"This is the blue collar time of screenwriting."
--Lew Hunter, Screenwriting 434
This happened because, try as I might, I am not a true tree person and instead let the flow of my narrative carry me away in the act of writing, which is forest people behavior. Tree people, who have worked long and hard on their structure before they begin writing, do not often do this.
But sometimes "inspiration on the spot" happens to all of us. And when it does, what is a tree person to do? Imagine, for example, that a true tree person took the same liberties with the paradigm chart that I did and wrote the kidnapping much earlier in the flow of action. What now?
There are two options: to "flesh out" the script so that the kidnapping does, in fact, occur later. Or to keep it where it is and create a new plot point.
Since the screenplay is such an efficient medium, I seldom prefer to "flesh out" a script unless it is absolutely necessary. I don't think that's the case here.
By the way, I don't want you to think that you are witnessing a disaster just because the paradigm chart has been "violated". Never forget that writing is a process and the paradigm chart is a tool. This is how writing works. For all your best developed plans, things can still change - and the more you are a forest person, the more they are going to change.
So I need to find a new first act plot point. Here it is.
The President ignores the kidnappers when they make contact with the ransom request. In response to a reporter's inquiry as to her whereabouts, in fact, the President reports that she's been under stress and is on a private vacation. Now the First Lady appears to be on her own.
Let me say one more thing before we move into Act Two.
Of course, true tree people may already have worked all these kinks out and their chart/outline should be in much better shape than mine was - and they also would follow it more closely than I did. Try as I did to write like a tree person, I still found myself "swept away" by the action, by my own writing.
The point is, we all work a bit differently, and one of your first tasks as a beginning screenwriter is to find the method that works best for you. You do this by trying out all the options.
Richard Walter writes:
"The hardest part of a screenplay is the middle. ... If at the end of the Beginning a complication arises that launches the tale's fundamental conflict, throughout the Middle the plot thickens. And what thickens a plot are wrinkles and reversals, obstacles and complications." [REF]
In Screenwriting 434 [REF], a book I particularly admire, Lew Hunter puts it more colorfully:
"Now we separate the women from the girls, the men from the boys. This is the blue collar time of screenwriting: the laying of the pipe, the grunt work, the second act."
The second act is as long or longer than the first and third acts combined. It is where we "throw rocks at the hero", and the challenge is to structure the twists and conflicts that will be necessary to engage an audience's attention through the long middle hour of our movie.
That's why we're taking Act Two in two parts - the first half (A) and the second half (B) (which is, as we've seen, why some people prefer to call the 3-act paradigm a 4-act paradigm). But even in two parts, we are faced with a long section of 25 or 30 pages. Let's see if we can break this section into smaller units.
In her Screenwriter's Master Chart, Mary Shomon further divides up Act IIA as follows:
The Jarvis Method divides up this part of the screenplay somewhat differently:
In David Trottier's Six-Events Paradigm we move from the Big Event that ends Act One, through the Pinch at midpoint, heading toward the Crisis that ends Act Two.
Obviously these approaches differ in their particulars, just as my approach below will differ from all of them. But here, as always, it is more important to understand what these approaches share than how they differ.
Each analysis moves the hero from the beginning of commitment (the story is now in gear) to a point where there's no way out. I call this the "increasing jeopardy" of the hero. The stakes of the story are raised.
Let's look at what happens in five of our movie examples:
In each case, at midpoint the stakes are raised.
There's also lots of room to maneuver here, again making a very important point:
Let me give you my suggestions for writing Act Two. Most of these apply to tree people and forest people alike.
But now complications begin to appear, so that by the end of this section, only 25 or 30 pages down the road, the hero fully realizes how difficult the task at hand actually is going to be.
Making the antagonist too passive is a common problem with beginning scripts. Writes television producer Stephen J. Cannell (The Rockford Files et. al.):
"Lots of people don't move their antagonist. They let the bad guy just stand there and wait to be caught. You've got to put that antagonist in motion, and he or she has got to move in Act Two. At the end of Act Two is the second act curtain,which is the destruction of the hero's plan. Also at the end of Act Two, I like to have the hero in the most devastating and emotionally conflicted place in the drama. Act Three should be the solution." [REF]
How we meet the antagonist varies from movie to movie, of course:
Although we are always engaged in this sprawling non-chronological biographical movie (there are lots of twists and turns, and in the right structural places), it is difficult to pin down someone and say, "This is the antagonist." I prefer to think of the antagonist here as anyone who disagrees with Nixon's vision for America - which makes the embodiment of his own paranoia "the villain." And so, as in The Graduate, the antagonist is more "a gestalt" that takes on different faces at different times. And at midpoint Nixon's paranoia gets to play itself out in the most powerful job on the planet.
In all these very different movies - and I've purposely chosen my examples for their complexity and creative use of the paradigm - the antagonist moves forward in the beginning of Act Two. This makes sense because the hero is moving into action - and if s/he isn't meeting conflict and obstacles, we have no story.
So the antagonist is responsible for providing conflict. "If you have a pushover for a villain," asks Stephen E. de Souza of Die Hard fame, "what kind of triumph is that for the hero?" [REF] Much too little.
The path of the hero here is toward increasing jeopardy and more danger, but a journey that has some initial success. Although you are "throwing rocks" at the hero throughout the second act, remember that you need to save "your big rocks" for the climax in Act Three.
In other words, don't blow your wad here. Begin with small obstacles and build, each obstacle greater than the previous one. And through much of this part of Act Two, the hero can be winning - until there's the midpoint plot point, which may reveal a "new, true goal" in Siegel's terms (2 goal, 9 act structure), an actual setback in Jarvis' terms, or a point of no return in Shomon's terms.
But Richard Walter perhaps says it best: make sure we have "wrinkles and reversals, obstacles and complications."
And bringing the antagonist closer to center stage now can be the vehicle by which you accomplish this.
"Each of the subplots must be timed in roughly the same manner as the main plot, but you must be careful to avoid predictability. In this case, I didn't want each of the boys doing all the same things at each stage of the movie. But generally speaking, they still all have a three-act structure just the same as the main plot, and in fact serve to support the structure of the main plot."Each boy gets the notion of what he's going to do around page 30; each boy has a real conflict around page 90; with a resolution that takes place ten or twelve pages later. The idea is to make each experience different enough and interesting enough to capture the reader or viewer, and prevent them from saying, 'Oh, sure, that was bound to happen, he was due for his Act I break, the other guy had just had his and that other guy will be next.'" [REF]
A subplot can move forward early in Act Two. (Again, this is a secondary story that preferably is related to the central dramatic conflict in some way.)
In Jurassic Park, the park's disgruntled computer whiz is selling dinosaur embryos on the side - and whether or not he can get away with it gets considerable focus in Act IIA.
This works for a variety of reasons. First, it gives us a nice early "ticking clock", which always creates suspense. But more importantly, the whiz also has screwed up the computer security system, which is what will require the complete rebooting that is an important plot point at the end of Act Two, when for a moment there is no security in place in the park at all.
This subplot also increases the potential danger of the park's research, which makes the hero's burden (to endorse it or not) all the more important. So here we have a subplot involving a totally different character - and yet this action has consequences involving our story spine.
What subplot(s) can you spin off your story spine that will add dimension and interest to your script?
In my own work, I like to establish two subplots. Ruby's Tune, a character-driven story of mine that has been optioned for five years by a true-believing producer, is about a woman who tries to save her daughter from making the same mistakes she did - and with the same man. "Letting go" is what Ruby must learn how to do.
I underscore this story spine with two subplots: Ruby's career as a closet country songwriter and her growing romance with an out-of-town lawyer. Both are related to her growing sense of independence - even the romance, which is based on more equal terms than any relationship she has had in the past.
Main plot and subplots all ask questions: Can Ruby "let go" and let her daughter live her own life? Can she sell one of the songs she's written? Can she again find happiness in a relationship? The story develops how all the answers come out yes.
There's another useful function of subplots: it's where your message goes.
Now you do not have to have "a message" in your movie, to be sure, even though all movies, all stories, in some way or another infer a value system. But many beginning writers are driven to say something "important" about society, and when this becomes the focus of the story, when the message is attached to the story spine, disaster usually follows.
"Got a message? Send a telegram," Samuel B. Goldwyn once said.
An alternative is to put the message, the social commentary, the revelation of wisdom, in your subplot. It's the one place where you may get away with it.
Look at how suspense and tension are handled in our examples:
Consider some of the following principles for adding suspense and tension to your script:
After some early confidence and initial success, the hero meets the midpoint plot point and gets some kind of slap in the face. Maybe it's a temporary setback, maybe it's a revelation that puts him/her on a new track, even seeking a "new goal" - but something happens in the middle of the story that once again raises the stakes and makes for an uncertain future.
This realization can be helped along by the better sense of the antagonist that we should be getting in this section, as well as by a subplot or two that adds density and complexity to our story. This is the section that prepares us for the long and high energy ride that will be the last half of the screenplay.
Again, the secret is to organize Act IIA as a module within the overall screenplay. Realize what this section has to accomplish within the framework of your entire story - and focus on getting the job done.
Later you'll want to take a wider point of view, but for now, writing your first draft, it is enough to focus on the job at hand - bring the hero to a point where s/he realizes there is more to the task at hand than first thought.
Here are some examples of the midpoint plot point:
Again, we see the story twist in a new direction - and along the way, jeopardy and tension increase in a spiral toward the end of Act Two.
Beginning Act Two as a tree person.
Beginning Act Two as a forest person.
When you're done, make sure your hero now has a new understanding of his/her goal - and that the journey to reach it is more challenging than initially thought.
And take a break and congratulate yourself once again - you're halfway there!
(Cyber Film School column, The Grunt Work of Act Two.)
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