by
Blake Snyder
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Somewhere in the first five minutes of a well-structured screenplay , someone (usually not the main character) will pose a question or make a statement (usually to the main character) that is the theme of the movie. "Be careful what you wish for," this person will say or "Pride goeth before a fall" or "Family is more important than money." It won't be this obvious, it will be conversational, an offhand remark that the main character doesn't quite get at the moment — but which will have far-reaching and meaningful impact later.
This statement is the movie's thematic premise.
In many ways a good screenplay is an argument posed by the screenwriter, the pros and cons of living a particular kind of life, or pursuing a particular goal. Is a behavior, dream, or goal worth it? Or is it false? What is more important, wealth or happiness?
One last word on the set-up as it relates to Act One. I like to think of movies as divided into three separate worlds. Most people call these three acts, I call em thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The first IO pages and the rest of Act One is the movie's thesis; it's where we see the world as it is before the adventure starts. It is a full-fledged documentation of the hero's world labeled "before." There is a calm before the storm in this world, and especially in the set-up. If events that follow did not occur, it would pretty much stay this way. But there is a sense in the set-up that a storm's about to hit, because for things to stay as they are... is death. Things must change.
The B story gives us a breather.
Let's take Legally Blonde, for instance. The B story is Elle's relationship with the manicurist she meets in Boston. And it is a much needed break from the A story. We've met Elle. She's been dumped. She's decided to go to Law School. She gets there. And school is tough. Well, enough already, let's have a little time-out! Let's go slightly off theme here and meet someone new. Thus, the manicurist. And yes, while it is not a traditional boy-girl love story, it is in fact "the love story." It's where Elle will be nurtured. It is also the place where Elle confides what she is learning in the School of Hard Knocks she's experiencing at Harvard Law — and the place from which she'll draw the strength she needs for the final push into Act Three and ultimate victory.
The B story is also very often a brand new bunch of characters. We have not always met the B story players in the first IO pages of the screenplay. We did not even know they existed. But since Act Two is the antithesis, they are the upside down versions of those characters who inhabit the world of Act One. Again, the B story ally in Legally Blonde is a perfect example. Isn't Jennifer Goolidge, the wonderful actress who portrays manicurist Paulette Bonafonte, the funhouse mirror version of the girls from Elle's sorority house back at UCLA? This is why the character is so successful. She is a classic anti-thesis creature.
The B story then does a lot. And you must have one. It provides not only the love story and a place to openly discuss the theme of your movie, but gives the writer the vital "cutaways" from the A story. And it starts on 3O.
In a sense, stories are about change. And the measuring stick that tells us who succeeds and who doesn't is seen in the ability to change. Good guys are those who willingly accept change and see it as a positive force. Bad guys are those who refuse to change, who will curl up and die in their own juices, unable to move out of the rut their lives represent. To succeed in life is to be able to transform. That's why it's the basis not only of good storytelling but also the world's best-known religions. Change is good because it represents re-birth, the promise of a fresh start.
The Covenant of the Arc.
And don't we all want to believe that?
Don't we all want to jump into the swim of life after seeing a good movie? Don't we want to get out of our ruts, try something new, and be open to the healing power of change after experiencing a movie in which everybody arcs?
An adjunct to this rule of bad dialogue is "Show, Don't Tell," another of the most frequent mistakes found in newbie screenplays. You can say more about a relationship in trouble by seeing a husband eye a pretty young thing as he and his wife are walking down the street than by three pages of dialogue about how their marriage counseling sessions are going. Movies are stories told in pictures. So why would you resort to telling us when you can show us? It's so much more economical! You want to make sure the audience knows about a guy's N.Y. Giants past? Show team pictures on the wall of his apartment, give him a limp (from the accident that ended his career, but only if it's germane), sneak it in with subtle references. Want to make sure we know a fight has occurred between two people? Have them talk about anything but the fight. If handled right, the audience will get it. They're a lot more perceptive than you think.
Whether it's a comedy or a drama, wringing out the emotions of the audience is the name of the game. Making it an emotional experience, using all the emotions, is what it's about. Think why that is. We go to the movies not only to escape reality, and to ultimately learn a little lesson about Life, but to experience a dream state where Life and its attendant emotions are recreated in a safe environment. Like a good dream, we must live the movie; we must run in place along with the hero in our sleep, clutch our pillows at the love scene, and hide under the covers during the breathtaking climax of the film to wake exhausted but fulfilled, wrung out, worked out, and satisfied.
But this can also go for little fixes of minor characters or subplots in a script that's not working. Are these characters motivated by primal drives? It 's another way of saying: Are these characters acting like recognizable human beings? At their core, they must be. Or else you are not addressing primal issues.
Let's say you have a high-falutin' concept: stockbrokers rigging the international bond market. Fine. All very interesting. But at its core, no matter what the plot is, by making each character's desire more primal, that plot is grounded in a reality that everyone can understand — suddenly it's not about stockbrokers, it's about human beings trying to survive.
“Who knows! Every woman’s different and things are always changing. Listen, I’m not sure what you’re trying to get out of me here. Again: I’m not a woman.”
Sure, he’s aware of that, he replies, but it’s important to him, especially as a cisgender heterosexual white man, to avoid placing the burden of educating him about women’s experiences on a woman, which is why it’s so great to have friends of other genders.
His friend says, “Yeah, I guess.”
dumb but mildly funny
At home, legs trembling full of acid, grimacing, he peels off his bloody broken half toenail. The wound looks like a cut pomegranate and he dabs it with alcohol, adding injury to injury, the pain piercing an opening inside him through which more tearful laughter escapes. He does feel somewhat guilty about what he did, yet he will not deny that it felt so, so good to ruin the evenings of the tyrannical assholes who loved to dehumanize innocent single narrow-shouldered men. Just a quick startle, no harm done. Actually, he’s the one who was harmed. The only thing that bothers him is that he knows no one would condone what he did.
STOP CARING ABOUT THAT omg
We’ve known each other a long time and if it’s one thing I know, it’s that you always manage to convince yourself that when you act out, you’re only hurting yourself, or are justified in hurting others as long as you suffer too. I do not think it is unfair to say you have a habit of passively consenting to miserable situations, or even baiting them out of people, so you can later weaponize your sadness. Like you’ve even joked about how you do that. I’ve seen it, the obvious glee you take in talking about how awful men have been to you, and now it looks like you’ve decided to make me one of them. I guess you believe that’s what makes you sympathetic, or you need it to lend gravitas to otherwise ordinary dissatisfaction. You want to drag people down into the mud with you. And when it backfires, because why would it not backfire, you fall back to your bunker of victimhood. It’s a good thing Cece has a sense of humor, I talked to her and she forgives you even though she didn’t have to, but she didn’t do anything to deserve this kind of treatment, and if it keeps up then I don’t know what’s gonna happen with you and me. PS for future reference, Cece is Korean, not Filipina (like how did you even land on Filipina? That’s so random). -N
even just reading that makes me shudder