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INTRODUCTION

NEW TOOLS FOR WRITING GREAT STORIES

Whether you’re new to storytelling or you’ve already got some screenplay or novel writing experience, this book demonstrates a fresh way to create dynamic stories that will glue readers, agents, and producers to their chairs. The Story Solution: 23 Actions All Great Heroes Must Take offers a unique plot building template that can advance your writing skills into the “sold” category.

Claims I make for this book I consider promises, so don’t think for a second that I take this stuff lightly.

For more than twenty years I’ve been getting paid to write movies and television, including seventeen feature film scripts on assignment. Currently I’m Professor of Screenwriting and Director of the Graduate Screenwriting Program at California State University, Northridge. For over a decade I have also lectured through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, the largest writer training center in the world.

And most sincerely I say — if you choose to work in this magical medium of storytelling, for the screen or for the printed page, you can save years of trial and error in the pursuit of strong plotting craft by applying the concepts explained in this book.

I will use the language of screenwriting here, but do remember that these principles work equally well for novels.

Hard truth: 95% of all screenplays by newcomers don’t work. And most of these scripts fail for the same reason. They simply do not contain enough active, audience-gripping dramatic action to sustain a whole feature film. Even with riveting characters and dazzling dialogue, many writers remain clueless about how much sheer plot is required to hold an audience enthralled for two whole hours.

After reading thousands of scripts and discussing screen story with writers, film executives, producers, and directors at all of the major Hollywood studios — and after closely analyzing many hundreds of films — I’ve gleaned an important insight. Every commercially successful movie contains the same detailed pattern in screen storytelling, consisting of 23 specific, linking story actions I call Hero Goal Sequences_® that must be included in a script if the movie is to become a hit.

(NOTE: There’s actually a small range in the number of Hero Goal Sequences_® necessary, never fewer than 20 or more than 23. But for simplicity’s sake, I’ll use the high end number of 23 when referring to the Hero Goal Sequencing paradigm.)

Anyone who ever sat down to write a feature-length film knows that Act Two, the seventy-page middle section, is a killer. Scripts rise to glory or fall into obscurity based on what happens in these middle pages. The second act remains an incredible challenge and a vast desert wasteland strewn with the bleached bones of many hopeful writers who did not make it through to the other side.

Wouldn’t a more unified, consistent, and user-friendly story paradigm be enormously helpful?

Of course the imponderable power of talent helps a lot in writing, as in all things. But truth be told, talent is not the deciding factor in who will bag a script sale and who won’t. Hollywood hardly ever buys a completed screenplay to be shot without rewrites anyway.

Hollywood buys, then develops, stories.

Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan observed, “The American movie tradition is about narrative.” In other words, about well-built plots.

It comes down to this. Movies that work always work for the same story structure reasons. It doesn’t matter if it’s Inception or Avatar or The Dark Knight or Juno or Men In Black or The Departed or The Proposal or Iron Man or Pretty Woman or Ray or The Hangover or Erin Brockovich or Fight Club or Walk the Line or The Devil Wears Prada or Up. No matter the genre, if a movie is a hit, if it gives people the kick they come to the cineplex to get, then I maintain that that film contains the same 23 progressive story actions as every other successful movie.

An outlandish idea, perhaps. At the very least, spooky. But absolutely true.

Offered here is a clear, linking chain of highly specific, understandable Hero Goal Sequences_® that drive your story forward with no holes or gaps. Steps that tie every part of your story together, creating for your reader a unified and emotionally exhilarating ride.

If your screenplay captivates a producer and sweeps her along eager to find out what happens next, then the chances of getting that script sold shoot way, way up, yes?

Please don’t assume I’m proposing some kind of cut-and-paste formula for cranking out technically perfect but soulless stories. No. When using these tools you still get to work hard, sweat buckets, strain your brain and mine your creativity, just like before. But this book makes it possible to take any idea you may have for a movie, virtually any conflict-based story idea at all, apply this approach to plotting, create answers for all issues raised by the Goal Sequencing paradigm, and know with confidence that you’ve written an audience-engaging, potentially successful movie.

And if your script lacks these required 23 steps it will most likely never make it out of the agent’s or studio reader’s slush pile.

Pretty tall talk?

The following chapters will prove it.

This book has been organized into four parts. Part One lays out the key conceptual reasons why the ritual of storytelling means so much to all of us, the essential role that conflict plays, and how savvy screenwriters and novelists can best use these ageless human truths in building stories with Hero Goal Sequences_® that will wow agents and producers.

Part Two explores ways to build your characters, and investigates the universal character categories that serve writers in the creation of story. It also includes tools to develop characters progressively throughout these 23 story actions, and how the dialogue you write for them should sound.

Part Three reveals the ways in which character is plot and plot is character, explains the basic elements of screen story structure that then become foundation for the more detailed 23 sequences template, and how a strong Hero Growth Arc fits perfectly into the 23 Hero Goal actions to give your script thematic depth and get it noticed.

Part Four then reveals in detail, one by one, the 23 linking story sequences all hit movies share, offering up the most powerful plot outlining method you will ever encounter.

The beating heart of this book remains throughout a demonstration of how understanding and using Hero Goal Sequences_® can greatly improve the work of any writer.