As a forest person, as soon as you get your concept - the First Lady is kidnapped and held for ransom by terrorists - you tend to want to jump right in and start writing script, making your decisions along the way.
Despite what you hear from the monopoly "tree person" gurus in the marketplace, there's nothing wrong with this approach - if, and I repeat if, you can make it work for you. Your goal is "to discover" your story as you write it, rather than figuring it all out in an outline ahead of time.
Your beginning notion of structure therefore can be vague. Maybe you know nothing more than that your story will have, must have, a beginning, a middle, and an end. But maybe, even realizing this, at the moment you only know your beginning. Sometimes this is enough. A forest person trusts in the creative process and that solutions can be found during the act of writing.
Being a "sometimes forest person" myself (and we can treat different projects differently!), I have a "short cut" for you to try. I call it Barebones Structure for Forest People.
Each of these files or modules will be 25-30 pages in length, and you will make sure of one thing:
See what I'm doing?
Since forest people like to "wing it," I'm setting up a system within which you only have to wing it one-quarter of the script at a time. Your four files, then, will naturally become Act One, the first half of Act Two, the second half of Act Two, and the Act Three.
If you write your script in these four files, that's all you have to worry about structure - because if you end each file/module with a big twist in the story, your major plot points are going to fall right into place where they should be.
No muss, no fuss.
However, just because the story is writing itself does not mean it is the story you should be telling.
The hero leads the way. Forest people, more than tree people (who have dealt with this issue in the planning stage), must keep reminding themselves that the hero is center stage, the hero is the focus of the story, the hero is the main character whose goal, whose journey, is the very dramatic spine of the script.
One way to check yourself on this is to be alert about how many scenes you are writing in which your hero does not appear. Too many, and you're in trouble. In fact, if you go over five pages without your hero appearing, I'd be worried.
The hero leads the way. Put it to memory.
Remember that the meaner and tougher and more clever the antagonist, the more "rocks" that s/he throws at the hero, then the more jeopardy the hero is in, and and the greater effort s/he must make to defeat the antagonist - all of which adds up to greater conflict and greater drama.
This is not an easy thing to accomplish, particularly in stories whose genre does not permit the kind of "stereotype monster-villain" we usually see in broad action-adventure movies.
In The Graduate, for example, Benjamin (the hero) initially has an affair with Mrs. Robinson, (who later becomes one of the antagonists) as he pursues what David Siegel (the two-goal, nine-act paradigm) would call "the false goal." But the total incompatibility of the adulterers - there is a wonderfully comic, sad scene in which Benjamin tries to start an actual conversation with Mrs. Robinson - lays the foundation for future conflict.
When Benjamin discovers that he is attracted to Elaine, Mrs. Robinson's daughter (the lover/mother has forbidden him to see her), the "true goal" kicks into motion. First Mrs. Robinson, then Elaine herself, and later Mr. Robinson become obstacles to Benjamin's winning Elaine's heart.
Sometimes, then, the antagonist can be a "family" of characters rather than one clear individual (this doesn't have to be a literal family) - in this case, the Robinson family (Mrs. Robinson admits to Benjamin that he isn't "good enough" to take out her daughter; and Benjamin's family is excited about his fantasy of marrying Elaine because it means "marrying up").
What makes this "villain" formidable is that its opposition grows: first, Mrs. Robinson bans Benjamin from seeing Elaine when he isn't even interested in her; when he is interested in her, Elaine herself won't see him after he admits to having an affair with her mother; and finally Mr. Robinson confronts him after learning of the affair.
Each representation of "the Robinson villain" is more menacing than its predecessor.
What tree people can learn from forest people is to trust the story over the paradigm. This does not mean the paradigm doesn't "work", though certain interpretations may be less useful when applied to some movies than to others. What it means is that the paradigm - which at root is beginning-middle-end storytelling - is a tool for planning and later analyzing a movie story. It is not a formula but a set of guidelines.
I cannot emphasize this enough: 3-act structure is not a formula but a set of guidelines. It is a grammar of storytelling in our culture. There is nothing more lifeless than a well-constructed 3-act story with nothing else going for it -- no fleshed, interesting people, no twists and surprises beyond the "necessary" plot points, no human and universal theme, nothing but "structure."
Structure is like the blueprint for a house. You need it, you begin with it -- but you don't live in it! You use it as the guide to building the house. In screenwriting, you structure your story as a guide to writing the script. But along the way, things may change here and there, and one of the skills of screenwriting is learning how to trust your story, how to let the heart direct the head (but without decapitating yourself!).
The shifting antagonist in The Graduate - even his own father becomes opposed to Benjamin's "wasting away" the summer rather than applying to graduate school - may not fit the letter of the paradigm but it fits its spirit and makes again the point that American movies are about what happens next.
If you keep your hero in focus, if you always present challenges to him/her getting what s/he wants, if you order these challenges so that jeopardy to the hero is increased - and if you can present this narrative with a strong sense of suspense, so that the audience/reader is captivated into wanting to know "what happens next" - then you have a gripping story.
I can imagine how a tree person might have "over-worked" the spine of The Graduate, clarifying the protagonist-antagonist (hero-villain) conflict but also making the story more ordinary in the process. In this comedy, it doesn't matter that the "villain" is represented by an assembly of people, first one and then the other standing in Benjamin's way. His goal is always clear, and the obstacles present themselves with unexpected twists and increasing danger to Benjamin's winning Elaine, which is his second and "true" goal.
Those being taken care of, let's turn theory into practice.
The First Lady is kidnapped and held for ransom by terrorists.
Pardon me while I take our concept, become a forest person and start writing script. I'll share with you my thought processes along the way. Also, remember that this is a first draft, and I'm not going to change anything yet. I'll do that later in the rewriting process. So this is by no means the script we will end up with, as you'll see. Writing is rewriting.
FADE IN: [Well, there's a start! Now what? The First Lady is my hero. I want to start off with a bang.] EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY A picture postcard view on a bright sunny morning. INT. WHITE HOUSE - DINING ROOM - DAY The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 50s, and FIRST LADY, 40s, sit at opposite ends of a long table. PRESIDENT That's all I can tell you. The First Lady stares at him. She looks like someone ready to explode. PRESIDENT Gwen, you've lived in this town long enough to know how vicious rumors can be. FIRST LADY I don't believe they're rumors. I think it's the truth. PRESIDENT In many ways you're still the naive girl from Nebraska, aren't you? Suddenly, with a single sweep of her arm, the First Lady knocks her dish and coffee cup to the floor. She quickly stands, temper flush on her cheeks. FIRST LADY Don't patronize me! She strides quickly out of the room. The President gets up from the table. PRESIDENT Gwen, you're being irrational. You're just proving my point. But she's gone - just as THOMAS, 40s, a servant, enters the room. THOMAS Mr. President? PRESIDENT The First lady had an accident. We'll have to get this cleaned up. THOMAS Yes, sir. [Okay, I've established marital strife, which is a central theme. This may be hook enough, but I want to hook quickly into the main story.] EXT. WHITE HOUSE - STREET/DRIVEWAY - DAY Two men stand by a car parked across the street from the driveway into the White House. One is JUAN, 40s, handsome and fit. His partner is ANDRES, 50s, overweight, who chomps on an unlit cigar in his mouth. JUAN Here she comes. Across the street, the First Lady comes out and bends into the back seat of a limo. She still looks like she's in a huff. Juan and Andres hurry into their car, a clunker. Juan starts the engine. The limo pulls out and heads down the street. Juan and Andres move into traffic behind it. INT. CAR - DAY Andres has taken a pistol out of the glove compartment and is loading it. ANDRES This better be the day. I'm sick of this shit. JUAN I have a feeling it will be.
Enough for now. Let's go back and review what we have so far:
Screenwriting is about writing with economy. Because I am a minimalist by nature, I'm one of those rare birds who under-writes in the first draft as much as I over-write, which is the common affliction among beginning screenwriters.
I'm pleased with this start. Something is set up here, and there is a dramatic urgency here as well and a reason to want to know "what happens next."
And something else. I feel more attachment to this short piece of script than I do to the earlier paradigm outline that I wrote as a tree person. One advantage the forest person gets is a quicker, more visceral involvement with the story - or at least this is the way it works for me. The characters become real on the page of script in a way that they are not real in a chart or outline.
Of course, the tree person knows more about the entire story at this point than the forest person does. But that's all right, too. Forest people thrive on surprises. Forest people thrive on the discovery that is inherent in the creative process.
The key for forest people is always remembering what movie they are writing, remembering to stay on a consistent track. Sometimes this doesn't happen - and the forest person starts writing another movie. Well, that's okay, too.
Forest people go with the flow. There's time enough later, in the rewriting part of the process, to engage our analytical powers. For now, it's too much fun to ride with the emerging story.
Write the first five or ten pages of your script. Write the hook. Do it right now.
Sink or swim.
8/97