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I have written over 14 screenplays and teleplays since 1994. All except one since 2005. Screen-writing is a new art-form still poorly understood. It is not anywhere like play-writing with its conventional three act structure. That structure will never work for movies.
Most movies fail because the screenplays they are based on badly suck. Writing a screenplay is like creating a blueprint with a solid structure. Not unlike building a blueprint for a house. If the blueprint is weak, the house will collapse. Pretty straight-forward, but most screenwriters seem to miss this point.
Every good movie has a basic structure with 7 steps that can be expanded to 22. I will discuss only the first 7 major building blocks. Advanced screen-writing uses the other steps and even breaks them. But you should learn to walk before you can run.
Time to plunge into expanded structure...
We go to the very beginning of a script to look for the ghost.
The ghost is critical.
It's the foundation of the story.
It's an essential tool.
Absolutely Critical.
A major weakness in your screenplay. Fatal, actually....if it's handled badly.
The ghost is the event in the past that is haunting the hero in the present.
It's still giving the hero trouble now. It gives the running start so important for any script.
The ghost is the source of your character's need.
PERIOD.
You need to track your character's weakness both backwards and forwards with the ghost.
Get it?
Also the ghost provides the internal opposition to your story.
VERY CRITICAL.
You have an external opponent and an internal one.
The internal opponent holds the hero back from action.
Every hero has a desire. This starts him on the story path.
The ghost is the counter-desire.
It's what's holding the hero back.
It's a big fear that the hero has.
When you add a ghost, you add extra pressure on your hero.
Remember, that as the hero moves forward he meets his external opponent. The stronger this external opponent the stronger the story. Both the hero and opponent want the same thing.
But with the hero's ghost....
You now have TWO OPPONENTS tugging at your hero from opposite directions.
How wonderful!
You have an external opponent ---------------->
You have an internal opponent <---------------
Two tracks now!
They are related to the other track combo: desire and need!
Remember, the hero's desire is what propels the story forward, but it's the hero's need that will release a self-revelation at the climax of the story. A climax that comes after the battle with the hero's external opponent.
Put it all together....
desire --------------> <------------- external opponent
need ---------------> <------------- Ghost
A dual opposition clashing with a dual psychological drive....
All organically related and seething for great drama.....
There's your deep structure.
Yup.
A necessary tension that drives and clashes throughout the entire script.
This is great drama.
Shakespeare understood this perfectly.
In Hamlet there are two ghosts! The murder of the father and the actual father's ghost. Sheer genius. Hamlet doesn't have a chance. But it's superb drama that lives beyond Hamlet's death.
The Iliyad:
You have a war going on for ten years. That's where the story actually starts.
The ghost is ten years of war. More sheer genius.
How about Chinatown?
Something happened there in the past and Jake doesn't want to go there. Sure enough in the story someone is going to get killed there again....
Now remember, once the self-revelation hits the hero. A new psychological equilibrium is reached within the hero's mind. His or her life changes because the hero makes a moral decision to change. In most good dramas, only the hero changes and possibly people in his immediate vicinity. But in great myth stories, like the life of a saint or a global figure. The whole world changes and that makes for very great drama.
Any questions?
Michael
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Gen Y Volcanoe Ready To Explode...
