The Pleasures of Structure

Learning Screenwriting Through Case Studies

Julian Hoxter

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781441164261
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Rédaction de scénarios de films

The Pleasures of Structure starts from the premise that the ability to develop a well understood and articulated story structure is the most important skill a screenwriter can develop. For example, good structure requires a great premise and rigorous character development. Without clear character motivations and goals--which are themselves indicative of key structural beats--your story is going exactly nowhere. Using the simple and flexible 'W' model of screenplay structure developed in the prequel Write What You Don't Know, Hoxter sets this out as its starting point. This model is tested against a range of examples which are chosen to explore the flexibility not only of that model but of movie storytelling more generally. Writers and students often worry that they are asked to work 'to formula'. This book will test that formula to breaking point. For example, the first case study will offer the example of a well written, professional, mainstream movie against which our later and more adventurous examples can be compared. So the lessons we learn examining the animated family adventure movie How To Train Your Dragon lead us directly to ask questions of our second case study, the acclaimed Swedish vampire movie Låt den Rätte Komma In ( Let The Right One In ). Both movies have protagonists with the same basic problem, the same goal, and they use the same basic structure to tell their stories. Of course they are very different films and they work on their audiences in very different ways. Our linked case studies will expose how simple choices, like reversing the order of elements of the protagonist's transformational arc and shifting ownership of key story beats, has an enormous impact on how we respond to a structural model that is otherwise functionally identical.

Section Two

Case Studies

The following short chapters are each dedicated to one of the key beats of the W model of movie structure. In each chapter we will explore the structural choices made by screenwriters and filmmakers through ongoing core case studies of recent movies as well as through a wider range of specific examples. Our three primary texts will offer variety in terms of genre and budgetary level. The central example we will analyse will be a well-crafted, animated adventure film: How to Train Your Dragon (2010, scr. William Davies and Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders, adapted from the book by Cressida Cowell); a Swedish horror movie: Låt den Rätte Komma In / Let the Right One In (2008, scr. John Ajvide Lindqvist, adapted from his own novel) and a low-budget, character-driven independent drama: Winter’s Bone (2010, scr. Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini, adapted from the novel by Daniel Woodrell). We will lead with How to Train Your Dragon as our default mainstream text and catch up with the other two stories at regular intervals and in the occasional lesson.

On the surface, these core case studies are very different in terms of their genres, styles, narrational strategies and intended audiences. Despite this, the three movies all adopt the same basic, underlying story structure, deploying their key beats in the same sequence. What makes for an interesting comparison is the way other screenwriting choices—and sometimes risky ones—show the range and depth of this basic structural model of movie storytelling. We will learn as much about what unites these movies as what obviously divides them. If story structure is all about exciting pleasure in your audience, then these three films are building very different kinds of pleasure (or perhaps, in the case of Let the Right One In, a kind of unpleasure) off the same model.

In each chapter—for each part of the story—we will also step back from the analysis of our core case studies to offer more general lessons and specific examples from a wide range of other movies. So, in the first chapter there is a general lesson about how to approach writing exposition. That lesson is followed by a short case study example that illustrates a particular technique of writing exposition. In turn that case study is followed by a series of short examples showing how opening beats are handled in other movies. In this way, each chapter gives both general guidance and specific examples to help you get to grips with the kinds of creative choices you may be working on at each stage of your own screenplays. This is important because, although the point of this book is to provide you with a general model of movie story structure, the breadth of example and advice is there to encourage you to see the enormous creative range and depth that model allows.

I have picked our core films for practical reasons as well as for the creative structural choices they present. Two of our examples test the model established through the W and How to Train Your Dragon almost to destruction. Let the Right One In undermines the status of the protagonist as the operating force in a screen story, for example and Winter’s Bone pushes the power of the story world to block a protagonist’s progress. Between them, however, they also embody great writing from the four-quadrant mainstream, through off-beat genre cinema to the low-budget independent sector.34 All three movies have won multiple awards; and all three have been awarded specifically for the quality of their writing. For example, How to Train Your Dragon won an “Annie” in 2011 for “Best Writing in an Animated Feature Production.” Let the Right One In won several national and festival awards for best adapted screenplay and Winter’s Bone won the prestigious “Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award” at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Act One: First down angle (recognition)

Typically, the first act and angle of a mainstream or mainstream-independent screenplay is all about your protagonist recognizing two linked truths:

1. She recognizes a problem or challenge that needs addressing. If she chooses not to address this challenge, either she will remain somehow unfulfilled and in personal or emotional stasis or bad things will happen (or continue to happen) to her or to those about whom she cares, depending on the kind of story you are telling.

2. She comes to accept—albeit often hesitantly and without fully understanding what acceptance means—that she is the only person that can do something about that problem and decides she will try.

This first section of the W is represented as a down angle because these revelations signal an immediate future for the protagonist filled with nothing but trouble and trouble feels like a downer.

In a well-written screen story, the problem or challenge that your protagonist faces will manifest in both the story and the plot.

Remember:

• Plot problems are external to the protagonist but still affect them directly in some way. Forces in the world may threaten them or those they care about, for example.

• Story problems are internal but also manifest practically in the world. A character flaw or challenge is good story material when it affects not only the protagonist but also, by extension, those around them.

Remember that in my W model of story structure we can choose to break the angles down into ever-smaller elements to help us understand how they work and to plan our stories. As a first stage, we can split each angle into two half angles.

In the first act, each half-angle deals with at least one of the two truths we began with.

The first, Primary Exposition, is focused on recognizing the protagonist’s opening problem. The second, Debate, follows her as she comes to terms with how she feels about it and what she is going to try and do.

In order to consider in more detail how each of these tasks is achieved, we can make a further split in each half-angle. In this way, the first half-angle is comprised of two beats. The first: Story World, introduces us to the lived context of the story and sets the protagonist and their problem within it. The second beat: Desire, sets up their desire for change. This half-angle also introduces us to the theme of the story. It will be developed further as things move along, but by the end of the second beat we should have a good sense of what is personally at stake for the protagonist. If she desires something important, that desire will speak to the theme of the story. It may not yet be directed towards the specific task that the story will assign, but we will know enough from this beat to intuit how our heroine’s desire will be engaged when that plot direction is revealed.

We do the same thing with the second half-angle, which divides into its own two beats. Hesitation reflects initial resistance to dealing with the problem – change is hard! First Commitment brings us to the end of the act and angle as the protagonist recognizes they have to do something and takes a first step onto the path of change.

Let’s work this through, using How to Train Your Dragon as our first example.

In How to Train Your Dragon the story beats of the first angle work like this:

A – Primary exposition

1. Story World: Hiccup is brave and intelligent, but also a weak and skinny little Viking boy. He is innovative and imaginative, but he lives in a world that praises physical strength and steadfast adherence to “the old ways.”

2. Desire: Hiccup wants to be a dragon-slaying Viking hero, but he gets into trouble and proves a liability while trying to make his mark. Hiccup also has a crush on a Viking girl, Astrid, but we see that he will have to slay a whole lot of dragons—metaphorically at least—to have a chance with her.

B – Debate

3. Hesitation: The other Vikings are certain that Hiccup will never make it as a dragon slayer. What’s more, when he finally has the chance to be a hero, he can’t bring himself to kill a dragon.

4. First Commitment: Hiccup accepts his failure as a dragon slayer just when his father (Stoick, the village chief and the film’s antagonist) finally relents and lets him train as one. He accepts the training with great reluctance as he knows now that it works directly against his nature. At the end of the act, Hiccup has been given the chance that he originally wanted. However, paradoxically, he feels lost. He needs to find new purpose after his dreams have been shattered.

Poor Hiccup has an internal story problem that adversely affects his relationship with his community and thus his future hopes for any kind of happiness and success. The first act and angle is all about helping both Hiccup and the audience to recognize the enormity of that problem and having Hiccup decide to do something about it.

The theme of How to Train Your Dragon

• The story of How to Train Your Dragon is all about fitting in.

• The manifestation of this in the story is acceptance.

• The manifestation of this in the plot is accommodation.

• In plot terms: Hiccup can’t slay dragons in a world where dragon slayers rule. See his problem?

At the start of the movie the protagonist, Hiccup, is shown to be different from the rest of his tribe. In fact he’s so different that the other Vikings are the collective antago...