“Three Less Orthodox Story Structures”
Lee Mathias at his screenwriting blog The Last Reveal offers up his latest post: “Three Less Orthodox Story Structures”. They are:
1) The Sonata Musical Form
2) Five-Act Structure
3) Nine-Act Structure with Two Goals and a Reversal
Per the first one, Mathias notes:
Scott Myers, at his blog, Go Into The Story, did a post on the sonata musical form and its resemblance to the three act structure of many screenplays. He pointed out:
“There are striking similarities, if you think of:
“Melodies as Characters
“Transitions from one key to the next as major plot points
“Exposition-Development-Recapitulation as Act I-Act II-Act III.”
“Music is another means of storytelling, and the fact that master composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Brahms, and many more used sonata form, that it ruled orchestral music for 150 years, that pieces based upon sonata form are still performed and enjoyed by millions to this day is yet another example of why structural theories about screenplays work — because they reflect a three act/movement pattern which seems to underlie the basics of all stories, all forms of storytelling, all manner of story-crafting.”
Lee one-ups me re sonata form with a more comprehensive analysis that takes the subject beyond my comparison of it to 3-Act Structure (his post is well worth reading).
In a recent email exchange with Lee, going through various approaches to story structure, I wrote this:
I just don’t believe there’s any one ‘right’ way to approach writing a screenplay. Every writer is different, every story is different. If I had to offer the best approach to learning the craft, it would be a combination of reading everything, writing a bunch of screenplays for 10 years, then at that point, the writer should have an informed intuitive sense of what they’re doing — then just go with your gut.
What’s your take? One universal approach to screenplay structure? Or is ‘story’ so organic and malleable that there must by necessity be numerous structural paradigms?
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