CONTENT using the following theme statement form which implies a dramatic action:

In order to __________________________ you must ____

_____________________________________________.

For example:

1. Elenora — BBC Correspondent: In order to find meaning in life you must search with your heart as well as your head.

2. Clifford — Fine dining restauranteur: In order to recover from tragic loss you must honor the past by living in the present.

3. Henrietta — Junior high school gym teacher: In order to find true love you must first truly love yourself.

Result: you now have planted the seeds for three captivating, meaningful journeys about troubled heroes who can lead an audience to discover a universal human truth and experience strong emotion.

Pick one, and start developing your story.