New SCRIPTMONK article in Creative Screenwriting on the Plot Pattern Phenomenon

 This week I had another article published in Creative Screenwriting online, this one introducing the basic principles and theory behind plot patterns -- a phenomenon by which nearly every successful American film over the past several decades comes to unintentionally conform to one of sixteen (or thirty-four, depending on how specific you wish to be) structural patterns of plot despite extreme differences in premise, genre, style and tone.

Click here to read the article.

Since the subject of plot patterns takes up over 200 pages of Screenwriting and The Unified Theory of Narrative, Part II it was difficult to summarize the entire concept in a mere six-page article. Because of this, I had to take significant effort just to not sound like a crazy person. The shocking regularity of the plot patterns found in Hollywood and American Independent cinema is one of the most incredible discoveries of all my years studying screencraft -- made all the more incredible by the fact that it seems to have gone almost entirely unnoticed until now. Yet with a full background and the heaps of evidence I have found to support it, the plot pattern phenomenon turns out to be just as "crazy" as the idea that the earth revolves around the sun.