A guest post by Trevor Mayes of ScriptWrecked.

Hallowed or Hackneyed?

When it comes to mainstream Hollywood story structure, there tends to be two schools of thought.

1) Hallowed — “There is a mystical reason we humans respond to the same basic story told over and over again.”

2) Hackneyed — “Movies have become far too formulaic, with their clichéd heroes journeys and fill-in-the-blanks beat sheets.”

Both are slightly off.

The Simple Truth

It all boils down to presentation and maximum impact.

Whether it’s a movie, 30 second commercial, blog post, or office gossip — an effective storyteller will present the information in a manner that best holds the audience’s attention and interest, using the tools that have already been established to work.

Suppose I start to tell you the following story…

“A buddy of mine is a plumber. He went to work last Tuesday and spent the morning fixing toilets and unclogging drains…”

10 more seconds of that and you’d be looking for the door! But what if I start it this way?

“You’ll never guess what happened to my buddy the other day! He’s a plumber. He went to work last Tuesday and spent the morning fixing toilets and unclogging drains…”

Now you’re interested — and only because I started the tale off with something attention-grabbing.

The opening scene of a movie often serves that same function, tiding you over through the film’s set up. There’s no mysticism or formula at play here.

The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet

I read a comment on another blog recently (not by the blog owner, but by one of its readers) that said something like, “I advise all of my screenwriting  students to avoid reading Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat!, because it fosters formulaic scripts.”

1st — Hopefully this guy’s class comes with a money back guarantee.

2nd — Blake Snyder didn’t invent the beats, he merely observed their occurrence in almost all successful Hollywood movies. He then articulated and distilled these established patterns in an ingenious way that everyone could understand. But these beats had been well in place for a long, long time.

The 3 Act Structure

Even Aristotle didn’t invent the 3 act structure. He may have come up with the first known theory for it, but it was formulated after he watched a gazillion plays. The plays came first.

The fundamentals of the three acts are the Setup (Act 1), Confrontation (Act 2), and Resolution (Act 3). You can lay the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet, Hero’s Journey, Sequence Method or any other popular screenwriting approach over top of that. And why? Because it’s all rooted in common sense and human nature.

Suppose I start to tell you another story:

“Billy was running through the trees. Tony was chasing him with an axe. The dog was still trying to get out of the suitcase…”

You’d be like, “Whoa there! First, who the hell is Billy?”

There’s a preferred order of operations, and it’s based on human learning and comprehension — not formula. Even with Memento, we didn’t have to wait long to learn about the protagonist’s short term memory and the device of the movie. We still had the setup, confrontation, and resolution.

500 Days of Summer? Yup, same thing there too. A non-linear plot can still utilize an established structure.

Think about how you tell a story. You set the stage and the tone, then you get to the juicy part in the middle with all the conflict, suspense and twists, then you spill the beans of how it all turned out. It’s not the only way to tell a story, but it’s arguably the most effective.

Sure, you can start a movie or sequence in the middle of the action (it’s actually a great device — the lack of setup intrigues and grabs attention). But  an audience will only tolerate disorientation for so long, which is why these types of scenes are usually brief.

Final Words

What am I trying to say with all this?

Well, two things:

1) The reason we embrace a common story structure isn’t all that mysterious. It’s the natural evolution of a fireside chat/water cooler conversation, spread out over 2 hours or so, that follows the most compelling path from the beginning to end.

2) Story structure isn’t a formula. It’s a simply a proven approach to delivering an impactful story.

So utilize the tools that are known to work, but in an innovative way, and don’t get caught up in the stigma of “formula.” Do you think a car manufacturer says, “I dunno, the whole four-wheel thing feels too formulaic”?

The wonderful thing is that within these familiar patterns there are infinite storytelling possibilities. Have fun playing around with the plot. See if you can even use the audience’s expectations to tinker with the structure.

Beyond the fundamentals, so much of screenwriting is just common sense. If something in your gut is screaming at you to write it a certain way — go for it! You’re probably on to something really cool.

Conversely, if you find that an “essential” story beat feels too familiar, it’s most likely because the lead up to it was not exciting and new.

In the end, don’t forgo a proven story structure just because it’s been done before. While it’s something less than mystical, it’s something beyond mere formula.

IMAGE

Trevor Mayes is a Los Angeles screenwriter, script consultant and cat whisperer. His blog, Scriptwrecked, has helpful tips for aspiring screenwriters.