4 major plot questions and Star Wars — two treats in one!
While walking the picket line around 20th Century Fox in the WGA strike of 1988, I received some counsel from an elderly screenwriter. “There are four questions you gotta know the answers to,” he rasped with his thick New York accent. “What happens at the beginning of the story, what happens at the end of Act One, what happens at the end of Act Two, and what happens at the end of the story. If you know the answers to those four questions, you can write your story. If you can’t answer those questions, you don’t got squat.”
Over the years, I’ve read dozens of books on screenwriting, attended countless Q&A; sessions, clipped out an ungodly number of articles on the craft, studied countless scripts and movies, and come up with my own take on how to write a screenplay. But in a way, that gentleman’s words really get to the heart of it.
What’s happening at the beginning of the story?
The focus of this question is the Protagonist:
* What are the Protagonist’s circumstances in the External World — what they do, how they act, their conscious world?
* What are the Protagonist’s circumstances in the Internal World — what they think, what they feel, their unconscious world?
For example, in Star Wars (1977), the story’s Protagonist Luke Skywalker finds himself living on the desert planet Tatooine with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru — that’s his fate in the External World. Luke yearns to escape the dusty, remote environment and join his friends at the Academy. In this telling comment to C-3PO, Luke says, “Well, if there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet it’s farthest from.” And so a glimpse into Luke’s Internal World: he isn’t meant to be a farmer, he is destined for action. So where the story begins is Luke living with this disconnect — stuck in a life he hates, longing for a life he seemingly can not have.
What happens at the end of Act One?
The major event which turns the story in a big way is when Luke returns to his uncle’s farm, finds it destroyed, and Owen and Beru killed by Storm Troopers. This provokes Luke to say to Obi-Wan, “I want to come with you to Alderaan. There’s nothing here for me now. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.” The death of his family pushes him away from his Ordinary World into the Extraordinary World of adventure.
What happens at the end of Act Two?
The major event signifying the end of the second act is when Luke, Han, and Leia safely deliver to the Rebel Alliance information about the Death Star, setting into motion the third act: the assault on the Death Star.
What happens at the end of the story?
In Star Wars, we all know the ending: Luke blows up the Death Star, an action that happens in the story’s External World. But remember these famous words: “Use the Force, Luke… Let go, Luke… Trust me.” Luke ‘hears’ the transcendent voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi. In turn, Luke shuts down his computer tracking controls and then fires the winning salvo. This moment of trusting the Force and conquering the “Bad Guys” is a symbolic merging of Luke’s Internal and External Worlds, validated by the destruction of the Death Star and the ‘salvation’ of the Rebel Alliance.
Every screenwriting guru has their own screenplay paradigm, each with a varying number of “major plot points.” But perhaps the bare minimum a screenwriter needs is four of them: Beginning, Act I end, Act II end, Ending.