Just Enough Chaos: the Rough Draft of Your Screenplay On one hand, you need structure: some kind of scaffolding to prevent the whole story from collapsing in on itself. On the other hand, too much structure and you risk killing off the spontaneity, surprise, and strange energy that makes a screenplay feel alive. Famed film … Read more
Idea Theft and Other Pointless Concerns No one is going to steal your fucking idea. It’s just not that special. Get over yourself. (wait for it… wait for it…) Now that we’ve cleared the room of the idiots, let’s get down to what I mean here. This is not an attack, but a friendly goad. … Read more
Engineering the Midpoint through Faulty Logic for Screenwriters How People Come to Conclusions This post is about engineering the Midpoint of your film. But first we need to talk about how people form conclusions—especially the wrong ones. This involves two words that many people know but few actually understand: deduction and induction. Let’s start with … Read more
Bad Guys Close In (Falling Action): Three Examples for Screenwriters The second part of Act II is often one of the hardest parts of a film to write. This is the section that Blake Snyder refers to as the Bad Guys Close In (BGCI). It also aligns with “falling action” or “descent into chaos” from … Read more
The Law of Unintended Consequences in Film: Three Examples and Three Exercises “The Law of Unintended Consequences” sounds more complicated than it really is, but this principle is important to understand because it can be a goldmine for screenwriters. In short, the law is this: an action will invariably have consequences; some of these are … Read more
How to Create Suspension of Disbelief for Screenwriters As a big fan of speculative fiction, I have long been interested in determining where one can draw the line between believable fiction and the sort of fiction that disturbs the audience to the point where they’re knocked out of the story. That is, how to develop … Read more
When Does Satire Fail? Ten Satirical Films Misinterpreted by Being Taken Seriously. After an interesting pub conversation yesterday–regarding one of the satirical films on this list, in fact–I decided that it might be interesting to give a rundown of a few films that are notoriously misinterpreted. There’s no point in trying to define “satire” or … Read more
How to Solve Story Problems Without Logic: Angus Fletcher’s Techniques for Creative Breakthroughs It’s not uncommon to find story problems you can’t simply think your way out of. Forcing it just means looping through through bad ideas that only make the story worse. But then, in the middle of yoga or the shower or (Billy … Read more
Five Examples of the Midpoint in Screenwriting: the Most Crucial Beat in Your Film When it comes to the lived experience of watching a movie—and writing one that works—very few beats carry as much weight as the Midpoint. While the Act II break (circa the 25% mark) introduces us to a new world and the … Read more
How to Write an Open Ending: 3 Classic Examples To hell with Aristotle–resolution is overrated. Open endings don’t mean laziness or indecision. They give us reason to project or reflect or wonder. These are the sorts of endings that don’t promise things will be OK–even if we know that something has fundamentally changed. As the … Read more
