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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