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Screenwriting tricks of the trade and how they help our novel structure

buyjupiter

Maester
Today I got the opportunity to listen to the screenwriter of Avengers: Age of Ultron describe the screenwriting plotting technique that he used to write/sell that movie as well as other scripts. As someone who likes to learn different ways to do things (even if they're not techniques that normally get used in novel writing) I thought I'd offer a write up of the technique and some of the points he made in his presentation.

His method is called the "mini movie" method. It's really just another way to do the Act I/II/III structure, with maybe some more explicit definition of where the breakdown is between acts and what each act should contain (within a traditional storytelling structure).

Act I contains the first two "mini movies" (each mini movie contains 2-4ish scenes, sometimes more) and establish the following:

Mini movie 1:
introduce the protagonist, introduce the status quo, & the call to action.

Mini movie 2:
resistant or reluctant hero, status quo doesn't change, then another event happens that sets off the action

/Act I

Act II contains the 3rd-6th mini movies:

Mini movie 3:
hero take ordinary steps to solve the problem, shut down all paths available to hero, worst fears starting to appear

Mini movie 4:
come up with bigger bolder plan, gathering resources/putting plan into action, plan BACKFIRES terribly and then the realization by hero about antagonist when he finds out some info about the antagonist

Mini movie 5:
hero confronted w/need to change (character arc) & decides to change

Mini movie 6:
even bolder plan, w/required character change; preparation/resource gathering, plan put into action, plan backfires terribly as well, this is when things seem their worst

/Act II

Then Act III comprises of the last two mini movies:

Mini movie 7:
hero reborn, battle is rejoined, plot twist–swing wildly towards fear

Mini movie 8:
putting the antagonist down final time & epilogue–very brief
/Act III

The screenwriter spent a lot of time on a formula which I think is very useful for scene construction (as well as an overall novel structure):

TENSION = HOPE v FEAR

Or in other words, the tension is derived from the outcome we hope to see versus the outcome we fear to see.

And to give an example of overall structural tension (in a film), in Star Wars: A New Hope, the outcome we hope to see is Luke/Leia/Obi Wan/Han Solo defeat the Evil Empire. The outcome we fear to see is the reverse, the Empire actually wins.

You can see that tension formula on a scene level when you think of the garbage compactor scene. The hopeful outcome is they get out of the garbage compactor alive. The feared outcome is that they don't figure out a way to stop the compactor from crushing them.

I had a good time listening into someone who's very successful (he just sold another script for $750k) outline a methodology that works for him as well as a reframe of the understanding most people have of the Act I/II/III structures. (And this might be a helpful way of avoiding mushy middle problems as well.)

Are there any screenwriting tricks that you all employ in your novel/short story writing? If so, what? Or, alternatively, are there some screenwriting tricks you tried that were not at all useful? If so, what?
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
I'm a huge fan of the Save the Cat screen writing books. They break a story down into story beats. It's one of the tools I use. https://timstout.wordpress.com/story-structure/blake-snyders-beat-sheet/

I also like the Hollywood Formula talked about by Lou Anders on Writing Excuses.
Writing Excuses 6.18: Hollywood Formula » Writing Excuses

And finally another book I love is My Story Can Beat Up Your Story.

Here's a video of the author giving an overview of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hn-fFRUXXk
 

Creed

Sage
I really have to thank you for bringing this up because it reintroduced me to a site that has helped me deepen my view of writing (my own and others') more than I can really describe. That site is Cracking Yarns, and it's for screenwriters, but most of the posts are perfectly translatable to the prose we work with too.
Structure is definitely the most problematic for me and I'll need to learn a lot from this field, but there's way more it's offering, of course. Allen Palmer's latest series is on how to write great endings and after reading a few I think it stands as a very helpful analysis. Here's one article on the "Bow and Arrow Moment" that discusses the release of tension. I also just read some great ones on the hero's sacrifice, and agony/ecstasy and the importance of the emotional shift.
He also really hits the mark on subplots, and of course covers structural aspects.
So thanks for that. :cool:
 

buyjupiter

Maester
It's the Sequence Method, a lot more detail here: Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach: Amazon.co.uk: Paul Gulino: 9780826415684: Books

Very useful. Even more useful in conjunction with some other theories (e.g. hero's journey)

Where did you listen to this buyjupter? Got a link?

I had to sign up to be one of the first 200 callers for Screenwriter's U--where I found out about it, but they did a recording of the call and sent it to me today: https://s3.amazonaws.com/SU_MMM/MMM...27a7ac302f1b74b6b58c5ae4d1b158526bc50f0b5997f

And they cleaned up the audio! You guys will be able to hear a much clearer version of things than I did. :)
 

buyjupiter

Maester
I'm a huge fan of the Save the Cat screen writing books. They break a story down into story beats. It's one of the tools I use. https://timstout.wordpress.com/story-structure/blake-snyders-beat-sheet/

I also like the Hollywood Formula talked about by Lou Anders on Writing Excuses.
Writing Excuses 6.18: Hollywood Formula » Writing Excuses

And finally another book I love is My Story Can Beat Up Your Story.

Here's a video of the author giving an overview of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hn-fFRUXXk

I've been reading the Save the Cat stuff for a while. But I'm definitely going to have to check out "My Story Can Beat Up Your Story", just for the title alone! :)
 
C

Chessie

Guest
I've mentioned this in another thread somewhere, but John Truby has changed my writing life. His book The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps To Becoming A Master Storyteller, details his process for writing screenplays but applies to the novelist as well. He has several Youtube videos going over this process and there are some blogs with authors explaining it in their own way.

I'm not kidding when I say that this book will twist the way you look at story. It takes me longer to plan out what I write using this process, but it's helped me understand where the problems are that kept getting me stuck. I recommend this book above any other craft book at the moment. It helps you build stories from the inside out with all the elements in a web together that provide structure and depth to the premise. It's amazing.
 

Helen

Inkling
I had to sign up to be one of the first 200 callers for Screenwriter's U--where I found out about it, but they did a recording of the call and sent it to me today: https://s3.amazonaws.com/SU_MMM/MMM...27a7ac302f1b74b6b58c5ae4d1b158526bc50f0b5997f

And they cleaned up the audio! You guys will be able to hear a much clearer version of things than I did. :)

Great, thanks :)

Yes, ScreenwritingU do seem to advocate the mini-movie/sequence method a lot, they often have successful writers talking about it. It makes a lot of sense and it definitely makes writing Act 2 easier.
 
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