STARTING YOUR SCRIPT: the SCRIPTMONK method

Well, you just sit down and start writing, don't you? Just bang away and hope the story finds itself as you explore your ideas as you write. Well, you could do this, but this would be akin to getting in your car and hitting the road without any idea of how to get where you're going. And, you will most likely end up with a 150-page monster of a first draft that is meandering, unfocused, and haphazard in its structure. When it comes time to rewrite, you may be in over your head. It may take several drafts to pound your original story idea into workable shape.

However, if you take the time and effort before you start writing to explore and understand this story you are trying to create and what path must be laid in front of your characters, you can cut the torture of rewriting in half. This preparation all comes down to a series of simple steps.

Your script begins mostly as a loose collections of thoughts in your head. You've come up with a basic premise, thought up the characters who occupy it, and have probably managed a few pages of notes or a couple dozen notecards scribbled with ideas for scenes, bits of character, scraps of dialogue, and so on. But, regardless of what your Syd Field book tells you, the last thing you want to do at this point is grab the corkboard and hack out some half-cocked 3-Act structure. This might help you churn out a first draft, but it will undoubtedly be so weak and hole-filled that you will be consumed with confusion when you try to fix things in the rewrite. You are trying to create a story, and story does not come from plot. Story comes from character. So this is where we must start.

1. START WITH YOUR PROTAGONIST

You may be confused to hear that all story comes from your protagonist, and not the other way around. After all, you probably came up with your screenplay's premise first, and then invented a character suited to be its lead. But this was not the story creating the protagonist. This was merely the premise -- the seed of inspiration that will eventually lead to the creation of the story proper.

For now, forget about all the events you foresee happening in your story and focus only on your intended main character. Really get to know them, the way you might get to know a stranger whom you will be sharing the next year of your life – because, in a way, you WILL be. You need to grow to know this person better than you know your best friend. Explore their world and the people, places, and things they share it with. Understand how they feel about these things and how they choose to interact with them. Think of how they see themselves fitting in with that world. Think about the unique point of view they have towards it. How to they interpret the things around them? Positively? Negatively? Apathetically? Look into their past and find the reason behind that particular outlook. We are all an accumulation of our past experiences, and in order to understand who this person is in the present, you need to look into his or her past.

Above all, root out your protagonist's MAIN FLAW. The main flaw (or "Fatal Flaw") is the a psychological misconception that holds the character back in life. This is the cognitive/behavioral roadblock which has kept the character's life from being as happy or as successful as the character wishes it to be. We are all incomplete human beings. We all have internal flaws holding us back. No character can be perfect. If you have envisioned a “perfect” protagonist, give up on this script right now and start again, because nothing could be more boring or more inauthentic. A good story can be thought of as the process of watching someone grow as a person. A character begins flawed, but through the trials of dramatic events, the character is forced to change. The character cannot overcome the story problem while they are still flawed, so the character must reevaluate how they act and think, how they see themselves and the world, to transform into a better, more capable person. No matter who your character is, no matter how successful or happy they start out, they can never be a 100% complete person. They all have a flaw, and that flaw is holding them back. Find this flaw. It will be the source of the protagonist's INTERNAL NEED.

2. IDENTIFY THE PROTAGONIST'S INTERNAL NEED

The internal need is the essential thing missing from the protagonist's life. It is something that, once gained, will make the character a more complete, more satisfied person. Though the character may not yet realize it, this lack creates a hole in the character's life which prevents them from becoming a happier, more successful, more self-actualized individual.

The internal need is always directly linked to the character's main flaw. For instance, if a character believes that other people cannot be trusted, he or she will have few positive personal relationships. They will then be lonely, socially-isolated, or will lack the system of support he or she needs to achieve life's goals. Or, if the character believes he or she is worthless or incompetent, he or she will lack the confidence or drive to pursue basic objectives which may grant life a greater sense of meaning or self-worth.

The internal need should not be confused with a character's Story Goal. The Story Goal is an objective the character must physically achieve by the end of the story to overcome the Story Problem and resolve the main conflict. The Story Goal requires physical action. The internal need applies to the character's internal nature only; it relates to the character's abstract state of emotional well-being. To present a simple example, let's say you are running a marathon. The GOAL is to reach the finish line. To achieve this goal you must keep running and running and running. However, you may have entered the marathon because you feel a need to prove to yourself that you can survive this grueling test of endurance. By crossing the finish line, you fulfill this need. While reaching the GOAL may win you a trophy or medal, fulfilling your NEED grants you something of much greater personal value that will stay with you long after the race is over.

Characters rarely recognize their internal need. Most are ignorant of the fact that they have a need at all. If they understood from the beginning that they are incomplete persons and could be so much happier with a simple change, they would probably make an effort to achieve this change on their own before the story even begins. In other cases, characters begin their stories well aware of their personal problems, but refuse to change out of stubbornness or lack of will. In both cases, characters require the physical events of the story to force them to reevaluate their flawed ways of thought or action so the character may finally recognize and take the necessary steps toward achieving the need.

3. CREATE A UNIQUE STORY SITUATION THAT FORCES YOUR CHARACTER TO PURSUE THE INTERNAL NEED.

Here is the point where story literally emerges from character. The characters need to change. But they aren't going to change on their own. The rules of inertia are at play. Things don't start moving until something forces them to move. When the Story Problem engages at the inciting incident, circumstances force the character into action, placing him or her on a road filled with physical predicaments that will demand that the character slowly grow and change.

This is the “Mind Worm” that Robert McKee mentions in STORY. A mind worm is a fictional creature that can burrow inside a person's brain, learn what that person needs out of life, and then create an adventure specifically-tailored to give that person exactly what he or she needs. The mind worm might take a character in need of self-confidence and draft him into the army and send him to war. Here, the character must either learn to trust in his personal capabilities or die a coward. It might take a lazy, irresponsible character and make his rich industrialist father die, putting the family business into the slacker's hands-- a business his father's rival wishes to bankrupt.

You already have the premise of your story already in mind, so at this point it is just a matter of adapting the plot and its events to what your protagonist needs to experience to achieve a greater state of well-being. Or conversely, reimagine your protagonist so that his or her internal need is a perfect fit for the type of story events you plan to dramatize. Remember that a cinematic story must be made of physical actions that can be photographed and put on screen. A strictly internal journey will not play on screen. The plot must be made of tangible events in the external world that will consequently influence your character's internal nature.

4. MAP OUT THE STORY'S SPINE

Now that you have a story situation directly linked to your protagonist's internal need, map out the Story Spine which will comprise your hero's basic journey. (Do I have to again repeat just how damn important a Story Spine is? There's a reason why I capitalize it!) Specifically state – IN WRITING – 1. The Story Problem that confronts the protagonist. 2. The Story Goal the protagonist must achieve in order to overcome that problem. 3. The Path of Action – the series of actions the protagonist must take in order to reach that goal. 4. The Main Conflict that stands in the way of the protagonist's goal. And, last but certainly not least, 5. The Stakes that motivate the protagonist to keep pushing for the Goal despite the conflict standing in the way – what the protagonist has to gain upon success and/or what he or she will lose upon failure.

The Story Spine will be the basic roadmap for the rest of your story development.

5. CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF CONFLICT

Since the majority of a story's action is made up of the protagonist and antagonist clashing over competing goals, it is important to consider this source of dramatic conflict before we move on to plotting. Take time to think about the antagonist (or source of antagonism if the main conflict does not come from a singular person or creature) in the same way that you explored your protagonist. Map out the antagonist's spine. Have a clear idea before you start plotting of what the antagonist considers to be his or her problem, what the antagonist has chosen as a goal, what the antagonist is willing to do to accomplish that goal, what stands in his/her way (the protagonist of course, but it could be more than that), and what the antagonist has to win or lose to motivate his/her actions. The spines of the protagonist and antagonist should conflict; meaning that the actions the protagonist must take to reach his/her goal should somehow block the actions the antagonist takes to reach his/her own goal, and vice versa. This will create the maximum dramatic conflict, since it becomes impossible for one side to win without first defeating the other.

6. PLOT OUT YOUR STORY'S MAJOR TURNING POINTS

Now it is time to plan out the major events that will make up your story. This is where the world-famous 3-Act structure finally comes into play. But rather than start at the beginning and continue through to the end, there is a much easier and more logical way to perform the tasking mindwork of what-must-happen-when. Like any building project, we start with the most basic framework, and then gradually fill it in to slowly make it stronger and more complex.

The easiest, and possibly the most productive approach is to take a page from the world of animation artists. Animators use a method called “in-betweening” when it comes to drawing the many pictures necessary to make a character move. If an animator needs to draw an action, let's say make Bugs Bunny jump straight up in the air and land again, and this action needs to last for twenty frames (twenty individual drawings), the animator does not simply start with frame 1, then move on to frame 2, 3, 4... Instead, animators start by first drawing the two extremes of action. That would be Frame 1 of Bugs standing still before starting his jumping motion, and frame 20, when Bugs hits the ground again. They then draw the midpoint drawing, the drawing that is smack dab in the middle of the action. This would be frame 10, where Bugs Bunny is at the height of his leap. We now have three drawings: 1, 10, & 20. Now, the animator draws the “in-betweens,” the two frames that exist right at the middle points between the drawings we already have, meaning frames 5 & 15. This gives us five completed drawings. With that done, the animator does the in-betweens again for the frames that exist squarely between 1, 5, 10, 15, & 20, until we have nine drawings completed: frames 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20. This process continues until all twenty frames are finished.

When beating out your major turning points, start by establishing your extremes: the Inciting Incident and the Main Climax – the points where the story begins and ends. Then, fill in the plot's remaining Major Dramatic Turning Points: the End of 1st Act Turning Point, the Mid-2nd Act Turning Point,  and End of 2nd Act Turning Point, (we are using 3-Act structure after all). Now, do some in-betweening. What major event needs to occur to get your protagonist from the inciting incident to the End of 1st Act Turning Point? From the End of 1st Act Turning Point to the Mid-2nd TP, and then to the End of 2nd Act TP? From the End of 2nd Act TP to the Main Climax? When that is done, in-between again, until your story contains all necessary turning point events to construct a full 3-Act structure. A first act will usually have 2-3 turning points, including the inciting incident and end of first act turning point. The second act usually have 5-7, including the mid-second and end of second act turning point. The third act will have another 2-3, including the climax.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: In retrospect, I am uncertain whether I can still fully endorse this strategy. If you find it works well for you, then carry on. In more recent years, I have found a method of story construction based upon the structural interactions between the Story Spine, Character Arc, and Thematic Argument to be both more accurate and more effective. This method may be found in my book Screenwriting & The Unified Theory of Narrative, Part I: The Unified Narrative Structure. -- MWS 3/31/20)

7. FILL IN THE GAPS WITH ACTION

See those gaps between your turning points? Those are called scene sequences. Scene sequences are made up of (duh) a series of related scenes. In each sequence, the protagonist has an immediate sequence goal he or she pursues to get him or her one step closer to the Main Story Goal. The object of the sequence goal is usually set up by whatever game-changing event occurred at the previous turning point. The pursuit of this sequence goal moves the story forward, sending the protagonist further down the Path of Action until he or she runs smack-dab into the next game-changing turning point.

Here is where you finally beat out your movie scene by scene. You must come up with actions and objectives to move your characters from one turning point to the next. First, understand what immediate goal the character will pursue in each sequence. Consider what actions the character might choose at this moment to continue the pursuit of his or her main Story Goal, given the obstacle or complication encountered at the previous turning point. What could be the character's new immediate objective and how should the character go after it? Think about your antagonist or force of antagonism. Where is he/she at this point in the pursuit of his or her goal? What might the antagonist conceivably do at this point in reaction to the choices the protagonist has made?

8. REVIEW YOUR OUTLINE

By now, you should have something close to a completed outline. Review it thoroughly. Make sure it works. There should be no holes, everything should make sense, the story should have flow and movement, and the structure should be strong and secure. Go back to make changes if things aren't shaping up as they should be. It doesn't have to be perfect at this point. This outline is just for a first draft. But make it as strong as possible before moving on to writing the actual script. It is far easier to spot mistakes and make changes at this point than when wading the 120+ pages of wood pulp that will be your finished draft.