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PRESS ROOM
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Selling
to Hollywood
Paul Lucey
Early in the work, writers are often pulled and pushed by an initial
rush of ideas and story possibilities. To make sense and organize these
notions, many writers develop a plan for working. You'll be offered
a few organizing schemes today; use them as you see fit. They are based
on three deceptively simple definitions:
A story is a dramatic summary of an event.
The key term here is event:what happens after everything happens. Very
careful thinking (which can take weeks or months!) should reveal the
event into he notion that you are trying to spin into a story. For example,
the event in the Terminator movies is the death of the cyborg.
The event in The Truman Show is the escape of the hero from the
show. Determining the event can provide the center pole that supports
the entire story. If this approach doesn't work for you, perhaps this
definition of Structure will get your story in gear: Story structure
is based on the presentation and tracking of an interesting dramatic
problem that is resolved in an interesting yet logical manner.
This approach required the writer to create a dramatic problem that
tests the main characters to the breaking point -- and beyond. In the
end, the solution of the problem ends up being more or less the event
of the story. Put another way, the problem the characters struggle to
resolve is the event plus the word how. Example: the event in Titanic,
what happens after everything happens is the sinking of the ship and
the impact his has on the main characters. The problem of the story
is: How will the main characters survive the sinking of the ship?
If neither of these definitions proves useful, try this one:
Drama is the reaction of character to crisis.
With this one you've got to have at least a middling sense of who your
characters are -- backstory, locale, occupation, etc. Then, hit them
with something that leads to an emotional, personal, and/or social crisis
of some sort. In As Good As It Gets, the crisis occurs when the lives
of the three main characters become intertwined. The resulting drama
enables each to grow and change.
Spinning a notion into a story can also begin with a story concept,
i.e., A story idea that is combined with a dramatic problem.
Example: the idea in Six Days, Seven Nights concerns the crash
landing of a mismatched pair on a tropical island. The problem is how
they escape. (The event in this story -- what happens after everything
happens is that they learn to cooperate and earn a love and life.)
Most stories have an A-storyline and a B-storyline.
The A-storyline deals with plot; the B-storyline deals with the emotional
arc of the characters and the subplots. In Six Days...the A-storyline
is the crash and escape from the island; the B-storyline deals with
the emotional growth and entanglement of the hero and heroine.
These definitions do not, of course, determine which ideas will organize
a commercial story, for only tantalizing generalities float around this
question. When movie executives are asked what they look for in a good
story idea, they generally tell me that they know it when they see it.
Beyond this, most express an interest in scripts that have well-developed
characters, i.e., that have emotional resonances. The trick is writing
such characters so they seem fresh. (See Fargo for numerous examples.)
Most strong stories also contain the following:
Writerly perspective, dramatic contrast, simple plots and complex
characters, strong emotional slant that makes the audience laugh, cry,
or scares/worries them.
Strong stories are settled on a real, unreal, or surreal narrative
tone that is geared to appeal to a specific audience --kiddy, young
adult, adult; they are slanted to deliver action, character, or a combination
of the two.
Heavy thinking goes into these values, which can be set forth as sequences
that involve traditional story beats that divide into 3 acts, during
which the following may occur:
ACT I: HERO TAKES ON THE PROBLEM
Establishing scene or narrative hook
Introduction of the hero
Introduction of the villain
Introduction of the problem
Complication when the hero takes on the problem
ACT II: HERO SEEMS DEFEATED BY THE PROBLEM
Aftermath of the complication scene
Backstory and/or setting
Attack on hero or by hero
Moments dealing with the B-storyline
Moments dealing with the theme
Romantic interludes
Moments with the antagonist
Complication when the hero seems defeated by the problem
ACT III: HERO SOLVES THE PROBLEM
Preparation for climax
Resolution of subplots
Climax and optional epilogue
This is not a by the numbers recipe; it is a sequence pattern that many
movie stories follow. Writing them into powerful dramatic sequences,
each playing for 5 to 15 minutes, is the fun part of our work.
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