Go On Your Own Quest — Week 13: Prep
The 2013 version of The Quest starts Week 13 today. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by because you can Go On Your Own Quest by following the structure of The Quest to dig into screenwriting theory [Core — 8 weeks], figure out your story [Prep — 6 weeks], and write a first draft [Pages — 10 weeks]. It’s a 24-week immersion in the screenwriting process and you can do it here — for free!
Plus you can join The Black Board, the Official Online Writing Community of the Black List and Go Into The Story, another free resource to help keep you inspired and on target at you Go On Your Own Quest from FADE IN to FADE OUT on the first draft of your original screenplay.
I encourage you to Go On Your Own Quest. First off, you can’t sell a script unless you write it. Second, you can’t get better as a writer unless you write. Third, if you don’t write that script now, when are you going to write it?
So consider this your very own Call To Adventure. Will you heed the call?
Today we head into the fifth week of the Prep phase. I like to think of the drafting of a screenplay as having two parts: Prep-Writing and Page-Writing. While most aspiring writers like to jump into the latter, almost all professional writers know the time to figure out most of the story is in prep.
For those of you who plan to Go On Your Own Quest, let’s continue the conversation about Prep with this question:
* How many major plot points can you identify in your story?
Every scene ties into or advances the plot, but there are certain events which create a significant shift in the narrative. These are what screenwriters call plot points.
[Note: Syd Field often gets credit for this phrase, however as we have seen here, Rod Serling was using it well before Field’s first book in 1984.]
There is no rule or magic formula as to the number of plot points in a script, however I like the whammo theory best. This from one of my Core lectures:
Movie producer Art Linson (Heat, Fight Club, Into the Wild) describes it in his book “A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce Movies in Hollywood” [p. 64]:
When you run out of theories and you can sense the writer’s eyes are getting glassy, you can always pull out the Whammo Chart. Supposedly Joel Silver got this from Larry Gordon, who got it from some Egyptian who worked at American International Pictures (AIP) many years ago. As the legend spreads, it is a scientifically tested theory which requires each action script to have a “Whammy” every ten pages. This would be a big-action set piece, something that would kick you in the groin and wake you up. If the script wavers a bit, spending a little too much time on nuance and character, it violates the theory. According to the natural laws of physics, without a bang the audience is buying popcorn by the twelfth page and looking for the exit sign if you stretch it to page twenty-five.
Basically every 10 pages, some whammo has to happen. Of course, whammo is scalable. If you have a big action movie, the major plot points should be big. If you have a small drama, the major plot points may be small in scope, but big in terms of their impact on the characters.
So ask yourself: How many plot points does your story have?
On October 21, you can type FADE IN, then over a ten week period write your first draft.
Why not use the structure of this 24-week workshop to Go On Your Own Quest? That was an idea that gathered energy among many members of the GITS community which I described here.
Meanwhile I encourage you to head to comments to discuss today’s question. And for a related discussion on The Black Board, check out these topics:
For more information on Go On Your Own Quest, go here.
Onward!
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