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Monthly Archives: November 2013

Screenwriting: A Beat Sheet That Has Worked For Me

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A Feature Film Beat Sheet for Dramas That Has Worked For Me

(Deeply influenced by Syd Field, Blake Snyder, Peter Brooks, Aristotle and Arthur Conan Doyle.)

When I say that this beat sheet “has worked for me,” I don’t mean that I have applied it like a math formula. I mean that this structure has given me something to look toward in the process of writing. These beats are like a poetic form—they make me reconsider the first thing that pops into my mind. And after I’ve reconsidered, if I want to break the form, I do it. Considering the form first forces me to have a reason for my decisions.

Note: The page numbers in parentheses are approximate.

Act I Overview: Status Quo, Rupture and Reaction

Paradoxically, Act III writes Act I. The beats of a movie’s beginning should be crafted by knowing where the protagonist will end up. Act I can only be (re)written successfully by imagining the character at the end of the movie and then rewinding his life back to a place that is, emotionally, far enough away from that end to launch a meaningful internal journey.

1. Opening Image (1): What epitomizes my protagonist’s current life, his state of mind? The events of my plot are going to change all this, but I need to establish the “before” to make the “after” of my ending meaningful.
2. Set Up (1-12): What are the relevant situations and who are the relevant people in my protagonist’s life? These people and things will be the engine that makes my story go. What makes them interesting and complicated? What things do I need to establish now in order to make key plot moments that come later clear and powerful?
3. Catalyst (12): The event that starts the story. This should be something that disrupts the status quo of my protagonist’s life. It should cause complication, and it should require a response from my protagonist.
4. Reaction (12-24): In the process of reacting to the catalyst, my protagonist will become aware that some sort of decision needs to be made. But this section of the script isn’t about that decision. It’s about the knee-jerk, emotional reactions to the catalyst. These reactions should dramatize what’s at stake for my protagonist. I should allow the audience to figure out the price my protagonist would pay if he didn’t get what he eventually will decide he wants.
5. Transition into 2nd Act (25): My protagonist makes a decision about what he wants that will propel him into new and uncertain circumstances. If I’ve written a good Act I, it will be clear even at this point that this decision is risky, but that the goal is worthwhile.

Act II Overview: The Protagonist’s Pursuit of a Concrete Goal (Which Launches an Internal Journey)

It is the pursuit of this goal that will allow the character to do the emotional work (probably unconsciously) that is necessary for him to change internally. The movie is not really about the goal. It’s about the emotional work.

6. The New World (25-35): My protagonist’s decision at the end of Act I has thrust him into a new world that has its own rules and risks. This world is interesting and promises a great deal, but it also leads my protagonist to…
7. A New Obstacle (35): …which my protagonist reacts to in a way that is familiar to the audience. A way that reflects my character’s flawed Act I mindset. And this reaction leads to…
8. More obstacles (45): Things are getting pretty bad now, and it seems that maybe my protagonist never should have entered this “new world.”
9. All-In (55): But rather than turning back, my protagonist doubles down. Without knowing how he will solve the problems he now faces, he makes a decision to go forward in pursuit of what he wants.
10. Regrouping (56-66): My protagonist forms a new plan. It involves altering something inside of him (an assumption about himself or about the way the world works) that is difficult to alter. This results in…
11. A Meaningful But Insufficient Victory (70): This moment foreshadows the change that will be apparent at the movie’s end, but it is not enough. My protagonist will have to dig deeper, sacrifice more and change more.
12. A Terrible Blow (75): Here, my protagonist’s hopes should be dashed. It should seem that nothing can be done.
13. What Death Looks Like (75-85): My protagonist should be defeated. The consequences of this defeat should be dramatized.

Act III Overview: The Change in the Protagonist is Dramatized

The key beats in this act all feel like they refer to and contrast with earlier beats in the movie. This is how the movie dramatizes the protagonist’s internal change.

14. The First Steps Toward the Last Stand (86): Calling upon things he has learned on his journey, my protagonist regroups one last time and goes on.
15. Courage and Resolve (86-95): My protagonist fights for his goal, which may at this point seem to have shifted in some way, but the audience comes to recognize that this “new” goal is the thing he’s really been fighting for all along.
16. Climactic Decision and Action (100-105): This decision, and the action that follows, reveals the way in which the pursuit of my protagonist’s goal has changed him. The whole film has been building to this moment. What matters is not that my protagonist “succeeds” but that he is changed—and that the events of the story have caused this change.
17. Hint of the Future (106-110): Good narratives don’t usually end with climaxes. They end by showing us the aftermath of the climax. And they do so by dramatizing a moment that hints at the future for the protagonist. A movie does not have to resolve every problem or answer every question. It does have to suggest how the events of this journey will impact the protagonist’s future.

Screenwriting: On Screenwriting Books

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I’ve heard a number of very successful screenwriters say something to this effect: “Screenwriting books are bullshit. To learn the craft, you should read great screenplays.”

I get it. There are B.S. elements to most screenwriting books I’ve seen. And reading great screenplays–even bad ones, actually–is an irreplaceable way to learn. But hey big time screenwriters, I think you’re really overstating the case.

Let me back up for a second. I’ve written three feature-length scripts and two TV pilots. One script won first prize in a major contest and another was a finalist. I’ve been represented by an agent, and I’ve gotten my stuff read, but none of that qualifies me as the kind of “successful screenwriter” I referred to in the opening of this post. I’ve never sold a script. So, if you’re more comfortable taking the advice of the big time guys, now’s the time to click over to JohnAugust.com. (A fabulous site, by the way.)

But here’s something I think I know: Screenwriting books are like many products in the marketplace. They can be helpful without being the magical things they claim to be.

No matter how many times Blake Snyder tells us that he is giving us the way to write a Hollywood movie, he’s wrong about that. There is not one formula. I teach screenwriting to high school kids who are able to poke holes in the supposed universality of Snyder’s beat sheet within about ten minutes. I’d be a foolish writer if I didn’t recognize that this book exaggerates its power to explain.

But here’s my point. I’m equally foolish if I don’t recognize that there’s some brilliance in his screenwriting template. The same goes for Syd Field and some others. These guys have figured out some things that it would have taken me decades to notice about how cinematic narratives are structured. (Yeah, I know. Aristotle too, though I dare you to try to write a great screenplay on nothing but Aristotle’s advice.)

So here’s my advice:

Read the screenwriting books. Store away what’s helpful. Leave behind the rest. In the end, create structures that serve your stories rather than vice versa.

And yeah. Read screenplays.

Basketball Coaching: Mental Habits

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I always tell players that when game day comes, you don’t play the way you know how to play; you play the way you’re in the habit of playing. That means that coaches are not just in the business of conveying information. They are in the business of habit-making.

Every moment of practice forms a habit. Either you’re creating a good habit or you’re creating a bad one. Most coaches are hyper-aware of the physical habits needed to be a good player. But there are mental habits that are critical to your team’s success. Is your team slow to transition between drills? Does it take several seconds before they can reorganize themselves when you explain something and then restart the drill? Is there confusion and delay when you sub new players into a drill? All of these practice problems will show up when it comes time for the game. Your team will play poorly out of timeouts, you’ll be slow to get into new defenses, you’ll miscommunicate, or not communicate at all, on match-ups.

I would recommend that you don’t solve these problems for your players in practice but that you hold them accountable for solving them. Make them figure out how to make quick mental transitions because, in the games, there are only so many timeouts, and they will eventually have to solve things on the fly without you.

Teaching of Writing: Theme

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Sometimes students write stiff, implausible stories with obvious “messages.” But sometimes they get stuck in writing a first draft for the opposite reason: they’ve devised a series of events that are believable but about which they have no (apparent) attitude. A writer’s attitude toward the characters and events in a story leads to a theme, and a theme (whether consciously or unconsciously acknowledged) should be the thing that determines what comes next in the plot. In revising, it’s also the thing that should determine what stays and what goes.

Basketball Coaching: The Shell Drill

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The Shell Drill is great for demonstrating proper man-to-man defensive positioning as the ball moves around the court. But in my experience, if it’s used too much, it winds up reinforcing bad habits. Because they don’t need to worry about the offensive players moving, defenders start to ball-watch and they begin to settle into flat-footed stances on and off the ball. At Calhoun, after we’ve used the Shell Drill for several practices, we use the “3 Stops” Drill in which each team is trying to be the first to get 3 consecutive stops. But here’s the catch: a team can’t earn a “stop” unless it performs every Shell Drill principle correctly in the live-play  situation.

Teaching of Writing: Narrative Modes

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In fiction writing, here’s one way of breaking down narrative modes: There’s description (of characters, of setting or of internal reaction), there’s summary and there’s scene. Of course the lines between the modes can be blurry, and of course a story can be in more than one mode, even in the same sentence. Still. We can help students recognize when they’re in the wrong mode at the wrong time–the most important moments of a story almost certainly need to be in scene–and we can help them think about how much of each mode will be necessary to make their stories work.

Education: Process

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In most classrooms across the country, a student is graded on the things he/she hands in. Maybe the teacher throws in “class participation” to calculate the final average. But a grade should be more than the evaluation of a product. A grade should reflect a student’s engagement, curiosity and intelligent risk-taking. It should reward the seeking of understanding over the pursuit of the expedient answer. With those things in mind, we should devise assessments that give us access to a student’s process and not just to the end result. Then we should find effective ways to evaluate both together. The product is one performance of learning, and it should matter. But the process is the learning, and it predicts more accurately what kind of future learning a student will do.

Teaching of Writing: Instinct

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Sometimes, a writer’s “instinct” is nothing more than the impulse to reach for the cliché phrase or the pre-packaged idea. We should assign exercises that force students to move beyond their “instincts” and to choose the second or third thing they think of, rather than the first… like this blog post I’ve assigned myself, which I have now revised three times.