The Story Solution. Eric Edson
truth: 95% of all screenplays by newcomers don’t work. And most of these scripts fail for the same reason. They simply do not contain enough active, audience-gripping dramatic action to sustain a whole feature film. Even with riveting characters and dazzling dialogue, many writers remain clueless about how much sheer plot is required to hold an audience enthralled for two whole hours.
After reading thousands of scripts and discussing screen story with writers, film executives, producers, and directors at all of the major Hollywood studios — and after closely analyzing many hundreds of films — I’ve gleaned an important insight. Every commercially successful movie contains the same detailed pattern in screen storytelling, consisting of 23 specific, linking story actions I call Hero Goal Sequences® that must be included in a script if the movie is to become a hit.
(NOTE: There’s actually a small range in the number of Hero Goal Sequences® necessary, never fewer than 20 or more than 23. But for simplicity’s sake, I’ll use the high end number of 23 when referring to the Hero Goal Sequencing paradigm.)
Anyone who ever sat down to write a feature-length film knows that Act Two, the seventy-page middle section, is a killer. Scripts rise to glory or fall into obscurity based on what happens in these middle pages. The second act remains an incredible challenge and a vast desert wasteland strewn with the bleached bones of many hopeful writers who did not make it through to the other side.
Wouldn’t a more unified, consistent, and user-friendly story paradigm be enormously helpful?
Of course the imponderable power of talent helps a lot in writing, as in all things. But truth be told, talent is not the deciding factor in who will bag a script sale and who won’t. Hollywood hardly ever buys a completed screenplay to be shot without rewrites anyway.
Hollywood buys, then develops, stories.
Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan observed, “The American movie tradition is about narrative.” In other words, about well-built plots.
It comes down to this. Movies that work always work for the same story structure reasons. It doesn’t matter if it’s Inception or Avatar or The Dark Knight or Juno or Men In Black or The Departed or The Proposal or Iron Man or Pretty Woman or Ray or The Hangover or Erin Brockovich or Fight Club or Walk the Line or The Devil Wears Prada or Up. No matter the genre, if a movie is a hit, if it gives people the kick they come to the cineplex to get, then I maintain that that film contains the same 23 progressive story actions as every other successful movie.
An outlandish idea, perhaps. At the very least, spooky. But absolutely true.
Offered here is a clear, linking chain of highly specific, understandable Hero Goal Sequences® that drive your story forward with no holes or gaps. Steps that tie every part of your story together, creating for your reader a unified and emotionally exhilarating ride.
If your screenplay captivates a producer and sweeps her along eager to find out what happens next, then the chances of getting that script sold shoot way, way up, yes?
Please don’t assume I’m proposing some kind of cut-and-paste formula for cranking out technically perfect but soulless stories. No. When using these tools you still get to work hard, sweat buckets, strain your brain and mine your creativity, just like before. But this book makes it possible to take any idea you may have for a movie, virtually any conflict-based story idea at all, apply this approach to plotting, create answers for all issues raised by the Goal Sequencing paradigm, and know with confidence that you’ve written an audience-engaging, potentially successful movie.
And if your script lacks these required 23 steps it will most likely never make it out of the agent’s or studio reader’s slush pile.
Pretty tall talk?
The following chapters will prove it.
This book has been organized into four parts. Part One lays out the key conceptual reasons why the ritual of storytelling means so much to all of us, the essential role that conflict plays, and how savvy screenwriters and novelists can best use these ageless human truths in building stories with Hero Goal Sequences® that will wow agents and producers.
Part Two explores ways to build your characters, and investigates the universal character categories that serve writers in the creation of story. It also includes tools to develop characters progressively throughout these 23 story actions, and how the dialogue you write for them should sound.
Part Three reveals the ways in which character is plot and plot is character, explains the basic elements of screen story structure that then become foundation for the more detailed 23 sequences template, and how a strong Hero Growth Arc fits perfectly into the 23 Hero Goal actions to give your script thematic depth and get it noticed.
Part Four then reveals in detail, one by one, the 23 linking story sequences all hit movies share, offering up the most powerful plot outlining method you will ever encounter.
The beating heart of this book remains throughout a demonstration of how understanding and using Hero Goal Sequences® can greatly improve the work of any writer.
part one Laying The Foundation
chapter one
THE SCREENWRITER’S GOAL
You wake up one bright, chipper morning, lift the shade to see squirrels frolicking on the fence outside, and Bam! It hits you.
The perfect new idea for a movie.
This is it. Breakthrough time.
Without even stopping to nuke yesterday’s stale coffee, you scurry to your desk, pounce on the keyboard, and let those fingers fly. And yes! Script pages start pouring out.
Bless sudden inspiration. It’s a thrilling source of creative energy, a jolt like no other.
Until about page forty-eight.
Pause.
Chin scratch. Now what does the hero do? Press iron? Text his girlfriend? Take a nap?
Uhh… don’t have a clue.
And once again that eternal truth gets revealed: no plan, no Oscar.
It’s a fact of the writing life. To really give any new story a fighting chance, mapping out in advance exactly how your plot will develop — from first page to last — remains essential for success. Launching into a project without a well-considered roadmap most often leads to another half-finished screenplay or novel dropping into the bottom drawer, never to be seen again.
Well, there’s a concept I call Hero Goal Sequences® that can conquer the bottom drawer.
This paradigm offers the best story-building tool anywhere. And it works for novels as well as feature film scripts.
A fine story is an elegant tapestry woven from many interlocking, brightly colored threads. Each strand by itself means nothing. Only when interlaced to realize a carefully planned pattern do all the threads join and become art.
STORY RITUAL
According to Noah Webster, ritual means “Any formal customary observance, prescribed form or… ceremonial procedure.”
A prescribed form. That’s screenwriting in a nutshell, and Hero Goal Sequences® on the nose.
Understanding the ceremonial way we enjoy storytelling allows us to demystify the basic concept of all narrative writing, which is that every good tale ever told is made up of a series of prescribed steps through a ritual structure of story that speaks