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Compilation © Robin Kelly 2001 - 2003
Edited and compiled by Robin Kelly exclusively for Writing for Performance
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Story Theory
From: Charlie Harris, www.screen-lab.co.uk
Subject: Myths
"1. Myths; Chris Vogler's WRITERS JOURNEY is more accessible than Joseph Campbell; however, try Lajos Egri as well (THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING or THE ART OF CREATIVE WRITING. The latter is out of print. Good source for second-hand books is http://www.abebooks.com)
Both good books, but people there's more to storytelling than myths - there are also fairy tales, which may be more appropriate to many scripts. Myths tend to have tragic endings. Fairy tales by contrast tend to have happy endings. Both tap our deepest emotions and explore profound issues of human life in dramatic and engaging ways, but fairy tales often have a lighter touch, so have tended to be dismissed.
The best book to read is Bruno Bettelheim's "Uses of Enchantment". I know of a writer who always turns to it when he's stuck with an ending! I've tried it and it works. A fascinating book and very stimulating.
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From: Marc
Subject: Fairy tales
Charlie Harris wrote
"there are also fairy tales, which may be appropriate to many scripts. The best book to read is Bruno Bettelheim's 'Uses of Enchantment'. I know of a writer who always turns to it when he's stuck with an ending! I've tried it and it works. A fascinating book and very stimulating."
An even better book than Bettleheim's is 'Women Who Run With Wolves' by an Argentinian writer called Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Because of it's beardy-weirdy title, it's been overlooked by writers, but it's an absolutely riveting in-depth exploration of the psychology and symbolism of fairy tales. It's a big book, but I really can't recommend it too highly for any writer looking to tell old stories in new ways. It takes you beyond narrative into meaning. And it's got some great fairy tales that you almost certainly won't have read before.
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From: Alan Denman
Subject: Re: Myths And Fairy Tales
In response to Charlie Harris`s useful comments on the differences between myths and fairy tales, I would like to add that what Campbell/Vogler offer is an invaluable archetypal story template to screenwriters and storytellers. I have used this many times and its power is not be underestimated.
One of the problems I have found with fairy tales is that, although motifs and patterns overlap a great deal, there is not an overarching story structure.
Campbell`s idea that there is one story - which can be told in thousands of different ways - has great focus and appeal. My impression is that most US screenwriters are familiar with these story structure ideas and this is one reason they can write screenplays with a universal appeal. They are not afraid to address the "big questions" and the template gives them a form in which to construct stories and a pattern that we can all subconsciously relate to.
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From: Alan Denman
Subject: Joseph Campbell
For those who`ve asked for more information on Campbell`s and Vogler`s work and for anyone else who`s interested, here it is.
I read Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols when I was seventeen and it was like a light being switched on. Eventually (many years later) I read Joseph Campbell`s seminal work The Hero With A Thousand Faces, found it interesting but a little abstract, then read Chris Vogler`s book The Writer`s Journey. I`d already met him on a course in Denmark and knew that the way he talked about screenplays was the way I wanted to write also.
The fundamental concept behind the Hero`s Journey is a going and a return: the "hero" (male or female protagonist) begins in the known, ordinary world and is then called, forced or seduced to go on a journey into the unknown, extraordinary world. There he or she undergoes a series of tests and/or initiations and returns to the known world with some kind of prize or "elixir" - this could be wisdom, knowledge, a line of music or a magic sword.
This journey contains a series of archetypal stages or steps, which form the basis for marvellous storytelling. Reflection (if it`s a Western, it`s the talking and reminiscing around the camp fire which precedes the battle with the gangsters the following day) precedes action. And usually at the heart of the Hero`s Journey is some kind of transformation or death-and-rebirth. This can take many forms and is one of the great, noble and inspiring ideas of the mythic pattern: that we must face our worst fears (our own dark self often) and let go. By so doing a part of us dies, but a new, greater part is born. We discover new inner resources with which to deal with our obstacles.
I`ve found that by applying the model in a free, non-prescriptive way to my own scripts I can make things work better. In that respect you have to possess already something of the same spirit that informs many American screenplays: that change is possible and that we as individuals can achieve great things in our lives. (The British/European temperament tends, I believe, to be much more pessimistic and cynical.) The scale for this can be as big or small as you, the storyteller, wishes: the war hero who saves a village or an old man who decides to repair his relationship with his long lost brother (The Straight Story).
Read the books. Try out the model on your own scripts. And bear in mind Vogler`s enormously profound insight that at a deeper level all the characters in your screenplay are facets and extensions of your hero/protagonist. In fighting his/her enemy your protagonist is facing him/herself.
From time to time I also do a one-day workshop on this for screenwriters - usually at the Screenwriters` Centre. Check out our website if you want to see what we're doing: www.lsw.org.uk
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From: Ari Hiltunen
Subject: Aristotle in Hollywood
I'm happy to notice that Aristotle's and Propp's theories have been recently brought up in several letters.
While attending Los Angeles Screenings in the early 1990's as an acquisition executive of YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company) I found several books about screenwriting that emphasised the importance of Aristotle's Poetics to any screenwriter. I was fascinated by Richard Walter's (Professor and Screenwriting Faculty Chairman, UCLA) words:
"Screenwriters are not expected ever fully to understand the Poetics. Rather, they have to study it again and again. They have to make it part of their lives. It need not be read straight through from beginning to end; one can skip around at random. The trick to using the Poetics is not to try to extract timeless principles, though they are surely there, but rather to follow it closely in a practical, hands-on way, not to interpret but obey."
What are these 'timeless principles'? What was the great philosopher really trying to communicate about the nature of storytelling? Aristotle explains that the goal of drama is oikeia hedone, 'proper pleasure,' and it can be brought about by using certain storytelling strategies. Aristotle's argument is that the more pleasure a drama can bring about, the better the drama.
In the 1920's the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp was surprised to find a common pattern in folktales from all over the world. Later the American anthropologist Joseph Campbell found a common pattern in stories and myths in ancient cultures and wrote about this in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
I have written a book in which I demonstrate how Propp's and Campbell's discoveries, the world's best-loved fairy tales, empirical studies on the enjoyment of drama and brain physiology give support to the idea of a universal 'proper pleasure' through storytelling. I have also analysed Hollywood blockbusters and bestsellers to show the power of the 'proper pleasure'.
I believe that Aristotle's insights into the rules of successful storytelling 2300 years ago are still of key value to any screenwriter.
This book 'Aristotle in Hollywood' will possibly be published in the UK by Intellect books (info@intellectbooks.com).
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From: Angela Mullen
Subject: Writing books and theories
Would it not be true to say that every story must have a beginning, middle and an end?
How many times I have you listened to someone tells a joke and they get stuck in the middle, or forgot the punch line and it's wasted. Even if they try to tell it a second time.
I've read many writing books (and purchased many) and I think that although they package the message slightly differently it all seems to come to the same thing - beginning, middle and end.
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From: Charlie Harris, www.screen-lab.co.uk
Subject: Joseph Campbell
"I've found that by applying the model in a free, non-prescriptive way to my own scripts I can make things work better. In that respect you have to possess already something of the same spirit that informs many American screenplays: that change is possible and that we as individuals can achieve great things in our lives. (The British/European temperament tends, I believe, to be much more pessimistic and cynical.)"
This puts the key argument better than I could have done. Why should we have to take on American values to write good scripts? I have enormous admiration for American movies and American culture in general - and also enormous doubts about some less happy aspects of American life.
We have to find a way to express our own individual temperaments within a mesh of cultures which are (it's true) part American but also substantially British, English, Jewish, Muslim, black, white, gay, straight, London, Yorkshire, hip-hop, Jazz-loving, Jazz-hating you name it, all those bits that go to make up a fully functioning human being.
That means confronting received forms, sometimes using them, sometimes subverting them, in the interests of holding an audience riveted to their seats while we put something of our own personalities on the screen.
Sorry to pontificate. I can do it at greater length if given encouragement!!
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From: Kevin McMullen
Subject: American culture v's British culture
I was particularly interested in Charlie Harris' comments yesterday regarding Alan Denman's posting titled *Joseph Campbell* which inferred that the American psyche i.e. that change is possible and that individuals are capable of great things, somehow has a bearing on the quality of films coming out of the U.S. compared to the old, cynical U.K.
This suggests that it is the American dream which is responsible for the quality of their film making. But which came first. Since Americans through a lack of history have come to define themselves through their films and the American dream is merely a manifestation of that philosophy then where does this leave the argument?
It seems more appropriate to view their film making within the confines of experience, grasp of the dramatic form and the time and energy invested in development, none of which should be considered as being purely American traits.
The one thing which differentiates the U.K. from the U.S. scene is class structure and the effect that has on scope. In the U.K. the class structure inherent in most British films in one fashion or another has an extremely limiting effect on the scope of a film.
By contrast consider the classless American culture and the vast, universal canvass that offers. All we have to do is imagine how the *British* version of High Fidelity would have fared against the *American* version. Instead of another *Fever Pitch*, dull, parochial and mildly amusing, we have an international film based on an English book, attracting an A-list cast, with a wide and varied appeal i.e. not just Nick Hornby fans!
Unless we find a way round this I fear we shall always be consigned to niche markets.
Any suggestions?
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From: Hugo Heppell
Subject: The myths about class
Kevin McMullen is on the button when talking about Aristotle, less so on the difference between the UK and the US. America is not a classless society. It has, however, ruthlessly created the myth that it is. Read Howard Zinn's 'The People's History of the United States', for example, and consider that Bush is the preppie son of a preppie president and Gore was groomed from birth to succeed his senator father and run for office. Capra has a lot to answer for. Bill Gates did not start with nothing. The Kennedys marry tennis players. The children of studio folk become actors themselves. The Rockefellers still own enough of Chase Manhattan Bank to influence national and international affairs.
Worse, America/Hollywood has decided that Britain was, is and always will be a class-ridden society. The British films that succeed across the water tend to be the ones that reinforce this view. Which inevitably perpetuates both the myth and the need to keep on producing more of the same.
What I find ultimately most reprehensible is that we are such slaves to American cultural imperialism that we start to believe it ourselves. Is France a class-ridden, elitist society? Of course it is. But they make 'Les Visiteurs', take the piss out of the anachronism and move on to more interesting subjects. They also have a word for endless, and futile, self-examination: 'nombrilisme'. Navel-gazing.
That is the greatest difference between Britain and the US. Isn't it time to stop worrying about class and start thinking about slightly bigger themes? Everyone else has.
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From: Robin Kelly, http://www.writing.org.uk
Subject: Templates
"Just wondering if anyone knows of a script template for Word? Or any other script formatting freeware for a PC?"
My website has script templates and links to the best templates available on the Resources page.
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From: Jeff Caffrey
Subject: Save money and use Word!
Hello everyone,
I posted a similar message to this a long time ago and just to save everyone a few bob or two here it is again.
Forget about chasing Final Draft and just set up a template in your Microsoft office program.
Go into 'Styles' in the formatting menu, set all your styles as per industry format script, type in some keyboard shortcuts so that you can just select and edit text as and when you want to for Directions, Speech, Parenthetical business etc, and just type away.
I've done it that way for years and never received a single comment on the formatting of my work.
Give it a try.
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From: Jonathan Hands
Subject: Three Act Structure
It's been interesting to read a number of people saying that the three act structure is out of date and not one to be used in these days of post-modernism. I have to say I disagree: every story has a beginning, middle and end. The set up, the confrontation, the resolution. It's a structure that's been proven to work in the past and continues to work in the present. Take a look at Robert Towne's "Chinatown" (perhaps the finest example of screenplay writing and story structure there is to date) or take a look at a more modern example, Kevin Andrew Walker's "Seven". Both employ the three-act structure and both are landmarks in cinema history. To say that the three-act structure is dead or out of fashion or even out of favour is not giving it the credit it deserves. It can work. (Get a copy of "Seven & 8MM" by Andrew Kevin Walker published by Faber and Faber. It shows the three act structure of the both screenplays and has an interview with Walker at the beginning about how he started in screenwriting and why he utilises and favours the three act structure)
Of course, there are other paradigms of screenplay writing that can be employed but I personally believe that in these days of post-modern art and disjointed narratives the craft of storytelling is getting a little side tracked by writers trying to achieve the clever "Pulp Fiction" atmosphere, a complex model of disjointed storytelling that takes skill and great knowledge of the art of screenwriting, a model not everybody can achieve. Many films, a lot of them British, have failed trying to copy the Tarantino style I'm sure you'll agree.
The three act structure may seem simple and uninteresting but in actual fact it's perhaps the hardest form of screenwriting to master. It takes skill to tell a straight narrative, to weave a tale that can include excitement, mystery, humour, sadness and three-dimensional characters in a linear manner. You have three acts, the set-up, the confrontation, the resolution: these are merely a model, a model you can twist and weave to your will.
Personally, I favour the three act structure as do many screenwriters. It's a structure that works, a structure that can unlock compelling stories, it's a model that some of the greatest films of yesteryear and today have utilised. It worked for them.
In all things there is a beginning, a middle and an end. If it's not a paradigm you feel comfortable with, that's fine, but don't write it off simply because you don't favour it.
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From: Mikael Colville-Andersen, http://www.euroscreenwriters.com
Rumours of the demise of the three act structure are grossly exaggerated. If anything, old Aristotles' gift to the dramatic world is enjoying resurgence. Hollywood have mastered the structure since the war and rarely make anything without the traditional form. (Indeed, it has been said that Hollywood makes one film a year with 80 titles). However, the structure works and most European film schools have begun to teach the structure over the past ten years. Lars von Trier uses it as well as films like The Celebration and Mifune and the other Danish Dogma films.
One can say they don't adhere to the three act form, but it exists all the same. It appears on paper, if not consciously, then through instinct. Aristotle's determined the ground rules and now, in our film and television society, the structure finds it way into our stories, whether we like it or not.
I have had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing many legendary
screenwriters. Stateside; Paul Schrader and Richard Price among others. In Europe, Suso Cecchi d'Amico (wrote for Visconti, Antonioni, Fellini), Gerard Brach (Polanski), Jean-Claude Carriere (Bunuel, Forman) and Sergio Donati (Sergio Leone).
They all scoff at the rigid, painting by numbers approach to screenwriting preached by the likes of Syd Fields and Linda Seger et al. However, the structure exists in their work. Through instinct. Leaving us with one conclusion. Learn the rules before you break them.
Study the three-act structure inside and out until plot points, pinches, development metaphors, inciting incidents creep out of every pore. Then, and only then, will you know how you can bend and twist and manipulate your form.
There is an article about the brief history of modern dramaturgy at:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5698/adramaturgy.html-----------------------------------------------
From: Raoul
Subject: Re: Three act structure
In his submission Jonathan Hands quite rightly says that the Three act structure is favoured by the film industry and that it is a good form within which to tell a story. I personally feel that it goes further than this.
Godard stated that EVERY film had a beginning middle and an end though not necessarily in that order. I think that much of the argument comes over this question of order. I also believe that it is possible to divide up acts and to have them placed out of a time linear sequence as Tarantino does in Pulp Fiction. What I have not seen in narrative stories is a structure where three acts are not fairly easily identified.
There are filmmakers who desire to make Non-narrative films. Not really my thing, I have to admit, but these obviously need not have a three act structure as they are not trying to tell a story.
Many words have been expended on the work of Joseph Campbell and "Hero with a Thousand Faces" in particular. What I find interesting is the transposition between Campbell's work, which was an exposition of what he found in stories and in Mythic stories in particular, to a presentation of his work as, "this is what your story MUST have in order to be a "real" story". Syd Field similarly observed that films he had analysed possessed a particular structure. Even Robert McKee says that he offers a path, NOT a set of rules that must be obeyed. Aristotle likewise, gave an insight into the craft, though he came nearest to saying, "do this or else".
However structure, while important, is not the most important thing. The most important thing is "THE STORY", (in narrative filmmaking anyway). The structure is a very important means of presentation, and if you get it wrong you can ruin a good story, (try telling a joke beginning with the punchline!), but it is the story that counts. Mckee, in his seminars, points out that "I can only tell you how to write it, I cannot tell you what to write".
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From: Marc
Subject: Three Act Structure
In the hands of a good writer, the three act form can still work. But the fact is that, since Syd Field's book came out all those years ago, it has become over-used. Every hack, film student and great idea merchant has jumped on to the three-act bandwagon, with the result that it's become degraded and predictable.
Part of the reason that there are so many crap movies out there is that they've been written to formula – first turning point by page 25, midpoint by page 60, crisis by page 90 blah blah blah. It's boring! If you have a great idea for a story, like Seven, the three act structure can help you express it (although I think there's a case to be made that Seven isn't a three acter at all, but a four acter - but let's not go there). Otherwise, three acts is just a stale way of saying nothing very much.
P.S. Can we all get over Chinatown now please? It's not that great.
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From: Charlie Harris, www.screen-lab.co.uk
Subject: Three Act Structure
"It's been interesting to read a number of people saying that the three act structure is out of date and not one to be used in these days of post-modernism. I have to say I disagree"
Absolutely. In my (humble) opinion, 95% of films are rightly made in what is clearly a three act structure, and many of the remaining 5% make a nominal bow towards three acts - because the film-makers know that this is the structure we audiences instinctively seek out.
It is however important for writers (and producers and directors) to realise that there are other potential structures and that 3 Acts is not always the correct structure for any given story.
Epics are an obvious example - if you try to squeeze an epic into three acts it will just not seem "big" enough. This is one (although by no means the only) reason I believe Gladiator was generally felt to be "lightweight".
If you look at an epic film, you'll find 5 Acts, 7 Acts, a wide range of numbers, but very often the first and last acts will work very similarly to the first and last acts of a 3 act script, so as not to lose the audience altogether.
Other films have one act, two acts, or are episodic (eg: Goodfellas). They are not easy to pull off, as the story must be appropriate to the structure and you have to find other ways of providing coherence and a dramatic through-line, but they are very satisfying if you succeed.
Nonetheless, I repeat with JH, the vast majority of films are structured in 3 acts, and are totally right to be so.
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