Screenwriting Back to Basics, Day 3: Plot = Structure

William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, The Princess Bride), arguably the dean of contemporary American screenwriters, says this:

“Screenplays are structure.”

Screenwriting legend Charles Bennett (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps) says this:

“The construction is the most important goddamned thing. It’s like building a house — you have to build the outside properly before you put the bits and pieces inside afterward. Get your story, get your architecture right, and you can always add your dialogue afterward. A story starts at the beginning, it develops, it works itself out, and it works up to its finale. The great essence of construction is to know your end before your beginning; to know exactly what you’re working up to; and then to work up to that end. To just start off and wander on the way isn’t any good whatever… because you’re wallowing.”

This thinking stands to reason as a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie, which is why so much of the discussion about screenwriting is about structure. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of various screenplay structure paradigms floating around courtesy of this screenwriting guru or that. Even I’ve got my own!

Behind all that chatter and noise lies an incontrovertible truth:

Plot = Structure.

This may not be as relevant to novels or to short stories, although in most cases it probably is. But with regard to screenplays, it is an inescapable reality: When we craft a plot, we have to be thinking of its structure.

Now I happen to have great affection for my screenplay paradigm, what I call Narrative Throughline, having used it for many years as a writer and teacher. And I’m sure all the various gurus out there feel the same way about theirs. But here’s my bottom line regarding screenplay structure:

There is no one approach that works for all stories.
There is no magic formula.

And anybody who tells you they have the ultimate secret to screenplay structure, a universal paradigm as it were, is either deluded, lying, or full of shit.

All stories are different.
All writers are different.

There is no one right way to write.
And there is no one right way to approach screenplay structure.

Now this represents something of a conundrum. If Plot = Structure… and the structure is “the most important goddamned thing”… and a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie… but there’s no one right approach to structure…

What the hell do you do?

Or to put it another way, confronted by the enormous number and variety of approaches to screenplay structure promulgated out there…

Again… what the hell do you do?

This is where that sage philosopher Yogi Berra provides some relevant wisdom:

“When you come to a fork in the road… take it.”

In other words, pick an approach to structure and dive into your story-crafting process.

It may be something as basic as Aristotle’s articulation:

“A whole [story] is that which has beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that which is not itself necessarily after anything else, and which has naturally something else after it; an end is that which is naturally after something itself, either as its necessary or usual consequent, and with nothing else after it; and a middle, that which is by nature after one thing and has also another after it. A well-constructed Plot, therefore, cannot either begin or end at any point one likes; beginning and end in it must be of the kind just described.”

No matter how you shade these words, you’re basically talking about three-act structure. Or it can be the sequence approach:

The story is broken up into eight 10–15 minute sequences. The sequences serve as “mini-movies”, each with their own compressed three-act structure. The first two sequences combine to form the film’s first act. The next four create the film’s second act. The final two sequences complete the resolution and dénouement of the story. Each sequence’s resolution creates the situation which sets up the next sequence.

Or Blake Snyder:

Snyder’s method expanded the 15 beats further into 40 beats, which are laid out on “The Board.” The Board is divided into 4 rows, with each row representing a quarter of the story, namely the 1st Act, the 1st half of the 2nd Act, the 2nd half of the 2nd Act, and the 3rd Act.

Or the structural ideas I’ve been jabbering about here in this blog for over six years. Or anything else. The point is to understand the importance of structure to your script and to use whatever approach feels comfortable for you to engage your creativity and immerse yourself in the story-crafting process. By going into the story — deeply so — hopefully you uncover not only your story’s plot, but also its heart-and-soul.

To this end, that is why I say this: Start with character. End with character. Trust that if you engage your characters fully, the story’s structure will emerge from them.

This week, I’ll be posting something every day to remind us of a fundamental principle of screenwriting, just to make sure we’re not overlooking something obvious.

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