Written Interview: Guillermo Arriaga

Screenwriter and director Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams, Babel) at a BAFTA appearance. An excerpt:

What I think is the one trick pony is really the three act kind of structure. Why do we think that we have to put rules on storytelling? Just because a Greek philosopher said two thousand years ago it has to be. Who says that on page 30, page 60, page 90 we always have to follow the same structure?

I think that every story has a different way to be told; each one of them. And we have to realise that in real life, in our daily life, we use extremely sophisticated storytelling. We never go linear, we never structure with a first act, second act and third act. We always use this back and forth kind of storytelling. So why do we have to go always with this kind of structure?

There are people who are paid a lot of money in Hollywood because they are able to bring the 35 page turning point to page 30. Really. They are called Script Doctors. And the disease is not being on page 30. That’s the great disease the script doctors are curing.

I already said that I have no education at all in screenwriting. But when I have read all these manuals of screenwriting, they say things that I will never follow. And I have learned that the first rule of screenwriting, or any art, is having no rules. Everyone has to find their own way of doing things.

Aristotle, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, even some screenwriting ‘gurus’ have something of value to say about story. But I concur with Arriaga: There are no rules. Principles, conventional wisdom, movements, yes. Rules, no.

Like I say, every writer is different, every story is different. Stories are organic. We have to engage them directly — go into the story! — and find them, one at a time, each on its own terms.

In other words, never let supposed ‘rules’ stand in the way of your creativity and where the story calls you to go.

To read an entire transcript of Arriaga’s presentation and watch a video clip, go here.
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