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Compilation © Robin Kelly 2001 - 2003
Edited and compiled by Robin Kelly exclusively for Writing for Performance
SHOOTING PEOPLE - UK SCREENWRITERS NETWORK
Supported by The Script Factory
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From: Guy Hallifax
Subject: spelling
Oh dear. Tim, as soon as you send anything out into the void beyond your writer's garret, you are going to be judged not only on what you write but also on the way you write. As a writer and a reader of numerous spec scripts, I can tell you that you are creating additional hurdles for yourself by making so many basic errors of grammar and punctuation. When there is so much material out there looking for an outlet - and writers looking for agents - why should a reader or producer be bothered with someone who hasn't grasped these basic tools of the trade? My advice, for what it is worth, is to take some time improving your presentation skills. You will be amazed at the difference it makes. If you want to be a professional writer, then write like one.
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From: Tom Hickmore
Subject: Re: spelling
I agree with Robert McKee who says that literary skills are commonplace, but story skills are rare. For this reason spelling and grammar should not be too high up the list of skills required by scriptwriters. Unfortunately, I recall a BFI producer's tip to aspiring writers that their spelling and grammar should be correct. I took her up on the subject. Indeed, I truly believe that the elevation of literary over film values is one of the general weaknesses of European Cinema over American. Having said this, it's
still helps to be able to spel.
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From: Susan Everett
Subject: Re: Tom Hickmore - spelling
The spelling debate continues! Good point, Tom, about Robert McKee and story skills. Story is of course, the most important aspect of a script, along with the characters who inhabit that story world and make things happen... but grammar and spelling also cannot be ignored. No, they won't stop a good story being gripping, but they will make the reader wonder about the professionalism of the writer. If it seems they can't be bothered to use a spell check on their computer, could they be bothered to complete another draft?
Also, as a reader, it is very irritating to read something with lots of mistakes, as it jumps you out of that story world, and back into the reality of seeing words on a page, which can be death to a good read.
Having spent 18 months in Hollywood, where I read piles of scripts, I have to say that the scripts I read seemed generally to have less errors in them than ones I've read over here. I know the US breeds format junkies, but hey, it makes the scripts easier to read. Anything that makes your script a more enjoyable reading experience is worth doing, and when I've been sent scripts where the writer has scribbled changes on in pen, it kind of makes you think GET LOST!
I know the script is just the blueprint for the film, rather than a hugely significant piece of literary work itself, but it helps if your script is reader friendly - as that happy reader is probably the person who then recommends your script to a producer, and then maybe one day it'll get made. So keep those readers happy.
How good it would be if one day someone produces a well written, near word perfect script which actually has a fantastic story too!
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From: "Robin Kelly, http://www.writing.org.uk
Subject: Re: Only 7 story archetypes?
"I'm writing something at the moment that involves the notion that there exist only a limited number of story types (Shakespeare apparently said 7, somewhere else I read 50). Does anyone out there know of any such list?"
Georges Polti extensively researched literature and produced The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations. The actual book is hard to get but the abbreviated version is available here:
http://www.wordplayer.com/archives/poltisitu.01-12.htmlThis links to the Wordplay site, which is arguably the best screenwriting site on the web.
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From: David B. Wake
Subject: Three Plot Lines
I heard there are three:-
1. Boy meets girl.
2. Rags to riches.
3. Life changing experience (which could mean anything).
You can then expand these up. For example, boy meets girl becomes girl meets boy, boy loses girl, girl meets girl, boy loses boy, girl meets sentient extraterrestrial orchid (been done) and so on and on.
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From: Nick Drake
Subject: 7 Basic Plots
I think several people have tried to list story prototypes into which all books/films/plays can be shoehorned. The one I have in front of me is by Irish playwright Denis Johnston who based his seven types on classics and mythology (reach for those reference books now...)
1. Cinderella (unrecognised virtue)
2. Achilles (hero with a fatal flaw)
3. Faust (a debt that must be paid)
4. Tristan & Isolde (love triangle)
5. Circe (spider and the fly - check out Greek myth, she enchanted Odysseus
and turned his men into pigs)
6. Romeo & Juliet (duh...)
7. Orpheus (a gift that is taken away)
Johnston then added another just for film:
8. Indiana Jones (indomitable hero)
I'm not sure exactly how useful the actual list is to anyone, but it does show the wealth of potential ideas/characters/stories in classic mythology. "O Brother Where Art thou" uses at least half the plotlines.
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From: Belfast Child
Subject: Theories
Vladimir Propp stated that the whole corpus of fairy stories, despite there being an enormous profusion of details, is constructed upon the same basic set of thirty-one 'functions'. A function is the basic unit of the narrative 'language' and refers to the significant actions which form the narrative. Propp states that these follow a logical sequence, and although no tale includes them all, in every tale the functions remain in sequence. The Bulgarian narratologist Tzvetan Todorov and other Structuralists talk of "narrative syntax".
They point out that the most elementary syntactic division of the sentence unit is between subject and predicate. "The knight (subject) slew the dragon with his sword (predicate)". Evidently this sentence could be the core of an episode or even an entire tale. If a name (Sir Galahad or Saint George) is substituted for "the knight", or "lance" for "sword", we still retain the same essential structure. It is by pursuing this analogy between sentence structure and narrative that Vladimir Propp developed his theory of Russian fairy stories. It can be understood if we compare the "subject" of a sentence with the typical characters (hero, villain, etc) and the "predicate" with the typical actions that occur in the tales.
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From: Dreamscape
Subject: Structuralism and Post-structuralism
If you want to know about story archetypes and plot structure, you need to first have an understanding of literary and cultural theory: in particular structuralism and post-structuralism. It's all a little complicated and not something that can be condensed easily on this digest. At least not without taking up considerable space. I'll try to give some details.
Structuralism is derived primarily from the theoretical work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. It's a theoretical method of approaching cultural texts and practices and not a political position in itself; certain key ideas and a particular vocabulary employed by Saussure himself have passed from the field of linguistics into the field of cultural studies giving Structuralism two basic ideas from Saussure's work. First, we find a concern with the underlying relations of cultural texts and practices - the 'grammar' that makes the meaning conceivable to the audience. This view comes from Saussure's division of language into 'langue' and 'parole'. Langue is the term which is used when referring to the actual system of language used; the rules and practices which are seen to organise it, and parole is the term which is used when one is concerned with the individual utterance.
The second basic idea taken from Saussure's work is the view that meaning is always the result of an interplay of relationships of opposition and combination which are made possible by the underlying structure of a text. Basically, this idea comes from Saussure's findings that language is made up of 'signs', which in turn can be separated into two individual elements known as the 'signifier' and the 'signified'; this can be explained by the following: if I write the word 'dog' you will immediately get the image in your mind of a four-legged, hair-covered, canine creature but according to Saussure there is no reason why you should get such an image; to him it could just as easily produce the image of a horse or a car or a ship but what prevents this happening is convention. The language based society which we inhabit everyday of our lives requires that we use the inscription 'dog' to mean a four-legged, hair-covered, canine creature but in other language based societies this is not so, they each have their own inscription that refers to our concept of 'dog'. From the latter example it is possible to see how language and the way it is constructed and utilised can form our sense of reality.
Following from Saussure and using his ideas as building blocks, Claude Lévi-Strauss starts to look at the structure of myths and argues that they can work like language: comprised of 'mythemes', which can be seen as individual units of language, 'morphemes' and 'phonemes'. Lévi-Strauss argues that myths are structured in terms of 'binary oppositions'. The meaning of myths is produced when the world is divided up into what can be seen as extreme opposites: culture/nature, man/woman, black/white, rich/poor, good/evil, etc.
Will Wright, following on from Lévi-Strauss, uses the idea of binary oppositions and applies it to the Hollywood Western. In "Sixguns and Society" he defers from Lévi-Strauss by stating:
"[his concern] is not to reveal a mental structure but to show how the myths of society, through their structure, communicate a conceptual order to the members of that society."
(Will Wright Sixguns and Society: A structural study of the Western, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.)
Wright says that the Western has gone, primarily, through three stages of evolution; the 'classic' Western which also includes the variation of the 'vengeance' Western, the 'transition theme' Western and the 'professional' Western. Despite showing that this particular genre has these three different types Wright believes that all have a similar set of basic structuring oppositions:
inside society/outside society
good/bad
strong/weak
civilisation/wilderness
(Will Wright Sixguns and Society: A structural study of the Western, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.)
With the binary oppositions structure set and in place, Wright then goes on to suggest that it is not only the structural features that should be considered, he says that the narrative structure should be analysed also.
The 'classic' Western for example is divided into sixteen narrative 'functions':
1.The hero enters a social group.
2.The hero is unknown to society.
3.The hero is revealed to have an exceptional skill.
4.The society recognises a difference between themselves and the hero; the hero is given a special status.
5.The society does not completely accept the hero.
6.There is a conflict of interests between the villains and the society.
7.The villains are stronger than the society; the society is weak.
8.There is a strong friendship or respect between the hero and a villain.
9.The villains threaten the society.
10.The hero avoids involvement in the conflict.
11.The villains endanger a friend of the hero.
12.The hero fights the villains.
13.The hero defeats the villains.
14.The society is safe.
15.The society accepts the hero.
16.The hero loses or gives up his special status.
(Will Wright Sixguns and Society: A structural study of the Western,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.)
If you're interested in reading more about these theories try the following texts, you won't find anything better believe me.
"An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture" - John
Storey. Harvester & Wheatsheaf, 1993.
"Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader" - edited by John Storey. Harvester & Wheatsheaf, 1994.
"A Reader's Guide to Literary Theory 4th Edition" - Seldon, Widdowson, Brooker. Prentice Hall, Harvester & Wheatsheaf, 1997.
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From: Vinny Vincent
Subject: Story Archetypes & Basic Plots
Kurt Vonnegut's 'Man in a Hole' approach seems to distil plots down to one archetype: 'Somebody gets into trouble and gets out of it. People never get tired of this.'
So it goes.
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From: M J Simpson
Subject: Re: story structure theory
I find this whole theory of basic story structure to be, frankly, a load of dingo's kidneys. I recall on my degree (Film, TV & Radio Studies at Staffs - what a waste of time) we were given a book to read on Propp's theories, which applied them to Star Wars. It was written by somebody who believed the film contained characters named "Princess Leah" and "Obe Kenobe." I figured if the author was so stupid that he didn't even know the names of the main characters (or couldn't be bothered to look them up) nothing else he said had any validity.
As for Propp, his work was based on Russian fairy tales and never intended to be applied to Hollywood movies. Of course all Russian fairy tales share certain themes: they have a common cultural origin and a common social purpose. Duh!
The whole idea of there only being a set number of stories is daft since it requires the categorisation of those stories to be so broad as to be meaningless. Depending on how detailed you want those stories to be, you can identify 7 essential stories, or 32, or 2,657, or just one (somebody does something which causes something to happen). By the same token, you could argue that everybody on Earth is one of three basic heights: short, tall or medium. If you define those categories in broad terms it's plainly true but it doesn't help you one little bit.
Which brings me to my final point: that theoretical wibblings on the theory of story structure are fine in abstract, but have no practical value. How many great (or even good or average) films were written by somebody sitting down with a copy of Propp and checking they matched his ideas? Theory is fine for deconstructing stories (if you like that sort of thing and have nothing better to do) but it's useless in constructing them. That still requires the far more difficult technique of, as somebody once observed, staring at the paper until your forehead bleeds.
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From: Mikael Colville-Andersen, http://www.euroscreenwriters.com
Subject: Structure and Form
I'm thoroughly enjoying the debate about structure and the number of plots and symbolism. That's what this kind of email list is for - sharing knowledge and learning from one another. We'll learn far more with concrete and creative exchanges of wisdom and experience than endlessly ping-ponging opinions about whether soaps are good or bad.
Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing Europe's greatest screenwriters for a doc. I made. Sergio Donati, one of Italy's most prolific writers and writer on several Sergio Leone films, summed up all the structure in filmmaking in the most concise way.
"What is film? What is drama? In the first act you hang a man up in a tree. In the second act, you throw stones at him. In the third act, he falls down. If he's alive, it's a comedy. If he's dead, it's a drama."
And then there is Feydeau's one rule of playwriting.
"Character A: My life is perfect as long as I don't see Character B.
Knock, knock.
Enter Character B."
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From: O.F.
Subject: Re plot and character types,
There's a good summary of them in the book 'The Art and Science of Screenwriting' - sorry I can't remember the author.
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From: Steve Keyworth
Subject: Story rules and structure
Another tip from the hardboiled professionals...
Raymond Chandler's rule was whenever he got stuck he would have a man enter with a gun and work it out from there.
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