That's not how you Structure a script! :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

I think we're back to where we started...

JamminGirl, here's where you began:

Quoted from JamminGirl

Honestly, I feel like "structure" can feel like an imposition on a story. Not all storys are about "the hero's journey" yet all the gurus seem offer that specific thriller genre structure as a blueprint for all stories.

And this was fine and logical. I agreed with this since there is no one structure that a story can have. They're all different, and as long as it remains interesting, following some arbitrary page breaks is too restrictive. Where I personally turn to "classic" structure is when it gets boring. Then I make a suggestion that something "should" happen around this point, though it is by no means set in stone.

Then you posted this:

Quoted from JamminGirl

All the manuals insist on a three-act structure. I think this is a useless model. It's static. All it really means is that your screenplay should have a beginning, middle and end.

And while I think it says essentially the same thing, the discussion that fell between this and your first post sent the discussion into a condemnation of a three act structure, which is where I threw out that three acts only means a beginning, middle, and end. It's just as arbitrary and defines no page counts.

When the discussion descended from there, I opted to point out the beginning, middle, end thing applies to stories in general, not just screenwriting by using some innocent English teacher's website. You then accused the English teacher of teaching her 11th graders screenwriting instead of short stories. (I still laugh about that.)

Then you said:

Quoted from JamminGirl

Beginning, middle and end is not a structure. You can break anything up in three pieces and call it beginning, middle and end.

I was referring to intro, complications, rising action, denouement thing you posted.

Ah... You understood me. Three acts is arbitrary, and yeah, anything can be divided into those three pieces, and when something is long enough, we can (if we desire to) call those pieces "acts." Sort of an industry jargon thing like a Navy guy would call a door a "hatch" or a movie producer would call his electrician a "gaffer."

The other pieces are just incidental when you write a story. You don't follow them consciously, but in all likelihood, someone could come behind you and find those things in what you write whether you did it on purpose or not. Those are simply analytical terms. Writers don't often think about them. We just write the story however it sounds best.

Finally, we come full circle:

Quoted from JamminGirl

"THREE ACTS" is arbitrary. Have you read Ibsen's "a doll's house"? Even that three act play wasn't broken down in the way you advocate and I can tell you that it is far from boring and is still either perform or reference in works today. You think that the absence of that template equals boring. Open your mind. This "rising action-climax-denouement" is based on the hero's journey template. I hate to keep referring to films like Taxi Driver, but I will, it doesn't follow that structure and it was far from boring. The same can be said of "Ordinary people".

Anyways, I'm sure someone will come here and interpret those films differently.

The gist of my argument is that YOU CAN DESIGN YOUR OWN STRUCTURE and make it exciting. Use literary tools that include suspence, begin in medias res, Use set pieces, and lay your grownd work knowing what's ahead, Use parallels, use contrasts to make things much better or much worse, make room for the after math, use melodrama wisely, Fake out your audience(trick them with some false alarms), do a bait and switch on them example, in a scene everything seems to be about one blatant thing, while another thing occurs almost unnoticed until later something is revealed... etc
Once you know these tools, you can structure your film anyway and it will absolutely work.

Which is pretty close to what I've been saying all along. Who cares about the rules? Just write what feels good, and if it totally sucks and you don't know what to do next, then check into what other people have done. But your first draft should be from the heart, and if it works, it works.

I'm glad we see eye to eye on this.