“It’s easy to write a script. It’s hard to write a good one.

But after reading My

Story Can Beat Up Your Story! Jeffrey Alan Schechter proves it’s not
impossible. As a working writer and Gemini Award-winning producer, Jeff
has seen all sides of the creative process and has systematically broken down
the development steps to their most simple and basic form: how a good story
is born. He not only shows you examples of what makes a good story, but
lays out the steps and provides you with the invaluable tools to build a better
one. Humans have been telling stories ever since we stood upright. What
will separate your script from all the others is the internal creative fire that
only you can keep lit. Consider this book the first spark.”
—Jason Blumenthal, producer, The Pursuit of Happyness, Seven
Pounds, and Knowing

“Almost anyone who’s any good at anything checks in with a mentor, doctor,
or mechanic at some point just to keep their skills, health, or intake valves
honed. Heck, even dentists have a convention to make sure they keep their
filling skills golden. Jeffrey Alan Schechter’s book is a refreshing, no-
nonsense, incredibly insightful primer for beginners and laser-guided tuner-
upper for journeymen. And it’s damned entertaining to boot. Hats off, and
thanks, Jeff.”
—David N. Weiss, writer, Shrek 2, The Smurfs, Further
Adventures in Babysitting

“My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! encourages writers to aggressively

attack their manuscripts and their competition with a winning attitude.
Highly recommended!”
—Lee Zahavi, product manager, ScriptShark
http://www.scriptshark.com/

“Jeffrey Alan Schechter has an acute understanding of the kind of story

structure that makes for successful movies. By analyzing blockbusters, he
extrapolates a story construction model that is surprisingly simple and
universally applicable. And, best of all, it works.”
—Tim Hill, director, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Max Keeble’s Big
Move, Muppets from Space
“Screenwriting is an art, and Jeffrey Alan Schechter conveys both the craft
and soul of the trade. A gifted teacher, he provides methods which will help
you both structure and elevate your best ideas.”
—David Sacks, executive producer, writer, Malcolm in the Middle,
The Simpsons

“Jeffrey Alan Schechter has achieved the near-impossible: He’s come up

with an incredibly smart and insightful approach to screenwriting that’s also
a terrifically fast and funny read! Trust me, Jeffrey knows his stuff, and by
following his amazingly clear step-by-step instructions, you’ll be giving
your screenplay a real fighting chance (kinda like Rocky, only this time,
Rocky wins). My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! kicks ass!”
—Stephen Mazur, writer, Liar Liar, The Little Rascals

“Not only does Jeffrey Alan Schechter’s book give you the tools to
strengthen your story so it can beat up other stories, it holds them down and
gives them wedgies, too. One of the best books on punching up your script
you will ever read.”
—Matthew Terry, screenwriter, teacher, filmmaker, columnist
http://www.hollywoodlitsales.com

“Writers have been searching for the perfect story structure paradigm for
2,500 years. Jeffrey Alan Schechter may have found it. Take that, Aristotle!”
—Ian Abrams, chairman, Dramatic Writing Program, Drexel
University; writer/creator, Early Edition, Undercover Blues

“My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is a blueprint for the successful
screenplay. Jeffrey Alan Schechter has once again taken the guessing out of
screenplay story structure and laid out a simple, foolproof, step-by-step
approach for novices and pros alike to craft stories with compelling
characters and engaging plots.”
—David H. Steinberg, writer, Slackers, American Pie 2, Puss in
Boots

“Smart and engaging, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! brims with
common-sense methods of breaking down and conquering the most stubborn
structural problems in screenwriting. With one foot rooted in the mythology
of archetypes and the other in a strong business sense, Schechter has given
screenwriters of all stripes some of the sharpest tools in the dreamweaver’s
box. Like the hero of a Hollywood movie, you will be transformed by this
book.”
—Alvaro Rodriguez, writer, Machete, Shorts, From Dusk to Dawn
3: The Hangman’s Daughter
 MY
STORY
CAN BEAT UP
YOUR
STORY!
Ten Ways to Toughen Up Your Screenplay
FROM OPENING HOOK TO KNOCKOUT PUNCH

JEFFREY ALAN
SCHECHTER
 Published by Michael Wiese Productions
12400 Ventura Blvd. #1111
Studio City, CA 91604
(818) 379-8799, (818) 986-3408 (FAX)
[email protected]
www.mwp.com

Cover design by MWP

Interior design by William Morosi
Printed by McNaughton & Gunn

Manufactured in the United States of America

Copyright © 2011 by Jeffrey Alan Schechter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or
by any means without permission in writing from the author, except for the
inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schechter, Jeffrey Alan.

My story can beat up your story! : ten ways to toughen up your screenplay
from opening hook to knockout punch / Jeffrey Alan Schechter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-932907-93-3
1. Motion picture authorship. I. Title.
PN1996.S3355 2011
808.2′3--dc22
2011002511

Printed on Recycled Stock

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION: WHY YOUR SCREENPLAY NEEDS TO BE THE
TOUCHEST KID ON THE BLOCK
And why being just as good isn’t good enough
1. MY STORY CAN BEAT UP YOUR STORY!
How to avoid the most common mistake of all failed screenplays, a
story that’s a ninety-seven-pound weakling
2. MY THEME IS SMARTER THAN YOUR THEME
The simple and potent way to understand what your story is really
about
3. MY HERO’S A WINNER, YOUR HERO’S A WIENER!
Drive your story with a hero who’s not a zero by asking four questions
4. MY HERO FIGHTS, YOUR HERO BITES!
Keep your story moving with a hero that rockets through the same four
archetypes that all great movie heroes share
5. YOUR BAD GUY PUNCHES LIKE MY SISTER
Turn your hero’s worst nightmare into your story’s best friend by
understanding the unity of opposites
6. MY HERO HAS BUDS, YOUR HERO HAS DUDS
Know your hero, and your villain, by the company they keep
7. I CAN PITCH, YOU THROW LIKE A GIRL
The QuickPitch formula, including the three most important words
every good pitch must have
8. I PLOT, YOU PLOTZ
Tell your story the way people expect, but fill it with plot twists they
don’t
9. I’M NOT AFRAID OF THE DARK
Meet the “Guide,” your story’s next best friend
10. I WORK SMARTER, YOU WORK HARDER — AND NOT IN A GOOD
WAY!
The My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! tough writer’s business plan
CONCLUSION
Write now, right now… (and then write again, right away!)
APPENDIX: FIVE MOVIES, ALL BEAT UP
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INDEX OF FILMS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could not have come into existence without the help, love, and
guidance of a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife Marla and my children
Sara, Rachel, Noah, and Maya for letting me hide in my office during all the
time that it took to write this book. My wife is the best-kept secret in
Hollywood, giving the absolutely best script notes. It is Hollywood’s loss
and my gain that her insights are all mine.
Next, I must thank Gilbert McLean Evans. Gil is a seriously smart fellow
as well as a gifted screenwriter and teacher. He and I have been having a
decades-long conversation about how screenplays work, and there’s no end
in sight. Gil contributed greatly to the overall system of story development
employed by this book, and his knowledge and insights were invaluable to
both this book and to my own understanding of screenplay writing. I only
hope that he has learned as much from me over the years as I have learned
from him.
My parents have always been and continue to be hugely supportive, and
most days I’m very grateful that they encouraged my creative side and didn’t
insist I become a chiropractor. Most days.
I’ve had the privilege of knowing several outstanding teachers; however,
two stand out in my mind: Howard Enders and Aram Avakian. Howard was
a gifted writer, fully able to impart his love of the craft to young minds, both
eager and stubborn. A million years ago Howard’s words of encouragement
to a very fragile college freshman made all the difference in the world to said
freshman.
Aram Avakian was the first person I ever called “mentor.” At one time, he
was one of four world-class film editors. Sometime around the late seventies
he was invited to teach at my college, the State University of New York,
College at Purchase. He immediately took me under his wing and threatened
that I would have a career. In 1981 he helped me get my first professional
job as an apprentice sound editor in New York. In 1984 he counseled me
(and made my parents easy with the decision) when I wrestled with moving
to Los Angeles. In 1986 I cried like a baby when I heard that he had died of
a heart attack. I still miss him.
Michael Wiese, my publisher, is an enigma to me. I’ve spoken with him a
few times, emailed him countless times, and his utter belief in me and my
ideas is one of the unexpected delights of my middle years. Thanks also go
to Ken Lee, my editor at MWP. Unless I don’t like his notes on this
manuscript.
What kind of writer would I be if I failed to acknowledge the love and
attention given to me by my longtime agents, Sandy Weinberg and Carl
Liberman, or my even longer-time manager, Jonathan Baruch? I’d be an
unemployed writer, I imagine. Sandy, Carl, and Jonathan are three of the
most decent, concerned, and hard-working individuals in the business, and I
am enriched both personally and professionally by knowing them.
Dr. Patrick Maher, whom I’ve mentioned in these pages, is pretty much
one of the smartest, most gracious, and insightful people I’ve never met. He
lives in Australia and his relentless pushing of me to look deeply into both
my ideas and myself as a writer made me on several occasions want to fly to
Australia to either hug him or smear him with Vegemite and leave him
stranded with a mob of amorous kangaroos. He is a frequent contributor to
several screenwriting boards, and his insights are always stunning.
Michael Wray, Corey Johnson, Dawn Messerly, Teresa Matsuka, and Jim
Hensen from Mariner Software have been huge supporters of me and this
book. Michael in particular puts up a gruff exterior, but inside he’s all mushy
and warm. It is not an overstatement to say that this book could not have
happened without his personal support and kindness. Thanks, Michael. Jim
also contributed to the movie breakdowns that appear both in this book as
well as in the Contour software program.
Dan Pilditch was my intern and is now my peer. I fully anticipate that
soon he’ll be my boss. Assuming he hires me. He has been a loyal friend,
always eager to do anything he can to support me and my work whether it be
helping at seminars, proofreading, working on movie breakdowns, or any of
the myriad little tasks (aka “grunt work”) I conjure up for him. His good
cheer and funny British accent are greatly appreciated.
Richard Rabkin, Alvaro Rodriguez, and Steve Urszenyi, in addition to the
aforementioned Gilbert McLean Evans, Dr. Patrick Maher, and Dan Pilditch
all made themselves available to review, critique, and improve this
manuscript, particularly in its early stages. They definitely helped refine the
tone, and I appreciate their insights and good humor, particularly when one
of their email addresses got posted on Google Docs in error and opened a
floodgate of spam. I won’t mention names, but I hope his trip to Nigeria was
successful and that the $30 million he’s gotten from that dying king’s son is
put to good use.
Finally, I would like to thank my students, those whom I have had the
honor of teaching already, as well as in advance to those I hope to meet one
day soon. I pray that I don’t disappoint.
JEFFREY ALAN SCHECHTER
INTRODUCTION

WHY YOUR SCREENPLAY NEEDS TO BE THE

TOUGHEST KID ON THE BLOCK
AND WHY BEING JUST AS GOOD ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH

One of the first things we learn in elementary school is to get along with
others. Beating up on a sibling, a toy that stops working, or the kid who
steals your cookies is strictly forbidden. So why would you read a book that
wants to turn a nice person — you — into someone who beats up on poor,
innocent stories?
Because you want a career as a screenwriter.
Production executives, agents, studio readers: These are the people who
have the power to change your life. Every weekend these hardworking folks
have a pile of scripts the height of a toddler to read. And most of these
scripts are bad. Really bad. What keeps executives going is the hope that
somewhere in that stack will be a script that leaps out at them, rises above
the background noise of all the others, and makes them say, “Finally,
someone who knows how to tell a story!” In short, a story that beats up all of
the other stories in the stack. You want to be the writer of that script. My
Story Can Beat Up Your Story! isn’t about turning you into a bully; it’s about
self-defense.
My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is a complete screenwriting system,
but not in the way you may be thinking. Read this book and you will NOT
learn eight tricks to better dialogue, thirty-five secrets to scene construction,
seventeen techniques to great action sequences, or two hundred and fifty-one
ways to get past the security guard at the studio gate (“#43: Wear a suit,
carry a briefcase, tuck a copy of Variety under your arm, and look like you
belong.”) What you will learn in these pages is the fastest, most complete
way to structure a Hollywood-friendly, character-based story, one that those
studio executives are looking to buy. For years, people have been searching
for the magic bullet of screenplay writing, the system that would make
screenwriting so easy and financially rewarding that you might as well keep
an armored truck in your driveway to transport all the gelt. The bad news is,
that system doesn’t exist. The good news is that My Story Can Beat Up Your
Story! will do just fine until someone smarter than I am figures that other
system out. As a matter of fact, Mariner Software thought so much of the
ideas and the thinking behind My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! that the
company uses it as the foundation of its award-winning story development
software, Contour.
My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is the product of more than twenty
years of professional writing, thinking, analyzing, discussing, and
occasionally — all right, frequently — arguing with other working writers,
producers, studio executives, and script readers about what transforms a
story from a ninety-seven-pound weakling into a story he-man. The resulting
system is not only accessible but refreshingly free of screenwriting technique
psychobabble doublespeak. But don’t mistake accessibility for lack of
muscle. It works. I know, because I use it every day and I work. To that
point, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is also a business plan for aspiring
writers who don’t want to be aspiring anymore. This is a cradle-to-grave
approach to writing: from the birth of your ability to write something that
can go mano-a-mano with the professionals to (hopefully) the death of
laboring in obscurity.

WHAT’S THE SECRET?

When musical notes are strung together in an order the human brain
understands, we call it music. When chunks of information are strung
together in an order the human brain understands, we call it story. Remember
those hardworking executives, agents, and readers you’re trying to impress?
Well, many of them have human brains. Research in the fields of neural
biology, linguistics, computer neural net modeling, information science, and
knowledge management all prove that storytelling is an information delivery
superhighway, but only when stories are constructed in a way that people are
hardwired to receive.1 My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! uses the common
structure and character arcs found in the top movies of all time and distills
those elements down into a reproducible system. It is the easiest, most
organized, and most effective way to tell stories that these execs, agents, and
readers will understand and get excited by.

WHAT ABOUT THE AUDIENCE?

“Whoa! Hold on! I’m not writing just to impress studio executives, right?”
Uh….
Let me give it to you straight: There are two kinds of screenplays in the
world, the screenplay that gets bought and the screenplay that gets made.
The screenplay that gets made is the one people see in theaters. Between
the time when you deliver your first, perfect draft and the time it unspools in
theater number 19 at the Megaplex, producers, directors, other writers,
actors, editors, and famously even the occasional hairdresser will all have
had a hand in shaping and sculpting it. By the time your story makes it in
front of an audience, you’d be lucky if it resembled anything you handed in.
That’s why My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! focuses solely on the
screenplay that gets bought, not the screenplay that gets made.
The screenplay that gets bought is yours. It’s the one you have control
over, the only one. Your goal — your only goal — is to write a screenplay
that someone wants to buy, and the paradox is that you do this by using the
same story architecture as the most successful movies that got made. In this
way, your script will fit nicely in that compartment where these producers,
agents, and executives keep their fondest memories of their favorite movies
— the ones whose success they wish they had a hand in — making it easier
for them to imagine that your screenplay can turn into a successful movie,
too.
 I know what you’re thinking: “What about creativity? What about
individuality? Are all my scripts going to be the same?” No. The thing that
makes Avatar, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Star
Wars,2 Titanic, Sleepless in Seattle, The Sixth Sense, and Liar Liar different
from each other is not that their structures are different — which they aren’t
— but how creative their writers were while working within the same
structure. It will be your creativity that will make your characters leap off the
page. Your creativity will make your settings unique and your dialogue soar.
Apply creativity to the nuts and bolts of structure, however, and you just
might kill your script in the cradle by making the story architecture
unrecognizable. There is plenty of need for creativity when writing, but it is
a waste of your time and energy to reinvent structure every time you sit
down to write. And because My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! takes the
guesswork out of story architecture, your creativity is actually freed up to
worry about the things you can’t learn from books, like developing an ear for
great dialogue, figuring out your unique voice, and thinking up cool stories
that will make great movies.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

As you go through this book you will discover that each chapter builds on
the ideas of the previous chapters, as evidenced by a recurring and ever-
growing chart that appears frequently throughout, showing you how the
concepts line up, add to, and complement each other. These ideas are simple,
powerful, effective, and cumulative. My goal is the same as yours: to get you
writing as quickly as possible. Reading this book in sequence is the fastest
way.
My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is also very specific. Veeeery. If it
wasn’t, I could not make the following claim: If you understand and use the
underlying concepts and follow the approach that is My Story Can Beat Up
Your Story! you will develop, write, and deliver perfectly constructed
screenplays. Will they sell? I don’t know. Will they share the same winning
story architecture as the most successful movies of all time? Emphatically,
yes. Have you ever seen pictures of those old “Learn to Dance” kits that
used to come with numbered cutouts of feet you’d put on the floor and step
on in time to the music to learn the Watusi? That’s this book. Each chapter is
another foot on the floor, meant to be followed in sequence.
 In the pages that follow, you will find an approach to building a story that
is — as that cute yoga instructor I once had my eye on would say —
“holistic.” (She was married. Her husband was huge. End of that story.) This
is the most natural approach to storytelling I have ever encountered.
Namaste!
Within this book are hundreds of examples from dozens of the most
successful, non-sequel movies of all time. I know that sounds like a lot of
filtering, but My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! is a system gleaned from the
movies that have excited the most people based on the strength of their
stories and not the strength of their franchises. You can learn a lot more from
looking at Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope than you can from
studying Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. Just ask Jar Jar.
When I teach my seminar, invariably someone will get upset because I
only use successful movies as examples. If you want to be the guy or girl
who writes the next Stuart Saves His Family, I won’t try to stop you. I also
won’t try to chat you up at a party. Personally, I think it’s more important to
write the next Avatar (worldwide gross, $3 billion) than to write the next
Zyzzyx Rd (starring Katherine Heigl and Tom Sizemore, worldwide gross
$20). Twenty! I’m not making that up.
I don’t care how hard you swing that shovel, Tom, my story can still beat up
your story!
At the end of each chapter you will find a review of the key points
contained in the chapter as well as several exercises. The exercises are a
good way to flex some story muscles if you’re feeling particularly flabby.
They’re also a good way to procrastinate, but don’t let me catch you doing
that.
To get the most out of My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! you need to
approach it with fresh eyes and an open mind. And if you do, you’ll discover
that it will tell you the truths you were born knowing about how to tell a
ripping good story.

WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR?

First-time writers. Second-and third-time writers. Professionals. People who
want to be professionals. People who write original material. People who
adapt existing material. People who have a script and can’t figure out what
the hell is wrong with it. People who know what the hell is wrong with their
script but don’t know how the hell to fix it. Film students. Film professors.
Producers’ assistants who want their bosses to think they’re geniuses.
Producers who don’t want their assistants to think they’re idiots.
In short, you and me.
My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! shines a spotlight on almost every
story weakness and flaw that separates a well-told story from a stinker. And
by knowing how to avoid those weaknesses before they get written, you can
banish them from your scripts forever. It’s a lot easier not to make a glaring
error than it is to correct one after it’s on the page. There’s no “fixing it in
the mix” in our end of the business.
The ideas in this book have generated millions of dollars in assignments
and sales. I have used these principles to write everything from Bloodsport 2
(a classic, I assure you) to two Care Bears movies. The exact same
principles and story architecture! I’ve gotten assignments pitching nothing
more than the cast of characters I describe in Chapter 6. I once pitched a
studio executive who had just gotten off a telephone screaming session with
a director (funny story, that one) and sold him my take on a sequel because
he said that I had nailed the story. That’s Chapter 8. I’ve gotten “dead”
scripts greenlit by making them more appealing to actors and directors.
That’s Chapters 3 through 6. I’ve even been able to take a producer’s single-
sentence idea for a movie and turn it into a million-dollar spec sale. That’s
— well — the whole book.
Even if you write episodic television and projects that don’t run feature
length, you’re not left out of the party. The principles in Chapters 2 through
7 will work for any story you write, in any medium, all… day… long. I’ve
written hundreds of hours of television with these principles, picking up two
Emmy nominations along the way. I’ve even crafted business proposals and
corporate summaries using these principles. In short, if you’ve got a story to
tell, this book will show you how to tell it.
So, who is this book for?
Who isn’t this book for?

DO ALL SUCCESSFUL MOVIES FOLLOW THIS SYSTEM?

Yes and no. The ideas and concepts in Chapters 1 through 7 are shared by
the top movies of all time. The specific story architecture in Chapters 8 and
9 are followed by enough films in enough places to make a case that you
should use this same architecture in your writing as well. And finally, the
business plan in Chapter 10 should be copied in dodecaplicate (that’s twelve
copies, isn’t it?) and glued to every available surface around your home until
you no longer need to refer to it.
Okay! Are you ready to change your name to Butch, roll up your right
sleeve, and beat up some stories? Good!
First up: Let’s talk about what makes a good story in the first place.

1 Kendall Haven, Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of
Story (Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2007).
2 As a general rule, whenever I refer to the movie Star Wars in this book
(and I do fairly often), unless I add a specific episode number to the title, I’m
referring to Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.
CHAPTER 1

MY STORY CAN BEAT UP YOUR STORY!

HOW TO AVOID THE MOST COMMON MISTAKE OF ALL FAILED SCREENPLAYS, A
STORY THAT’S A NINETY-SEVEN-POUND WEAKLING

I know it’s hard to believe, but there was once a time when stories would
kick sand in my face. Sadly, these were my stories. I was such a weakling
that my own stories could pants me and shove me into a locker, so I set out
to discover, read, and learn everything I could find about what makes a story
good.
One of the first books I read was Writing Screenplays That Sell by
Michael Hauge. In it, Mr. Hauge doesn’t say what a story is but rather what a
story must do: “enable a sympathetic character to overcome a series of
increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable obstacles and achieve a
compelling desire.”1 Everything you are about to learn flows from this prima
facie sentence: who your hero is, who your villain is, what the nature of their
goal is, and the scope of their mutually exclusive journeys. And it all builds
from this simple description of story.
 The most intriguing and informative part of what Mr. Hauge said is what
he didn’t say about story. Imagine for a moment that he said your story had
to “enable a character to overcome obstacles and achieve a desire.”
Character, obstacles, desire. That’s clean and simple.
It’s also wrong.
Your story isn’t about a character; it’s about a sympathetic character.
Those aren’t obstacles; they’re a series of increasingly difficult, seemingly
insurmountable obstacles. We all have desires, but that’s a compelling desire
your hero is after. A need, not a want. Understanding this is crucial.
What’s the enduring image that comes to mind when you think about
Casablanca: the letters of transit or Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick,
making puppy eyes at Ingrid Bergman? Puppy eyes! How about the
enduring image when you think about Titanic: the ship or Jack and Rose?
People don’t care about letters of transit or ships. Those are things. People
care about people.
When we watch movies, we first care about the heroes. They’re our tour
guides into the world of the story. Do we like them? Are we like them? Do
we want to spend the next 108 minutes of our lives with them?
Once we’re onside with the hero, it naturally flows that next we care about
what the hero cares about: his or her wants, needs, and deepest, most
heartfelt desires. Finally, we care about how difficult it will be for the hero to
achieve those wants, needs, and desires. How dragged through the mud —
literally and emotionally — will the hero be in pursuit of these compelling
desires?
One simple definition, but it’s the spring from which everything flows.

MY STORY DEVELOPMENT CAN BEAT UP YOUR STORY

DEVELOPMENT!
Of course, what good is having a whole bunch of good story-building
techniques if the underlying story you’re applying it to, uh, stinks? I can’t
imagine anything worse for your career than spending three, six, twelve, or
more months of your life writing something that never has a chance of
selling from the very start.
Stinky stories come in a variety of fragrances: Some reek from being
boring. Others have the stench of familiarity. Still others suffer from the
overpowering odor of unmarketability. Whatever the source of the stink, the
result is the same: a screenplay that does nothing to advance your career.
I know… I know… what about all those bad movies that get made? The
reality is that nobody sets out to make a bad movie. The other reality is that
movies get made for all sorts of reasons, not all of them having to do with
quality. Remember the movie Down Periscope? Neither do I. Very few
people do. But Paramount Pictures wanted Kelsey Grammer to do another
season of Frasier, and he wanted to make this movie, so quicker than you
can say, “What the hell’s that movie Paramount let Kelsey Grammer make
so they could have another season of Frasier?” Down Periscope gets a green
light.
And too bad for you, because that will not be your trajectory. No studio is
tripping over itself to do you any favors. If you want your movie bought,
you’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: by coming up with a
good story and telling it well.
Being lazy, I’ve managed to distill the main components of a story-
development game plan down to two parts.

PART I: GET AN IDEA

I’m guessing that if you’re reading this book, you already have at least one
idea for a movie. Hopefully you have more. If you want a career, you need
to be an idea generator. And don’t just come up with ideas when you need
something to write; come up with them all the time and save them.
Ideas are lurking everywhere. Newspapers, magazine articles, flights of
fancy, things that happen to you, comments said in passing: Once you make
being on the lookout for story ideas an active part of your life, you’ll be
filthy in them.
The writer James V. Hart used to play a game called “What if?” with his
kids around the dinner table. One of his kids asked, “What if Peter Pan grew
up?” The answer turned into the Spielberg movie, Hook.
Once I was speaking to my wife (we do that, occasionally), when she
mentioned that a recently divorced friend of ours was getting remarried…
for the third time! I commented that if I were husband number three, I’d
want to meet husbands one and two. I mean, since women are often attracted
to the same kind of guy and she already left two of them, if husband number
three was exactly like husbands one and two, what chance would he have? I
immediately realized that this was a concept for a screenplay. Two months
later, I finished the script. Two months later, ABC optioned it.
A few years ago I read a Time magazine article about teen courts in high
school. As I write this I am sitting on the set of the series I co-created based
on that magazine article. We’re in our third season.
Writers get ideas. Working writers find ideas. Everywhere.

PART 2: FIGURE OUT IF THE IDEA IS WORTH

DEVELOPING
Once you have an idea in hand, you next have to figure out if it’s worth
developing. You’re going to be living with this thing for the next big chunk
of your life; you better make sure it’s good company. How will you know?
All good ideas share several qualities: wish fulfillment, emotional
dimension, business smarts, and originality.
Good stories give the audience a chance to fulfill a vibrant wish of some
kind. Who wouldn’t want to have super powers or the greatest romance in
the world? How about living the adventure of a lifetime, or being the hero
who saves the world? Hollywood is called the dream factory as much for the
hopes of the people wanting to get into the business as for the dreams its
stories inspire in the rest of us. Messrs. Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen
didn’t call their company DreamWorks because they like napping.
Beyond wish fulfillment, a good story should offer a fully dimensional
emotional experience. Comedies without heart fall flat. Dramas without the
occasional smile are dreary. And if you have an idea that offers the chance
for thrills, laughs, and tears? You’re golden! You need to spend time
working on ideas that will fire up as many different emotions in your
audience as possible. Remember Sheriff Brody making the joke about
shoveling chum — BIG LAUGH! — a mere moment before the shark
popped out of the water — BIG YIKES? That’s a movie moment of legend.
What would you give to come up with something like that?
Before you get into bed with an idea, you also have to ask if it’s
marketable. If you desperately want to make a silent movie, in black and
white, with a four-hour-plus running time, you had better be a beret-wearing,
filterless cigarette-smoking, independently financed European auteur with
several million friends all willing to see your movie and pay full price. As
much as we may grouse about the commercialization of art, moviemaking is
a business and so is screen-writing. Write something that feels like a product
people want to buy. No agent will be willing to get involved in your career if
he or she feels that you’re writing stuff nobody wants. After you’re
successful, then go make your artistic fart somewhere.
Next, thanks to the Internet, researching how original your idea is is as
simple as firing up a search engine and typing in a few keywords:
zombie+musical+western+Lithuanian+pirates. If you want people to buy
your screenplay, you need to know that it isn’t like a dozen others currently
in development. Why spend time writing your comedy about a bride with
cold feet when every studio has two just like it meandering through the
system?
So, let’s say you’ve gotten your idea, it’s chock-a-block full of wish
fulfillment, just thinking about it makes you laugh and cry at the same time,
it’s something you and several million of your friends would pay good coin
to see, and there’s absolutely nothing like it in development at the studios.
Can you finally start running it through the My Story Can Beat Up Your
Story! system? Yes! And it begins with that old standby, the three-act
structure.

THE THREE-ACT STRUCTURE

Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. Spaceship goes up, spaceship gets
crippled, spaceship makes it back home. Cop catches criminal, criminal
escapes cop, cop brings criminal back in.
The three-act structure has been around since cavemen first sat around
campfires and told stories to each other (“Og see mammoth, Og chase
mammoth, Og kill mammoth.”) I see no reason to discard this handy
convention, though I will happily make the distinction that one can divide
the three-act structure into four equal parts, with act 2 taking up two of those
parts.

I know that there are a few die-hards who maintain that screenplays
should be 120 pages. Uh-uh. Not yours. Not from now on. And you want to
know why? Because you’re writing the script that gets bought, remember?
The first thing those decent, hardworking agents, producers, or studio
executives I mentioned in the introduction do when they get a script to read
is flip to the end to see how many pages it is. They see 108 pages and they
think, “I can do 108 standing on my head!” They start reading your script,
not with the sense of dread that 120 pages inspires, but a sense of hope.
Not only that, but at the rough estimate of a minute per page, a 108-page
script gives you just enough material for the average movie. There are many
90-minute movies that began life as 120-plus-page scripts and had all the
fluff taken out in the cutting room. I remember when I started working on
Dennis the Menace Strikes Again! and was given the screenplay from the
first Dennis the Menace movie to use as a reference. It was 144 pages long.
One hundred and forty-four! Guess what the running time of Dennis the
Menace is? Ninety-six minutes. With credits. There was a lot of fluff in that
script that never saw the light of day in the finished film. I don’t know if it
was all shot and then left on the cutting-room floor, but if it was, that means
a few million dollars were tossed in the InSinkErator. Your goal is to be as
fluff-less as possible. And despite a recent trend towards longer pictures,
your scripts shouldn’t be one of them. Not at this point in your career.
And if those two reasons aren’t enough, it simply takes less time to write
108 pages than to write 120. If it takes you six months to write 120 pages,
writing 12 less pages saves you two weeks. Yes, I am that anal.
So once more: three acts, with act 2 being the same length as act 1 and act
3 combined, all conspiring to run to 108 pages.

THE CENTRAL QUESTION

One of the most important components of My Story Can Beat Up Your Story!
is the “central question.” The central question is the 800-pound gorilla of
story concepts, and a good central question helps guarantee that your
screenplay doesn’t run out of gas in the middle. Once the central question is
answered definitively yes or no, the movie’s over. It comes right at the end
of act 1, and is actually the signpost that act 1 is done. Everything in act 1
flows to the central question and everything in acts 2 and 3 flows from the
central question. In reality, the central question is more accurately the central
questions, in the plural, because a good central question has three parts.
They’re never stated outright, but the three parts of a good central question
are what’s on your audience’s minds as your story unfolds, twists, turns, and
resolves.
 In Star Wars the central question is “Will Luke destroy the Death Star,
save the Princess, and become a Jedi like his father?” Once each part of that
question is answered either yes or no, the movie is over. In The Dark Knight
the central question is “Will Batman defeat The Joker, get Rachel to love
him, and finally be the hero?” Once those three parts are answered there is
nothing more to say except “What a GREAT movie!”

THE THREE PARTS TO THE CENTRAL QUESTION

The three parts of the central question are built on your hero’s goals in three
areas of his or her life: a physical goal, an emotional goal, and a spiritual
goal.2
The physical goal is the main action of the hero, his or her most obvious
mission in the story. It’s also the goal that affects the most people in the
story; it means a lot to a lot of people. Luke’s physical goal in Star Wars is to
destroy the Death Star, which means a lot to a lot of people — just ask the
nice folks on Alderaan who got blown up because Luke and company didn’t
deliver the plans to the rebels soon enough. If Luke doesn’t destroy the
Death Star, it’ll blow up more planets. Luke’s physical goal means a lot to
billions and billions of people.
The emotional goal is the objective that means a lot, but only to a few
people. It’s the goal that your hero and those around your hero feel in their
hearts. To whom does it matter if Luke saves the Princess? Well, it means a
lot to the Princess, for sure. It also means a lot to Han Solo, Chewbacca, the
droids, and Obi-Wan. However, saving the Princess does not mean a lot to
the people on Tatooine; they’re too far removed from the situation to have an
emotional connection to that particular mission. Plus, they have that pesky
womp rat infestation to worry about. So the emotional goal is the hero’s
objective, which directly impacts and drives the hero and the hero’s inner
circle of friends and associates.
Finally, your hero has a spiritual goal, whether he or she knows it or not.
Something in your hero’s being is unfulfilled: a private, inner quest. It’s the
thing that does not mean a lot to a lot, or even a lot to a few. It means a lot to
the hero. It’s the innermost fear or regret or ghost that the hero will deal with
from FADE IN to FADE OUT. If the hero had a shrink, this would be the hot
topic of conversation while lying on the couch. Contrasting the physical goal
to the spiritual goal, the physical goal is driven by something that has forced
itself on the hero’s life in the present, and the spiritual goal is that thing with
which the hero has been grappling for a long, long time. Luke’s spiritual
issue is the death of his father, and once he learns that Pops was a Jedi,
Luke’s spiritual goal is to become a Jedi like his dad. So, in Star Wars, “Will
Luke destroy the Death Star?” is his physical goal, “Will Luke save the
Princess?” is his emotional goal, and “Will Luke become a Jedi like his
father?” is his spiritual goal. Taken all together, these physical, emotional,
and spiritual goals become the central question of Star Wars.
Sometimes, as in Star Wars, the ultimate answer to all three parts of the
central question is yes. Yes, Luke destroys the Death Star! Yes, he saves the
Princess! Yes, he became a Jedi like his father! However, not every
successful movie has such an upbeat ending. In The Dark Knight (“Will
Batman defeat the Joker, will Bruce get Rachel to love him, and will he
finally be the hero?”), the answers are a bit more complicated. Does Batman
defeat The Joker? Yes. Does he get Rachel to love him? No, she not only
rejects him, but she dies. Does Batman finally get to be the hero? Yes.
However, he becomes the hero by allowing the citizens of Gotham to think
that he’s the villain, so it’s a bittersweet yes. Even so, all three parts of the
central question are answered definitively by the end.
I’m a sucker for happy endings, as are most of the readers and studio
muck-a-mucks you hope will buy your screenplay, so you may want to
seriously consider answering all three parts of your central question as
positively as possible. Does that mean you should only write movies that
have a final image of the hero riding off on a magic unicorn and trailing
pixie dust? Not at all. Just know going in that if you write a movie in which
all three parts of your central question are answered no, you may not get the
reaction (or financial reward) you’re hoping for.

TIMING THE ANSWERS TO THE CENTRAL QUESTION

While the three parts of the central question can be answered one at a time as
you race to the climax of act 3, often the closer together you answer the parts
the more satisfying the story will be for the audience, particularly when all
three are yes answers. And if you connect all three parts in ways the
audience can’t anticipate, you’ve done something truly admirable and unique
in your story.
In Star Wars, Luke wants to save the Princess, which he can’t do unless he
destroys the Death Star, which he can’t do unless he becomes a Jedi like his
father. And with one shot into an exhaust port, he accomplishes all three at
the same time.
In Jaws, Chief Brody will be accepted as a member of the Amity
community only if he kills the shark, which he can do only if he conquers his
fear of the water. It’s no coincidence that Brody’s “Smile, you son-of-a….”
rifle shot takes place when he is straddling the mast of the sunken boat, right
in the water, nose-to-nose with the shark. With one bullet he accomplishes
all three goals, not to mention making enough sashimi to feed New England.

Roy Scheider takes aim at the central question of Jaws.

Both of these films are task-oriented, action-based stories, so it’s easier to
craft a whiz-bang climax where all three parts of the central question collide.
In other, more layered stories such as The Dark Knight and Forrest Gump,
it’s actually better to dish out the resolutions at a more leisurely pace to
allow the audience a chance to process the moments. In The Dark Knight,
Batman fails to secure Rachel’s love because she is killed, so that’s a huge
part of the central question that is answered no. That event happens just two-
thirds of the way through the movie, leaving both the audience and Bruce
Wayne a chance to live with that answer for almost another hour of movie
time. Indeed, it’s this very no that drives the other two resolutions: Will
Batman defeat the Joker and will he finally become the hero? Batman does
defeat the Joker, and by being forced to kill Harvey Dent, he takes on both
the mantle of hero and fugitive.
 Whether you’re able to tie the different parts of the central question
together or not, just remember that once you answer all three parts of the
central question, your story is over and all that’s left for your audience to do
is to shake the popcorn off their laps and go home.

CHAPTER 1 REVIEW
1. What must your story do? “Enable a sympathetic character to
overcome a series of increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable
obstacles and achieve a compelling desire” (Michael Hauge). Key
words are sympathetic, increasingly difficult, seemingly
insurmountable, and compelling.
2. What must you do? Become a story generator. Write down every idea
you get the moment you get it. Don’t wait for later because you might
forget the idea by then. If you don’t have something to write it down
with, send yourself an email from your cell phone, or even call yourself
and leave yourself a message with the idea.
3. Determine if your story is worth developing. Does it offer a strong
wish fulfillment? Emotional dimension? Is it market-savvy? Original?
4. Understand that three acts is four equal parts, with act 2 being twice
as long as act 1 and act 3.
5. You are aiming to write 108 killer pages. Longer is worse than
shorter.
6. Understand how to build your story’s central question with a hero
who is connected to the story with a physical goal, an emotional goal,
and a spiritual goal.
7. If your story allows it, try to answer the three parts of the central
question as closely together as possible.

CHAPTER 1 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Think about an incident in your own life: something challenging you
went through that had a compelling goal. If the goal wouldn’t be
compelling to an outside observer, what would you have to do to adjust
it so that it was compelling? Would this same outside observer think
you were sympathetic? If not, what sort of motivating factor would you
have to invent to swing the observer over to your side of the story? Can
you chart several increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable
 obstacles you had to overcome in the course of your story? If not and
you needed to, how might you embellish the story to make the obstacles
more intriguing? Congratulations! You just adapted an incident from
your own life into a movie idea.
2. Play the My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! mix-and-match game:
Go to http://www.mscbuys.com/mix-match/ and pick a description
from Box A such as “ugly, “creative,” “brave,” etc. Turn that word into
the ultimate expression of that description: “ugliest,” “most creative,”
“bravest.”
Pick a profession from Box B such as “astronaut,” “soccer coach,”
“school teacher,” etc.
Set the timer on your iPhone (of course you have an iPhone) for five
minutes.
Without stopping to think, crank out a story idea for the “somethingest
character” you just randomly invented. The “ugliest blacksmith” or the
“most fearful pilot.”
Do this two more times, with two more character combinations.
Congratulations again! You just developed three ideas in fifteen
minutes.
3. Take the true-life incident from the first step and the three ideas from
the second, and try to give them all the following elements: strong wish
fulfillment, emotional dimension, market-savviness, and originality.
Any that don’t hit all four points, take out behind the barn and Old
Yeller ’em. Of the ideas that survive, put the best one aside for later.
You’re going to need it.

1 Michael Hauge, Writing Screenplays That Sell (New York: Harper Collins,
1991), 4.
2 In his book, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (New York:
Dell Publishing, 1982), Syd Field talks similarly about separating your
hero’s life into three basic components: professional, personal, and private.
CHAPTER 2

MY THEME IS SMARTER THAN YOUR THEME

THE SIMPLE AND POTENT WAY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR STORY IS REALLY
ABOUT

For the longest time, thinking about theme was one of those writing
necessities that I knew I should care about more than I did but didn’t. I think
I was traumatized by a discussion I had early in my career with a producer
about the theme of a story we were developing. I’d tell him one thing; he’d
counter with something else. Back and forth this went, and before I knew it
two weeks of my life were gone and I hadn’t written a single word. Talking
with him about theme was like trying to hit a moving target. We couldn’t
even agree what theme was. And apparently we’re not alone.
Everyone knows that the theme of The Ugly Duckling is “Don’t judge a
book by its cover,” right? Only, is that the theme or is it the moral? Or
maybe it’s both? Or maybe it’s neither and the theme is really “When you
believe in yourself, anything is possible.” Or maybe I should just pour
myself another scotch?
 Even our good friend, Professor Wikipedia, is befuddled when it comes to
theme, describing it as “a fundamental component of fiction,” but then
devoting a paltry 140 words to describing it. Some fundamental component!
And yet, as tough writers we know that theme is something we should
concern ourselves with.
When I sit down to write, my goal is to stay nimble and not get bogged
down in theory. Too much theory — like too much pizza, sun, or money —
can lead to ruination and despair. But instead of ending up fat, tanned, and
rich, you will end up hamstrung by story information and unable to write.
The My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! business plan demands that you tell
stories as quickly as possible and then tell more stories, so I developed the
following thematic magic bullet, one that will give your scripts the
complexity and layers they need without being a huge pain in the rump to
understand. To me, the absolute minimum understanding of theme needed to
tell a story is this: Heroes ask questions and villains make arguments.

QUESTIONS AND ARGUMENTS

As I’ve learned around my house, voicing an opinion too strongly can get
one into trouble, especially when that one is me. At the start of your story
the same can be said for your hero. It’s not that your hero doesn’t start off
having an opinion, but it generally lacks certainty and conviction.
Luke doesn’t know if Obi-Wan’s idea about becoming a Jedi makes sense
in the “modern” age in which they live (Star Wars). Sheriff Brody isn’t sure
that he and his family will ever be accepted as part of Amity (Jaws). Annie
Reed isn’t sure that love is or even can be magical (Sleepless in Seattle).
Jake Sully doesn’t know if the Na’vi are worthwhile as a people (Avatar).
Your villain, on the other hand, does not suffer from a lack of conviction.
Governor Tarkin knows that the Jedi are no more (Star Wars); Sam knows
that the magic of love doesn’t happen twice (Sleepless in Seattle); Quaritch
knows that the Na’vi are useless savages (Avatar); and the shark in Jaws
represents the argument that an outsider will never be accepted by the island
of Amity! Put another way: The hero asks the thematic question, and the
villain states the thematic argument. Ultimately, your hero and your audience
discover that, as compelling as your villain’s argument may be, he or she is
not only wrong, but it’s that wrong thinking which leads to the villain’s
ultimate downfall in act 3.
 In Star Wars the thematic question is “Which is more powerful, faith or
technology?” Luke thinks he knows that technology is more powerful until
Obi-Wan tells him about the Force. Now he’s not so sure, and Luke grapples
with this quandary for the duration of the story.
Governor Tarkin, on the other hand, has no such confusion. He is
surrounded by technology. From the Death Star itself to his half-cyborg
henchman, Darth Vader, Tarkin’s whole existence is an argument in favor of
the power of technology over faith, as is evident from this snarky comment
Tarkin makes to Vader: “The Jedi are extinct, their fire has gone out of the
universe. You, my friend, are all that’s left of their religion.” Vader, for all of
his shortcomings, embodies a different thematic argument than Tarkin’s.
Vader knows that faith is more powerful than technology, as he makes clear
during the following scene:
VADER: Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve
constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to
the power of the Force.
IMPERIAL GOON: Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways,
Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not
helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you
clairvoyance enough to find the rebels’ hidden fortress…. (Vader
gestures with his hand and the Imperial Goon starts to choke.)
VADER: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Yet for all of his choking of effeminate Imperial goons, Vader’s faith is on
shaky ground, too. His own disturbing lack of faith is what destroyed him
way back when in his fight against Obi-Wan in Star Wars: Episode III —
Revenge of the Sith, and ultimately regaining his faith is what will redeem
him at the end of Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi.
(Just a side note: Darth Vader is often mistaken as the villain of Star Wars,
but the real villain is Peter Cushing’s character, Governor Tarkin. The Death
Star is Tarkin’s baby, not Vader’s. If he screws up, it will be Tarkin who will
have to face the Emperor, not Vader. Vader is just Tarkin’s goon.)
In Sleepless in Seattle the thematic question is asked by Annie: “Can the
magic of love happen to the same person twice?” Annie has heard Sam on
the radio saying that a love like the one he had with his departed wife can
never happen again. Annie isn’t so sure he’s right. Sam is actually the villain
of Annie’s story because he carries the thematic argument that the magic of
love CANNOT happen twice. Sam’s son Jonah believes that it can, and by
the end of the movie, so does everyone.
In Star Trek (2009) the thematic question is “Can you gain strength from
anger before it destroys you?” Spock is driven to join Starfleet by the
animosity he feels towards his fellow Vulcans who considered him impure.
He has become who he is because of this anger, and he believes that he can
remain unaffected — uncompromised — by it. Nero, the Romulan
commander, believes that anger can make you stronger and more focused.
You can’t have enough of the stuff! Once Spock realizes that his anger
makes him unworthy of commanding a starship, he steps aside in favor of
Kirk. Nero never acknowledges that his anger has undone himself and his
crew:
NERO: I would rather suffer the destruction of Romulus a thousand
times than accept the help of a Federation starship!
KIRK: You got it.
Nero’s unwavering commitment to anger and revenge is his undoing.
Spock’s willingness to give up his anger and replace it with logic is the
rebirth of a franchise!

THEME ACROSS THE ACTS

Understanding how theme plays throughout your story can be easily charted
by breaking it into four parts which line up with the four sections of acts 1,
2, and 3:

Act 1: We see the thematic argument in action — we see the power and
the impact of the villain’s thematic argument. Something has to push your
hero to become a hero, and the thematic argument is the power behind the
push. Look how mighty the Empire is, with all its flashy, blinky buttons!
Look how shattered and broken Sam and Jonah are because of the loss of the
magical love of their wife and mother! Look how ferocious, unrelenting, and
territorial the shark has become! As you write this part of your script,
remember that this section is ultimately about the full statement of the
thematic argument.
Act 2, first part: We see the thematic question in action — it’s now your
hero’s turn. As we’ll see in Chapter 4, your hero will be going on a journey,
propelled out of his or her life by the thematic argument. Your hero will now
have to test the power of his or her convictions. Whatever the thematic
question is that’s on your hero’s lips, he or she will start whispering it at the
start of act 2 and be shouting it by the midpoint of the story.
Act 2, second part: Thematic question versus thematic argument — the
hero knows what he or she believes, the hero knows what the villain
believes, and now it’s time for these two world views to clash like never
before. The hero is definitely leaning towards a thematic certainty, but this
part of your script is the crucible. How far is Brody willing to go in order to
be accepted by the people of Amity Island in Jaws? How far is Annie willing
to go to discover if love is magic in Sleepless in Seattle? And when they hit
opposition, sometimes crushing opposition, how far is your hero willing to
bounce back?
Act 3: The hero creates a thematic synthesis — your hero’s thematic
journey comes to a close by achieving a deeper and more complete
understanding of both the thematic question and the thematic argument by
creating a synthesis between the two. It’s the thematic equivalent of asking,
“Why can’t we all just get along?”
In Star Wars, which is stronger, faith or technology? Luke learns that he
needs both; he uses the Force (faith) to target an open exhaust port and then
uses a photon torpedo (a big, glowy chunk of technology) to destroy the
Death Star. Faith is stronger than technology only if they work together in
harmony.
In Jaws, is it true that one can never be accepted by the people who treat
you as an outsider? No. Brody realizes that he can be accepted into a
community only if he is willing to sacrifice all for the community.
In Sleepless in Seattle, can the magic of love happen to the same person
twice? Yes, but only if you’re willing to give yourself over to it regardless of
the consequences (aka, leaving affable Walter in order to maybe… maybe…
find your magical love at the top of the Empire State Building).
 In other words, thematic synthesis is the answer to the thematic question
with the addition of a clause that begins “only if….”

REALLY? IS THAT IT?

There’s plenty more to be said about theme. There are rubrics to be learned,
sub-themes to be amplified on, points to be made about tying theme to
specific action, to where and when and why….
FORGET ALL OF THAT!
What you’ve just been given is the minimum amount of thematic blather
you need to get a good, solid, working first draft of a screenplay. As you
write, make sure that there is a clean thematic question from your hero and a
countering thematic argument from your villain. These two viewpoints
clash, and the hero synthesizes a unique view as a result. Done! Try to get
any more complicated than that at this point in your story’s development and
you may wake up one morning to discover that two weeks have gone by and
you’re just as traumatized as a certain young writer I used to know.

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW
1. Heroes ask questions. Villains make arguments.
2. Theme across the acts looks like this:
Act 1: Thematic argument in action
Act 2, first part: Thematic question in action
Act 2, second part: Thematic question versus thematic argument
Act 3: The hero’s creation of a thematic synthesis

CHAPTER 2 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Go to http://www.mscbuys.com/theme-table/ and download the blank
table.
2. In column 1, make a list of five favorite movie heroes or heroines.
3. In column 2, write their thematic question. Make sure you phrase it
as a question.
4. In column 3, write the corresponding villains from those movies.
5. In column 4, write the villain’s thematic argument. Make sure you
phrase it like a statement.
6. In column 5, write the thematic synthesis.
7. Remember that idea you put aside in Chapter 1’s Story Beater
Exercise? Take it out now, give your character a name, and put him or
her at the bottom of the first column, after all the other heroes.
8. In the next column over, write down what you think your hero’s
thematic question is. Let’s say you picked “most cowardly soldier.”
What would be a good thematic question for a cowardly soldier? A few
come to mind right away: “Is there ever a good time to fight versus
run?” Another is “Can a coward ever become a hero?”
9. Now imagine the absolute best person to challenge that question with
a countering argument. Give that person a name and put him or her at
the bottom of the list of villains.
10. Write down your villain’s thematic argument. Playing off the two
examples above, the argument might be “Never back down from a
fight, any fight!” Or “Once a coward, always a coward!” Who might
this person be, relative to your cowardly soldier hero? A decorated war-
hero parent? A spouse? A commanding officer? Just pick one for now
and make a note. You can always change this person later if you want.
11. In the last column, write down the thematic synthesis of all the
thematic questions and thematic arguments, including your own.
Referring to the example above, the thematic synthesis might be:
“Sometimes backing away takes greater courage than fighting,” or “A
coward can become a hero when he or she is willing to sacrifice for
others.”
12. Congratulations! You just crafted both a workable hero and a villain
based on theme… and we haven’t even talked about heroes and villains
yet! Damn, you’re good.
CHAPTER 3

MY HERO’S A WINNER, YOUR HERO’S A WIENER!”

DRIVE YOUR STORY WITH A HERO WHO’S NOT A ZERO BY ASKING FOUR
QUESTIONS

In the movie Love in the Time of Cholera, Javier Bardem plays a swarthy
and rather love-struck fellow named Florentino. Florentino is a hopeless
romantic who as a youth falls madly in love with the winsome Fermina,
whom he vows to love forever. And boy, does he ever. Separated by
Fermina’s scheming father, Florentino never forgets his vow no matter how
many years pass and how incapable he becomes of moving on with his life.
Florentino goes from a romantic youth to a pathetic adult, unable to be apart
from the girl who not only no longer loves him but is married to another
man. To drown out the pain of separation, Florentino goes on a fornication
rampage (oh, that old chestnut), chalking up 622 conquests over 50 years
while trying to achieve his one goal in life: to wait for Fermina’s husband to
die so he can win Fermina back.
Love in the Time of Cholera is a celebrated book, but as a movie it’s a
disaster. Robbed of the novel’s ability to take us into Florentino’s state of
mind in a sympathetic way, we are left with an emotional train wreck for a
main character. He has no real goal — waiting for someone to die of old age
is not a goal, but rather a punch line — and he’s so weak that even as an
adult he breaks down in tears at the drop of a Panama hat. If you thought
Javier Bardem was scary when he was killing people in No Country for Old
Men, you should see what he looks like when he weeps.
The movie version of Love in the Time of Cholera was made by top
people, with a great cast and beautiful cinematography, but it all meant
nothing because the hero was a zero. Even with a budget of $45 million, the
worldwide box office was $11 million. People avoided this movie like it
itself had cholera.
Ever since the first protozoa crawled out of the muck, evolved into John
Wayne, and called us “Pilgrim,” the movies that have clicked with audiences
are the ones with strong, easily identifiable heroes. Men and women with
goals and drives. Men and women with whom we want to spend 110 minutes
of our lives. If I wanted to spend two hours in the company of a teary-eyed
adult with a broken heart, I’d call my cousin Sheldon. And I don’t.
Strong heroes serve several important functions, both dramatic and
practical. From a storytelling perspective, a solid hero (male or female) gives
the audience a pair of eyes they didn’t have before. We see the world of our
story through the hero’s perspective. We see that Mos Eisley is a hive of
scum and villainy through Luke. We experience the majesty of the Titanic
through Rose. We experience the history of the sixties, seventies, and
eighties through Forrest Gump. We see the beauty of Pandora through Jake
Sully. A strong hero makes an excellent traveling companion.
Secondly, a hero on a journey equals a story on a journey. The hero and
the story have a symbiotic relationship. As one flourishes, so does the other.
It’s impossible for your hero to be actively in pursuit of a compelling goal
and have a stagnant story.
Finally, a well-written, strong, compelling hero is a crucial part of your
screenplay’s business plan. Studios want screenplays that attract stars. Stars
want roles that will keep them stars. Do you think Brad Pitt wants to play a
whimpering mama’s boy, plagued with self-doubt, whose biggest dream is to
wait fifty years for his beloved’s husband to die? No! He wants to go to
Nazi-occupied France and scalp himself some Nazis! And he wants his
scalps! By using the lens of your hero to focus your story, you can quickly
determine if your story is worth the price of admission.
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
Ever since there have been parents, kids have been told that people are
defined not by what they do but by who they are. That’s all swell and stuff,
but nobody wants to watch the most brilliant, ballsy, deep-core driller on the
planet (“who he is”) play Rummikub for two hours (“what he does.”) Heck
no! We want to see that deep-core driller blasted to an asteroid where he has
to drill 800 feet into that hunk of iron and detonate a nuclear device in order
to save Earth. We want to see the confluence of both the who and the what.
The best method of combining the who with the what I’ve ever come
across is something I learned years ago while pitching a story to a Disney
executive named Michael Roberts. Michael was one of my favorite people
who never hired me. As I was pitching, Michael politely listened and nodded
his head. When I was done he proceeded to tell me that my story didn’t
answer the four questions.
“Uh, and what might those questions be?” I asked.
1. Who is your hero?
2. What is your hero trying to accomplish?
3. Who is trying to stop your hero?
4. What happens if your hero fails?
Hearing these four questions phrased so simply was a real “ah-ha”
moment for me. The more I learned about stories, the more I realized that
understanding the importance of both asking and answering these questions
should be the cornerstone of any effective story system. Let’s dig a little
deeper and see how these four questions are a crucial part of driving your
story.

QUESTION 1: WHO IS YOUR HERO?

Answer: a sympathetic character. Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. Rose
DeWitt Bukater from Titanic. Forrest Gump from Forrest Gump. These are
just names. The answer to question 1 is more than your hero’s name; it’s the
essence of your hero that makes him or her compelling.
Who is Luke Skywalker? He’s a farm boy with the soul of a warrior,
trapped in his life by overprotective guardians. Who is Rose DeWitt
Bukater? She’s a young woman trapped in a loveless, arranged marriage on
an ocean voyage on the doomed Titanic. Who is Forrest Gump? Forrest is a
young man of limited intelligence with a great and noble heart who is
misunderstood by everyone in the world except the one girl who loves him
but won’t allow herself to be with him.
All of these heroes are achingly sympathetic. Remember Michael Hauge’s
definition of story? You want to write stories about sympathetic characters.
What happens if you’re interested in making a movie with a really negative
hero? A serial killer? A child molester? Your potential pool of buyers
shrinks because not everybody has a taste for serial killer movies. It’s not
that you shouldn’t write that story if you have the burning desire — and I’ll
never tell you what you should or shouldn’t write if you’ve got passion for it
— but I am suggesting that the deck is so stacked against your making it as a
writer, why hurt your chances of breaking in by trying to launch yourself
with a child molester as your hero? A sympathetic hero is key, and I’ve
found three dependable tools you can use to make sure your hero is
sympathetic.

THREE TOOLS TO MAKE YOUR HERO SYMPATHETIC

Tool #1: I learned the first method of making a hero sympathetic from Tom
Laughlin of Billy Jack fame. On his website, http://www.billyjack.com, he
discusses a number of intriguing ideas about storytelling, one of which is
called “undeserved misfortune.” Just as it sounds, undeserved misfortune
occurs when heroes are or were minding their own business and WHAM!
they’re struck by some disastrous event they didn’t bring upon themselves
or, at least, had no way of knowing to expect. Sometimes a hero’s entire life
is one big ball of undeserved misfortune. Luke Skywalker is stuck on a farm,
deprived of the chance to join the academy, orphaned in the most literal
sense of the word, and his aunt and uncle are killed by Stormtroopers.
Undeserved misfortune. By the time act 1 ends, we are totally onside with
him.
Harry Potter’s parents are dead and he’s living with his abhorrent relatives
who are completely insensitive to him in every way. Did Harry do anything
to bring this on himself? No way. Undeserved misfortune immediately
makes the audience feel empathy for your hero.
Tool #2: A second technique is an old trope called “pet the dog,” made
popular by screenwriter Blake Snyder as “save the cat.”1 This is where you
show your hero being nice to animals, kids, or old people. Remember
Fletcher Reede in Liar Liar? The guy’s a work-obsessed, negligent father.
He forgets to do things for his son and then makes excuses. He’s so
heartbreakingly bad that his ex-wife considers marrying a nice but horribly
bland guy and moving clear across the country so she doesn’t have to see her
son being disappointed by his father any longer. We should hate Fletcher but
we don’t. Why? Because we see that Fletcher really loves his son! “It’s the
claw, Max!” Fletcher says when he arrives late one day (but early in the
movie) and chases the giggling son around the front yard. What makes
Fletcher so bad is that we see how much his son loves him. What makes
Fletcher so good is that we see that he loves his son, but just doesn’t know
how to show it properly. The “It’s the claw, Max!” scene is Fletcher petting
the dog, in this case, his son being the canine in question.

“It’s ‘Pet the Dog,’ Max!”

Tool #3: A third tool you can use to create a sympathetic hero is to make
him or her quirky or fun. William Goldman writes about a movie he wrote,
Harper, with Paul Newman. Newman’s a craggy private eye, and the
opening sequence shows Harper living in this cruddy apartment and wanting
a cup of coffee, only he’s all out. So he looks in the garbage pail and pulls
out yesterday’s filter with the grinds still in it and pours hot water through
that. Does that feel like undeserved misfortune in a way? Maybe because the
guy is so poor he can’t even afford coffee, but what this really does is render
Harper quirky and memorable. It puts the audience on his side and along for
the ride.
I’ve been studying the list of the top movies of all time for the past two
decades, and in all that time I’ve never seen a top movie that didn’t feature a
hero who hasn’t suffered undeserved misfortune, who didn’t pet the dog, or
who wasn’t quirky and fun.
Now look at your idea. Is your hero sympathetic? Has he or she suffered
some undeserved misfortune? If not, is he or she highly admirable? Truly
unique? Fun? If none of these, have you given your hero a pet-the-dog
moment? If you answer no to all of the above, you may want to rethink your
hero, particularly if you’re writing for Hollywood and not for the approval of
some rich aunt somewhere.

QUESTION 2: WHAT’S YOUR HERO TRYING TO

ACCOMPLISH?
Answer: a compelling goal. The single biggest problem I have when I write
a family film is figuring out whether anyone really cares if Billy gets the
bike. I mean, he wants the bike, he deserves the bike, his parents want him to
have the bike and hope they can scrape enough money together by
Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa to get him the bike, but if he doesn’t get the
bike….
Who cares?
Not me. I’ve got four kids and they don’t always get what they want. If
Billy doesn’t get the bike, he’ll get over it. And what’s worse: The audience
knows it. No matter how cute Billy is and no matter how desperately you
show that he wants the bike, unless he’s going to get on that bike and ride it
like a madman through the worst part of town to get to a hospital in order to
deliver the serum that will save the president from hemorrhagic fever in time
to oversee nuclear disarmament and usher in an era of one thousand years of
peace, nobody in the audience is going to care about that bike. “Will Billy
get the bike?” is not a compelling goal, and a compelling goal is what’s
needed both to hold an audience and drive a film.
In the Chapter 1 discussion of the central question, I talked about a hero
having three goals: physical, emotional, and spiritual. In Star Wars, Luke is
trying to rescue Princess Leia and destroy the greatest death machine ever
invented. In E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Elliot is trying to get the nicest alien
— his new best friend — back home before it dies. In Jurassic Park, Dr.
Alan Grant is trying to rescue himself, his girlfriend, and some kids from the
most awesome killing creatures ever bioengineered. In Spider-Man, Peter
Parker is trying to save Mary Jane and the entire city from the insanely
diabolical Green Goblin. In Armageddon, Bruce Willis is trying to do a little
something called “save the entire, frickin’ planet.”
All of these heroes are doing something that they can’t turn their back on,
something that if they don’t do won’t get done and INNOCENT PEOPLE
WILL SUFFER. This is crucial because the suffering of the innocent is the
stuff of empathy and drama. The main character is compelled to keep trying
to accomplish his or her goal because if your hero fails, not only will your
hero most likely suffer, but innocent people will suffer as well.
Make the goal compelling, which is a fancy way of saying that it isn’t
enough for your hero to care about what he or she is trying to accomplish;
the audience has to care as well.

HOW TO MAKE A GOAL COMPELLING

One of the best ways to make your goal compelling is to give it a human
face through a “stakes character.” This is the character or characters whose
lives will be most shattered by your hero’s failure. A stakes character
humanizes your hero’s goal with a living, breathing, vulnerable person.
In Star Wars, Luke is trying to save the universe, but who is he really
trying to save? Princess Leia. Saving the universe is a great goal (especially
since I live there), but it’s too impersonal. Saving Princess Leia puts a
human face on that goal.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones is trying to save the world from
Hitler. That’s a pretty compelling goal, but again it’s hard to visualize that
and make it concrete, so who is he really trying to save? Marion
Ravenwood.
In Sleepless in Seattle, Annie wants magical love, but who’s really going
to suffer if she and Sam don’t get together? Sam’s son Jonah, who wants a
new mom. Same thing with Liar Liar: Who really suffers if Fletcher doesn’t
learn how to tell the truth? His moppet of a son. In Avatar, Jake Sully is
trying to save the Na’vi, but who is he really trying to save? Neytiri. Bruce
Willis is trying to save his daughter in Armageddon.
 Give the stakes a face for the audience to fall in love with, and that
audience will be on your hero’s side until the credits roll and the lights come
up.

QUESTION 3: WHO IS TRYING TO STOP YOUR HERO?

Answer: a powerful, committed villain. Just as you need a hero who is
committed to accomplishing his or her goal, you need a villain who is
committed to accomplishing the opposite goal. Ruthlessly committed, and
the more ruthless, the better. Not only that, the villain’s goal should be
mutually exclusive to the hero’s goal. In that final match between hero and
villain, there can be only one winner. In Avatar, is it possible that Jake and
Quaritch can come to some sort of understanding about how to deal with the
Na’vi? Never! Or can Brody negotiate a peace treaty with the shark in Jaws?
Or can John McClane strike a deal with Hans Gruber for the lives of the
hostages in Die Hard? NO!
In Titanic, Jack’s main opponent, the person who is ruthlessly committed
to stopping him and Rose is Cal Hockley, Rose’s fiancé. Jack and Cal want
the same thing: Rose. Their goals are mutually exclusive. They can’t both
have her. Even if Jack gets Rose off the Titanic, might he still have to face
Cal as the ultimate, final obstacle? You bet.
A mutually exclusive, compelling goal that forces your hero and your
villain to knock heads over is an essential part of any good script.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR BAD GUY UNSYMPATHETIC

Simple! He does the opposite of everything you’d do to make your hero
sympathetic. Instead of suffering from undeserved misfortune, your bad guy
causes undeserved misfortune, and instead of petting the dog, your bad guy
kicks the dog, meaning he or she is mean to animals, kids, or old people. It’s
like W. C. Fields popping the balloon of a little boy at a carnival.
The best example of kicking the dog I’ve ever seen is in the movie Tin
Cup. In the film Don Johnson plays a nasty golf pro, and Kevin Costner and
he are both going after Rene Russo. Writer-director Ron Shelton wants us to
understand just how bad Don Johnson is, so he has an older couple approach
him during a golf tournament. With the old folks are their grandson and their
dog. They ask Don for his autograph, not for themselves but for their
grandson who sweetly holds up his autograph book. That’s when Don lets
them have it with both barrels. “Can you people not see that I’m busy? I’m
working, here. This is my office. Do I come to your office and ask for your
autograph? I don’t think so. Jesus, what an ugly dog!” So, in the span of
twenty-two seconds, Don Johnson’s character is nasty to old people, kids,
and dogs. Now that’s a good, bad guy!

QUESTION 4: WHAT HAPPENS IF HE FAILS?

Answer: life-or-death consequence. This is the simplest of all the questions
to answer, because there can be only one: death. Not discomfort. Not
indigestion. Not ennui.
Death.
The life or death of your hero is the only stake that you know for sure
people will care about, because by the time you get to question 4, and if
you’ve learned from these examples, you will already have:
a sympathetic main character, who has probably…
suffered some sort of undeserved misfortune, and…
is engaged in a compelling goal against.
a ruthlessly committed opponent.
It is axiomatic that if you have all of the above, anyone with a pulse is
going to care deeply if your hero and the characters surrounding him or her
live or die because the whole purpose of questions 1 through 3 is to make
people care!
The death your hero faces should be, whenever possible, a real, physical
death. If real death can’t be played out in your story (because you’re writing
a love story or because you’re doing a family film and don’t want to scare
the kiddies), then you have to invent a figurative death, but it’s got to be a
figurative death that is so strong, it might as well be real death.
Checking a recent list of the top fifty movies of all time, I devised the
following list of movies that seemingly don’t have life-or-death stakes:
Forrest Gump, The Sixth Sense, Home Alone, Shrek, How the Grinch Stole
Christmas, Bruce Almighty, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Mrs. Doubtfire,
Wedding Crashers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Madagascar, and
Toy Story. Only twelve of fifty films seemingly don’t have life-or-death
stakes, which means that 76% of the top fifty films do have life-or-death
stakes. That’s a pretty compelling argument, if you ask me. If there was a
slot machine in Vegas that paid off 76% of the time, there’d be a line around
the block to get at it. There is only one problem with my figure….
The percentage of movies with life-or-death stakes is really 100%! Each
of these twelve films actually does have life-or-death stakes, just played in a
more subtle way.
Forrest Gump: Only one woman in the world is capable of loving
Forrest. If Forrest doesn’t somehow get her to learn to love him in
return, her lifestyle will cause her to die (and, indeed, that is
exactly what happens). The stakes are death.
The Sixth Sense: If Dr. Crowe doesn’t save Cole, Cole will end
up like the homicidal and suicidal young man at the start of the
film. Remember the bit of white hair that both Cole and the young
man had? More than a coincidence, it is a visual cue to let you
know that Cole is on his way to becoming this suicidal young man
if he isn’t helped. Death.
Home Alone: The burglars have been pushed so hard and so far
that they are ready to seriously hurt (read, in kid-speak, “kill”)
Kevin. Also, if Kevin doesn’t learn to become part of his family,
he will never have a healthy relationship with his parents or
siblings. Death.
Shrek: Is there anyone else in the world for Princess Fiona and
Shrek than each other? NO WAY! If Shrek doesn’t save her from
marrying the Prince, is both his life and hers basically over? YOU
BET! Death.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas: If the Grinch doesn’t learn to
love the holiday, he will suffer the “death of his heart.” Death.
Bruce Almighty: If Bruce continues to misuse God’s power, he
will create unimaginable problems for the world and lose the love
of his girlfriend forever. Death.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding: If Toula’s father can’t accept his
daughter’s fiancé Ian, and if Ian can’t accept Toula’s huge family,
their relationship won’t be able to survive. Death.
Mrs. Doubtfire: Daniel wants desperately to be with his kids, and
in no less than two places in the film says that not being with his
kids is death to him. He even goes so far as to say, “the idea of
 someone telling me I can’t be with them, I can’t see them every
day, well that’s like someone saying I can’t have air. I can’t live
without air and I can’t live without them.” Death.
Wedding Crashers: If John can’t explain to Claire the truth about
how and why he met her, their relationship could end before it
begins, dooming her to marry her completely reprehensible fiancé
and dooming her to a life of misery. Death.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: If Charlie Bucket doesn’t
win the grand prize from Willy Wonka, his family will have to live
in poverty and hunger for the rest of their lives, and Charlie will
only have a bleak future to look forward to. Death.
Madagascar: If the four animal friends can’t adapt to life in the
wild, they may not be able to make it out alive. Death.
Toy Story: If Woody doesn’t save Buzz and reunite with his
friends, he will be separated from his beloved Andy for the rest of
his life. And, for a toy, being separated forever from the child who
owns you is what? Death.2
Death, death, death, and death.
So, there you have it: Of the top fifty films of all time, none portrays the
stakes as being less than death, either real or figurative.
Have I made my point? I hope so. You are certainly free to make your
stakes something other than life-or-death if you want to. Will Chester get the
big promotion? Will Jocelyn’s new line of cosmetics become a sensation?
Will Timmy earn that merit badge in campfire cuisine? Go for it!
Just don’t blame me if nobody gives a rat’s patoodie.

FOUR QUESTIONS, THREE ACTS

An interesting way of looking at the four questions is to think of them in
relationship to the four parts of the three acts. Building on our chart from the
last chapter:
 Put as simply as possible, act 1 introduces us to what makes your hero
sympathetic (question 1). We see everything that helps us understand that we
have a good guy (or girl) on our hands.
The first part of act 2 begins the journey of discovering what your hero is
directly trying to accomplish (question 2). It’s not that we don’t know what’s
afoot until then, but in this part of act 2, the hero starts testing the waters,
trying to learn what’s needed to achieve his or her goals.
The second part of act 2 ratchets up the conflict between your hero and the
villain (question 3). Your villain is now aware of your hero and the
opposition your hero is creating, and we see just how ruthlessly committed
to stopping your hero the villain is.
Act 3 brings it all home, having us sit on the edge of our seats as the
conflict comes to a head, bringing alive the question that has haunted the
hero (and us) since the story started: What happens if your hero fails
(question 4)?
Now, this is NOT to say that these questions get doled out slowly over the
course of your story. Indeed, you must know the answer to these questions
even before you sit down to write. Before you go any further developing
your story, if you can’t answer these four questions brilliantly, your story is
going to chew you up and spit you out.

THE MAMET COROLLARY

A memo from David Mamet to the writing staff of his show, The Unit,
famously made the rounds on the Internet a few years back. It’s an absolute
short course on writing drama. I’ve posted the full version of it at
http://www.mscbuys.com/mamet/. In his memo, Mamet says many things
which parallel ideas in this book. No! I’m not saying I’m as smart as Mamet.
We just both understand certain aspects of storytelling in common terms.
One of the things he says is that, at the scene level, writers must ask three
questions:
1. Who wants what?
2. What happens if her don’t get it (yes, Mamet wrote “her”)?
3. Why now?
This last question — “Why now?” — is the Mamet corollary to the four
questions.
Why doesn’t every story begin with the birth of the hero and end with the
hero’s death? Because that would be… what’s the word? BORING! In Star
Wars, nothing much happens to Luke from the time he’s dropped off with
Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen until seventeen years later when the droids show
up on the farm, when his story gets picked up again. In Sleepless in Seattle,
we don’t care who or what Annie Reed dated in junior high school because
her story doesn’t start until the night she hears brokenhearted Sam and Jonah
on the radio. Heck, even Jesus’ story takes a thirty-three year break!
A good story happens for a specific reason at a specific time. That’s what
makes it a good story in the first place. Mamet brings this principle down to
the scene level, but as you work through the four questions at the macro,
story level, keep the Mamet corollary in mind.

THREE MORE THINGS ABOUT YOUR HERO

As if the four questions weren’t a big enough hammer, I find myself also
using three additional tools to help beat my heroes into winners from
wieners:
Tool #1: Movies are generally about one thing: respect. Your hero wants
respect and isn’t getting it. Sometimes your hero thinks he or she is
deserving of respect but keeps getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop, like John
McClane in Die Hard.
Sometimes your hero feels unworthy of respect and is shocked to discover
that he or she is actually deserving of it, like Harry Potter in Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Sometimes your hero starts off with total respect and then loses it, sending
your hero on a journey to regain it, like Woody in Toy Story.
 Sometimes your hero is respected by the wrong people for the wrong
reasons, but is desperate to be respected by the right people for the right
reasons, like Fletcher Reede in Liar Liar.
Look at your hero and figure out where on the respect merry-go-round he
or she is riding. By keeping the tension of your hero’s drive for — and denial
of — respect going from scene to scene, you’ll find that you’ve tapped into a
powerful dramatic weapon in your battle against weak stories.
Tool #2: Another general rule stipulates that your hero is or will become
the absolute best “something,” even if he or she doesn’t know it yet.
Is there a better Jedi than Luke in Star Wars? No. Does he know it? No!
Is there a better pirate than Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The
Curse of the Black Pearl? No. Does he know it? Yes!
Is there a better lover and protector than Jack Dawson in Titanic? No.
Does he know it? No!
Is there a better warrior (blue-skinned or otherwise) than Jake Sully in
Avatar? No. Does he know it? Yes!
Woody is the best toy a kid could ever have. Shrek is the best ogre. Forrest
Gump is more capable of unconditional love than anyone who has ever
lived.
When crafting winning heroes, make them the best… even if they don’t
know it!
Tool #3: Going hand-in-hand with your hero being the best something is
that your hero starts out being wrong about something.
In Die Hard, all John McClane thinks he has to do is go to LA, sweet-talk
his estranged wife, and she’ll give up her great job and come back to New
York with him (“Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few
laughs….”). Of course, he can’t talk to her for more than two minutes until it
devolves into a fight. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Hans
Gruber shows up and takes everyone hostage. Through this experience, John
and his wife realize how much they mean to each other, and John realizes
that he’s the one who should have been more supportive of her job, instead
of sulking because she wasn’t supportive of his. Yippee-ki-yay!
In Sleepless in Seattle, what is Annie wrong about? She thinks that loving
a bland guy is as good as it gets. And then she hears Sam on the radio,
talking about the magical relationship he had with his dearly departed wife.
Annie sets out to discover if she can have a magical relationship, too. And
what of Sam? Little does he know that Annie has already fallen in love with
him and she’s just like his ex-wife, even down to her ability to peel an apple
in a single, long strand. If only he would accept that lightning can strike
twice, he’d have a chance with Annie regardless that he’s in Seattle and she’s
in Baltimore.
Shrek thinks the best thing in the whole world (besides flatulating in a
mud bath) is being all alone. He learns that he is wrong, and by the end of
the movie he not only has a new bride but an entire storybook’s quota of new
friends.
Starting stories with heroes being wrong about something and then slowly
bringing them around until they rethink their position is a guaranteed way to
keep an audience invested in the development of the story.
Now that your hero is a winner, let’s kick him or her up to the next level.
And as your hero is kicked up, so too is your story.

ONE LAST THING… WHO IS THE HERO OF TITANIC?

You’d be shocked how many scripts I read from aspiring writers in which I
have no idea who the hero is. Sadly, neither do they! Sometimes one
character seems like the hero, then another, then a third, then the first again.
It’s a mess.
Being able to clearly identify whose story you want people to follow is
crucial for the person reading — and hopefully thinking about buying —
your script. And when I discuss this, invariably the conversation winds back
to the question, “Who is the hero of Titanic?”
Titanic was the number-one movie for a decade until James Cameron
outdid himself with Avatar. But for all of its box-office muscle, Titanic poses
a serious challenge for anyone who tries to figure out who the hero is. Is it
Jack or Rose? It’s actually a good and telling question. In the interest of a
fair fight, I’ll outline the principles I use to help determine which character is
the hero so you can see why this is even a question at all.
Principle #1: The final battle of every good story is always the good guy
versus the bad guy over stakes. In Titanic the final battle is between Jack
and Cal over Rose, meaning Jack’s the main character. THE WINNER —
JACK.
Principle #2: The hero is the one who changes the most from the start
of the film to the end. Jack appears to change the most; he goes from a
loveless drifter to committed boyfriend to dead, which is a pretty big change.
However, Rose also changes from a stifled person trapped in her life to
liberated woman. THE WINNER — A TIE.
Principle #3: The hero is exactly like the villain but with a moral
center. We’re going to talk a lot about this in Chapter 5. In Titanic, if Cal is
our villain, who is like him but with a moral center? Rose is like him in
status, but Jack is like him in desire. He wants Rose and is as committed to
being with her as Cal is; however, Jack is moral and Cal isn’t. Could Jack
ever become like Cal if he loses his moral center? The scene depicting both
Jack and Cal standing together after convincing Rose to get on the lifeboat
sticks in my mind because Jack is just as guilty of overprotectiveness as Cal
is, neither taking into account HER feelings. Could Rose become like Cal if
she loses her moral center? No, because she’s ready to kill herself before that
can happen. THE WINNER — JACK.
Principle #4: The hero drives the action. Jack and Rose take turns
driving the action. It’s his decision to save her life when she’s ready to
commit suicide. It’s her decision to be sketched in the nude. It’s her decision
to get off the Titanic in New York with him. It’s his decision to martyr
himself. Still, she makes some of the most major plot decisions. THE
WINNER? ROSE, BY A HAIR.
Principle #5: The hero usually gets the biggest martyr moment at the
end (more on this in Chapter 4). While Rose gives up a life of leisure, she
doesn’t give up her life the way Jack does. THE WINNER? JACK.
So, who’s the hero? Empirically, it seems that the evidence points to Jack
more strongly than it does to Rose, yet is it possible that Rose is the hero and
Jack is a “traveling angel” who changes her life? Is it possible that Jack is
the hero and Rose is an innocent who needs rescuing? Is it possible that
they’re both the hero?
In fact, that is the answer: They’re both the hero. Here’s how: Titanic is a
memory piece. Rose is recounting to the people on the research ship how it
came to pass that she got sketched on the doomed Titanic while wearing
nothing but the “Heart of the Ocean” necklace and a smile. She is the hero of
that story, but she is also telling a story, one in which Jack is the hero (“He
saved me… in every way that a person can be saved.”) This is why there is a
split decision regarding which character is the hero. Rose is the hero of the
audience’s story, but Jack is the hero of Rose’s.
CHAPTER 3 REVIEW
1. Make sure you’ve got a strong, empathetic hero. It’s good for your
story and good for your wallet.
2. Use the four questions when working through your story:
Who is your hero? A sympathetic person.
What is your hero trying to accomplish? A compelling goal.
Who is trying to stop your hero? A powerful, ruthlessly
committed opponent.
What happens if your hero fails? Death, either real or figurative.
3. Make your hero sympathetic by having him or her “pet the dog,”
experience undeserved misfortune, or be quirky and fun.
4. Give your stakes a human face via a stakes character.
5. Make your villain unsympathetic by having him or her cause
undeserved misfortune or kick the dog.
6. Don’t forget that your hero needs and wants respect, is or will
become the best something, and is wrong about something at the start of
the story but becomes right about it by the end.

CHAPTER 3 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Using your hero from the previous chapters’ exercises, answer the
four questions.
2. If you have a different idea for a movie, one that you’re eager to start
writing, then run THAT hero through the four questions. If any of the
answers feel weak (for example, if the answer to “What’s your hero
trying to accomplish?” is “Uh actually, not much…”), then beef up the
answer or turf the idea and come up with something better.
3. Once you have an idea you feel good about, see if you can plug in a
great stakes character, someone close to the hero that the hero can
connect to emotionally.
4. Here’s a list of six movies. See if you can settle on a single main
character based on the five principles outlined at the end of this chapter:
Star Trek (2009), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black
Pearl, Rush Hour, Lethal Weapon, The Big Chill, and Sleepless in
Seattle. To see who I pegged as the main characters in these movies and
 to determine if we’ve got a “great minds think alike” thing going, go to
http://www.mscbuys.com/great-minds.

1 Blake Snyder, Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever
Need (Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 2005).
2 This type of death was movingly portrayed in Toy Story 2 through the
longing of the cowgirl doll, Jessie. And the song that tells the story, “When
She Loved Me,” reduces me to a blubbering mass of jelly every time. I’m
such a wuss.
CHAPTER 4

MY HERO FIGHTS, YOUR HERO BITES!

KEEP YOUR STORY MOVING WITH A HERO THAT ROCKETS THROUGH THE SAME
FOUR ARCHETYPES THAT ALL GREAT MOVIE HEROES SHARE

I am a huge fan of a book by Carol S. Pearson entitled The Hero Within,1

which explores the six archetypes that real-life people embody: the Innocent,
the Orphan, the Magician, the Wanderer, the Martyr, and the Warrior.2 Ms.
Pearson’s theory suggests that people make certain choices about how to live
their lives and how to respond to various issues based on their defining
archetype. By understanding which archetype best describes you, you not
only have a better sense of who you are, but you can take steps to change
yourself if that archetype isn’t who you care to be (“An innocent? No way!
I’m a Warrior, baby! Really!”).
While discussing Ms. Pearson’s ideas with my good friend Gilbert
Maclean Evans, he pointed out that in every film he could think of the hero
moved through four of the six archetypes from opening moment to final
fade. We looked at a bunch of movies and it was true. Every movie, four
archetypes. And not only does the hero move through these four archetypes,
he or she does so like the proverbial Swiss clock.
A very common note given to screenwriters is “too plot-driven rather than
character-driven.” This is an executive’s polite way of saying, “You’re
making stuff happen to your characters because you want them to, not
because of the wants, needs, or desires of your characters! Now get out.
Out! OUTTTTT!”
Understanding how your main character moves through these four
archetypes during the course of your story will take you within spitting
distance of that highly admired character-driven script. The four archetypes
— Orphan, Wanderer, Warrior, and Martyr — can be added to our expanding
three-act chart like this:

ORPHAN
At the start of most films, the main character is already an Orphan or is
about to become one: sometimes a real orphan, sometimes a figurative one.
Sometimes the cause of your hero’s orphan status is outside of his or her
control. Luke Skywalker is a real orphan. As is Peter Parker. As is Harry
Potter. As is Batman. As is Will Turner. As is….
In the language of movies, if characters have a single parent, they’re still
orphans because, in some way, they’re dealing with the effects of that loss.
Elliot’s father has abandoned him and the family in favor of a younger
woman, something with which Elliot is still coping in E.T.: The Extra-
Terrestrial. Orphan! Forrest Gump’s father is long gone, and Forrest’s
mother will do anything — and I do mean anything — to protect her son. He
is also an outcast because of his low IQ. Orphan! In Toy Story, Woody
becomes orphaned from his social group after the arrival of Buzz Lightyear,
who also steals Andy’s love. Orphan!
Another way characters can become orphans is by choice. They choose to
distance themselves from family and love because of duty, iconoclasm,
selfishness, or emotional reserve.
In Titanic, Jack Dawson roams all over, not settling down anywhere for
too long. In Up, Carl locks himself in his home after the death of his wife. In
Jurassic Park, Dr. Grant places himself in the middle of nowhere to dig for
dinosaurs. And even though he has companionship in Laura Dern’s
character, Dr. Grant is emotionally detached from people in general and kids
in particular. In Transformers, Sam actually has both parents but he can’t
relate to them at all; they’re a complete embarrassment to him. Orphan. It’s
very similar to the relationship between Toula and her parents in My Big Fat
Greek Wedding (though with fewer robots).
Act 1 is all about the exploration, realization, and amplification of your
hero’s status as an Orphan. The steps in act 1 are fairly specific, and more
will be said about them in Chapter 8. For now you’re good to go, knowing
that a crisis happens to your main character towards the end of act 1,
throwing his or her life out of balance and sending your hero on the journey
to answer the central question by becoming a Wanderer for the first half of
act 2. I’m often asked by writers how they can tell when act 1 is over and act
2 begins. The answer is simple: Is the central question clear yet? No? Then
you’re still in act 1. And if you’re on page 45 and you’re still in act 1, then
Mayday Mayday Mayday! Your act 1 is running fat. Rework it, get it down
to somewhere around twenty-eight pages, and then send your hero off on a
journey.

WANDERER
With the end of act 1 your hero becomes a Wanderer, crossing the threshold
into the world of adventure, action, romance, mystery, or whatever your
story demands. Your hero now wanders about, going hither and yon looking
for clues, meeting helpers, running into opponents, and overcoming
obstacles in the task of resolving the central question.
 In Avatar, Jake joins the Na’vi and learns how to be one of them. In Liar
Liar, Fletcher tries to figure out the conditions of his ”curse” — where it
came from and how to deal with it. In Titanic, Jack and Rose try to figure out
how two people from completely different social classes can steam up the
windows of a sweet, sweet ride in the cargo hold.
Think about Star Wars. At the end of act 1 Luke tells Obi-Wan that he
wants to join him on his quest. Bye-bye Orphan, hello Wanderer! Luke and
the gang then go to Mos Eisley Spaceport, get past the Stormtroopers, have
an altercation in the bar, meet Han Solo, have another altercation in the bar
(yes, Han does shoot first), get to Han’s ship, blast out of the spaceport, jump
into hyperspace, practice the Force, come out of hyperspace, chase down a
TIE Fighter, get sucked into the Death Star, hide in the cargo compartments,
disguise themselves as Stormtroopers, blast into the control room, and
discover that the Princess is being held in a detention cell. Whew! That’s a
lot of wandering. But look what Luke has accomplished in this first half of
act 2 by wandering: He has the plans to destroy the Death Star (physical
goal), he knows where the Princess is being held (emotional goal), and he’s
begun to learn the Force like dear old dad (spiritual goal). Is there anything
missing that more wandering would give him? No. He’s got every bit of
information and every helper he needs to succeed. What does he have to
become? A Warrior.

WARRIOR
At the midpoint of the film, by page 55 or so, the geographic center of act 2,
your hero has acquired most, if not all, of the helpers and all of the skills and
items he or she needs in order to resolve the central question in a favorable
way. Either way, it’s now time to act. In the second half of act 2 your hero
fights unsuccessfully to resolve the central question.
In Star Wars, Luke fights to get to the Princess and save her.
In Jaws, Brody goes out on the boat to fight and kill the shark.
In Titanic, the ship has just hit the iceberg, and Jack and Rose, fresh from
steaming up the windows, must now fight to get away from Cal and off the
sinking ship.
Yes, the second half of act 2 is fight, fight, fight! One step forward, two
steps back. Things are looking up. Things are looking down.
Your hero might be getting bloodied and beaten, but he or she always has
a reserve to tap into — until near the end of act 2, when your hero dies.
 What? Dead hero? Where?
The end of the Warrior phase is usually built on the hero’s journey to the
place of his or her darkest nightmare. Very often, it’s a cave or enclosed
space. Joseph Campbell calls it the “belly of the whale.” Here, in this awful
place, the hero “dies” and is reborn into a new hero, the one who now has
the inner strength previously missing to resolve the central question once
and for all.
In Star Wars, it occurs in the trash compactor scene: a “cave” where Luke
is pulled underwater by the one-eyed thingee that lives there, is presumed
dead by his friends, but is released by the O.E.T. and, in a birth metaphor,
comes gasping out of the water and is reborn. In Titanic, it’s the holding
room where Jack is handcuffed to the pipe as the water rises (rebirth again
through water… hmm? Baptismal… hmm?) He and Rose both barely
escape, but not before Rose endures a moment when she assumes Jack has
drowned.
These are examples of heroes going through their own death and rebirth,
however often they learn something through the death and rebirth of the
person they are trying to save.
In E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Elliot and E.T. are taken into a tented (dare
I say, “cave-like”) room within the house, E.T. dies, and is then reborn as the
spaceship gets close. Through E.T.’s death Elliot learns how to feel. In
Jurassic Park, the boy Tim is electrocuted on the fence, but Dr. Grant
resuscitates him. Through Tim’s death and resurrection, Dr. Grant sees how
fond he’s become of the kids.
In both of these films, it is a stakes character who dies and is reborn. This
causes the hero to redouble his or her efforts. The hero has lost the stakes
character once, and he or she will be double dog-damned if they’ll let it
happen again.
It is this moment that forces your hero to switch from being a Warrior to
becoming a Martyr.

MARTYR
Your hero starts the film as an Orphan. A crisis arises, throwing your hero’s
world out of whack, and he or she leaves or is forced out of Orphan status
and begins to wander in order to learn what is needed to answer the central
question. Around the midpoint of the story, your hero becomes a Warrior and
fights with all of his or her might and cunning in order to answer the central
question, even to the point of his or her near-death or the near-death of
someone close. And still it isn’t enough. The central question remains
unanswered. What action is missing for your hero to take? What more could
he or she possibly do?
Sacrifice his or her own life, that’s what!
Your hero must be willing to die and not be reborn in order to answer the
central question. He or she must be willing to be a Martyr, to give up
everything for a greater good. Only by a willingness to lose it all can your
hero win it all. Only by giving up what your hero thought he or she wanted
can your hero be rewarded with what he or she needs. Remember in Chapter
3 where we discussed what your hero is wrong about at the start of your
story? It is at this point where your hero must confront and overcome that
wrongheadedness.
The secret of the Martyr beat is that the hero is no longer motivated by the
possibility of success. Your hero is motivated solely by the desire to do what
is right or what is necessary, regardless of the consequences. And once he or
she gives up any thought of winning — once the transition from Warrior to
Martyr is embraced — fate or nature or God rewards your hero by offering
what he or she no longer dared hoped to get: success. Or, if your hero’s
really lucky, what he or she needed all along.
In Star Wars, Luke has to be willing to fly into the Death Star and shut off
his targeting computer, showing that he truly believes in the Force. Ripley, in
Aliens, has to be willing to venture into the alien nest in order to save Newt.
In Schindler’s List, Oskar Schindler has to use the money he so desperately
coveted in order to buy the lives of 1,200 Jews. In Avatar, Jake has to give
up being human in order to fight on the side of the Na’vi.
An interesting variation on the Martyr beat is that sometimes it can belong
to a character other than the hero, with the hero learning from and being
motivated by another’s example.
In E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Elliot and E.T. share a psychic connection
with each other. As E.T. is dying, so is Elliot. While the scientists frantically
try to save both of their lives, E.T. breaks off the connection. Elliot, freed
from the connection, begins to thrive. E.T., freed from the connection, fades
and dies. E.T. martyrs himself to save Elliot’s life. Elliot’s problem, as
expressed by his brother early in the film after Elliot reminds his mother that
Dad ran off with another woman, is that Elliot has to think about other
people’s feelings. That is why the story is constructed so that Elliot “shares”
real feelings with E.T.. The final lesson Elliot needs to learn, which E.T.
teaches him, is not just how to feel someone’s pain, but how far a person has
to go once he feels this pain. If Elliot’s problem is that he’s inconsiderate of
others’ feelings, E.T. cures Elliot of this through the example of his self-
sacrifice.
Because E.T. martyrs himself, Elliot regains his strength and the scientists
believe that E.T. is dead. They now ignore the corpse after it’s put on ice,
which is exactly what E.T. unknowingly needs to make his escape and
rendezvous with the returning spaceship. This reunion is the final plot point
in a sequence of events that began with self-sacrifice. As for Elliot, seeing
his friend make the ultimate sacrifice reinvigorates him. He is compelled to
live up to E.T.’s selfless example and will now stop at nothing to get E.T.
back to the ship.
Orphan. Wanderer. Warrior. Martyr. If you look at any list of the top
movies of all time you’ll find that the four archetypes work for dramas, for
comedies, for action, for science fiction, for thrillers, for animation. It just
works.
And by embracing the idea, so might you.

FROM INNOCENT TO MAGICIAN

There’s a gentleman in Australia named Dr. Patrick Maher. Among Dr. Pat’s
impressive teaching and professional credits is his former position as
chairman of the Western Australia branch of the Australian Writers Guild
(AWG). Dr. Pat and I exchanged some emails a year or so ago, and after the
cursory pleasantries, he started giving me a hard time.
Previously, I mentioned that Carol S. Pearson lists six archetypes in her
book: Innocent, Magician, Orphan, Wanderer, Warrior, and Martyr. Well, Dr.
Pat told me that he loved the way I use the four archetypes, but he was also a
fan of the Pearson book and said I was missing two of the archetypes. I told
him that I knew that, but they didn’t fit in.
He said they must.
I said that they don’t.
He said that he was confident I’d find a way to make them fit in.
I said that I’ve been thinking about this for twenty years; they don’t fit in.
He said they must.
I said, okay, I’ll figure it out.
 So I did.
The way the four archetypes laid out against the four sections of the acts
was too beautiful to change, so I started looking at the question from a
different angle. What did I know about innocence? Sadly, I know what we
all know: that innocence fades over time. I also know that the best stories are
uplifting, so was it possible that magic gained might replace innocence lost?
Armed with this concept, I laid out the following:

The hero starts off the story completely innocent in some regard, and that
innocence fades by the midpoint of the story. At that point your hero has lost
all illusions of innocence and begins the process of becoming a magician of
some kind. In Star Wars, Luke loses the innocence of being a farmboy and
must learn how to use magic, or the Force. In Sleepless in Seattle, Annie
loses the innocence of loving bland Walter and must learn how to harness the
real magic of love.
Innocence fades and is replaced by magic, and that magic grows. Your
hero is at the height of his or her “magical” powers by the end of the movie.
Innocence is gone and replaced by something more magical.
Even with this understanding, the transition from the archetypal innocent
to magician does not strike me as being nearly as crucial as the four
archetypes. It’s an overlay, a way of adding depth to the Orphan, Wanderer,
Warrior, Martyr journey. But what a wonderful overlay!
Now, Dr. Pat, would you please quit busting my chops?
CHAPTER 4 REVIEW
1. Your hero moves through four character archetypes:
Orphan
Wanderer
Warrior
Martyr
2. Orphan is act 1. The hero is a real or figurative Orphan.
3. Wanderer is the first half of act 2. Your hero wanders in order to
resolve the central question.
4. Warrior is the second half of act 2. Your hero fights unsuccessfully in
order to resolve the central question.
5. Martyr is act 3. Your hero is willing to sacrifice himself or herself in
order to resolve the central question.
6. Your hero begins the film as an innocent. Innocence fades by the
midpoint of the story and begins to be replaced with magic, so that by
the end of the story your hero is a magician of some kind.

CHAPTER 4 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Using your own hero from the previous chapters’ exercises, answer
the four archetypes as they relate to your hero.
2. Go to http://www.boxofficemojo.com and look up a list of the top
fifty movies of all time. Strip out the sequels. Keep going through the
list until you find a main character who is NOT a figurative or literal
Orphan at the start of the movie or by the end of act 1. Send an email
with the name of the movie and the name of the character to
[email protected]. If you’re right, I’ll send you $1 via
PayPal. If you’re wrong, I’ll direct you to the webpage
www.mscbuys.com/is-an-orphan/, which explains why you’re wrong
and then you’ll owe me a dollar. The payment link will be on that page.
3. Do not take me up on the bet in #2 above. It’s a sucker bet and you
will lose.
1 Carol Pearson, The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By (New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, 1986), xxvii.
2 In more recent editions of the book, Ms. Pearson replaces martyr with
altruist. I’ve been living with the term martyr for all these years, and I’m too
old to change now. Regardless, the intent of the archetype remains the same.
CHAPTER 5

YOUR BAD GUY PUNCHES LIKE MY SISTER

TURN YOUR HERO’S WORST NIGHTMARE INTO YOUR STORY’S BEST FRIEND BY
UNDERSTANDING THE UNITY OF OPPOSITES

More than the cheap java refills at the coffee shop you consider your
office, more than the false hope generated by your well-meaning mother
who read your last screenplay (“I loved it, but did you have to use the f-word
so much?”), your stories need conflict. Remember the answer to question 3
of the four questions: “Who’s trying to stop your hero?” Your screenplay
needs a powerful, ruthlessly committed opponent to help drive the conflict
that drives your story.
Of course it’s easy to conjure up a bad guy who wants to take over the
world, but what about something a bit more subtle? A brilliant thief? A well-
meaning but lousy mom? A rival for the hot girl’s affection? How do you
shade these bad guys and make them real and dimensional?
The easiest, best way I know to keep your villain from punching like your
sister is to remember one simple idea: The villain is the hero of his or her
own story. Your bad guy believes that he or she is doing something right.
Maybe it’s just for personal gain, and, sure, sometimes you have to break a
few eggs if you want to make an omelet, but the villain is never engaging in
villainy for the sake of villainy, not even Hans Gruber from Die Hard (our
brilliant thief), or Carolyn from American Beauty (our well-meaning but
lousy mom), and FOR SURE not even Sack, our romantic rival from The
Wedding Crashers. All of these bad guys are really good guys; at least, that’s
what they’d say if you asked them. Even Voldemort from the Harry Potter
books and movies isn’t being evil for kicks and giggles. He believes that
only purely magical folks should run the world because wizards and witches
are clearly superior to Mudbloods. Trust me, the concept of a lunatic with
delusions of racial superiority wasn’t invented by J. K. Rowling.
But for every midnight there is a dawn. For every evil there is a good. Hot
is only hot when there is something cool to compare it to. In storytelling,
how do we know that your villain really is bad? It’s not just because of the
black hat; rather, it’s because your villain’s actions are contrasted and
compared to the actions of your hero.
This symbiotic relationship between the hero and villain has a super-
double-awesome name: the “unity of opposites.”

THE UNITY OF OPPOSITES, PART ONE

As an idea, the unity of opposites has been around for a long while.
Thousands of years ago, Greek philosophers with foot-long names were
talking about it. Yin and yang. Milk and meat. Life and death. Betty and
Veronica. Each pair represents opposite ends of the same spectrum, relying
on each other to create balance. In storytelling, understanding the unity of
opposites will not only add depth to your core hero-villain dynamic, but will
help you craft that dynamic from the very start.

ALIKE, BUT DIFFERENT

“We’re not so different… you and I!” If I had a nickel for every time a
villain said this to a hero in one form or another, I’d have a stack of nickels
as tall as an IMAX movie screen.
Your villain is a dark reflection of your hero’s wants, needs, and desires.
Put another way, the villain is doing what the hero would do if he or she
wasn’t constrained by morality, purpose, or righteousness. The more you
know about your hero, the more you automatically know about your villain,
and vice versa.
 In Avatar, Jake Sully is a hardened, battle-scarred soldier who is trying to
manipulate the natives into doing what his superiors want. Who is Colonel
Quaritch? A battle-scarred soldier! What is Colonel Quaritch trying to
accomplish? He’s trying to manipulate the natives into doing what his
superiors want, except that Jake still has a chance of being moral, while
Quaritch doesn’t. Will Jake become like Quaritch if he doesn’t embrace his
moral center? Heck yeah, soldier!
In Die Hard, New York cop John McClane is the hero and silken-tongued
thief Hans Gruber is the villain. In the movie, Hans Gruber storms the
Nakatomi tower, shoots the president of Nakatomi Industries, blows up the
place, and grabs McClane’s wife. In John McClane’s darkest heart of hearts,
what does he really wish he could do to Nakatomi Industries, the company
that ”stole” his wife and kids from him? Storm the tower, shoot the
president, blow up the building, and grab his wife! Hans Gruber is doing
exactly what John McClane would do if John wasn’t constrained by
morality. The villain is who the hero is in danger of becoming if the hero
doesn’t learn, or loses, the moral lesson of the story.
Another great example is E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Who’s the hero?
Elliot. Who’s the villain? Not the scientist Keys; he actually loves E.T. as
much as Elliot does. The real villain is Elliot’s dad, the S.O.B. who
abandoned his family and ran off with his secretary. Elliot’s dad doesn’t care
about other peoples’ feelings. If Elliot doesn’t learn how to feel what other
people feel through his relationship with E.T., who is Elliot in danger of
becoming? His father.
And it goes on and on. In The Dark Knight, Batman is just like the Joker.
They are both costumed adventurers who live by their own rules, regarded as
a menace by the people of Gotham City. The only difference between the
Joker and Batman is morality: Batman wants to bring order and the Joker
wants to bring chaos. In The Sixth Sense, who is Bruce Willis just like? The
ghosts. They haven’t learned to move on, and neither has he. If he doesn’t
learn the moral lesson, he’s going to be stuck haunting little Cole forever,
just like the other ghosts. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, isn’t Indiana Jones just
like Belloq, the French archaeologist? Matter of fact, it was Mssr. Belloq
himself who said the following: “You and I are very much alike.
Archaeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our
methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy
reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me.”
 If I had a nickel for every time….

“We’re not so different, you and I. And I. And I.”

CRAFTING YOUR BAD GUY

By understanding that your villain is the hero of his or her own story and by
embracing the unity of opposites, you now have one of the slickest ways to
build a better bad guy. All you have to do is answer the four questions and
four archetypes, but do it from your villain’s perspective. And in true unity-
of-opposites spirit, the more you know about either your hero or your villain,
the more you immediately know about the other, as their goals are linked
and mutually exclusive because they want the same thing.
Let’s look at Avatar. A rubric for the unity of opposites would look like
this:
 Notice how the hero and the villain flip, depending on whose story
perspective we look through? Quaritch is the villain of Jake’s story, but Jake
is the villain of Quaritch’s story. Their goals are 180 degrees at cross
purposes, mutually exclusive. Use this understanding in your own writing to
fill in the blanks for both your hero and your villain based on what you know
about either.

YOUR HERO AND YOUR VILLAIN “MAKE” EACH

OTHER
Certainly not a requirement, but cool in a unity-of-opposites kind of way
when it happens, is the idea that your hero and your villain have a hand in
causing each other to come into being.
In Harry Potter, Harry is “made” when Voldemort attempts to kill him as
an infant; however, infant Harry is protected by his mother’s love, and this is
what cripples and almost destroys Voldemort. The course of the entire Harry
Potter series is set in motion because of the effect this attempted murder had
on both Harry and Voldemort. Voldemort “made” Harry, and Harry “made”
Voldemort.
In The Lion King, Scar is “made” when Simba is born. Simba is “made”
when Scar maneuvers the death of Mufasa. Simba “makes” Scar, and Scar
“makes” Simba.
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Tim Burton’s Batman
(1989). Bruce Wayne’s parents are killed by young thug, Jack Napier. The
death of Bruce’s parents sends Bruce on a mission to fight crime. Flash-
forward twenty years. While on a job, Jack Napier is thwarted by the adult
Bruce Wayne in his alter ego as Batman. Jack is shot and disfigured and falls
into a tank of bubbling goo. When he emerges, he’s the Joker. Jack Napier
turns young Bruce into the Batman, and the Batman turns Jack Napier into
the Joker, and neither is aware of this fact until the end of the film when this
exchange between the two takes place:
JOKER: You made me. You dropped me into that vat of chemicals,
remember? That wasn’t easy to get over.
BATMAN: You killed my parents. I made you? Well, you made me
first.
If you can craft an organic connection between the “births” of both your
hero and your villain, more power not only to you but to your story as well.

MORE THAN ONE BAD GUY?

So, if Tarkin is the villain of Star Wars, where does Darth Vader fit in? If
Colonel Quaritch is the big baddie in Avatar, what about company man
Parker Selfridge who also needs the Na’vi eliminated? How about that
rogues’ gallery of bad guys surrounding the Joker in The Dark Knight? What
role do they play in the story? And since we know that the villain is a mirror
of the hero, what about all the characters orbiting and supporting the good
guy?
In order to tell a serious, complete, and ample story (“paging Doctor
Aristotle!”), you need to have a serious, complete, and ample cast of
characters. In the next chapter we’ll explore how hero, villain, and the unity
of opposites combine with theme and just a hint of Carl Jung to flesh out a
full cadre of characters, both heroic and villainous.

CHAPTER 5 REVIEW
1. Your screenplay needs a powerful, ruthlessly committed opponent to
help drive the conflict that drives your story.
2. The villain is the hero of his or her own story.
3. The villain is never engaging in villainy for the sake of villainy.
4. Your villain is a dark reflection of your hero’s wants, needs, and
desires. This is brought out in the unity of opposites.
5. The more you know about either your hero or your villain, the more
you immediately know about the other.
6. If possible, have both your hero and your villain “make” each other.

CHAPTER 5 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Do an Internet search for “top movie villains.” You’ll find several
links at http://www.mscbuys.com/villain-links. Go down any of the lists
(skipping the more tongue-in-cheek choices like Audrey II from Little
Shop of Horrors and the shark from Jaws), and try to see how these
villains would consider themselves the heroes of their own story.
2. Look at the villain you’ve been creating since Chapter 2 and run him
or her through the checklist of nastiness in the Chapter 5 review. Shore
up any area of weaknesses in your villain. If your villain can’t cut it, cut
your villain and come up with someone better because he or she would
do the same to you. Yes, your villain is that ruthless.
CHAPTER 6

MY HERO HAS BUDS, YOUR HERO HAS DUDS

KNOW YOUR HERO, AND YOUR VILLAIN, BY THE COMPANY THEY KEEP

The characters that swirl around your hero do more than keep your hero
company; they provide contrasting and alternate perspectives on the hero’s
situation, challenging your hero’s view of himself or herself, and focusing
attention on other possible answers to your hero’s thematic question. It’s as
if your hero’s complete world view is a multisided prism, with each facet of
the prism representing another way of looking at the thematic question. At
different times throughout your story, the prism is turned and held up for the
hero (and the audience) to show another aspect of the hero’s situation or
beliefs. The hands doing the turning belong to the other characters in your
story.
Besides the villain who directly opposes your hero, six other characters
and/or perspectives serve the story by showing your hero different
viewpoints. These characters can be defined in the following way, based on
their attitude and perspective as they relate to the hero:
 The Protector, the character who is the keeper of the hero’s
moral compass;
The Deflector, the character who tries to pull the hero off the
path with a different moral compass;
The Believer, the character who believes and trusts in the hero
just as the hero is;
The Doubter, the character who challenges the hero’s methods,
usually out of cowardice;
The Thinker, the character who reflects on the hero’s course of
action before taking action of his or her own; and
The Feeler, the character who, though an ally of the hero,
intuitively shoots first and asks questions later.1
Oftentimes, stories will assign one character to each perspective, giving a
nicely fleshed-out cast of eight, such as in Toy Story and The Dark Knight
(there’s a double-feature for you!).

Other times, characters will double up on perspectives, taking on a layered

role, such as in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Sleepless in Seattle. This is
more common when the villain is more benign, as in romantic comedies.
 Including the hero and the villain who represent the thematic question and
the thematic argument of your story, you now have a nice, neat package of
four pairs of opposite perspectives. Wait! Did someone say “opposites” as in
unity of opposites? Yes!

THE UNITY OF OPPOSITES, PART TWO

Much as the hero and villain are joined and balanced by the unity of
opposites, so too are the other six characters: Protection and deflection are
opposing goals, with protection wanting to keep the hero on point and
deflection getting in the hero’s way. Belief and doubt represent opposite
ways of identifying with the hero and his or her thematic question, and
thinking versus feeling is just another way of asking which is better, looking
before you leap or shooting first and asking questions later?
Each pair of opposites is engaged in a struggle for the hero, consciously or
not, convinced that their perspective is better than the perspective of their
opposite. It’s almost as if there are three love triangles that the hero is
involved in: Obi-Wan and Darth Vader are fighting over Luke’s Jedi soul,
with Obi-Wan conscious of the stakes of this battle while Darth Vader is not,
at least not until the next movie. Likewise, Han and Leia are engaged in their
own pas de deux over Luke. And then there are R2-D2 and C-3PO, both
trying to be a more valuable asset to Luke than their counterpart. Lay this
out in a chart with the hero at the center and you start to see some very
interesting connections and symmetries:
 Luke Skywalker and Governor Tarkin, the hero and villain of Star Wars
(at least in Episode IV — A New Hope) are opposites, aligned along Luke’s
thematic question, “Which is more powerful, faith or technology?” While
Luke is learning to embrace the Force, the ultimate expression of faith,
Tarkin represents the ultimate expression of technology; he controls the
Death Star. You know how many flashy, blinky lights that thing has on it?
That thing is technology on a stick! At the start of the story, Luke wants to
join the academy early. Even though we never see the academy in the movie
or ever for that matter, we can assume that the kids at the academy like their
flashy, blinky lights as much as Tarkin does. Joining the academy would put
Luke onto the path of technology, not faith. If Luke fails to embrace the
Force, he will falsely put his trust in technology just as Tarkin has. That’s
why Luke’s climactic decision is to switch off the targeting computer and
trust the Force. Which is more powerful, faith or technology? Faith!2
One of the great things about the unity of opposites is that it can also help
you understand physical and thematic similarities between your characters.
In Star Wars, Obi-Wan and Darth Vader are both old Jedi knights, R2-D2
and C-3PO are both robots, Leia and Han are both strong-willed young
adults, more mature than Luke but not as mature as Obi-Wan and Vader. And
while Luke isn’t like Tarkin at all, Tarkin represents the real, ultimate threat
of Star Wars: the Emperor. Luke has the potential to be exactly as powerful
as the Emperor. All four pairs of characters represent opposite viewpoints as
expressed by characters with similar characteristics. And not to gild an
already pretty lily, each pair of characters can be divided even further based
on what they themselves believe in most, faith or technology, as shown in the
chart above by the (T) or (F) next to their pictures.
This idea that characters connected via the unity of opposites also share
certain physical and thematic similarities is also beautifully illustrated in
Star Trek (2009) right down to Spock’s and Nero’s pointy ears.3
Pike and Kirk are present and future captains, Uhura and McCoy more
mature and less green recruits, and the triumvirate of Chekov, Sulu, and
Scotty are the most green members of the crew.4 As in Star Wars, the
characters represent one side or the other of the thematic question, in this
case the balance between strength and anger.

This kind of similarity between opposite characters may not be true in all
successful movies, but if you can design your cast around this model, you
will have moved another incremental step closer to elegant storytelling.
PUTTING WORDS IN THEIR MOUTHS
Designating characters as Believers, Doubters, Deflectors, Thinkers,
Protectors, and Feelers might feel limiting at first glance, but these are just
attitudes. It’s the perspective each character brings to the story, and the
beauty is that it helps to make each character immediately different.
Everything, from story points to characters, must be in service of your hero.
With these perspectives in place, you now have an insight into dialogue as
well as character.
So, you’re writing the new Star Trek, and Spock says, “I think we should
beam down to the planet.” What is Doctor McCoy going to say? “Great
idea! Let me just pack some food. Can I fix you a sandwich?” NO! McCoy is
going to say something along the lines of, “Are you crazy? We can’t do that,
it’s not safe!” because he is the Doubter and his job is to doubt. On the other
hand, Spock’s girlfriend Uhura would be more supportive because she’s the
Believer. What would Kirk say? “Instead of the planet, let’s beam onto that
ship over there” because he’s the Deflector. Chekov would provide some
important insights into how to do it safely, and Sulu would be ready to go,
but might realize a little later that he hadn’t thought this through well enough
before jumping in.
See what happens at the scene level by understanding the characters at the
unity-of-opposites level? YOU NOW HAVE DIRECTION WHEN
WRITING, NOT JUST SCENES, BUT DIALOGUE. WHY AM I
SHOUTING? BECAUSE THIS IS OUTSTANDINGLY COOL! You now
have the best traveling companions a writer could hope to have — your cast
of characters. Even when the majority of your main characters are not in a
scene, you can still give your dialogue shape and direction by figuring out
who the hero is and which characters are needed to tell the story of that
scene.
Remember the scene in the basement tavern from Inglourious Basterds?
The hero of that scene is Lt. Hicox, a character we only just met ten minutes
earlier, one hour into the movie. The villain is Major Hellstrom, another
relatively minor character we last saw some twenty-five minutes prior. Even
though the scene is played out by two relatively minor characters, it’s still
complete with a Deflector (the drunk sergeant who first questions Hicox’s
German accent), a Protector/Feeler (Sergeant Stiglitz), a Believer (Bridget
von Hammersmark), a Doubter (the bartender, Eric), and a Thinker
(Corporal Wicki). It’s a perfect scene, populated with all of the right
characters.

THE UNITY OF OPPOSITES, PART THREE

Remember the idea that the villain is the hero of his or her own story? By
creating a chart with your villain as the hero, you can assign these different
perspective characters to your villain and create another core group of
characters to help move your story. In The Dark Knight, here’s what a unity-
of-opposites chart would look like with Batman as the hero:

Here’s what the same chart would look like if we told it from the
perspective of the Joker as the hero:
 Who are the eight characters in the Joker’s world? We know that the Joker
is now the hero of his story, so who’s the villain? It’s Batman. Who’s the
Protector? It’s Maroni, the big crime boss in the city who thinks the Joker
might be on to something and should be listened to. Who’s the Deflector
that’s trying to pull the Joker off the path? Interestingly, it’s Harvey Dent,
who is not only the Deflector in the Batman-as-hero version of the story, but
who is promoted from Deflector to villain near the end of the movie after the
Joker is caught. Who believes in what the Joker is doing? Officer Ramirez,
but only because the Joker is threatening her mother. The character of
Gambol, the very angry crime boss, is the Doubter (“Someone kill this
clown!”), and the big Thinker in the Joker’s world is the Chinese crime boss
who has snaked everyone’s money without their knowledge in order to
protect it from the cops. Finally, who represents Feeling? The Chechen
crime boss who loves food and loves his dogs.
By understanding how to use the unity of opposites and applying it to both
the hero story and the villain story, you are able to generate a cast of not one,
not two, but as many as fourteen distinct characters! And if you can’t tell a
complete story with fourteen distinct characters….

CHAPTER 6 REVIEW
 1. Besides the villain, there are six other characters and/or perspectives
that serve the story by showing your hero different viewpoints:
Protector, Deflector, Believer, Doubter, Thinker, and Feeler.
2. Characters can often double up on perspectives, so one character can
carry two attitudes.
3. These character perspectives thematically balance each other across
the unity of opposites… and often physically as well.
4. Character perspectives not only serve your hero and your story, but
also help craft character-specific dialogue. Write to their perspective!
5. Apply your understanding of character perspectives to both the hero-
as-hero story and the villain-as-hero story, and you can end up with a
full cast of fourteen distinct characters.

CHAPTER 6 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Go to http://www.mscbuys.com/uoo/. Download and print out two
copies of the Unity of Opposites Chart.
2. On the first one, take one of your favorite movies from the top fifty
and fill in both sides; the left side is the hero-as-hero version, and the
right side is the villain-as-hero version of the story. You may need to
see the movie again to jog your memory about some of the lesser
characters, particularly in the villain-as-hero story.
3. On the second chart, do the same, but now for your story. Go as far
as you can, but try to assign each perspective to a character in both the
hero-as-hero story and the villain-as-hero story. If you need to, assign
two perspectives to a single character, but do it because it’s right for
your story, not because you couldn’t come up with something better. I
know — I sound like your mom. I get that a lot.

1 These six characters (eight, if you include the hero and the villain), have
many different names and are widely discussed in a variety of forms, both
dramatic and psychological, but perhaps nowhere more in depth than in the
book Dramatica: A New Theory of Story by Melanie Anne Phillips and
Chris Huntley (Burbank: Screenplay Systems Inc., 1993). Dramatica first
popularized these pairings and introduced the “Contagonist” character,
whom I more simply here call the “Deflector.” Melanie’s and Chris’ work in
this area is extensive, and I gratefully acknowledge their work as the
proverbial jumping-off point for my own understanding of how the unity of
opposites works.
2 Interestingly, the stories of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi
take place after Luke has embraced the Force, so the villain is now directly
the Emperor who represents the misuse of the Force. The thematic question
in those films isn’t about technology versus faith, but about the misuse of
power. Now that Luke has faith, he has to grapple with not being seduced by
the awesome power that comes with it.
3 Part of the brilliance of Star Trek (2009) is the shift to Spock as the hero.
For a detailed discussion of how and why this works, please check out
http://contour-at-the-movies.com/2009/05/10/star-trek/’.
4 It’s definitely possible to have two characters representing the same
attitude, as with Sulu and Chekov, but if you’re creating a story from the
ground up rather than trying to fit in well-known characters from a
successful franchise, I’d advise against it out of concern that you may
confuse a reader who doesn’t already know who your characters are.
CHAPTER 7

I CAN PITCH, YOU THROW LIKE A GIRL

THE QUICKPITCH FORMULA, INCLUDING THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS
EVERY GOOD PITCH MUST HAVE

Name the following movie:

When an underappreciated boy is accidentally left behind by his family as
they leave for a European vacation, he must learn how to take care of
himself and become the man of the house, only to discover that his house has
been targeted by bumbling burglars whom he thwarts several times.
Realizing that they know he’s alone and are coming back, he must now
single-handedly defend the house.
If you said Sense and Sensibility, please close this book, donate it to your
nearest public library, and content yourself with the tax receipt. On the other
hand, if you said Home Alone….
The logline above uses the handiest formula you’ll ever run across for
breaking down your story. In one or two sentences it lays out the entire story
and tells you what you’re going to need to broad stroke all of the plot points.
I call this formula the “QuickPitch.”
 When an aqua-phobic sheriff is confronted by the horror of a
great white shark attacking the beaches of his new island
community, he tries unsuccessfully to get the town leaders to take
the threat seriously, only to discover that the shark has become
territorial. He must now charter a boat to go destroy the shark
himself, ultimately leading to a battle between himself and the
almost supernatural beast. (Jaws)
When a poor artist wins a ticket to America on the Titanic, he
saves the life of a beautiful society girl who is trapped in a loveless
engagement. The artist and the girl spend time together and fall in
love, only to discover that the Titanic has hit an iceberg and is now
sinking. The artist must get the girl away from her fiancé and off
the ship to safety; however, she refuses to leave without him so he
must figure out how to save both of their lives. (Titanic)
When a repressed husband and father realizes that his life is one
of misery and loneliness, he sets out on a journey to try to
recapture the joy and excitement of his youth, only to discover that
his daughter’s girlfriend finds him attractive, so he starts getting
himself into shape to seduce her, ultimately realizing that NOT
seducing her brings him greater joy. (American Beauty)

WHAT THE QUICKPITCH DOES FOR YOU

The QuickPitch is the next step in the process of building your story. It’s the
final filter to pass your idea through before you devote precious time turning
it into a screenplay. The QuickPitch takes what you know about your
sympathetic hero and what you know about your hero’s trip through the four
archetypes and binds it all together into a short, pithy logline. The
QuickPitch not only lays out your entire story based on the four archetypes,
but helps you determine if your story can go the distance from FADE IN to
FADE OUT. You are on the cusp of sitting down and spending what, two
months, four months, a year or more, writing a script? Wouldn’t it be better
to spend a day or two first working on a few sentences to see if your idea has
enough juice to give you three great acts?

THE QUICKPITCH FORMULA

The QuickPitch formula is very concise: When a TYPE OF PERSON
has/does/wants/gets A, he or she gets/does/tries/learns B, only to discover
that C now happens and he or she must respond by doing D.
The first thing to notice is that there are four parts to the QuickPitch
formula. Where else have we seen the number four in the My Story Can Beat
Up Your Story! system? Uh, pretty much everywhere!

The four parts of the QuickPitch align with the four archetypes which
align with the four questions which align with the theme which align with
the four parts of the three acts. I wish my life was this orderly. Heck, I wish
my desk was this orderly.
Let’s break apart the QuickPitch and see what makes it tick.

THE “A” STATEMENT

Much like our definition of story, the “A” statement of the QuickPitch isn’t
about a person, but rather a type of person, designed to generate the all-
important sympathy for your hero. In Avatar, Jake isn’t a soldier; he’s a
crippled soldier. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula isn’t a young woman;
she’s an ugly duckling of a young woman. Pick an adjective or a phrase for
the person’s type that connotes either the highly coveted undeserved
misfortune or a character trait your hero needs to overcome: an
underappreciated, eight-year-old boy (Home Alone); a young woman,
trapped in an arranged marriage (Titanic); a morally conflicted, ambitious
businessman in Nazi Germany (Schindler’s List).
 This adjective tells you the arc the hero will travel; the boy will no longer
be unappreciated, the young woman will no longer be trapped in an arranged
marriage, the German businessman will develop moral conviction, and,
incredibly in the case of Avatar, the crippled soldier will no longer be
crippled!
Looking again at Home Alone, we can see that this “A” statement is the
grand overview of all of act 1:
When an underappreciated boy is accidentally left behind by his family as
they leave for a European vacation….
It subtly indicates the act 1 setup of the family and the boy’s relationship
with them. He’s an Orphan in the sense that his family doesn’t seem to want
him and he doesn’t want them. “Underappreciated” tells you that you need
to spend some time in act 1 showing us just how (and more importantly,
why) he’s underappreciated. We also now understand what our act 1 crisis is:
He is left behind by his family. And, as if we weren’t already swimming in
information, we also get a whiff of the central question: How can a little boy
survive being left home alone?
All of that’s just from the “A” statement!

THE “B” STATEMENT

…he must learn how to take care of himself and become the man of the
house…
It’s time for our young hero to start wandering as he learns what it means
to be the man of the house. He’s got to get groceries, order food in, and
basically take care of the place, none of which he does very well at the start.
Remember, he’s a Wanderer right now, just learning what to do and how to
do it, while getting comfortable with the question of whether he can do it.

THE “C” STATEMENT

… only to discover that his house has been targeted by bumbling burglars
whom he thwarts several times.
Right there are the three most important words of the QuickPitch: “only to
discover.” These are the words that spin your story in a new direction. It’s
the midpoint of your story, page 55 or so of your script. Those three words
are what kicks your story into unexpected places, what makes your story
memorable. What? This kid’s going up against burglars? What? Aqua-
phobic Sheriff Brody has to go out on a boat with a crazy fisherman to fight
the shark (Jaws)? What? Tony Stark discovers that his company has been
selling weapons to the terrorists who captured him (Iron Man)? WHAT?!
The twist that comes with the words “only to discover” is like story
adrenaline. Just when your reader is feeling comfortable, you give the story a
boost of energy that, if handled properly, will power your script all the way
to the end.
The “C” statement also announces that your hero’s wandering phase is
over, and it’s now time for him or her to become a Warrior.

THE “D” STATEMENT

“… Realizing that they know he’s alone and are coming back, he must now
single-handedly defend the house.”
And that’s all of act 3. The kid makes the plans, he builds the booby traps,
and he has to go it alone because it’s HIS house. He even has to venture into
the basement where he must confront his biggest fear: the very scary boiler.
In short, the boy is a Martyr. Looking at the QuickPitch for Home Alone one
more time:
When an underappreciated boy is accidentally left behind by his family as
they leave for a European vacation (act 1: Orphan), he must learn how to
take care of himself and become the man of the house (first half of act 2:
Wanderer), only to discover that his house has been targeted by bumbling
burglars whom he thwarts several times (second half of act 2: Warrior).
Realizing that they know he’s alone and are coming back, he must now
single-handedly defend the house (act 3: Martyr).
A properly built QuickPitch lays out your entire movie. If you can’t knock
out an effective few sentences that follow the four archetypes and make
sense, then you’re likely working on an idea that needs to be scrapped. And
that’s okay. Not every idea that pops into your head deserves to be taken
seriously. Just ask my wife.
Your screenwriting business plan should include this mantra: “It is better
to spend one month of my life trying to write a QuickPitch, failing, and
moving on to a different idea, than it is to waste six months of my life trying
to write 108 pages on an idea that was doomed from the start.”

THE THING ABOUT PITCHING

Ugly truth time.
As an aspiring writer, you cannot — will not — sell your original pitch. I
know this because most working writers rarely sell original pitches, myself
included. For aspiring writers it’s a statistical impossibility. Even if you send
your pitch to Robert Kosberg, the undisputed “king of the pitch,” the odds of
Bob selling your pitch are less than the odds of catching a baseball at a
major league ballgame. And if Bob does manage to sell your pitch, please
try to remain calm. You’re actually two and a half times more likely to have
a heart attack upon hearing the good news from Bob that he sold your pitch
than you are of selling your pitch.1
Studios want scripts, not pitches. That being said, a QuickPitch with a
finished script to back it up can be a great sales tool.
If you ever find yourself in an elevator with Brian Grazer and you have
the urge to pitch him an idea for a movie, the first thing you should do is
don’t. However, if you can’t control yourself, hit him with the QuickPitch
(“Hey Bri! You don’t mind if I call you Bri, do you? Check out this idea for a
movie: When an underappreciated boy is left home alone by his parents….”)
The absolute, best-case response you’ll get is, “Is there a script?” The
answer to that question had better be yes, because your buddy Bri is not
going to say, “I love your pitch! Here’s a bucket of money; now go write it!”
Remember this immutable fact, the QuickPitch is a tool for you, not your
buddy, Brian.

CHAPTER 7 REVIEW
1. The QuickPitch lays out your entire story in a few short sentences.
2. The QuickPitch is a litmus test for your story to see if it can go the
distance from FADE IN to FADE OUT.
3. The QuickPitch formula has four parts: “When a TYPE OF PERSON
has/does/wants/gets A, he or she gets/does/tries/learns B, only to
discover that C now happens and he or she must respond by doing D.”
4. The “A” statement is the grand overview of act 1, and is all about
your hero’s status as an Orphan.
5. The “B” statement corresponds to the Wanderer plot points.
6. The “C” statement is the hero’s call to action and adventures as a
Warrior.
 7. The “D” statement represents the Martyr plot points.
8. The QuickPitch is primarily a tool for the writer. If you use it to try to
get someone interested in a script, you darn well better have a script to
back it up because you will not sell a pitch!

CHAPTER 7 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Go to www.mscbuys.com/QuickPitch/ and print three copies of the
QuickPitch chart you’ll find there.
2. Go to www.rottentomatoes.com/browser.php. In the Browse Movies
column on the left-hand side, put in these settings: Tomatometer — <
10%; Average Rating — 1/10 and above. Hit SUBMIT. What this will
do is give you a list of the worst-rated movies in their database. Find a
stinker of a movie that you know really well (or, at least, will admit to
knowing really well) and try to break it down on the first QuickPitch
chart. Can it be decoded with the QuickPitch? Does it fall apart? In
which part of the QuickPitch does it all go to hell in a handbasket: A, B,
C, or D? Try to come up with a creative way to fix the part or parts that
are broken.
3. Now think of a movie that feels related in some way either to the idea
you’ve been developing while doing these exercises or another idea you
want to write. This would be a movie that could comfortably play on a
double bill with your movie at the local movie theater. Break it down on
the second QuickPitch chart. Does it work? Does it fall apart? If it does,
can you fix it?
4. Now break down your movie on the third QuickPitch chart. Does it
work? Does it fall apart? If it does, can you fix it with what you’ve
learned from steps 1 through 3? If you can’t fix it, do you have the guts
to walk away and come up with a better idea?

1 According to a January, 2007 article in Forbes magazine, Kosberg says

that he gets around five thousand pitches a year and sells approximately
eight. That puts the odds at 1 in 625. The odds of catching a ball at a major
league ballgame (1 in 563) were calculated by Howard Daughters, a systems
administrator at State Fund Insurance, and the odds of having a heart attack
(1 in 251) are from a February, 2010 Fox News article quoting the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CHAPTER 8

I PLOT, YOU PLOTZ

TELL YOUR STORY THE WAY PEOPLE EXPECT, BUT FILL IT WITH PLOT TWISTS
THEY DON’T

And now we come to the star of the show! The kid with the biggest biceps
at the My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! gym and juice bar. The killer
structure paradigm.
People get very nervous when I start talking about the formulaic aspects
of structure. I think they’re worried that if they use a set structure, all of their
scripts will start looking and feeling the same. Nothing is further from the
truth. All good scripts share a common structure. The key is to know how
much structure to use and then not cross that line. For example, is there any
possibility that you and a friend, working separately, could ever write the
identical script merely because both scripts are 108 pages? Of course not.
How about if I said that all of your scripts must have three acts? Any
chance of being a formulaic, plagiaristic hack? Nope. Unless, of course, you
want to be.
 How about if I said that all your scripts had to be 108 pages comprised of
three acts, 129 scenes, have eight characters named Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice,
Lenny, Squiggy, Gilligan, and the Skipper, and we meet Bob in scene one,
Gilligan in scene two; they get into a fight over Alice in scene three…?
Now I’ve gone too far.
Somewhere between the vague advice of 108 pages and three acts and the
way-too-specific dictate of Gilligan and Bob duking it out in the third scene
over Alice lies the zone which guarantees you a well-structured script on one
hand while maintaining artistic and creative originality on the other.
How much structure can you have and still write a script that is unique
among other scripts that use the same structure?
You can have a structure composed of forty-four plot points.
“Excellent,” you may be saying. “Just one thing; what’s a plot point?”
A plot point is a discrete, unique, and essential chunk of story
information. Structurally, plot points fall out above beats and scenes and just
below acts.

“Excellent,” you may be saying. “Just one other thing; what’s the
difference between beats, scenes, and plot points?”
To illustrate the difference between beats, scenes, and plot points, let’s
take a look at the first page and one-eighth of one of the great unproduced
screenplays of the twenty-first century, House Swap:
EXT. BROWNSTONE - MORNING

Sunrise over the upper Westside of Manhattan. This is the New York of
our dreams: vibrant, rich in texture. Alive.

INT. BROWNSTONE - MORNING

The CAMERA SWEEPS through. Upright piano with sheet music

open. Paintings and sketches in a sunroom studio. Snippets of half-
finished poems on the back of café napkins.

INT. BROWNSTONE / BEDROOM - MORNING

TWO different alarms are HEARD from opposite sides of a queen-

sized bed. Hands reach out. The alarms are turned off.

JULIE, mid-twenties, cute, frisky, and BEN, late twenties, serious,

studious. They get out of bed from their respective sides. Courteous
smile. Nothing more.

INT. BROWNSTONE / MORNING MONTAGE - DAY

Julie and Ben brush teeth at different sinks. Dress on opposite sides of
the room. Make different breakfasts. Sit at the same kitchen table and
read the front section of the New York Times, but from their own
subscriptions.

And when it’s time to go to work, Ben hugs Julie, even means it, then
leaves.

INT. BROWNSTONE / STUDIO - DAY

Julie is a wedding dress designer. Makes beautiful sketches of wedding

dresses on a large foolscap pad.

INT. METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART - DAY

 Julie wanders through the Met’s Victorian clothing exhibit. Looks at
wedding dresses from years gone by.

A MAN and WOMAN stand nearby. Madly in love. Julie watches as

they giggle and cuddle. She begins sketching them.

EXT. OUTDOOR HARBOR CAFÉ - DAY

Julie sips cappuccino and leafs through her sketchpad. Wedding

dresses, lace designs… and finally the giggling couple she saw at the
MET.

She bursts out crying. Big, gushy tears. Just like that.

PEOPLE around her turn and look at this spectacle. An OLD WOMAN
at a nearby table knowingly offers a napkin.

OLD WOMAN
What’s the jerk’s name, dear?

Julie looks at her, lip trembling. And then….

JULIE
(busting out)
BENNNNNNN!!!

How many scenes, beats, and plot points did you just read? Scenes are
easy; just count up the INTs and the ENTs. There are seven of them.
Now how many beats? Beats are little, illustrative pearls of data. This is a
little harder, but there are fourteen: New York is established; we see art and
music in the brownstone; two alarms go off; two people get out of bed, brush
teeth, dress, make breakfast, sit and read different newspapers; Ben goes to
work; Julie is a wedding dress designer; she goes to the museum, sketches
the madly in love couple, bursts out crying while having coffee, and tells the
old lady the reason for her problems… Ben. That’s fourteen beats.
Now, how many plot points?
One.
 And it can be summed up like this: “Julie has a lousy relationship with
Ben and it’s making her miserable.”
Did I need seven scenes, fourteen beats, and a page and one-eighth to
make that one plot point? I think I did. Maybe you could do it with less.
Maybe more. And that’s why this system works so well without becoming
formulaic. It clearly lays out the forty-four plot points you need to tell your
story and then you get to figure out how many beats and scenes you need to
flesh out those plot points.
Are you free to use more or less than forty-four plot points? Unless you
move in with me (not advised), you’re free to do whatever you want.
However, if you use exactly forty-four you’ll have that perfectly structured
story you so desperately need. Isn’t that the goal?
The forty-four plot points are divided over the three acts in the following
way:

There are twelve plot points in act 1, the Orphan phase of your hero’s
journey. By the time these twelve plot points are finished, the central
question should be clear. In the first half of act 2 — the Wanderer phase —
there are fourteen plot points. There are another fourteen plot points in the
second half of act 2 — the Warrior phase. And finally, there are four plot
points in the Martyr phase, act 3. The trickiest of the plot points come in act
1. After you get past the foundation-building of the twelve plot points of act
1, all of the rest of the plot points flow so simply from the central question
that it should be illegal.

ACT 1: TWELVE VERY SPECIFIC PLOT POINTS

Out of the entire whack of forty-four plot points, the first twelve are the most
specific. Good scripts are built on solid foundations, and I’ve found that the
following twelve plot points are used often enough by enough great movies
that I’d be crazy or stupid not to use them, too. And I’m not stupid.
Plot Point 1: We meet either the hero, victim/stakes character, or
the villain.
It’s your call whom we meet first. In E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial we meet
the stakes character first, E.T. Right after that, E.T.’s alien compadres get
chased off by the scientists, leaving E.T. stranded. In Forrest Gump, we meet
the hero first. In Star Wars, we meet both the victims and the villain first.
If you choose to introduce us to the hero first, then we will most likely be
seeing the hero in his or her ordinary world. Forrest Gump is sitting on a
bench, waiting for life to happen around him. In The Lion King we meet
Simba, safe and revered by all the animals in his parents’ care. In Beverly
Hills Cop we meet Axel Foley while he’s on the case, being the trickster that
he is.
If you want us to meet the victim (or victims) first, then we are usually
meeting them either just as they are or are about to be victimized.
In Star Wars, our first image of Princess Leia’s ship is as it is being fired
on by the massive Star Destroyer. In Armageddon, some astronauts are on a
space walk, which lasts only a few moments before meteorites destroy them
and their space shuttle before pounding New York. In Jaws we meet the kids
on the beach before Chrissie goes for — yikes! — a swim. Many films lump
meeting the villain with meeting the victims for the obvious reason that
victims need someone to make them victims, and villains need someone to
whom to be villainous.
For an example of meeting the villain first, see The Dark Knight, which
opens with the Joker, in disguise, robbing a bank.
 Plot Point 2: We see the hero’s flaw in relation to the stakes
character.
The stakes character is not only the human face that represents all of the
people who the bad guys are victimizing, but is usually someone the hero
either does or will feel very deeply about. And just as when someone refers
to a life partner as “my better half,” the stakes character is often the mirror
that shows the hero and the audience who the hero could become if the hero
would just get his or her head out of his or her patoodie.
In Die Hard, John McClane is trying to save the hostages, but the stakes
character is his wife, Holly. What’s McClane’s flaw? He’s selfish, a loner,
and a rebel. He gets no respect. Holly is the ultimate team player and a great
manager, will do anything for her people, and is totally respected.
In Star Wars, Luke is trying to destroy the Death Star and save the rebel
base, but the stakes character is really Princess Leia. What’s Luke’s flaw? He
feels powerless and small, an unimportant speck in the universe. He’s stuck
on Uncle Owen’s farm, milking space cows and fixing fences when he really
wants to go to the academy, zip off into space, blast some Stormtroopers,
and have exciting adventures. What is Leia doing? EVERYTHING LUKE
WISHES HE WAS! She’s out in space, having exciting adventures, blasting
Stormtroopers. She’s powerful and important. Through her we get an
understanding of Luke’s flaw — even though we have yet to meet Luke and
Luke has yet to meet Leia. Well, at least ex utero.
In E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Elliot’s family has been abandoned by
Elliot’s father; however, Elliot’s response is to become inwardly focused. He
has no real connection to his brother and sister. Not even totally to his
mother, as we see by his insensitive comment to her about Dad having run
off with another woman. Elliot’s flaw is very clearly expressed by his
brother early in act 1 when Elliot is told that he should think about how other
people feel. Elliot is not empathetic. Unlike Elliot, E.T. is totally in touch
with his feelings. When E.T. makes a connection with Elliot, it’s a psychic
bond so strong that they can actually share sensations. E.T. is total feeling.
What is Annie’s flaw in Sleepless in Seattle? She’s engaged, but she isn’t
sure it’s to the right person because she doesn’t know if magical love exists.
Who is the stakes character? Jonah, the son of the guy with whom she’s
become obsessed since hearing him on the radio. Jonah does believe in
magical love and won’t stop pestering either Annie or his dad until they
believe it, too.
 Plot Point 3: If we haven’t met our villain, we do now. If we’ve
already met the villain, this amplifies what we already know.
We finally meet our bad guy, or at least a representative of the bad guy.
Sometimes this plot point occurs at a moment in the film that represents
what the bad guy is trying to accomplish. In those cases in which we’ve
already met him or her, we derive a greater insight into the challenges our
hero will face at the villain’s hand.
In Star Wars, Leia’s ship has already been attacked, but now she is
captured by the Stormtroopers, representatives of the Emperor. This scene is
an amplification of the opening scene during which Leia’s ship is attacked.
In American Beauty, Lester dumps the contents of his briefcase while his
wife and daughter stare at him as if he’s the biggest loser on the planet.
In The Sixth Sense, Dr. Crowe is shot by his deranged former patient.
In The Dark Knight, Officers Ramirez and Gordon go to the bank where
Ramirez (who is in cahoots with the Joker) says that the Joker can’t resist
showing his face.
Plot Point 4: The (or “A”) Deflector slows the hero down or pulls
the hero off the path.
There are usually many Deflectors in a film, but only one main one.
Anyone who gets in your hero’s face and tries to stop him or her is a
Deflector. In Star Wars, Darth Vader is the main Deflector; however, the
Jawas (who capture the droids in this plot point), the Sand People, the
Stormtroopers, and the goons in the bar are secondary Deflectors.
In Jaws, Quint is the main Deflector while the mayor, coroner, and the
members of the city council are the secondary Deflectors. In Die Hard, Hans
Gruber is the villain; the long-haired, high-kicking Karl is the main
Deflector; and most of the others are secondary Deflectors, including the
other terrorists, the cops who want McClane to stop interfering, the FBI
agents who arrive, and even the smarmy Ellis (“Hans, babe, put away the
gun, this is radio, not television.”)
In this plot point, either the main Deflector or one of the secondary
Deflectors starts to pull the hero off track. In The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne
has been watching the new district attorney, Harvey Dent, and realizes that
Harvey’s also a crime fighter but one who has public support, success, and
Rachel. Without meaning to, Harvey makes Bruce question the sacrifices
he’s making in his role as Batman.
 In the movie Up, one of the most touching and brilliant examples of this
plot point is the fabulous montage of Carl and Ellie growing old. At first
Ellie has all the spunk, but as they age together, Carl has to help Ellie up the
hill to their favorite spot where they lie down together and dream. By the
end of the montage, Ellie has died and Carl is now alone. Ellie’s death pulls
Carl off the path of dreaming about adventure.
In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula’s sister finds one of Toula’s adult
education class brochures and throws it out, which is followed immediately
by Toula hearing her family innocently telling her father not to worry
because Toula will never leave him.
Plot Point 5: Inciting incident — the hero now becomes
emotionally involved.
Your hero starts being forced out of his or her ordinary world by an
emotional connection to someone or something. This is the statement of the
emotional goal of the central question. And if it’s not the hero who becomes
emotionally involved, it’s the audience who now becomes aware of what’s
going to happen to the hero.
In Star Wars, Luke sees the hologram of Leia, which inspires him to ask
C-3PO, “Who is she… she’s a babe!” (or something like that).
In Liar Liar, unknown to Fletcher, someone has just proposed to his ex-
wife, which initiates the threat that Fletcher will be separated from his son.
In The Sixth Sense, Dr. Crowe makes his first contact with Cole and
notices the scratches on Cole’s wrists.
Plot Point 6: This is the statement of your hero’s goal as it relates
to the stakes character or love interest. Your hero’s problem is
made clear to the audience.
This is often a clarifying beat that shows or foreshadows either the hero’s
connection to, or problem with, the character with whom he or she has (or
will have or wants to have) the deepest personal connection.
In Titanic, we see Rose for the first time and begin to understand her
reluctant engagement to Cal.
In The Incredibles, we see that Bob is unfulfilled by his normal day job
and is not engaged with his family. Basically, he’s having a very hard time
adjusting to life as an ordinary person. Helen, on the other hand, loves her
role as housewife and mother.
 Often, but not always, a famous and overused line of dialogue hovers
around this plot point. It usually comes from a best friend who looks the
hero in the eye and says, “Do you know what your problem is…?” The best
friend then explains in excruciating and honest detail to the hero (and the
audience) exactly what the hero needs to learn to complete his or her arc by
the end of the film.
While this exact line of dialogue might be overused, the intent is on the
mark. This plot point is a good place to let the audience know, in no
uncertain terms, the emotional journey your hero must take.
Plot Point 7: An ally (either a true or an unintentional one) helps
propel your hero out of his or her comfort zone.
The two things that drive your hero are wants and needs. Sometimes they
are the same thing. Usually, they’re different, yet related in that the hero
often gets what he or she wants only by first getting what he or she needs.
In Die Hard, John McClane wants to get back together with his wife, but
what he needs is to give and get respect. No amount of begging, pleading, or
threatening will ever make Holly decide to give up her position at Nakatomi
and go back home with John. He has to respect her position. It’s only after
he sees her helping to save the hostages because she’s a tough cookie, and
it’s only after she sees him kicking some serious terrorist booty (and
realizing the lengths he would go to for her) that we get the sense there is a
future for John and Holly. And he doesn’t fight only for the respect of his
wife; McClane fights for everyone’s respect: The Los Angeles deputy police
chief thinks McClane is messing everything up, the FBI thinks that McClane
is a loose cannon, Hans Gruber thinks McClane is just another American
who grew up watching too many cowboy movies. Until the aforementioned
booty kicking, nobody respects John McClane except the most disrespected
L.A. cop.
In Liar Liar, Fletcher wants to be with his son, Max, but what he needs is
to learn how to be a good father, specifically by not continuing to lie to Max
and break his heart. It is only when Fletcher tells the truth on his own and
not because of the truth-telling curse is Fletcher able to win back not only his
son, but his ex-wife as well.
With this as the preamble, Plot Point 7 brings into the hero’s story an ally
who will help the hero get what he or she both wants and needs. Sometimes
the allies are real friends, like Ron and Hermione in Harry Potter;
sometimes the ally grows to become a true ally, like R2-D2; and sometimes
the ally is an anonymous character who moves into the story, serves his or
her function, and then is gone.
In Star Wars, R2-D2 runs off to find Obi-Wan, and Luke is forced to track
him down. What is the end result of R2-D2’s running off? Because Luke left
to find R2, he wasn’t on the family farm when the Stormtroopers arrived
looking for the droids, sparing him from the same death met by his aunt and
uncle. R2-D2 wasn’t trying to help Luke, but in the end he unwittingly saved
Luke’s life and started him on the path of becoming a Jedi, saving the
Princess, and destroying the Death Star.
In Iron Man, the doctor helps Tony Stark escape the terrorists, thereby
sacrificing himself so that Stark can live. While dying, the doctor tells Stark
not to waste his life, a message that sends Stark down the path of becoming a
hero.
In Titanic, the Swede who loses his ticket to Jack Dawson in the card
game is an unwitting ally. He starts Jack on a journey that will change his
and Rose’s lives.
In all three of these cases, the intrusion of another into the hero’s world
nudges the hero towards the extraordinary. It’s also telling to note what
happens to the three allies in Star Wars, Iron Man, and Titanic: R2-D2
becomes a true ally in every sense of the word, the doctor dies but his moral
lesson lingers, and the Swede returns to central casting, never again to be
seen or to influence anyone.
Plot Point 8: The hero seems ready to move forward towards his
or her goal and/or towards the stakes character, but just can’t do it.
Now that an ally has moved the hero towards his or her goal, the hero is
faced with a decision either to remain bound by the ordinary life he or she
has been leading or go for something bigger. Sometimes the hero is a classic
reluctant hero and needs to be convinced that the “going big” is the right
thing to do. As someone smart once said, “Change is hard.” Oftentimes,
when the opportunity for change comes around, the emotional part of the
brain wants to go for it while the rational part of the brain starts devising all
sorts of quite reasonable objections. In classic mythic structure this is the
“call to adventure” and the “refusal of the call.”
In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula works at her aunt’s travel agency.
Hunky Ian notices her through the window and now he’s just as smitten with
her as she is with him — except that she’s too shy to do anything about it.
Not long ago, she was the ugly duckling, so, lacking in confidence, she hides
behind the water cooler.
In Titanic, Jack sees Rose for the first time, but doesn’t dare go after her.
He’s an itinerant artist traveling in steerage; she’s a rich girl in first class.
In Star Wars, Luke is asked by Obi-Wan to join him in his quest to save
the Princess and become a Jedi, but Luke can’t leave the farm, what with all
those space chickens that need tending to.
Plot Point 9: The villain or Deflector conflict stops the hero or
threatens the emotional stakes.
Whatever or whoever has been lurking in the background starts moving
into the foreground of the hero’s world.
In Star Wars, the Jawas are found dead, and Obi-Wan figures it to be the
work of the Stormtroopers.
In Liar Liar, Fletcher wants to return in time for Max’s birthday, but is
seduced by Miranda.
In The Dark Knight, Bruce tells Rachel that Harvey is the hero Gotham
really needs, one without a mask. Maybe then Bruce and Rachel could be
together, except that Dent pulls Rachel away to propose to her.
Plot Point 10: The depth of feeling between the hero and the
stakes character, or the severity of the threat to the victims,
becomes evident.
In act 1 it’s important to pound a few things into the reader’s head, one of
which is the physical and emotional stakes of the movie. By this point in the
script your page count should be in the high teens. The reader should know
who the hero is, who the villain is, and who and what’s at stake. The purpose
of Plot Point 10 is to make sure that readers understand how much this all
means, not just to your hero but to them.
In Star Wars, Luke sees that his aunt and uncle have been brutally
murdered.
In The Sixth Sense, Cole stands outside his school, too afraid to go inside
because there’s creepy stuff in there.
In The Dark Knight, the Joker assassinates the judge and the current
police commissioner. Harvey Dent’s next and, by extension, so is Rachel.
 These first three examples are all about the severity of the threat to the
victims. Depth of feeling can be found in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when
Ian walks past the travel agency again and he and Toula share a laugh on the
floor. Ian asks Toula out, and she agrees. They have a nice dinner together
during which Ian shares his story about how he didn’t become a lawyer the
way his parents expected him to. Toula says that it takes a strong person to
do that. Ian offers to take Toula out for Greek food, not realizing that the
restaurant he has in mind belongs to Toula’s family’s. He suddenly
remembers Toula as the frumpy waitress, and we see that Toula is now
worried that perhaps he won’t like her anymore. He says that he doesn’t
remember “frump girl,” but he remembers her. Awwwwwwwwww! Depth
of feeling.
Plot Point 11: The Deflector or Antagonist threatens to take the
stakes character from the hero. This is a beat of which the hero
may or may not be aware as it’s happening.
In Star Wars, this occurs in the interrogation scene, when Darth Vader
enters the Princess’ cell with his nasty floating droid. Luke doesn’t even
know that this is going on and has no connection yet with the Princess
besides knowing her situation, but the scene makes the viewer even more
nervous, now wanting even more for Luke to start becoming heroic and save
her. In a similar vein, in Liar Liar Fletcher starts his descent into honesty
hell in earnest, being compelled to tell the truth in every situation. The end
result of this is a conversation with his ex-wife when he truthfully explains
why he didn’t attend Max’s party the previous night (he was too busy having
sex with Miranda… oops). This admission is enough to make his ex-wife
talk to Max about moving away.
In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula lies to her father when he asks where
she’s going as she prepares for her next date with Ian. And when she’s with
Ian, Toula is reluctant to talk about her family, clearly embarrassed about her
big, fat Greek family. To Toula, her family is a threat that may take Ian away
from her.
Plot Point 12: The hero decides he or she must act to save the
stakes character.
This is it — the call to adventure can no longer be refused. The hero has
been shaken out of complacency and must start trying to create a new
equilibrium in his or her life.
 In Star Wars, Luke returns to Obi-Wan and tells him that he wants to go to
Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force like his father.
In The Sixth Sense, Dr. Crowe tells his wife of the similarities between
Cole and the suicidal patient, Vincent, saying that if he can save Cole, he can
somehow make up for failing Vincent.
In The Dark Knight, the Joker storms the big party for Harvey Dent.
Bruce changes into Batman and confronts the Joker, saving both Harvey and
Rachel.
In short, your hero now knows what must be accomplished, who is trying
to stop him or her, and what will befall him or her as well as the stakes
character if he or she fails.
The end of act 1 brings with it complete clarity concerning the central
question’s three parts: the physical goal, the emotional goal, and the spiritual
goal. All the plot points of act 1 of Star Wars look like this:

On to act 2!
ACT 2: TWENTY-EIGHT PLOT POINTS THAT
PRACTICALLY WRITE THEMSELVES
When I give seminars or consult with producers or writers about their
scripts, talking about act 2 is one of my favorite parts. For producers, this is
where they realize how painless the bulk of the movie can be to create, and
for aspiring writers, this is where they — burdened for years with the hope,
dream, and ambition of becoming a screenwriter — start thinking that they
might just be able to do this after all.
As I’ve said, what follows the central question are the twenty-eight plot
points: fourteen in the first half of act 2 that make up the Wanderer beats,
and fourteen in the second half of act 2 that make up the Warrior beats.
These twenty-eight plot points are so easy to write because they alternate
between answering the central question first yes and then no. These are
called “yes/no reversals.” Any situation that brings the hero closer to his or
her goal is a “yes.” Anything that takes the hero further away is a “no.” And
that’s about as complicated as it gets for act 2!
Using Star Wars as an example, act 1 ends with Luke joining Obi-Wan on
his quest to destroy the Death Star, save the Princess, and become a Jedi
knight like his father. Starting with our central question (Will Luke become a
Jedi, save the Princess, and destroy the Death Star?), let’s look at the plot
points in the first half of act 2.

ACT 2, FIRST HALF

Central question: Will Luke destroy the Death Star, save the Princess, and
become a Jedi like his father?
YES HE WILL! He goes to Mos Eisley with Obi-Wan and the droids.
Yeah! He’s on the way to becoming a Jedi! He’s gonna save the Princess!
He’s gonna blow up the Death Star! Only….
NO HE WON’T! They are stopped by Stormtroopers. They’re going to
get caught. He’s not gonna become a Jedi! He’s not gonna save the Princess!
He’s not gonna blow up the Death Star! It’s over. Only….
YES HE WILL! Obi-Wan uses the Force and they get past. Yeah! He’s
gonna be a Jedi! He’s gonna save the Princess! He’s gonna blow up the
Death Star! Only….
NO HE WON’T! They go to the bar and Luke is attacked. He’s failed
again. Only….
 YES HE WILL! Obi-Wan saves him. They find Han Solo. A deal is made.
Yeah! He’s gonna be a Jedi! He’s gonna save the Princess! He’s gonna blow
up the Death Star! Only….
NO HE WON’T! Han is stopped by Greedo who wants to kill him.
Disaster! Only….
YES HE WILL! Han kills Greedo. (Yes, Han shot first.) Luke sells his
speeder and they have enough money to pay him. Yeah! He’s gonna be a
Jedi! He’s gonna save the Princess! He’s gonna blow up the Death Star!
Only….
Get the idea? The fourteen plot points in the first half of act 2 come in
seven pairs of yes/no reversals that answer some aspect of the central
question first yes and then no.

And that, my friends, is the first half of act 2! Seems too simple? It is and
it isn’t. Certain factors must be kept in mind: interesting situations,
intriguing characters, increasingly difficult obstacles. But once you
understand the simple mechanics of the yes/no reversals of act 2, you will
have a big, muscular leg up on the writing process.
INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT AND SEEMINGLY
INSURMOUNTABLE
Remembering Michael Hauge’s definition of story (“enable a sympathetic
character to overcome a series of increasingly difficult, seemingly
insurmountable obstacles in order to achieve a compelling desire”), you can
see how Star Wars builds that “series of increasingly difficult, seemingly
insurmountable obstacles” into the progression of plot points in act 2.
The first obstacle that Luke must overcome at the beginning of act 2 is
simply going to Mos Eisley, which is no obstacle at all. If we were going to
assign a difficulty rating to overcoming this obstacle from 1 to 10 — 1 being
“I chipped a nail” and 10 being “what the $@%#! have I gotten myself
into?” — this would be a zero.
Next, Luke and the gang are stopped by some nosy Stormtroopers. Looks
bad, but Obi-Wan wags a finger, uses the Force, and easily gets past them.
Feels like a 1-minus to me.
Next, Luke gets attacked in the bar. Obi-Wan to the rescue again, this time
hacking off an alien’s arm lickety-split with his light saber. The whole fight
lasts maybe two seconds, if that. Maybe a 1+.
Next up is Greedo who is ready to kill Han Solo, the pilot they just hired,
but ends up getting blasted by Han. (Did I mention that Han shoots first?)
This feels like a 2.
The next obstacle takes place when they are fired upon by a battalion of
Stormtroopers in the space dock. Definitely at least a 3.
See the progression? Working backwards from the scene in the space
dock: Shooting at a lot of Stormtroopers who have Imperial blasters is more
difficult than shooting only one Greedo who has only one blaster, which is
more difficult (and fatal) than cutting off some alien’s paw, which is more
violent than using a Jedi mind trick on some Stormtroopers, which is more
difficult than riding in a Speeder, which isn’t difficult at all (“increasingly
difficult, seemingly insurmountable obstacles”). Each time, Luke and
company overcome an obstacle that is incrementally more difficult than the
last. When you start layering your reversals, try to escalate the level of
difficulty from easiest to increasingly more difficult.

THE THIRD-ACT SOLUTION

An interesting device makes itself known towards the middle of act 2,
something called “the third-act solution.”
After Luke and the gang escape from the spaceport and evade the Imperial
Cruisers, there is a short interlude during which Luke practices the Force.
Luke’s ability to use the Force will ultimately become the solution to
destroying the Death Star, saving Leia, and becoming a Jedi, and it’s here at
yes number seven where Luke begins to understand it. The third-act solution
is a device, a situation, or a skill that is shown to the audience early, but is
what the main character will need to be victorious in the end. Not every film
has one, but it’s cool when films do, and even better when they do it well.
This solution can usually be found in the first half of act 2.
At the end of Jaws, Brody kills the shark by shoving an oxygen tank into
the shark’s mouth and shooting it. Where does he get this idea? In act 2,
when Brody’s newly on the boat, he pulls a wrong knot, the shark cage falls
over, the tanks drop and rolls, and Hooper stops it before it hits the deck.
“Damn it, Martin! This is compressed air!… You screw around with these
tanks and they’re going to blow up!” Third-act solution.
Remember the movie Sea of Love? Al Pacino plays a police officer who
investigates a serial killing, and he thinks that the killer might be Ellen
Barkin, whom Pacino’s character has started to date in order to investigate
her. One night he gets her back to his apartment, where he has to hide his
police marksmanship trophy under the bed so she doesn’t see that he’s a cop
(because, let’s face it, all us guys have marksmanship trophies in our
bedrooms). At the end of the movie, the real killer attacks Pacino while he’s
in the bedroom. The killer has him pinned on the bed, and guess what Pacino
remembers is under the bed? The marksmanship trophy! Wham! Pacino hits
him with the trophy. Third-act solution.
“Now, where did I leave that marksmanship trophy? Oh… yeah….”
The third-act solution is a wonderful device for involving your audience
viscerally with the climax of your story. Instead of just watching, they
participate by recalling the third-act solution with the hero. The key to using
the third-act solution well is placement. Lay it in too early in your story and
the audience won’t remember it at the end. Lay it in too close to when it’s
actually needed in act 3 and it will feel contrived and convenient.
The flying bike in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, the hand grenades in
Raising Arizona, the big kiss on the lips in Get Smart (one of the funniest
third-act solutions you’ll ever see!), even “crossing the streams” in
Ghostbusters. Used well, a good third-act solution is a cherry on top of your
story cake.

ACT 2, SECOND HALF

The second half of act 2 — the Warrior phase — is composed of another
seven pairs of yes/no reversals.
 And this ends act 2. At the end of act 2, your hero will be at his or her
lowest point.
In Star Wars, Luke has just witnessed Obi-Wan getting killed (at least,
seemingly so) and he’s devastated. Even though he has saved the Princess
and he has the plans, they are far from safe and his adventure is about to
escalate to the final, fever pitch.
In Avatar, the Home Tree is destroyed, the Na’vi feel that Jake has
betrayed them, and Jake is thrown into a prison cell.
In The Dark Knight, Rachel is dead, the Joker has taken two boatloads of
hostages, and Harvey Dent is now deranged and on the loose.
Notice again in Star Wars how the obstacles have escalated. No more little
finger wags here… Luke and his friends are on their way towards all-out
battle!

ACT 3: FOUR SPECIAL PLOT POINTS

Act 3, the Martyr phase of the hero’s journey, consists of four plot points.
There are two yeses and two noes, but their order differs slightly from the
reversals in act 2 and they are perfectly suited to help close out the action of
your story. The last four plot points, in order, are Big Yes, No, Big No, Final
Yes.
 Big Yes: The hero has achieved a substantial victory, or feels that the
danger or conflict is over. George McFly has defeated Biff in Back to the
Future, but still has to get back home. In Jaws, Brody, Quint, and Hooper are
heading back to land where they hope to drown the shark in the shallows.
Rose has finally made it onto a lifeboat and is being lowered towards the
water in Titanic. And then….
No: The hero suffers a setback. Not fatal, but really, really bad. In Titanic,
Rose jumps out of the lifeboat because she won’t leave Jack behind. The
boat blows its engine in Jaws and starts to take on water. Marty tries to give
Emmett a note about the future that will save his life (saving Emmett’s life is
one of Marty’s goals); however, Emmett rips the note up in Back to the
Future. And then things go from bad to much worse!
Big No: Disaster! Failure! Situation hopeless, seemingly beyond remedy!
The Titanic is breaking apart, and Jack and Rose are being chased by a
murderous Cal Hockley. They get away from him and now ride the Titanic
down into the water. Ahhhhhhh! Marty finally makes it Back to the Future
after much difficulty, only to arrive a few moments too late to save Emmett.
Ahhhhhhh! In Jaws, the shark has seemingly killed Hooper, has eaten Quint,
and has wrecked the boat which is sinking fast. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Whatever will our hero do?
Final Yes: Pulling success from the jaws of failure, the hero achieves his
or her main goal, although sometimes the goal can be quite different from
what the hero first set out to achieve. In these cases, the hero gets what he or
she really needs, rather than what he or she thought was wanted. And
sometimes the yes is bittersweet.
Brody grabs his rifle in Jaws, climbs the mast of the sinking Orca, and
shoots the compressed air tank the shark is chomping on. In Titanic, Jack
succeeds in saving Rose’s life, but at the cost of his own. In The Dark
Knight, to save the city, Batman takes the blame for Two-Face’s acts. He
becomes the hero Gotham needs — the villain they need to chase because
he’s the only one who can take it, truly becoming the Dark Knight. In
Sleepless in Seattle, Annie is willing to leave bland but sweet Walter to take
a chance that Sam will be at the top of the Empire State Building. If you
layered in a third-act solution back in act 2, now’s the time to pull it out from
under the bed and use it.
In all of these examples, the main characters are willing to sacrifice
themselves to save others or achieve their goals. And it’s that willing act of
being a martyr that earns them the reward of getting something that they
need and to protect the stakes character once and for all.

Remember, not every movie will lay out as neatly as Star Wars, but
enough movies of every genre do that you should sit up, take notice, and be
willing to embrace an approach to storytelling which guarantees a movie that
can hold its own with some pretty impressive company.
By now you’re probably excited to start writing, but if you’ll indulge me a
little more, I want to share yet another way of looking at your story that will
help guide your every step.

CHAPTER 8 REVIEW
1. Structure is not a four-letter word.
2. Plot points are discrete, unique, and essential chunks of story
information.
3. There are forty-four plot points in a well-structured script: twelve in
act 1, fourteen in the first half of act 2, fourteen in the second half of act
2, and four in act 3.
4. The twelve plot points in act 1 are very, very specific.
5. The twenty-eight plot points of act 2 are actually fourteen pairs of
yes/no reversals. Anything that brings your hero closer to one of his or
her desired goals is a yes; anything that brings your hero further away is
a no.
6. The reversals increase in intensity, satisfying the rule about
“increasingly difficult, seemingly insurmountable obstacles.”
7. If possible, work in a third-act solution towards the middle of act 2,
and then pay it off at the climax of act 3.

CHAPTER 8 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Go to http://www.mscbuys.com/plot-not-plotz/. There you will find a
blank chart you can use to start laying out your idea.
2. Get to work.
3. That’s it.
4. Really.
5. When you’re done, pat yourself on the back because YOU HAVE A
STORY!
CHAPTER 9

I’M NOT AFRAID OF THE DARK

MEET THE “GUIDE,” YOUR STORY’S NEXT BEST FRIEND

Sure, you can go to Istanbul and take in the sights, but imagine how much
better your trip would be if you had a local tour guide to point out landmarks
and places of interest. “Over here we have the Hippodrome. To your left is
the Basilica Cistern… NO! DON’T DRINK FROM IT!”
A good story is like a good journey with landmarks. Unlike the twelve
plot points of act 1, which are very specific, landmarks happen in certain
regions of all stories and not necessarily in a particular order. Upon leaving
Paris it doesn’t matter in which order you’ve seen the Louvre, the
Montmartre steps, and the Eiffel Tower — what matters after-wards is that
you’ve seen them before moving on to London. Once you’re in that London
pub eating your bangers and mash, it’s a little late to turn around and decide
you want to check out the Bastille.
When writing, sometimes it’s easier to think of your story in terms of
landmarks — bigger moments — and then write your way down into the
nitty-gritty of the plot points. Don’t get me wrong; I love the nitty-gritty. It’s
the nitty-gritty that makes your script your script.
Before you look at the micro details of your story, you might find it
instructive to look at the macro details you’ll find in these “landmarks.”
With that in mind, I’ve divided these landmarks into twelve defining
statements that represent what the general tone of your script should be as
your story’s journey unfolds, and I’ve assembled them into a handy tour
guide. Cleverly, I call it the “Guide,” and it will lead you along the way to a
well-structured story.
The Guide can work for you either proactively or retroactively. You can
use it to broad-stroke your story before diving into the forty-four plot points,
or you can refer back to it after you work out the detailed structure to make
sure that the tone of the story plot points matches the tone as indicated in the
Guide. You can also flip back and forth between the Guide and the plot
points using both as a system of checks and balances to each other. The
Guide is designed to be another tool to jar your story ideas loose and get
them on paper, as well as an easy way to shorthand the major moments of
your story.
If you have the full scope of your story in mind, why not try the Guide
first? Each step of the Guide approximates another section of the forty-four
plot points. Please bear in mind that this is a big generalization, but it’s a
pretty good one. For example, Step 1 of the Guide (“I Don’t Get No
Respect”) is generally made up of the first three plot points of the forty-four
plot points. In other words, the first three plot points of act 1 can be
considered the “I Don’t Get No Respect” plot points. By filling in the twelve
steps of the Guide and then jumping back to the plot points and filling in
your answer, you’ll find that you’ll literally have more than 25% of your plot
points (twelve of forty-four) finished before you even get started!
Another way of using the Guide is to make sure your page count stays on
track. Each of the twelve sections has an approximate page count associated
with it, so you know that if you’re on page 80 and you’re just finishing up
the first section (“I Don’t Get No Respect,” pages 1–6), you… uh… may be
running a tad long.
Revisiting the forty-four plot points, we can make twelve distinct
groupings, each with its own defining name:
 As you can see, each section of the Guide has a comfy home in relation to
the three acts: theme, four questions, four archetypes, the QuickPitch, and
the forty-four plot points.

1. I DON’T GET NO RESPECT

Act: 1
Archetype: Orphan
Plot Points: 1–3
Pages: 1–6
 Most screenplays are about one thing… respect! Your hero doesn’t have
it, knows he or she doesn’t have it, and wants it. In this first section, make it
clear to the reader that your hero is an Orphan: an outsider looking in at a
world that doesn’t want him or her.
The thematic argument of the film will have been stated either explicitly
or implicitly, either through action or a visual.
The hero is established in his or her ordinary world as the “greatest” or
“most” extreme version of something.
The hero has limited awareness of which aspect of his or her being is
“broken.” This brokenness is often associated with a ghost from the hero’s
past, a major and unresolved crisis that the hero has ignored or inadequately
dealt with which is coming to a head RIGHT NOW!
The audience should start becoming aware of the hero’s three areas of
conflict: physical (the big issue that everyone around the hero can see);
emotional (a smaller issue that the hero shares with only a select few); and
spiritual (the innermost issue that the hero must grapple with alone).
EXAMPLES
Shrek is being hunted by the townspeople who hate ogres. (Shrek)
Elliot is ignored and disrespected by his brother and his brother’s friends.
(E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial)
Jake Sully is a crippled soldier thrust into a scientific experiment. (Avatar)
Peter Parker is a slight, nerdy high school kid. (Spider-Man)

2. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR TROUBLE IS?”

Act: 1
Archetype: Orphan
Plot Points: 4–5
Pages: 6–12
Make your hero’s problem or flaw clear both to the hero and the reader.
When in doubt, you may use the galactically overused line of dialogue —
“Do you know what your problem is?” — uttered by one of the hero’s allies
or a best friend.
The inciting incident will occur. This is the event that will rock the hero’s
world and change things forever.
The hero has an increased awareness of his or her inner needs.
 The stakes are made clear; this is what the hero stands to lose.
The call to adventure occurs or is alluded to. The hero is summoned or
made aware that he or she may need to leave the ordinary world, but either
doesn’t acknowledge or refuses to answer the call… yet!
EXAMPLES
Luke wants to leave the farm early and join the academy, but his uncle
tells him no. (Star Wars)
Elliot is told that he needs to think about how other people feel. (E.T.: The
Extra-Terrestrial)
Hooper arrives and determines that “this was no boating accident!” (Jaws)

3. CALLS AND BUSY SIGNALS

Act: 1
Archetype: Orphan
Plot Points: 6–8
Pages: 12–17
Give the protagonist the famous “call to adventure,” which is followed by
the equally famous “refusal of the call.”
The hero is hassled and/or reminded about his or her major point of
brokenness. Often, the brokenness comes in the form of a question from an
ally: “Why don’t you think about how someone else feels for a change?”
The hero’s orphan status is amplified.
The theme is amplified.
The call to adventure is now clearly stated to the hero.
The refusal of the call is made.
EXAMPLES
Jack sees Rose but doesn’t dare go after her because of the difference in
social status. (Titanic)
Luke is told by Obi-Wan that he must learn how to be a Jedi but Luke says
he can’t — he’s got too much to do. (Star Wars)
Fletcher wants to take his son to wrestling, but the big case is dropped in
his lap and he chooses to prepare for the trial. (Liar Liar)
Annie writes the letter to Sam but doesn’t want to send it. (Sleepless in
Seattle)
4. THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Act: 1
Archetype: Orphan
Plot Points: 9–12
Pages: 17–28
Force your hero out of the normal world and have him or her answer the
call to adventure. Sometimes the hero does this by choice, sometimes by
circumstance.
The intensity of the threat to the hero and/or the stakes character(s) is
clear.
The hero can no longer ponder the course of action; he or she must take
action and accept the call to adventure.
The three areas of conflict — physical, emotional, and spiritual — are
perfectly clear to your audience.
EXAMPLES
Neo chooses to take the red pill. (The Matrix)
Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed and now there’s no reason for him to stay
on Tatooine. (Star Wars)
Will Turner joins with Jack Sparrow to pursue Elizabeth on the Black
Pearl. (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)

5. KICK THE DOG

Act: 2A
Archetype: Wanderer
Plot Points: Yes/No, 1–3
Pages: 28–35
This section begins your hero’s wandering. It also shows your hero that
things aren’t going to be too easy. This is the start of the “increasingly
difficult” feel to the obstacles.
The hero gets help from allies and aides, often in the form of a Protector.
The villain is established as being, not just bad, but really bad. In the
absence of a standard villain (such as in a romantic comedy), there will be
very strong opposition to the hero’s goal.
The hero begins the learning process, actively pursuing what he or she
thinks is needed to resolve the central question, while gaining insight into
what will really be needed to resolve the central question. Generally, the
hero will either be oblivious or deny the truth of this insight.
The hero meets with low-level opposition or Deflectors, which he or she
will struggle to barely overcome. These can be considered training exercises
and dry runs for the skills and insights that the hero will really need.
The love story, a comedic runner, or a secondary story begins in
earnest.
EXAMPLES
The Death Star destroys a whole planet. (Star Wars)
Butch and Sundance begin to be pursued by the “super posse.” (Butch
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
Dr. Neville tries a new serum on a mutant and fails spectacularly. (I Am
Legend)

6. WHICH WAY IS UP?

Act: 2A
Archetype: Wanderer
Plot Points: Yes/No, 4–5
Pages: 35–45
Your hero has a series of successes and failures as he or she “wanders”
and starts to master the skills needed to ultimately answer the central
question.
The hero continues to wander, learning with greater clarity what he or
she needs to do to resolve the central question, while testing the waters
with his or her blossoming abilities. In romantic comedies, the ability in
question is actually love itself!
The obstacles increase in intensity.
The villain or opposition to the hero becomes aware of the hero’s
existence (if he or she wasn’t already).
EXAMPLES
Dr. Crowe makes progress in getting Cole to tell him what his problem is.
(The Sixth Sense)
Kevin gets groceries, orders pizza, and starts defending his house. (Home
Alone)
 Jack starts conquering the class divide and begins his relationship with
Rose. (Titanic)

7. WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS…

Act: 2A
Archetype: Wanderer
Plot Points: Yes/No, 6–7
Pages: 45–55
Just when your hero thought he or she was making progress, you pull the
rug out from under! Force your hero to stop wandering and start fighting.
The threat to the stakes character increases to the point of life or death
(literal or figurative).
The third-act solution (if there is one, and if it hasn’t already been
shown) is now shown, though the significance of it is likely lost on the hero
at this time.
The thematic question and thematic argument are clearly stated
(“Hokey religions are no substitute for a good blaster, kid.”)
The hero knows all of the rules (or thinks he or she does) and wandering
further will not help the hero to learn more.
The villain’s plan is explained either to the hero, by the hero, or to others.
It’s time to fight, to enter the villain’s world or the world in which the
villain will be encountered.
EXAMPLES
Batman realizes that trying to fight the Joker by the Joker’s rules isn’t
going to work. (The Dark Knight)
Lester argues with Carolyn about their sex life. (American Beauty)
Luke and company are pulled into the Death Star and discover that the
Princess is being held onboard. (Star Wars)

8. …MAKE LEMONADE!
Act: 2B
Archetype: Warrior
Plot Points: Yes/No 8–10
Pages: 55–65
Put your hero into a direct confrontation in a big way.
 Your hero shifts into action, making decisions (for better or worse) in the
now active and direct attempt to resolve the central question.
Your hero meets with some initial success.
The villain or opposing force tightens the screws on the hero’s goal.
The thematic question is raised and heightened. The hero bounces
between both viewpoints.
Possibly unknowingly, the hero prepares for his or her big change.
EXAMPLES
Tony Stark uses his suit to defend a village. (Iron Man)
Luke springs Leia from the detention block and brings down the wrath of
the Stormtroopers. (Star Wars)
Brody’s own son is almost attacked by the shark and he compels the
mayor to hire Quint. (Jaws)

9. INSIDE THE WHALE

Act: 2B
Archetype: Warrior
Plot Points: Yes/No 11–12
Pages: 65–75
This is that “belly of the beast” moment, also classically referred to as
“inside the darkest cave” because one or more of the scenes in this section of
your story will take place in a confined space, representing that the forces at
play against your hero are literally closing in — tightening — and your hero
must dig deep and face his or her darkest fear.
Intense, direct conflict occurs between the hero and the opposing force
or villain. The hero realizes that he or she still lacks the skills needed to
succeed. The hero enters his or her darkest place, often physically
expressed by a tight, enclosed space.
The hero undergoes the ultimate test leading to a death-like moment.
EXAMPLES
Indiana Jones is abandoned inside the Well of Souls, surrounded by
snakes. (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Luke goes into the cave and faces what he thinks is Darth Vader, but is
actually a representation of the dark side of the force that is within him. (Star
Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back)
 Sam and gang are deep within Hoover Dam as Megatron is unfrozen.
(Transformers)
Kevin is forced to go into the basement and confront the very scary boiler.
(Home Alone)

10. DEATH AND REBIRTH

Act: 2B
Archetype: Warrior
Plot Points: Yes/No, 13–14
Pages: 75–85
Another classic moment: Your hero seemingly dies and is then reborn. In
many ways, this is the ultimate moment in the arc of your hero, the moment
when he or she sheds the skin of the old life and emerges newly formed,
self-actualized, and ready to prove himself or herself to the world!
The death and rebirth can be massaged in a variety of ways, and you can
sometimes hand it to the character most closely associated with your
protagonist’s highest aspirations. In romantic comedies, write this section so
that it charts the death of the hoped-for relationship followed by the
realization of what’s needed to give it new hope.
Your hero emerges from his or her near death a new being, more fully
actualized, with a new understanding, but not quite ready for the final
challenge yet. (N.B. This moment will sometimes occur in the next landmark
section.)
The hero assumes the role of standard-bearer for the positive
expression of the thematic question. Let’s call this the thematic answer.
The hero is at his or her lowest moment, which can be expressed through
a character interlude. This is when the hero spends a short moment taking
stock, reflecting on the road traveled so far, and how much more there is yet
to come.
EXAMPLES
Elliot is fading, and E.T. “disconnects” himself from Elliot. Elliot’s vital
signs improve and E.T. “dies.” Once Elliot heartbreakingly admits how little
he now feels, E.T. is resurrected with the return of the spaceship to take him
home. (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial)
Annie believes that Sam is involved in a serious relationship and is giving
him up, only to be called to action by Jonah’s letter asking her to meet at the
Empire State Building. (Sleepless in Seattle)
Mr. Incredible jumps into the water and is presumed blown to bits. (The
Incredibles)

11. WHAT’S THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN?

Act: 3
Archetype: Martyr
Plot Points: Big Yes/No
Pages: 85–95
The title says it all! Your hero’s whole life (your whole story) has been
built towards both avoiding this moment as well as confronting it: avoiding
because it is his or her worst fear, and confronting because this is what your
hero needs to do in order to become the person he or she needs to be.
Your hero, having answered the thematic question, makes a commitment
to change; this sets up the resolution to the spiritual goal.
Energized by this private (and usually unstated) commitment, the hero
understands the need to be willing to sacrifice himself or herself for the
benefit of the stakes character; this sets up the resolution to the emotional
goal.
The hero acts out of courage and does the bravest thing possible; this sets
up the resolution to the physical goal.
The hero meets with catastrophic failure, but has no time to lick
wounds. The hero presses on.
EXAMPLES
Luke is outgunned and outnumbered, and the Death Star is closing in on
destroying the rebel base and killing Leia. (Star Wars)
Jonah runs away and Sam frantically has to go to New York to find him.
(Sleepless in Seattle)
The ship is breaking up, and Jack and Rose are being pursued by the
murderous Cal. (Titanic)
And lest we forget… the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man! (Ghost-busters)

12. GOOD GUY VERSUS BAD GUY OVER STAKES

Act: 3
Archetype: Martyr
 Plot Points: Big No/Final Yes
Pages: 95–108
The climax of every well-told story pits the hero against the villain over
the stakes of the story. I’ve seen films in which the final battle is handed to
some subordinate or minor character, and felt my story brain rebel while
watching. In your story, make sure it is your hero who gets his or her hands
dirty, not someone else. Your hero might get some desperately needed help,
but choices and action belong to your hero. In romantic comedies, this can
be a seemingly small moment right at the very end of the story because, after
all, once boy gets girl, it’s all over.
The central question is on the brink of being answered in the negative.
The hero (and, indeed, many of the hero’s allies) makes a huge sacrifice.
If a third-act solution was shown earlier, it is brought into play.
The hero comes to terms with and resolves his or her spiritual goal,
which in turn empowers the hero to resolve his or her emotional goal, which
in turn enables the hero to resolve his or her physical goal. (N.B. You can be
a bit flexible about the order in which these three goals resolve. That being
said, the closer together these resolutions converge in your story, the more
satisfying the conclusion of the story — and if you can resolve ALL THREE
at the same time, you are MY hero!)
A short denouement scene wraps up the story, which shows your hero
now fully actualized, returned to his or her ordinary world, and both
embracing and embodying the positive values of the thematic question
(otherwise known as “The Hollywood Ending”).
EXAMPLES
Brody is on the sinking Orca and squares off against the shark to save
Amity. (Jaws)
Jack fights Barbossa to save Will and Elizabeth. (Pirates of the
Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)
Annie leaves Walter and goes to the top of the Empire State Building, just
missing Sam and Jonah, but finally meets them when they return to retrieve
Jonah’s backpack. (Sleepless in Seattle)
Luke destroys the Death Star and saves Leia. (Star Wars)

THE END OF STRUCTURE

Congratulations! I know that I’ve given you a lot to chew on over the last
nine chapters, but chew slowly and you’ll find that it’s easy to digest.
There is so much more to say about screenwriting, just not now. You
know all the theory you need to know, at least for right now, at least to get a
good, workable first draft. You will need to focus on your dialogue, your
scene construction, your subtext, your character interactions… but not today.
Right now, what you want to do is take advantage of the raw enthusiasm you
have for your story idea and act on it. Now, it’s time to beat out your stories.
That other stuff will wait. As someone once famously said, “Don’t get it
right, get it written.”
There is one last thing to discuss, however: the business of the business.

CHAPTER 9 REVIEW
1. A good story is like a good journey, and every journey has
landmarks.
2. Story landmarks happen in regions of your story, of which there are
twelve.
3. The Guide can work for you both proactively to help you think
through your story before you break it down into the forty-four plot
points, or retroactively to make sure that you’re story isn’t running too
long or too short.

CHAPTER 9 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Go to http://www.mscbuys.com/guide/. Download two copies of the
blank Guide chart.
2. Make some popcorn.
3. Watch a favorite movie, one that’s in the top fifty, and see how well it
lays out in the Guide.
4. Make some coffee.
5. On the second copy, take your idea and lay it out against the Guide.
If it doesn’t fit neatly, see if you can figure out a way to adjust it. If you
can’t adjust it, find a similar movie to yours (preferably, one that made
some money), make some more popcorn, and then see if it lays out
neatly in the Guide.
6. If it does, see if you can figure out why that one works and yours
doesn’t.
CHAPTER 10

I WORK SMARTER, YOU WORK HARDER — AND

NOT IN A GOOD WAY!
THE MY STORY CAN BEAT UP YOUR STORY! TOUGH WRITER’S BUSINESS PLAN

I know a special, magical place where the streets are paved with the melted
gold plate of Oscar and Emmy statuettes, and the houses are made with
bricks formed out of the recycled boxes of Montage, Final Draft, and Movie
Magic Screenwriter. It’s filled with people just like you and me, and it’s
called WritersGuildOfAmericaVille. The locals just call it WGA-Ville,
population, 11,500. Its two main communities are Television Hills and the
more exclusive Film Aire.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out….”
As you might imagine, people all over the world want to move to WGA-
Ville; however, like many small towns, this one has an open secret that
nobody hoping to move there wants to hear; the unemployment rate in
WGA-Ville is staggering. Of those who live and work in Television Hills,
73% are unemployed at any one time. And they’re the lucky ones.
Unemployment in exclusive Film Aire is 84%.1 If WGA-Ville were its own
country, it would have an unemployment rate second only to Rwanda. And I
don’t see people lining up to move there.
I know… I know. You think I’m being overly bleak. I’m not. The WGA’s
annual report shows the mean income for WGA members to be $66,000.
That doesn’t sound too bad until you consider that 100% of that money is
earned by 44% of the membership, meaning that 56% of the total
membership earned diddly-doo-dah in that reporting year.
I agonized long and hard while thinking about how to write this chapter.
On one hand, I am the biggest fan of screenwriting as a job. It has afforded
me satisfactions — both creative and financial — that I just don’t think I
would have gotten in some other profession. On the other hand, I also know
the crippling odds against consistently earning a living in the craft. I have
friends — good friends — who have worked at the highest levels of the
business who are now out of the business. It was too unpredictable for
people wanting to take care of their families. I know another fellow who has
stayed in the business, who has written movies that have generated literally
billions of dollars at the box office, and who says that he never knows from
month to month if the phone will stop ringing. And he’s really good.
During the gold rush, the only people who made any money were the ones
selling the shovels. That’s how I feel it is with people who blue-sky the
chances of selling spec screenplays and making a living as a writer. I can’t,
with a clear conscience, be one of those people filling anyone’s heads with
stories of gold being in them-thar hills. That being said, I also don’t want to
crush anyone’s spirit, either. It is possible to make a living, year in and year
out. I have. That’s why I’ve developed the My Story Can Beat Up Your
Story! Tough Writers Business Plan. Will it guarantee you an income? Of
course not. What it will do is give you the real-world advice you need to
stack the deck as much in your favor as possible.

THE BIG LIE AND THE BIG TRUTH

There are times when benevolent lying is called for. Every baby is adorable.
Every bride is beautiful. But when giving business advice, one has a moral
responsibility to put the heel to Big Lies and share Big Truths:
THE BIG LIE ABOUT SCREENWRITING — You will sell your spec
screenplay.
THE BIG TRUTH ABOUT SCREENWRITING — You don’t need to sell
a spec screenplay in order to have a career as a screenwriter.
I’ve been in the business for more than twenty years. I’ve sold exactly one
spec screenplay. Yet, over these two decades I worked almost constantly.
Episodic television, producing, story editing, animation, direct-to-video
movies, TV movies, options on spec screenplays, story consulting, dialogue
polishes, rewrites, miniseries… I’m a machine because I need to be. And
that’s the big Truth. You need to diversify. You need to start cranking out
more ideas in more genres and in more media than you can ever hope to
finish. If you don’t feel you can be that person, you will find it very, very
hard to make a go of this profession.
However, if you feel that you can be that person, then read on.…
THE MY STORY CAN BEAT UP YOUR STORY! BUSINESS
PLAN
If your teenaged daughter came up to you and said that she wanted to
become an astronaut, you’d probably give her different advice than if your
arthritic, octogenarian uncle said the same thing. At least, I know I would.
That’s why the business plan you’re about to read has little shifts and
adjustments depending on where you are in your life. Just remember, as with
all advice from well-meaning strangers, take what you want and leave
behind what you will.
1. IF YOU’RE OVER FORTY, DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID
Are you older than forty? Regardless of your age, do you have a family
that depends on you for food, shelter, and clothing? How about large
financial obligations that cannot be ignored?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you should embrace
screenwriting with the fervor of a dedicated hobbyist, but a REALLY
dedicated one. Do it every chance you get, an hour or two every day, but
don’t go and do anything stupid like quit your job or sell your house to
finance your dream of becoming a writer, especially if you have a spouse
whose dream is not to watch your mortgage go upside down.
Be fair about this, not just to those around you but to yourself as well.
2. IF YOU’RE IN YOUR TWENTIES WITH NO OBLIGATIONS, MOVE TO LOS ANGELES
If you are in your twenties, on your own, and able to live on canned tuna
for the next little while, then my first piece of advice to you is to move, now,
to Los Angeles. Once there, get a job in the industry. Any job will do. Mail
room, production assistant, receptionist, anything. You want to be in and
around the action. You’ll hear things, you’ll meet people, you’ll start
connecting the myriad dots that make up the business. If all else fails, try to
become someone’s unpaid intern. My last unpaid intern, a college junior
when I got my paws on him, impressed me so much that I helped nurture his
career. He made more last year as a writer than all of his writing professors
combined. And the unpaid intern I had before him just directed a film and
has funding for his next one. I got his first screenplay optioned. They were
not paid by me, but they were certainly not unrewarded.
If you do move to L.A., you can’t just live anywhere; you want to move to
West Hollywood because you want to live in an area where a
disproportionate number of young industry types live. You want to shop at
their markets, drink at their bars, go to their parties. Your whole life is about
to become about networking. The hot zone is between La Cienega and La
Brea Boulevards, south of Sunset and north of Olympic Boulevards.
3. NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK
Not everyone can afford to pick up and move to Los Angeles. If you can’t,
don’t despair. You too will focus on networking, but from the comfort of
your own home. Join screenwriting groups in your area
(http://www.meetup.com is a good place to start), and become a member of
every screenwriting forum you can find on the Internet. Ask good questions;
make good connections. A sincere guy in his fifties contacted me after a
recent seminar I gave. We started talking via email, he asked some advice,
and now six months later we’re developing a television series together.
Network.
4. TREAT THE BUSINESS LIKE A BUSINESS
This is big. If you want to get into the business of screenwriting, treat it
like a business. That means, be a professional even if you aren’t one yet.
Being a screenwriter is one of the few businesses I can think of that can be
launched for a few hundred dollars (assuming you already own a computer)
and return hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course, the odds of that kind
of return are long, but think how many restaurants go under within the first
year and how expensive it is to open one. Launching your writing career is
no less risky than that, and once you have your computer and some basic
software, you can be in business year in and year out for pennies a day.
What do I mean by “be professional”? Use Montage, or Final Draft, or
Movie Magic Screenwriter to write your scripts. That’s what the
professionals are using. Subscribe to either The Hollywood Reporter or
Daily Variety — print or online editions — and read them every day. You
need to know what’s going on in this industry. The professionals do.
My wife is an attorney (the nice kind), and every year she needs to take
professional development courses. So do doctors. So should you. Seminars,
lectures, conferences. Don’t shell out for every one that’s being hawked, but
do make it a point to attend some.
Oh, and see movies. Lots of them. Study them. Refer to them again and
again when writing, both the good ones and the bad ones. I have a pretty
large library that I use all the time, and if there’s a movie I don’t own that I
think might help me to study, I don’t walk; I RUN to the store to buy it. It’s
the cost of doing business.

Part of my 500+ title DVD library. The black thing on the right side of the
frame is my Auxiliary Clothes Hanging Unit (aka, “Bowflex®”)
5. I’VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN: DIVERSIFY
When I first moved to Los Angeles in the mid-eighties, if you wanted to
be a writer you had to choose: TV or features. That was the advice I was
given. Of course, everyone wanted to write features, so that’s what I focused
on. Writing for television was what you did if you couldn’t make a go at
screenplays.
Now, it’s a free-for-all. The smart writers are doing everything. Write spec
screenplays, write animation, write sitcoms. It’s nothing personal; it’s just
business. There is very little I don’t have as a writing sample. Preschool,
family comedy, earnest dramedy, animated features, live-action/animation
hybrids, big-budget action, western, comedies, sports movies, even content
for tablet computers; I’m a chameleon. Whatever a producer needs me to be,
I am.
You should start by setting a goal for yourself such as the following: one
year from this date you should complete one original spec screenplay, one
original half-hour television pilot, one one-hour drama writing sample, and
one half-hour family comedy script — whatever’s on The Disney Channel or
Nickelodeon will do.
Impossible, you say? Posh-tosh! All told we’re only talking about 228
pages of writing in twelve months. That’s two-thirds of a page a day, every
day for a year. Or if you want to give yourself weekends off, that’s one page
a day, five days a week, and that still gives you a whole month’s vacation.
I’ve got to be honest with you; if you can’t write five pages a week in your
spare time, perhaps this isn’t the career for you.
6. WRITE SOMETHING UNPRODUCIBLE
(“Okay… who are you and what have you done with Schechter?”)
No, it’s still me. I know it’s shocking to hear from Mr. Stack-the-Deck-in-
Your-Favor the advice to write something unproducible, but there’s a method
to my madness.
If you recall the Big Lie and the Big Truth, I don’t believe that you will
sell your spec screenplay, but I do believe that you don’t need to in order to
have a career as a writer. What you need, more than the big spec sale, is to
be memorable. You need people to read something of yours and rush to
share it with their peers because it is so totally out there. Write something
insane, fantastic, over the top, unproducible… but memorable. You want
people to talk about you, especially when you’re trying to make a name for
yourself. Remember that half-hour original pilot I’m pestering you to write?
Use that as your nutso sample. Thirty pages of totally liberated,
unproducible you! I’d wager that you’d be surprised at how crazy-original
you can be once you give yourself permission. And even though it probably
won’t sell, you’ll have established yourself as a writer to watch. And that’s a
very good thing.
7. BRING SOMETHING TO THE PARTY
You wouldn’t show up to a nice party empty-handed, would you? Of
course not! The same holds true when writing your script; you’ve got to
bring something to the party. What this means is that you have to develop
and infuse your work with a unique talent or voice, the one that no one else
has.
In every script you write, indeed every scene, you must bring something
to the party; write something that only you can write. A great line of
dialogue, an interesting setting, something that needed you to write it, that
wouldn’t exist had you never been born. Think of Juno and the unique voice
and worldview Diablo Cody brought to that script. You must do whatever it
takes not to be a pedestrian writer because, frankly, if some other writer can
come up with the same stuff you’re coming up with, why the hell do we
need you?
8. DON’T GO AFTER MANAGERS AND AGENTS UNTIL YOU HAVE AT LEAST TWO
GREAT WRITING SAMPLES. THREE IS BETTER.
Unless you’re sitting on the next Juno, you will be hard-pressed to find an
agent willing to take you based on only one writing sample. Agents and
managers want to represent careers, not projects. You need a portfolio of
material — which you will have a year from now, remember? (See #5
above.)
After you have a stash of killer material, it’s time to solicit, but avoid the
big managers, agents, and production companies. You’ll get lost in those
places. Worse, you’ll get bandied about at the lowest levels because who else
at CAA is going to take you seriously?
Go after the smaller managers, smaller agents, and smaller production
companies. They’re hungrier, and if you get some traction at one of those
places it’s likely going to be at a higher level. I’m not talking about Uncle
Joe’s Literary Agency and Car Wash type of small; I mean an agency with
three or four agents instead of thirty or forty.
9. DON’T GO TO PITCH FESTS EXPECTING TO SELL ANYTHING
You’re too smart for that now anyway. If you must go to a pitch fest, use it
as a way to practice making eye contact, being enthusiastic about your ideas,
putting the QuickPitch into practice, networking, meeting people, basically
everything that happens around pitch fests that doesn’t involve selling a
pitch because you will not sell your pitch.
Better yet, just stay home and write a cool scene or something.
10. DON’T ENTER SCRIPT CONTESTS
Nowadays, it’s impossible to walk into a coffee shop anywhere around the
world and NOT trip over a quarter-semifinalist, third-demi-runner-up,
honorable-jury-mention winner of some script contest or another. Someone’s
making money from these things, and it’s not you.
Do I believe that there are no worthwhile competitions? I’m not sure. If
having a competition deadline looming serves as the kick in the rump you
need to finish your script, then that’s fine, I suppose. As far as a career being
launched because of winning or placing, I’m skeptical. If your script is good
enough to win a competition, it’s good enough to attract the attention of a
manager or agent without setting you back an entrance fee.
11. TURN IN EVERY SCRIPT WITH TREMBLING HANDS
There is an incredibly small window of opportunity during which a spec
screenplay has to impress a studio, agent, or producer. The expression “you
only get one chance to make a good first impression” has never been truer
than when applied to selling a script.
If you go out to producers and executives with a script and it doesn’t sell,
you can’t gather together your notes, rewrite the script, and then go out with
it again to the same producers and executives. Most of them will not spend
the time to re-read a script they’ve already passed on unless there is some
compelling reason to do so, such as having an actor or director attached to
the project that means something to the box office, or some financing that is
legitimately in place. A rewrite of the script does not qualify as a compelling
reason. That’s why many writers hire qualified, experienced script readers to
critique their scripts.
If you’re like most writers, you probably have a rogue’s gallery of friends
who are also writing and have offered to read your script. Unless they’re
professionals, thank them and decline. Can your friends advise you about
similar films in development? Can your friends advise you about trends in
the marketplace? Can they tell you which producers are looking for your
kind of material and which have sworn that they’ll never again make another
zombie/western/horror/musical? Can they tell you how your script compares
to others like it? Do they know why the others like it worked and can they
identify those elements in yours?
Can they tell you what they liked about your script? Oh… they didn’t like
your script? That’s even better. Can they tell you exactly what they didn’t
like and why? Best of all, can they tell you how to fix the problems based
not on their opinion but on an empirical knowledge about screenwriting?
This is what a skilled reader brings to your project.
 I personally pay at least 15% of everything I earn to have my material
read before I go out with it; I have two agents, one in Canada and one in Los
Angeles, and they split 15%. Part of their job is to read my material and
make sure that it’s as good as it can be before we shop it to producers. Why
should I seek out their opinions? I mean, I’m a multi-award-nominated
writer, producer, and director. I’ve been in the WGA for twenty years. I’ve
earned my living exclusively as a writer for two decades. Don’t I know how
to write by now?
The reality is that even my scripts only get one chance to make a good
impression. And what would I do if I didn’t have agents whose opinions,
taste, and business acumen I trusted? I’d hire the best script reader I could
find and afford to make sure that I didn’t blow that one chance my script has
of making a good first impression.
Yes, there are some readers out there whose only qualifications are “failed
writer.” Yes, there are some readers out there who are only marginally more
qualified than you to critique your script. There are also some very sharp
people who can help you. Search for them the way you would search for the
best medical specialist to cure a sick child. As with anything in life, you
must make your own calculation between value and price.

CHAPTER 10 REVIEW
1. You will not sell your spec screenplay.
2. You don’t have to in order to have a career.
3. Diversify! Don’t just write features, or television, or family, or adult.
Write it all!
4. If you’re over forty, don’t do anything stupid like sell your house.
5. If you can, move to L.A.
6. Network.
7. Treat the business like it’s a business. It is.
8. Write something crazy and unproducible, but memorable.
9. Bring something to the party.
10. Have two or three really good writing samples ready before going
after a manager or an agent.
11. Don’t go to pitch fests expecting to sell anything.
 12. Don’t enter script competitions unless they serve as external
deadlines for getting something written.
13. Turn in everything you write with trembling hands because you
only have one chance to make a good first impression.

CHAPTER 10 STORY BEATER EXERCISES

1. Go to http://www.mscbuys.com/challenge/ and sign up for the My
Story Can Beat Up Your Story! challenge where, a year after signing up,
you agree to write one spec screenplay, one one-hour drama writing
sample, one half-hour pilot sample (drama or comedy), and one half-
hour family comedy sample (animation or live action). We’ll put your
name up on the board for everyone to see, providing juuuuuust enough
gentle pressure to keep you on track. As you complete each step, shoot
us an email and we’ll add another check by your name. Finish
everything on time and win a prize: one free QuickPitch evaluation! It’s
no development deal at Warner’s, but it’s something.

1 Membership figures are based on the official membership number as

quoted by the Writers Guild of America, West. Unemployment figures are
based on the May 2009 Writers Guild of America, West 2009 Hollywood
Writers Report, available online at http://www.wga.org.
CONCLUSION
WRITE NOW, RIGHT NOW… (AND THEN WRITE AGAIN, RIGHT AWAY!)

And so we come to the end of your journey from ninetyseven-pound

weakling to story he-man. But like many endings, this is actually a
beginning in disguise. This is hopefully the start of your liberation from that
haunting question all writers ask themselves while writing: What comes
next? Hopefully, what comes next is that you write some seriously tough,
wellstructured stories.
What I hoped to do when I sat down to write this book was lay out a
systematic, easily understood, and insanely powerful system for taking a
story idea from first glimmer to bully-proof structure. I hope I’ve done that. I
think I have. As I’ve said, this is the same system I use every day in my own
writing, the same system that Mariner Software thought enough of to turn
into Contour, its story-development program. Give it time to become part of
you as a writer. It will work for you.
“Can my story beat up your story? What do you think?”
When I speak to groups of writers and present the My Story Can Beat Up
Your Story! system, I always finish with the following checklist that I
encourage attendees to ask themselves as they set out to write their
screenplays:
1. Is my story worth writing?
2. Have I answered (brilliantly) the four questions?
3. Is my hero sympathetic?
4. Is my hero’s goal compelling?
5. Do I have a clear central question with three clear parts?
6. Do the obstacles become increasingly difficult?
 7. Is the villain ruthlessly committed?
8. Are the hero and the villain connected by the unity of opposites?
9. Do I understand both my hero’s thematic question and my villain’s
thematic argument?
10. Are the stakes life or death?
11. Have I given those stakes a human face via a stakes character?
12. Have I used the QuickPitch to see if my story can go the distance?
13. Am I treating the business like a business?
14. Am I writing at least one insane thing?
15. Have I thanked my loved ones for putting up with me?
This last one, I urge people to pay especially close attention to. As
difficult as it is to be in the “zone” when you’re writing, imagine having to
live with you when you’re in there. Your desk is a mess, your hygiene leaves
something to be desired, your complexion gets pastier while your eyes get
more sunken. You blurt out things like, “The third-act solution is the air
tank!” during intimate moments. Who would want to live with or be with
that person? Someone incredibly loving and supportive, that’s who.
If you want to be a writer it’s important to put your butt in the chair. But
as you’re writing, it’s important to take your butt out of the chair and make
time to smell the flowers. Even better, pick a few and give them to your
wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, parents, kids, friends… everyone who
is supporting you as you do this insane, important, wonderful thing called
screenwriting.

THE KID ON THE COVER

So, who’s that kid on the cover of this book supposed to be, anyway? If you
haven’t guessed, that kid is you. You are the hero of this particular story, the
story of you wanting to be a writer. There will be obstacles to overcome,
allies to be made, even the occasional villain to be dealt with, though more
likely you’ll just meet Deflectors; there are very few real villains in this
business. The closest I’ve come to meeting a villain is my own fear of
failure, and I’d like to think I kicked his sorry butt years ago.
Before I understood the ideas in this book, I was an Orphan. As I put them
together and started to grasp their power, I became a Wanderer. As I used
them more and more effectively in my own writing, I became a Warrior. And
seeing as the story of me being a writer doesn’t have an end yet in sight, I’ll
wait a bit longer before I become a Martyr.
Now it’s your turn to be a story Warrior. Crank out material as fast as you
can; you now have the tools. Remember; write now, right now… and then
write again, right away.
Now quit reading this and go WRITE something!
APPENDIX

FIVE MOVIES, ALL BEAT UP

In the following pages you’ll find five examples of films which nicely
demonstrate the My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! plot points. These
examples and many others are included in Mariner Software’s Contour
software development program. A big thank-you goes to my buds at Mariner
Software for their permission to use these examples here.
In order to show the universality of this structure, I’ve picked movies
from different genres: science fiction (Star Wars), action (The Dark Knight),
thriller (The Sixth Sense), comedy (Liar Liar), and animation (Up).
 STAR WARS
By George Lucas
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Who is your hero? Luke Skywalker.
2. What is your hero trying to accomplish? Physical: Destroy the Death
Star. Emotional: Save the Princess. Spiritual: Learn to use the Force and
become a Jedi like his father.
3. Who is trying to stop your hero? The Empire and Darth Vader.
4. What happens if your hero fails? The Princess dies and the Empire
destroys the rebels.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
1. How is your hero an Orphan in act 1? Luke is a real Orphan, who is
orphaned even further when his aunt and uncle are killed.
2. How is your hero a Wanderer in the first half of act 2? Luke joins with
Obi-Wan, finds Han Solo, makes a deal, and blasts off in Han’s ship to try to
get the plans to the Death Star to Alderaan. Luke and his party are pulled
into the Death Star, where he discovers that the Princess is being held
captive.
3. How is your hero a Warrior in the second half of act 2? Luke devises a
plan to save the Princess before they can escape from the Death Star. Luke,
Han, and Obi-Wan wage huge battles against the Stormtroopers in the Death
Star before getting away.
4. How is your hero a Martyr in act 3? Luke faces incredible odds as he
now lives his dream of being a fighter pilot. The life or death of the Princess
comes down to him and his one last shot as he is willing to shut down the
targeting computer (rejecting technology) and trust his life to the power of
the Force to destroy the Death Star.
THE QUICKPITCH
When an orphaned farm boy discovers a message from a captured
princess and his family is killed by an evil Empire, he joins forces with a pair
of droids, an old mystic, and a mercenary to deliver the plans contained in
the message to the leaders of the rebel movement. On their way they are
captured by a giant space station called the Death Star, only to discover that
the Princess is also there and is slated for execution. They must now mount a
rescue of the Princess and fight their way out of the Death Star, which they
do, only to discover that they have led the Empire to the rebel base. The only
possible response is to launch a suicide mission against the space station
that will rely on a miracle shot to save the life of the Princess and keep the
rebellion alive.
ACT I: THE ORPHAN
Plot Point 1: We meet either the hero, victim/stakes
character, or the villain.
Star Destroyer captures Leia’s ship and we meet Darth Vader.
Plot Point 2 : We see the hero’s flaw in relation to the stakes
character.
We meet Princess Leia as she puts a message into R2-D2. She’s clearly
brave and adventurous.
Plot Point 3: If we haven’t met our villain, we do now. If
we’ve already met the villain, this amplifies what we already
know.
Leia is stunned and captured, but only after blasting one of the
Stormtroopers.
Plot Point 4: The (or “A”) Deflector slows the hero down or
pulls the hero off the path.
The droids are now on Tatooine and go their own ways. R2-D2 is captured
by Jawas, as is C-3PO.
Plot Point 5: Inciting incident — the hero now becomes
emotionally involved.
We meet Luke as the droids are sold to his uncle. While cleaning the
droids, Luke discovers a message from the Princess and is immediately
intrigued.
Plot Point 6: This is the statement of your hero’s goal as it
relates to the stakes character or love interest. Your hero’s
problem is made clear to the audience.
During dinner with his aunt and uncle, Luke says that he wants to join the
academy early. Owen says no. His aunt cautions his uncle that Luke has too
much of his father in him. “That’s what I’m worried about,” his uncle says.
 Plot Point 7: An ally (either a true one or an unintentional
one) helps propel your hero out of his or her comfort zone.
R2-D2 runs off and Luke has to go after him. Luke recovers R2 but is
attacked by Sand People. Luke is saved by Obi-Wan.
Plot Point 8: The hero seems ready to move forward towards
his or her goal and/or the stakes character, but just can’t do it.
Back in Obi-Wan’s home, Luke hears about Anakin. Obi-Wan asks Luke
to join him on his mission to save the Princess. Luke refuses, but agrees to
drive Obi-Wan a little of the way.
Plot Point 9: The villain or Deflector conflict stops the hero
or threatens the emotional stakes.
On the way, Luke and Obi-Wan find the Jawas dead. Luke races home,
fearing the worst.
Plot Point 10: The depth of feeling between the hero and the
stakes character, or the severity of the threat to the victims,
becomes evident.
Luke finds his aunt and uncle murdered and the farm destroyed.
Plot Point 11: The Deflector or Antagonist threatens to take
the stakes character from the hero.
Back on the Death Star, Darth Vader wants Princess Leia to tell him where
the rebel base is. Vader is going to drug Leia to get the information. For the
first time, we see that Leia is frightened.
Plot Point 12: The hero decides that he or she must act to
save the stakes character.
Back on Tatooine, Luke goes back to Obi-Wan and says that he wants to
be a Jedi like his father.
THE CENTRAL QUESTION
Will Luke destroy the Death Star (physical), save the Princess
(emotional), and become a Jedi like his father (spiritual)?
ACT 2, PART I: THI WAMDIRIR
Yes 1: He goes to Mos Eisley with Obi-Wan and the droids.
No 1: They are stopped by Stormtroopers.
Yes 2: Obi-Wan uses the Force and they get past.
No 2: They go to a bar. Luke is attacked.
 Yes 3: Obi-Wan saves him. They find Han Solo. A deal is made. No 3:
Han is going to be killed by Greedo.
Yes 4: Han kills Greedo. He leaves the bar. Luke sells the Speeder. They
have enough to pay Han for the moment.
No 4: They are followed to the spaceport.
Yes 5: Unaware that they were followed, they prepare to take off.
No 5: They are fired on by troopers.
Yes 6: They blast off and escape.
No 6: They are followed out of orbit and fired upon.
Yes 7: Jump to hyperspace. Luke practices the Force.
No 7: They come out of hyperspace to find Alderaan destroyed. They’re
fired on by the TIE Fighter.
ACT 2, PART 2: THE WARRIOR
Yes 8: They chase the fighter and are ready to destroy it.
No 8: The see the Death Star. They can’t escape and are pulled into the
Death Star.
Yes 9: They hide in the cargo hold and then attack the soldiers, taking
their uniforms.
No 9: They enter the communications room. Obi-Wan leaves to shut off
the tractor beam.
Yes 10: They discover that the Princess is being held in the detention area
and decide to go after her.
No 10: They are discovered in the cellblock and attacked.
Yes 11: They get to the Princess and shoot their way out and into the trash
compactor.
No 11: Luke is pulled under by a monster.
Yes 12: Luke is released by the monster — he’s safe!
No 12: The trash compactor is turned on. Everyone will die!
Yes 13: R2-D2 saves them and they escape.
No 13: They are chased throughout the Death Star.
Yes 14: They get to the Millennium Falcon, thanks to Obi-Wan distracting
the troopers by fighting Darth Vader.
No 14: Obi-Wan is killed. They escape from the Death Star but are
immediately pursued.
ACT 3: THE MARTYR
Big Yes: They destroy the TIE Fighters and get away, take the plans to the
rebel base, and discover a weakness in the Death Star. They will attack.
No: They discover that they had a tracking beacon on them. The Death
Star is closing in on the rebel base.
Big No: Big fight. X-Wings are getting destroyed left and right. The
Death Star is too much for them. It comes down to Luke, who shuts off his
targeting computer. Vader is going to kill him.
Final Yes: Han swoops in; Luke uses the Force and destroys the Death
Star. The Princess is safe.
 THE DARK KNIGHT
By David S. Goyer
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Who is your hero? Bruce Wayne/Batman.
2. What is your hero trying to accomplish? Physical: Stop the Joker.
Emotional: Get Rachel to love him. Spiritual: Figure out how far he can go
before he ceases being the hero and becomes the villain.
3. Who is trying to stop your hero? The Joker, Maroni’s mob, Two-Face,
Gotham’s thugs, Harvey Dent… and anybody who thinks Batman is a bad
guy or challenges his methods. To an extent, Rachel also threatens to pull
him off the path.
4. What happens if your hero fails? The Joker will crush Gotham’s spirit,
murder hundreds of innocents, and destroy everything that Bruce
Wayne/Batman holds dear.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
1. How is your hero an Orphan in act 1? Bruce Wayne is an Orphan, and
the vigilante known as Batman is an outlaw. Being Batman also makes him
an outcast, literally and figuratively. Bruce is destined to be alone for as long
as he wears the mask.
2. How is your hero a Wanderer in the first half of act 2? Wayne tries to
figure out the Joker’s plan, how to catch him, and what it’ll take to defeat
him. He also questions what kind of hero Gotham needs: the Dark Knight
(him) or the White Knight (Dent). Wayne initially believes that Batman has
no limits, but soon learns that this is not true.
3. How is your hero a Warrior in the second half of act 2? Batman
attempts to turn Gotham over to the White Knight, but when Dent claims
he’s Batman to lure the Joker out, Batman is compelled to save Dent. When
the plan fails, Batman has to fight the Joker to save not only Dent, but
Rachel, thousands of innocents, and Gotham’s very soul.
4. How is your hero a Martyr in act 3? If Gotham discovered that the
Joker corrupted its White Knight, its spirit would be crushed. Not only is
Batman willing to die to stop Two-Face (“point the gun at those
responsible”), but he breaks his one rule by killing him to save Gordon’s
family. Batman then takes the blame for Two-Face’s deeds, so Gotham never
knows what happened. He becomes the hero Gotham needs, even if that
means being the villain. Batman becomes the “Dark Knight.”
THE QUICKPITCH
When a masked vigilante forces the mob to turn to the maniacal Joker,
Batman realizes not only that he’s up against a criminal he can’t understand,
but that he also has limits, making him wonder if the new DA (Gotham’s
White Knight) is the hero Gotham needs, only to discover that the Joker
wants nothing more than to get under his skin by killing Rachel and destroy
Gotham’s spirit by bringing Gotham’s White Knight down to the criminals’
level. Batman must now figure out how to stop the Joker without becoming
the villain.
ACT I: THE ORPHAN
Plot Point 1: We meet either the hero, victim/stakes
character, or the villain.
The Joker (villain) robs a bank, stealing the mob’s money.
Plot Point 2: We see the hero’s flaw in relation to the stakes
character.
Batman copycats try to stop a deal between the Scarecrow and the mob.
The real Batman (hero) stops the fight. His method of fighting crime leaves
him outcast and alone, compared to Rachel’s approach to crime fighting.
Batman tells the copycats, “I don’t need help.” Scarecrow says, “Not my
diagnosis.”
Plot Point 3: If we haven’t met our villain, we do now. If
we’ve already met the villain, this amplifies what we already
know.
Gordon arrives at the bank. Ramirez (Doubter) says of the Joker, “He
can’t resist showing us his face.” (The Joker will call for Batman to take off
his mask.) Batman meets Gordon (Believer). He wants to move against the
mob now. The Joker can wait — he’s just one man. Gordon mentions that
the new DA is going to want in. (Harvey later becomes the Joker’s weapon.)
At Batman’s temporary hideout, Alfred (Protector) tells Bruce to know his
limits, but Bruce claims Batman has no limits. (The Joker’s all about making
Batman break his one rule.)
 Plot Point 4: The (or “A”) Deflector slows the hero down or
pulls the hero off the path.
Bruce has been watching the new DA, Harvey Dent, and realizes that
Harvey’s a crime fighter who has public support, success… and Rachel. He’s
making a lot of sacrifices being Batman. At Wayne Enterprises, an executive
named Reese (Deflector) is suspicious about where Bruce spends his money.
Fox (Thinker) deflects him. Bruce has dinner with Harvey (Deflector) and
Rachel (Feeler), realizing that Harvey supports Batman’s cause. Harvey:
“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the
villain.” Harvey thinks Batman is looking for someone to take over, maybe
him. Wayne sees how close Rachel and Harvey are, punctuating what he’s
missing, and wonders if Harvey might be the hero Gotham really needs.
Wayne offers to throw a fundraiser for Harvey.
Plot Point 5: Inciting incident — the hero now becomes
emotionally involved.
The Joker meets with Maroni’s mob. The Joker is aware of Dent, but
thinks Batman is their real problem. He offers to take care of Batman and
tells them to give him a call when they want to take things a little more
seriously….
Plot Point 6: This is the statement of your hero’s goal as it
relates to the stakes character or love interest. Your hero’s
problem is made clear to audience.
Bruce considers Harvey as Gotham’s new protector, realizing his
shortcomings regarding his approach to crime fighting, and Rachel.
Plot Point 7: An ally (either a true or an unintentional one)
helps propel your hero out of his or her comfort zone.
Because Lau fled to Hong Kong, Bruce is forced into action as Batman in
order to retrieve him, so Harvey can make him “sing” (“Batman has no
jurisdiction”). Dent uses Lau to send the mob to court, prompting them to
hire the Joker, who says that “Batman is the real problem.”
Plot Point 8: The hero seems ready to move forward towards
his or her goal and/or towards the stakes character, but just
can’t do it.
Bruce is preparing for the fundraiser, and Alfred half-kids him about
doing it just to impress Rachel. Then they see the Joker’s torture video of a
Batman impersonator. “If you want order in Gotham, Batman must take off
his mask.” Bruce decides to go ahead with the fundraiser instead of stopping
the Joker.
Plot Point 9: The villain or Deflector conflict stops the hero
or threatens the emotional stakes.
Bruce tells Rachel that Harvey is the hero Gotham really needs, a hero
without a mask. Maybe they could be together… That’s when Dent pulls
Rachel away to propose to her.
Plot Point 10: The depth of feeling between the hero and the
stakes character, or the severity of the threat to the victims,
becomes evident.
The Joker assassinates the judge and the commissioner. Harvey’s next on
the list and, by extension, so is Rachel. The mayor tells Harvey that every
criminal in Gotham will come for him now. The Joker throws a “Batman
corpse” at the mayor’s office. He soon sends out his video message, calling
for Batman to take off his mask, or he’ll kill people.
Plot Point 11: The Deflector or Antagonist threatens to take
the stakes character from the hero.
The Joker crashes the fundraiser, searching for Harvey, but finding and
threatening “Harvey’s squeeze.”
Plot Point 12: The hero decides he or she must act to save the
stakes character.
Bruce changes into Batman to confront the Joker at the party and save
both Harvey and Rachel.
THE CENTRAL QUESTION
Will Batman stop the Joker, get Rachel to love him, and learn how far he
can go before he ceases being the hero and becomes the villain?
ACT 2, PART I: THE WANDERER
Yes 1: Batman defeats the Joker’s cronies.
No 1: The Joker throws Rachel out of a window, buying himself time to
escape.
Yes 2: Batman leaps out of the window and saves her. Harvey’s safe, too.
No 2: Everybody thinks Gordon/Batman/Dent’s operation is over.
Nobody’s going to stand up to the Joker, a man without rules.
 Yes 3: Harvey stays in Gotham despite being targeted by the Joker. He
plans to get Lau to testify. Bruce tries to figure out what the Joker wants.
No 3: Alfred tells Bruce about a bandit his old army unit once chased. The
bandit was in it purely for the chaos. Alfred explains that Bruce may not
understand the Joker. Some men aren’t after anything logical. They can’t be
bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch
the world burn.
Yes 4: Batman takes to the streets, listening for the Joker. He picks up the
Joker’s voice saying they’ll find “Harvey Dent” at a certain address.
No 4: The Joker is toying with them… They find two separate victims
named Harvey and Dent. The Joker left them a clue that he’s going after the
mayor at tomorrow’s parade. Gordon lets Batman examine the scene,
shouting down Ramirez’s claims that Batman is responsible. Batman takes a
ballistics sample, hoping to find fingerprints. Reese suspects that Bruce is
Batman and threatens Fox with blackmail.
Yes 5: Fox dares Reese to blackmail someone as powerful as Bruce
Wayne. Reese backs off. With Alfred’s and Fox’s help, Bruce obtains a
fingerprint. They cross-reference it with addresses near the parade, and get a
hit.
No 5: Bruce finds the apartment… but his skills are little match for the
Joker’s crazed genius — it’s all a set-up! Bruce looks out a window just as a
timer causes its blinds to spring up, distracting Gordon’s men who are
looking for a shooter. The Joker (hiding in plain sight) fires at the mayor, but
Gordon takes the bullet and seemingly dies. The Joker escapes. Harvey
questions one of the Joker’s captured henchmen, only to find that he’s
wearing a “Rachel Dawes” nametag. Furious, Harvey kidnaps the henchman.
Yes 6: Devastated about Gordon’s death, Batman grabs Maroni from his
club to find the Joker’s location. He breaks Maroni’s legs….
No 6: But he can’t kill him, and Maroni won’t talk. Maroni says that
nobody is going to cross the Joker for Batman. Everybody knows he has
rules… but the Joker’s got NO rules. Maroni tells Batman the only way he’ll
get the Joker is by taking off his mask. Or will he let more people die while
he makes up his mind? Harvey tries to find out what the Joker’s got in store
for Rachel, but the henchman won’t talk. Harvey’s about to demonstrate his
version of “justice” — the coin. As Harvey moves to kill….
Yes 7: Batman stops Harvey (before he becomes the villain). Dent is the
first ray of light Gotham has seen in decades. He’s the symbol of hope that
Batman can never be. If anyone saw this, all of it would be undone. The
criminals would be released, Gordon would have died for nothing. The Joker
will win. (Third-act solution): Batman tells Dent to hold a press conference;
he’s going to turn himself in. Gotham is in Dent’s hands now.
No 7: Rachel doesn’t think that Bruce’s quitting will stop the Joker. Bruce
thinks he has enough blood on his hands. He knows now what he would
have to become to stop men like the Joker. Rachel reminds Bruce that if he
turns himself in, they can never be together. Bruce and Alfred shut down
their base. Alfred wants him to endure. People will hate him for it, but that’s
the point of Batman: He can be the outcast. (Third-act solution reiterated):
Bruce found out Batman’s limits today; he can’t endure this.
ACT 2, PART 2: THE WARRIOR
Yes 8: Bruce is about to turn himself in at the press conference….
No 8: But Harvey claims that he’s Batman. He’s taken into custody.
Rachel doesn’t understand why Bruce let Harvey take the fall. Alfred
explains — Harvey and Bruce understand that Batman stands for something
more than the whims of a terrorist. Even if Bruce hates it, that’s the sacrifice
he’s making. He’s NOT being the hero. Rachel thinks Bruce is being a
coward. She gives Alfred a letter for Bruce.
Yes 9: Rachel learns that Harvey is using himself as a lure for the Joker,
trusting Batman to do the right thing and save him. During Harvey’s transfer
to another prison, the Joker attacks. Batman comes to the rescue.
No 9: The Joker tears apart Gotham trying to get Harvey. He even
destroys the Batmobile. Batman switches to the Batpod, and has a chance to
kill the Joker, but can’t break his one rule. Batman falls off the Batpod,
leaving him at the Joker’s mercy….
Yes 10: Gordon captures the Joker and saves Batman — he was on the
SWAT team! Harvey thanks Batman for saving him. Ramirez directs Harvey
to a car that’ll take him to Rachel. Gordon becomes the new commissioner,
and goes home to his family.
No 10: Gordon is called back to the station — Harvey has gone missing.
Gordon interrogates the Joker, but he won’t talk. But Batman’s there. He
takes a more brutal approach. The Joker thinks the only way to live in this
world is without rules, and tonight he’s going to make Batman break his one
rule. The Joker reveals that he’s taken not only Harvey, but Rachel too.
 Yes 11: Batman finally gets his hands dirty and brutally tries to beat their
locations out of the Joker.
No 11: The Joker just laughs at him. Batman is powerless… nothing can
intimidate this clown. “You have nothing to frighten me with. Nothing to do
with all of your strength.” The Joker provides their locations of his own
whim, because he wants to see whom Batman chooses.
Yes 12: Batman goes after Rachel, leaving Harvey for Gordon.
No 12: The Joker switched their addresses. Gordon is too late to save
Rachel and she dies. Batman saves Harvey, but he’s severely burned. The
Joker planned everything. He escapes prison with Lau. Alfred reads Rachel’s
letter stating that she loves Harvey. A distraught Bruce thinks he let that
maniac blow Gotham’s real hero half to hell. He failed Harvey, Rachel, and
Gotham. He failed as a hero, and he’s powerless to do anything about it.
Perhaps worse, Bruce thinks Rachel was waiting for him, and now he’s truly
alone, a powerless “hero.”
Yes 13: Alfred consoles Wayne. Rachel believed in what he fought for.
Gotham will have to make do with Batman. Bruce asks how Alfred caught
the bandit long ago. Alfred, “We burned down the forest.”
No 13: Harvey is alive, horribly disfigured, and blames Gordon for
Rachel’s death. The Joker consolidates power — Gotham is his city now. He
kills Lau. Reese threatens to reveal Batman’s identity on TV. The Joker calls
the show — he doesn’t want Reese spoiling the fun. If Reese isn’t dead in
sixty minutes, the Joker will blow up a hospital. The Joker’s total power
over Gotham is demonstrated as the streets erupt in chaos. The Joker
manages to corrupt Gotham’s White Knight, Harvey, creating Two-Face.
Yes 14: Wayne and Gordon overcome the chaos in Gotham, keeping
Reese safe and making sure nobody dies in the ensuing hospital explosion.
No 14: The Joker kidnaps a bus full of hostages, then brings Gotham to a
standstill by threatening the ”traffic crowd.” Two-Face goes on a rampage,
delivering his “justice” to those he feels are responsible for Rachel’s death,
including Maroni. He soon forces Ramirez to lure Gordon’s wife and kids to
him. Fox discovers that Bruce has taken his echolocation device and turned
it into a tool to spy on the entire city. He fears Batman has gone too far…
The Joker hijacks two boats full of people, and sets up his “bomb game.”
ACT 3: THE MARTYR
 Big Yes: Bruce knows this is too much power for one man; that’s why he
built the device so that only Fox could use it and destroy it once Batman has
the Joker. (Batman has to break rules to take out the Joker, but he won’t be
corrupted by it and become the villain.) They use the device to find the
Joker. He’s in a building full of his clown thugs. Batman calls Gordon,
securing a few minutes to go in before SWAT to stop the Joker from blowing
up the boats. Batman discovers that the clowns are the hostages, and now
has to fight SWAT in addition to the Joker’s goons. He manages to save the
hostages, those on board the boats, and capture the Joker….
No: But he hasn’t beaten him. Far from it. Joker: “You didn’t think I’d
risk losing the fight for Gotham’s soul in a fistfight with you. No, you need
an ace in the hole. Mine’s Harvey. I took Gotham’s White Knight, and I
brought him down to our level.” Once Gotham sees what he did to their
White Knight, the city’s spirit will break, and he will win!
Big No: Batman finds Two-Face. He explains that the Joker wants to
prove that even someone as good as the White Knight could fall. Batman
convinces Two-Face to point the gun at the people responsible. Two-Face
judges Batman and shoots him; he judges himself and lives. Then, instead of
judging Gordon, he decides to take away his son. It’s only “fair.” Batman
intervenes and kills Two-Face.
Final Yes: After what the Joker did to their White Knight, the people will
lose hope. Fox destroys the echolocation device. To save the city, Batman
takes the blame for Two-Face’s acts. He becomes the hero Gotham needs —
the villain they need to chase, because he can take it. Batman becomes the
Dark Knight.
 THE SIXTH SENSE
By M. Night Shyamalan
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Who is your hero? Dr. Crowe.
2. What is your hero trying to accomplish? Save Cole from hearing
voices.
3. Who is trying to stop your hero? Cole.
4. What happens if your hero fails? Cole will become homicidal and
suicidal like the young man who shot Crowe at the start of the film.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
1. How is your hero an Orphan in act 1? He is shot by Vincent and
becomes estranged from his wife.
2. How is your hero a Wanderer in the first half of act 2? He tries to figure
out the way to get Cole to trust him and tell him his “secret.”
3. How is your hero a Warrior in the second half of act 2? He fights to
believe Cole, and then once he does, he fights to help Cole be free of the
dead people who speak to him.
4. How is your hero a Martyr in act 3? He gives up his connection to Cole,
comes to peace with his situation with his wife, and moves on with his
“life.”
THE QUICKPITCH
When a “broken” child psychologist takes on a new patient with a secret,
he tries to get the child to confide in him, only to discover that the child can
“see dead people.” Knowing that this child is similar to another patient of
his from years ago, who took his own life, the psychologist must fight to save
this child from the same fate, ultimately being forced to confront his own
issues and his own “secret.”
ACT 1: THE ORPHAN
Plot Point 1: We meet either the hero, victim/stakes
character, or the villain.
Anna enters the basement cellar to select a bottle of wine. She shivers
from the cold, then quickly goes back up the stairs.
 Plot Point 2: We see the hero’s flaw in relation to the stakes
character.
In the living room, Crowe and Anna sit by the fire drinking the wine.
Anna reads the award Crowe has received from the mayor of Philadelphia
for his dedication in child psychology. It is this dedication to his work that
has put Anna second.
Plot Point 3: If we haven’t met our villain, we do now. If
we’ve already met the villain, this amplifies what we already
know.
Crowe and Anna retire to the bedroom to discover the window broken and
someone in the bathroom. After confronting the intruder, Crowe learns that
he is, in fact, an old patient, Vincent Grey. Vincent accuses Crowe of not
helping him. He then shoots Crowe in the stomach.
Plot Point 4: The (or “A”) Deflector slows the hero down or
pulls the hero off the path.
The following fall, Crowe watches Cole, a young boy, leave his
apartment. Crowe follows Cole down the street to a cathedral.
Plot Point 5: Inciting incident — the hero now becomes
emotionally involved.
Cole hides amongst the church pews. He plays with toy soldiers and
religious statuettes and speaks to himself in Latin. Crowe introduces himself
to Cole. As they speak, Crowe notices some scratches on Cole’s wrist. Cole
leaves and on his way out the door he steals a statuette.
Plot Point 6: This is the statement of your hero’s goal as it
relates to the stakes character or love interest. Your hero’s
problem is made clear to audience.
Crowe returns home. He notices that Anna has eaten dinner without him
and is now asleep on the couch. Crowe walks over to the basement door but
it is locked.
Plot Point 7: An ally (either a true or an unintentional one)
helps propel your hero out of his or her comfort zone.
Crowe is at his table in the basement, working through his notes. He
translates the Latin that Cole was intoning. “Out of the depths, I cry out to
you, O Lord.”
 Plot Point 8: The hero seems ready to move forward towards
his or her goal and/or towards the stakes character, but just
can’t do it.
Cole’s mother is getting ready for work. She notices that Cole, who is at
the kitchen table eating breakfast, has stained his tie, and she returns to the
laundry to fetch a clean tie. When she returns to the kitchen she is shocked to
discover that Cole has not moved from his place at the table but all of the
cupboard doors and draws are open. After leaving for school with Tommy,
she notes Cole’s sweaty hand print on the table.
Plot Point 9: The villain or Deflector conflict stops the hero
or threatens the emotional stakes.
Tommy walks with Cole on the way to school. He calls Cole a “freak.”
Plot Point 10: The depth of feeling between the hero and the
stakes character, or the severity of the threat to the victims,
becomes evident.
Cole stands alone outside the school after the bell has rung for class to go
in. He stares at the red main doors, unable to go in.
Plot Point 11: The Deflector or Antagonist threatens to take
the stakes character from the hero.
Cole gets home from school. Crowe sits across from his mother in the
living room. Cole and his mother tell each other about their day. Crowe
plays a game with Cole in a failed attempt to get Cole to sit down for their
session. Cole tells Crowe he’s nice but that he can’t help him.
Plot Point 12: The hero decides he or she must act to save the
stakes character.
Crowe is late for dinner with Anna. He tells her about the similarities
between Cole and Grey. Anna leaves. It’s their wedding anniversary.
THE CENTRAL QUESTION
Will Dr. Crowe save Cole, mend his relationship with his wife, and get
over his guilt about not having saved his patient, Vincent?
ACT 2, PART 1: THE WANDERER
Yes 1: Crowe and Cole walk down the street. Cole tells Crowe that he
doesn’t want his mother to know he’s a freak.
 No 1: Cole’s mother is cleaning the house. She pauses to look at some
photos of Cole hanging on the wall and notices in each photo, a light near his
head.
Yes 2: At Cole’s house, Crowe and Cole talk. Crowe asks Cole about his
father and if he has ever tried free-association writing.
No 2: Meanwhile, Cole’s mother is cleaning his room when she discovers
examples of Cole’s free-association exercises. They are about people killing
and hurting each other.
Yes 3: Crowe asks what their goal should be. Cole doesn’t want to be
afraid anymore.
No 3: Crowe is in the basement working when there is a knock at the front
door. Anna answers, and it is her employee from the antique store. He invites
her out to visit the Amish. She declines. Cole is in class. He answers a
question the teacher has asked. The teacher looks at him funny, and Cole
gets upset, repeatedly calling the teacher his old nickname, “Stuttering
Stanley.” The teacher calls Cole a “freak.”
Yes 4: Crowe and Cole sit in the library. Cole doesn’t want to talk. Crowe
performs a cheap magic trick. Cole tells him it isn’t magic. Crowe arrives
home. On the TV, the video of his wedding to Anna is playing. The video
shows Anna’s best friend who says, “Anna was in love with you from the
very first moment you met.”
No 4: Crowe walks into the bedroom. Anna is taking a shower. Crowe
discovers a bottle of antidepressants that Anna is taking, in the medicine
cabinet.
Yes 5: Cole is at a birthday party and is performing the magic trick to a
friend.
No 5: The friend thinks the trick is stupid and asks for his penny back.
Yes 6: Cole’s mother attempts small talk with another mother….
No 6: … as Cole fallows a red balloon to the top of the stairwell. At the
top he hears someone in a closet calling for help, claiming he didn’t steal the
master’s horse. Two of the birthday guests, Darren and Tommy, notice Cole
upstairs. They walk up to the top and ask if Cole wants to play “Locked in
the Dungeon.” After the two boys lock Cole in the closet, the balloon pops
and Cole is screaming. His mother comes racing up and can’t open the door
to the closet.
 Yes 7: At the hospital a doctor tells Cole’s mother that Cole is okay, but he
is concerned about some bruises and scratches on Cole. The doctor asks her
to speak with a social worker. Crowe is there also.
No 7: Crowe visits Cole in his hospital room. He attempts a bedtime story.
Cole wants to hear the story why Crowe is so sad. Crowe tells him he is sad
because he couldn’t help Vincent Grey and that he doesn’t speak to his wife
anymore.
ACT 2, PART 2: THE WARRIOR
Yes 8: Cole admits he sees dead people. They don’t know they’re dead
and they only see what they want to see.
No 8: Crowe leaves the hospital and records into a Dictaphone an
unfavorable analysis of Cole. He’s not helping him.
Yes 9: Cole and mother arrive home. She puts Cole to bed.
No 9: She notices a cut in one of Cole’s red jumpers and finds a
corresponding bruise on Cole. She calls Tommy’s mother, telling her to stop
Tommy from laying his hands on her son.
Yes 10: Cole wakes up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
Cole gets a chill. He walks into the kitchen hoping it is his mother….
No 10:… but it’s a ghost. Cole runs to his room to hide in his red tent. It’s
full of religious statuettes.
Yes 11: At the school play, the narrator begins, “Once there was a boy, a
strange boy….” After the play, Crowe and Cole walk down a school
corridor. Crowe wants to know more about what Cole sees.
No 11: Cole stops suddenly. He sees people hanging from the rafters.
Crowe doesn’t see them. Cole wants Crowe to make them leave. He’s
working on it.
Yes 12: Cole and his mother leave a supermarket; she pushes a shopping
cart with Cole riding in the front.
No 12: Cole sees Tommy on the TV and turns it off. The heating in the
house is broken. Cole and his mother sit down at the table for dinner. His
mother wants Cole to confess to taking his grandmother’s bumblebee pin.
Cole gives her an unsatisfactory explanation and is sent to his room without
any dinner. “If we can’t speak to each other, we aren’t going to make it.”
Cole sees the ghost of a boy go into his room.
Yes 13: Cole asks his mother if he can sleep in her bed if she’s not too
angry. She asks why he is shaking.
 No 13: Anna sells a diamond ring to a couple. She then gives a present to
her employee for his birthday. They kiss, and suddenly a pane of glass in the
door is smashed. Crowe is walking away down a side street. We hear a voice
over of what Crowe wants — to speak with his wife again. Crowe tells Cole
he can’t help him and that he’s going to transfer him. Cole asks if Crowe
believes his secret. Cole says to Crowe, “How can you help me if you don’t
believe me. Some magic is real.”
Yes 14: Crowe is listening to a cassette of a session with Vincent Grey. He
hears proof that a ghost is speaking on the tape and hears Vincent scared and
shaking. At the church Crowe meets up with Cole. “Have you been running
around?” asks Cole. Crowe asks Cole what the ghosts want when they speak
to him. “They want help.”
No 14: Crowe sees Anna’s employee leaving his apartment.
ACT 3: THE MARTYR
Big Yes: Back in his room, Cole hears a ghost. He goes into his tent.
There, a girl is throwing up. He runs out of the room but then goes back to
the tent. He asks the ghost if she needs to talk.
No: Cole and Crowe take a bus ride to the girl’s house. He’s clearly
nervous about what he’s about to do. People are arriving after a funeral. Cole
points out the ghost’s sister.
Big No: The house is full of people. Cole goes to the girl’s bedroom and
meets up with the ghost, of whom he is horribly frightened. She gives him a
box.
Final Yes: Cole gives the box to the father of the ghost, who finds out that
his daughter was poisoned by the mother. On the way out, Cole gives the
sister of the ghost a gift she wanted her to have. Cole is talking to a ghost
when his teacher calls him for his part in the play. Cole has the part of
Arthur and he comes on to pull the sword out of the stone, thus becoming
King Arthur. Tommy has the part of the village idiot. Crowe says goodbye to
Cole. Cole and his mother are in a traffic jam. There has been an accident.
Cole tells her about his secret and also tells his mother the truth about the
bumblebee pin. Crowe arrives home. His wedding video is on the TV again.
Anna is asleep on the couch. Crowe talks to her as she sleeps. She drops his
wedding ring on the floor. Crowe walks over to the basement door and sees
that it is blocked by a table. Crowe realizes that he is dead. We are back at
the moment when Crowe is shot by Vincent Grey. He tells Anna that the
pain is okay: “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Crowe says good-bye to Anna and
tells her that she was never second. We see Crowe and Anna on their
wedding day. They embrace and kiss.
 LIAR LIAR
By Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Who is your hero? Fletcher.
2. What is your hero trying to accomplish? Win the case while keeping his
wife from taking his son away from him.
3. Who is trying to stop your hero? His wife.
4. What happens if your hero fails? His son will be moved away across
the country.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
1. How is your hero an Orphan in act 1? He is divorced and cut off from
his wife and son, both of whom he still loves. And when he is cursed to tell
the truth, he finds that he can’t be with people without causing great trouble.
2. How is your hero a Wanderer in the first half of act 2? He is cursed with
having to tell the truth and tries to figure out how to break the curse.
Additionally, he tries to figure out what he needs to do to prove to Audrey
that he is a good father to Max.
3. How is your hero a Warrior in the second half of act 2? He fights to
finish the case so he can get to Max before Audrey takes him away.
4. How is your hero a Martyr in act 3? He gives up the partnership at the
firm in order to chase after his son.
THE QUICKPITCH
When a selfish, dishonest lawyer misses his son’s birthday because of
getting a big case, his son makes a birthday wish that his dad must tell the
truth for twenty-four hours. The wish comes true, and the lawyer tries to
figure out what’s happening to him while he continues to figure out how to
win the case, only to discover that his lies have caught up with him and his
wife is now going to move his son across the country. The lawyer must now
fight to win the case (without being able to lie!) while proving to his wife
that he’s really a good father. He wins the case, gives up being partner, and
races to the airport and risks his life to stop the plane from leaving with his
wife and son on it.
ACT 1: THE ORPHAN
 Plot Point 1: We meet either the hero, victim/stakes
character, or the villain.
We see Max at school, who says to his class, ”My Dad is a liar.”
Plot Point 2: We see the hero’s flaw in relation to the stakes
character.
Dad talks to lawyers instead of going to see his son. Max waits for Dad.
Dad arrives, loves his son. Makes up some story about why he’s late.
Plot Point 3: If we haven’t met our villain, we do now. If
we’ve already met the villain, this amplifies what we already
know.
Meet Jerry. He’s moving to Boston. He goes to play with Max. We get the
feeling that Jerry would be a more attentive father than Fletcher.
Plot Point 4: The (or “A”) Deflector slows the hero down or
pulls the hero off the path.
Fletcher takes Max to the office. Miranda wants to find someone who will
lie to win the case. Extended office scene. Lots of lies and info about
wanting to make partner. Blows off wrestling to take the case.
Plot Point 5: Inciting incident — the hero now becomes
emotionally involved.
Jerry proposes. Audrey doesn’t answer yet.
Plot Point 6: This is the statement of your hero’s goal as it
relates to the stakes character or love interest. Your hero’s
problem is made clear to audience.
Fletcher gives Max birthday stuff and promises to play with him “after
your party tonight.” He goes back to work. Max is upset.
Plot Point 7: An ally (either a true or an unintentional one)
helps propel your hero out of his or her comfort zone.
Mom and Jerry pick up Max. Audrey wants to talk to Fletcher. He
obviously doesn’t remember the party… again. They’re going to talk tonight
after the party.
Plot Point 8: The hero seems ready to move forward towards
his or her goal and/or towards the stakes character, but just
can’t do it.
 Fletcher meets Mrs. Cole and sells the approach to the trial. He convinces
her that she’s the victim. Mrs. Cole says that she offered joint custody and
that her ex-husband is a wonderful father. Fletcher gets her all fired up, and
is promised that he will be made partner if he wins.
Plot Point 9: The villain or Deflector conflict stops the hero
or threatens the emotional stakes.
Fletcher is seduced by Miranda.
Plot Point 10: The depth of feeling between the hero and the
stakes character, or the severity of the threat to the victims,
becomes evident.
At the birthday party, Audrey turns Jerry down, recognizing that Max
loves Fletcher.
Plot Point 11: The Deflector or Antagonist threatens to take
the stakes character from the hero.
Audrey gets called by Fletcher. He’s with Miranda. Says he can’t come to
the party. Promises to pick Max up tomorrow at school. Max is upset at the
party that Fletcher isn’t there. Audrey promises him that Fletcher will pick
him up at school. He makes his wish.
Plot Point 12: The hero decides he or she must act to save the
stakes character.
Fletcher insults Miranda and gets kicked out of his office. He wakes up
the next morning, and thinks that what he said was funny. He insults a
woman in the elevator and insults a beggar on his way to the courthouse. He
can’t speak to the defense council. The judge enters. Fletcher wants a
continuance.
THE CENTRAL QUESTION
Will Fletcher learn not to lie, stop Max from going to Boston, and learn
how to become a good father?
ACT 2, PART 1: THE WANDERER
Yes 1: He takes a taxi to Audrey’s house.
No 1: She’s upset with him for being late. She takes him to get his car. A
guy in the garage lies about the scratch on the car.
Yes 2: Fletcher doesn’t want Audrey to go. He confesses that he’s a bad
father. Big moment of realization.
 No 2: Audrey doesn’t want to change her mind.
Yes 3: He’s given one more chance to show up tonight at 6 p.m. Audrey
tells him about the birthday wish.
No 3: Fletcher goes to school to get Max and tells Max that the wish came
true. He wants Max to reverse the wish so that he can lie. He goes to test it
out and gets slapped. Max can’t unwish it. He tells Max that he’s coming
over tonight.
Yes 4: Fletcher goes back to the office and tells Greta that the wish came
true. Miranda overhears. Greta asks him about a raise.
No 4: Can’t get continuance. Greta quits.
Yes 5: Back to court. Mrs. Cole brings kid to court. (Kids are stakes
characters.)
No 5: Miranda brings him into the conference room to meet the head of
the partnership meeting. He insults him, but the guy laughs. Thinks it’s
funny. “I love a good roast.” Insults everyone. Backfires on Miranda.
Yes 6: Fletcher takes a bathroom break (pay-off from him drinking lots of
water).
No 6: Beats himself up.
Yes 7: Fletcher is brought back to courtroom. Can you proceed?
No 7: Yes. Short recess is called.
ACT 2, PART 2: THE WARRIOR
Yes 8: Gets phone call from Max. All about playing ball. Sweet phone
call. Max is all excited.
No 8: We know from Audrey’s face that she’s skeptical. Mrs. Cole and
lover outside of courtroom.
Yes 9: Trial proceeds. Lover on the stand.
No 9: Fletcher badgers lover.
Yes 10: Calls Mrs. Cole to the stand. Gets her to admit that she lied about
her age. Wins the case.
No 10: Mrs. Cole contests custody. I’m the victim here; you said it
yourself. This is symbolic of the attack on the kids.
Yes 11: Emotional moment for Fletcher. He sees a good father.
No 11: I hold myself in contempt. It’s my last chance.
Yes 12: Phone call to Audrey.
No 12: She’s taking Max away.
 Yes 13: Greta bails Fletcher out. Thinks he’s fired. “This truth stuff is
pretty cool.”
No 13: Audrey and Max meet Jerry at the airport.
Yes 14: Audrey obviously isn’t as excited about Jerry. Neither is Max.
No 14: They’re on the plane, leaving.
ACT 3: THE MARTYR
Big Yes: Fletcher arrives at the airport.
No: Plane has already boarded. Fletcher stows away on baggage conveyor
belt.
Big No: Plane has left the gate. It’s taxiing away.
Final Yes: Audrey is very tense on the flight and she wants an alcoholic
drink. Fletcher bursts out of the bag. Chases after Max on the stairwell. Jerry
tells Audrey that he loves her. Fletcher finds Max on the plane. Goes to cut
the plane off. Gets tossed off the stairwell. Fletcher tells the truth about how
much he loves Max, not because he’s compelled to but because he wants to.
The curse is lifted. Flash forward to a year later. It’s Max’s birthday again
and we see that the family is back together.
 UP
By Pete Docter and Bob Peterson
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Who is your hero? The main character is Carl Fredricksen, a widowed
balloon salesman.
2. What is your hero trying to accomplish? Carl is trying fulfill the dream
of his late wife Ellie by going to Paradise Falls in Argentina.
3. Who is trying to stop your hero? Trying to stop Carl from reaching his
destination is Charles Muntz, the adventurer and Carl’s boyhood hero.
4. What happens if your hero fails? If Carl fails, he and his accidental
ward, Russell, will die.
THE FOUR ARCHETYPES
1. How is your hero an Orphan in act 1? Carl is an Orphan when he loses
his childhood sweetheart and wife, Ellie. He then separates himself from the
world, wanting to be alone.
2. How is your hero a Wanderer in the first half of act 2? Carl is a
Wanderer as he and Russell land close to his destination in the jungle. They
discover a rare bird and come upon Carl’s childhood idol, Charles Muntz.
3. How is your hero a Warrior in the second half of act 2? Carl is a
Warrior as he fights Charles to protect both Russell and the bird.
4. How is your hero a Martyr in act 3? Carl is a Martyr as he gives up
home and his ties to Ellie to help Russell get home.
THE QUICKPITCH
When a lonely, bitter widower is threatened with being sent to a retirement
home, he escapes in his home propelled by balloons and with a young boy
accidentally along for the ride. Landing near his destination point, he
discovers both a rare bird and his childhood adventuring idol, only to
discover that his idol is a malicious man who is willing to do anything to
capture the bird. The widower must now risk everything, including his dream
of living out the rest of his life with the memories of his late wife, to save the
life of the bird and the young boy.
ACT 1: THE ORPHAN
 Plot Point 1: We meet either the hero, victim/stakes
character, or the villain.
We meet young Carl Fredricksen, who is in a movie theater with an
aviator hat and goggles, watching a newsreel centering around his hero
Charles Muntz. Charles is an adventurer who travels around the world. One
of his finds is called a fake, and Charles sets off in his dirigible, The Spirit of
Adventure, vowing to be vindicated.
Plot Point 2: We see the hero’s flaw in relation to the stakes
character.
As Carl races home wearing his goggles and carrying a balloon with “The
Spirit of Adventure” written on it, he hears noises coming from within an
old, abandoned home. He goes into the home where he meets someone just
as adventurous as he is — a tomboy by the name of Ellie, who is quite a
chatterbox, and she quickly accepts him into the club, pinning a badge on
him, making him the newest and only member of her adventurer’s club.
Carl, who let go of his “Spirit of Adventure” balloon, goes up to the attic to
retrieve it, only to fall through the ceiling and be taken to the hospital via
ambulance. In the hospital, Carl is visited by Ellie who shows him a
scrapbook of her adventures; a special section, what she plans to do, is
blank. Ellie leaves, and it’s obvious by the look on Carl’s face after she
leaves that he’s smitten by her.
Plot Point 3: If we haven’t met our villain, we do now. If
we’ve already met the villain, this amplifies what we already
know.
The rest of Carl and Ellie’s life together is told in a touching montage.
They get married and move into the old, abandoned house and fix it up.
They dream, looking up into the clouds, which take various shapes. Carl
starts his balloon business and Ellie accompanies him. They try to have
children, but Ellie miscarries. To cheer Ellie up, Carl decides to save up to
take her to her dream destination of Paradise Falls, but unfortunately, life
gets in the way, and they have to raid their savings. As they grow old
together, it’s Ellie, who had been the tomboy with boundless energy at first,
now having to be helped up the hill to their favorite place to lie together,
look up at the sky, and dream. In the hospital, Ellie pushes her scrapbook
toward Carl. Ellie dies, and Carl returns from the funeral home alone.
 Plot Point 4: The (or “A”) Deflector slows the hero down or
pulls the hero off the path.
Now a widower, we see Carl going through his lonely morning routine,
ending up going outside to sit on the porch. It’s here where we learn that
Carl’s house is surrounded by a major building project.
Plot Point 5: Inciting incident — the hero now becomes
emotionally involved.
As Carl goes outside to get the mail from his mailbox, which he and Ellie
painted together, he’s approached by the foreman of the building project who
informs him that the developer is offering him double the original asking
price for his home. Carl seizes the bullhorn from the foreman and tells the
somewhat faceless developer in the distance to get lost, and then goes back
inside his house.
Plot Point 6: This is the statement of your hero’s goal as it
relates to the stakes character or love interest. Your hero’s
problem is made clear to the audience.
As he rests inside his house, there’s a knock on the door, and he opens it
to find Russell, a wilderness explorer scout, who wants to earn his Assisting
the Elderly merit badge. At first, Carl tells him to go away, but realizing
there’s no getting rid of the kid, he sends the kid on a snipe hunt. Carl
doesn’t want anyone to help him. He just wants to be left alone with his
memories of Ellie.
Plot Point 7: An ally (either a true or an unintentional one)
helps propel your hero out of his or her comfort zone.
As Carl sees Russell go off in search of snipes, he also sees a cement truck
run into his mailbox. Carl is horrified and rushes to fix it.
Plot Point 8: The hero seems ready to move forward towards
his or her goal and/or towards the stakes character, but just
can’t do it.
One of the construction workers offers to help him, but in an accidental
altercation, Carl hits the worker with a cane, drawing blood. Everyone sees
the altercation happen, including the developer.
Plot Point 9: The villain or Deflector conflict stops the hero
or threatens the emotional stakes.
 Carl is forced to go to court, and he is sentenced to spend the rest of his
life in a retirement home. He has no idea what he’s going to do.
Plot Point 10: The depth of feeling between the hero and the
stakes character, or the severity of the threat to the victims,
becomes evident.
The next morning, the people from the retirement home arrive to take Carl
to the retirement home. Carl asks to be left for a moment to say good-bye to
his home. He goes back inside, and, within moments, a portion of the roof
opens and a host of balloons rise. The house is pulled off its foundations and
becomes airborne.
Plot Point 11: The Deflector or Antagonist threatens to take
the stakes character from the hero.
Carl, who is headed toward his destination of Paradise Falls, sits down in
his chair and settles in for his journey. Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door.
He looks out to see Russell braced against the side of the house; he was
under the house looking for the snipe when the house became airborne.
Russell asks Carl to come in, but Carl says no. Finally, he has a change of
heart, and lets Russell inside the house. As soon as Russell enters, his
babbling drives Carl to distraction to the point that Carl imagines Russell
falling to his doom. Russell continues to babble, and Carl turns his hearing
aid down so that he can’t hear Russell.
Plot Point 12: The hero decides he or she must act to save the
stakes character.
After a while, Carl, sensing that something isn’t right, turns around to see
the house heading toward some menacing-looking storm clouds. Carl seizes
control of the house and tries to steer it away from the storm clouds, but the
house is sucked toward the clouds and goes out of control, with Carl,
Russell, and the contents of the house flying everywhere.
THE CENTRAL QUESTION
Will Carl make it to Paradise Falls with his house, learn how to love
again, and get over the loss of his wife?
ACT 2, PART 1: THE WANDERER
Yes 1: The house descends through the clouds. The house stops abruptly,
and Russell and Carl are thrown from the house, which starts to fly away.
Russell and Carl stop it in the nick of time by grabbing onto the fire hose,
which they use as a rope. A huge wind blows the fog away to reveal that
they have landed near Paradise Falls.
No 1: Paradise Falls is a three-day journey, and Carl isn’t sure that the
helium in the balloons will last that long. Russell and Carl strike a deal;
Russell will help Carl make it over to the falls if he will sign off on Russell’s
Assisting the Elderly merit badge.
Yes 2: A pack of dogs chase a bird through the jungle and almost get it,
but the high-pitched squeal of Carl’s hearing aid sends the dogs running, and
the bird flies away. As Carl and Russell slog through the jungle, Russell,
who goes to the bathroom and then goes off on his own when he sees large
bird tracks, thinks that it is a snipe. The bird tracks end, and Russell comes
face-to-face with a large bird that takes an instant liking to Russell and his
chocolate; Russell names the bird Kevin. Russell takes Kevin back to meet
Carl, who is taken aback by Kevin and who wants nothing to do with Kevin,
telling him to go away. Russell entices Kevin to follow them against Carl’s
wishes. They come upon a dog, with a collar that voices his thoughts; the
dog’s name is Dug.
No 2: Dug wants to take Kevin prisoner and has a tracking device. The
dogs that were previously chasing Kevin see Kevin in the small video
screen, and they start to go after Kevin and company.
Yes 3: Kevin, Russell, and Dug drive Carl to distraction and cause the
house to crash into a cliff. Carl takes one of the tennis balls off his walker
and throws it so that Dug will go after it. He takes a piece of Russell’s
chocolate and throws it; Kevin goes after it, and Carl and Russell take off.
No 3: Russell and Carl don’t get very far, though, as Kevin and Dug catch
up to them, much to Carl’s chagrin.
Yes 4: That night, Russell convinces Carl to help him protect Kevin, since
they’ve heard Dug say that he wants Kevin as a prisoner. Russell makes Carl
promise that he’ll help him, and makes him cross his heart — the same way
that Ellie made him promise things in the past.
No 4: Carl and Russell wake up the next morning to find that Kevin is
gone. The three dogs converge upon Dug, Russell, and Carl, and force them
to follow them away from the falls. The further they follow the dogs, the
more additional dogs join them. Everyone is unaware that Kevin is hiding on
top of the house.
Yes 5: Carl is surprised and overjoyed when he finds out that the owner of
the dogs is Charles Muntz, who invites Russell and Carl into the Spirit of
Adventure dirigible.
No 5: The dogs put the Cone of Shame on Dug and prevent him from
entering the dirigible.
Yes 6: Charles takes Carl and Russell on a tour of the dirigible, in which
there is a museum of Charles’ most memorable catches. Charles invites Carl
and Russell as dinner guests, when Charles tells them that many other
explorers have tried to take what he thinks is rightfully his — the bird.
No 6: Russell blabs about knowing Kevin and having been able to get him
to follow him. Carl looks out the window to see Kevin on the rooftop. Carl
says they’re done with dinner, and they must get going — Charles doesn’t
want them to leave so fast — he has lots of questions for them. Suddenly,
Kevin squawks, pulling Charles’ focus.
Yes 7: Charles, Russell, Kevin, and Dug escape, making a mad dash
through the mountains.
No 7: The Doberman leader bites Kevin’s leg before the dog plunges into
the river below.
ACT 2, PART 2: THE WARRIOR
Yes 8: Carl agrees to help Russell take Kevin, who’s actually a girl bird,
back to her children.
No 8: Back at the dirigible, Charles uses the tracking device on Dug to
find Dug’s whereabouts.
Yes 9: Russell and Carl talk as they help Kevin get back home. Russell
talks about his absentee father, and how his father took him out for ice cream
at Fenton’s ice cream parlor. They are within reach of Kevin’s nest.
No 9: Charles and the dirigible catch up with Kevin and trap him in a net.
Carl tries to cut Kevin free. Charles gets out of the dirigible and starts to set
the house on fire. Carl has to make a choice: the house or the bird. The dogs
drag Kevin back onto the dirigible.
Yes 10: Carl puts out the fire.
No 10: Russell lays into Carl for choosing the house over the bird. Carl
blows up and yells at both Russell and Dug, and tells him that he’s going to
make it to the falls with or without Russell’s help.
Yes 11: Carl and his house arrive at Paradise Falls. Russell throws down
his sash with his merit badges and goes to sulk.
No 11: Carl goes inside his house — it’s a bittersweet accomplishment.
He opens Ellie’s scrapbook.
 Yes 12: Carl turns to the section of things that Ellie wanted to do, which is
filled with pictures of her life with Carl. At the end of the scrapbook is a
message Ellie wrote before she died — it’s time for Carl to go on his own
adventure.
No 12: Carl goes out to talk to Russell, only to find Russell taking off
after Kevin, using some balloons and a leaf blower. Carl wants to go after
him, but the house is too heavy with the balloons that are left.
Yes 13: Carl tosses everything out of the house to lighten the load,
including the two chairs that Carl and Ellie used to sit in. Russell makes it to
the dirigible and sneaks inside.
No 13: Russell is captured by Charles and the dogs. Charles knows that
Carl can’t be far behind. The house catches up to the dirigible. The ramp in
the cargo hold opens and Russell’s chair starts to slide downward.
Yes 14: Carl saves Russell and puts him in the house for safekeeping.
Russell says he wants to help, but Carl says he doesn’t want his help — he
wants him to be safe. Carl and Dug catch up with Kevin, who is locked up in
a cage.
No 14: The cage is surrounded by a pack of dogs.
ACT 3: THE MARTYR
Big Yes: Carl takes one of the tennis balls off his walker and throws it out
into the hall, playing fetch with the dogs, who go after it. Carl slams the door
behind them. Carl frees Kevin.
No: Russell frees himself, but falls out of the house, grabbing the hose on
the way down and holding onto the house for dear life. Charles instructs
someone to destroy the house. Three dogs in planes start shooting at Russell
and the house.
Big No: Charles is about to kill Carl, but Dug bites him in the leg. Charles
shakes him off and throws Dug out into the hall, where Dug finds himself
surrounded by dogs. He slams the door shut, leaving Carl and Charles alone
in the museum to fight a duel to the death. Charles, pinning Carl against an
exhibit, asks Carl if he has any last words and to spit them out. Carl spits out
his dentures, which hit Charles in the face. Dug is chased into the navigation
area and backs against the steering wheel, causing the dirigible to go out of
control, giving Carl and Kevin the chance to climb outside. Charles chases
Carl and Kevin up and around the dirigible. Dug is about to be attacked by
the Doberman, which gets its head caught between the holes in the steering
wheel. Dug slaps the Cone of Shame on him, and Dug becomes the Alpha
Dog. Russell, who’s at the end of his hose, climbs back up on the house.
With the three fighter planes heading straight for them, Russell yells out
“Squirrel!” — something that was set up earlier in the story (third-act
solution), which distracted the dogs. The dog pilots are distracted, and the
planes crash into each other. Carl and Kevin make it to the top of the
dirigible and reunite with Dug. Russell pilots the house over to Carl, Kevin,
and Dug and they climb onto the porch. A shot rings out — Charles shoots
some of the balloons and the house is sent sliding toward the edge of the
dirigible. Carl struggles to steady the house, holding onto the hose as Charles
goes inside the house. The hose winder starts to come loose from the house.
Charles storms inside the house and takes aim at Kevin, Russell, and Dug.
Final Yes: Outside, Carl shows Kevin a bar of chocolate. Russell, Kevin,
and Dug bolt from the house. Charles tries to go after them, but the house
starts to float away. Charles gets his legs caught in some balloon strings.
Charles plunges to his death. Carl pulls Dug, Kevin, and Russell to safety.
Carl sadly watches the house float away and disappear into the clouds. Carl
finally realizes that it’s just a house — and not Ellie. Kevin is reunited with
her baby birds; Carl and Russell take control of the Spirit of Adventure and
head for home. Denouement: Russell stands alone on stage, having no one to
pin his Assisting the Elderly merit badge on him. Carl steps on stage and
does the honors, but bestows on Russell a more poignant award — the same
badge that Ellie gave him as a child. Carl and Russell count cars while they
eat ice cream, something Russell’s father used to do with him, with the Spirit
of Adventure dirigible in tow.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEFFREY ALAN SCHECHTER has been beating up stories for more than
twenty years. He is a WGA, WGC, Emmy, and BAFTA-nominated writer,
producer, and director, a million-dollar spec screenplay writer, and the
developer of the story principles behind Mariner Software’s Contour Story
Development program.
Jeff’s first credits were in action films such as Bloodsport 2, The Tower,
and Street Knight. Turning to his love of family films, Jeff sold his spec
screenplay Little Bigfoot to Working Title Films and then worked on The
Amazing Panda Adventure, Dennis the Menace Strikes Again!, It Takes Two,
The Other Me, and Beethoven’s 3rd, and two Care Bears movies: Journey To
Joke-A-Lot and Big Wish Movie, for which he was nominated for a Writers
Guild of Canada award.
Jeff’s spec screenplay Stanley’s Cup was bought by Walt Disney Pictures
in a deal worth more than a million dollars, leading to him working on I’ll
Be Home for Christmas and the Disney Channel movie Brink!, for which he
was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding
Television Writing. Recently, his TV movie, Out of the Woods, premiered on
the Hallmark Channel to record ratings.
 In episodic television, Jeff has written and/or served as executive story
editor on dozens of episodes for series such as The Famous Jett Jackson,
Animorphs, Martin Mystery, Totally Spies!, Team Galaxy, Get Ed, Freefonix,
Di-Gata Defenders, Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5, and Jane and the Dragon.
He was an executive story editor and director on the hit Discovery
Kids/NBC series Strange Days at Blake Holsey High (aka Black Hole High),
for which he was nominated for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing.
His work also earned the series a BAFTA Award nomination for Best
International Series. Jeff has also co-created and executive-produced several
television series, including the Disney Channel original series Overruled!,
which just completed its third season. Most recently, Jeff has finished work
on two feature scripts and is the president and CEO of PadWorx Digital
Media Inc, an interactive media company he founded to develop and
produce innovative original content for tablet computers.
In his spare time Jeff is married and has four kids.
 SCRIPT CONSULTING, STORY ANALYSIS,
AND SEMINARS
Now that you know how effective and powerful the My Story
Can Beat Up Your Story! way of looking at story is, where can
you go to get coverage, script analysis, and story notes that
speak the same language?
Jeffrey Alan Schechter has trained a small crew of Story
Beaters who are ready to help. Using the principles in
this book, the My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! team
can provide you with everything from brainstorming
help and QuickPitch review to script coverage, story
notes, and full screenplay analysis. These are working
writers: funny, empathetic, creative, and smart. They’re
so good, Jeff actually uses them to review his work.
Additionally (and depending on his schedule), Jeff is
personally available for script coaching, story analysis,
and mentoring.

To learn more about our consulting services as well as

our upcoming seminars, books, and digital tools, please
check out http://www.mscbuys.com or you can email Jeff
directly at [email protected].
 So, you have a great idea for a movie?
Then get it out of your head and onto the page!

The software version of Contour, the proven story development system

developed by Emmy Award nominated Jeffrey Alan Schechter, is now
available from Mariner Software.

All of the features of Contour can be right there when you need it. For Mac
OS X users and for Windows users, you can take advantage of seeing all the
major storytelling secrets needed to craft a highly marketable movie.
Included in Contour are entire scripts of successful blockbusters broken
down with the Contour system.

Go to www.marinersoftware.com and buy your copy today!

Promo Code:
 Use this special promo code to receive 25% off your
copy of Contour when you visit the Mariner Software
eStore http://www.marinersoftware.com/store

Now available for the iPhone too! Visit the Apple App Store to get the
mobile version of Contour for just $4.99!
INDEX OF FILMS

A
Aliens
American Beauty
Armageddon
Avatar

B
Back to the Future
Batman (1989)
Beverly Hills Cop
Big Chill, The
Billy Jack
Bloodsport 2
Bruce Almighty
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

C
Care Bears, The
Casablanca
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

D
Dark Knight, The
Dennis the Menace
Dennis the Menace Strikes Again!
Die Hard
Down Periscope

E
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

F
Forrest Gump

G
Get Smart
Ghostbusters

H
Harper
Harry Potter
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone Home Alone
Hook
How the Grinch Stole Christmas

I
I Am Legend
Incredibles, The
Inglourious Basterds
Iron Man

J
Jaws
Juno
Jurassic Park

L
Lethal Weapon
Liar Liar
Lion King, The
Little Shop of Horrors
Love in the Time of Cholera

M
Madagascar
Matrix, The
Mrs. Doubtfire
My Big Fat Greek Wedding

N
No Country for Old Men

P
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

R
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raising Arizona
Rush Hour

S
Schindler’s List
Sea of Love
Sense and Sensibility
Shrek
Sixth Sense, The
Sleepless in Seattle
Spider-Man
Star Trek (2009)
Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace
Star Wars: Episode III —Revenge of the Sith
Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope
Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi
Stuart Saves His Family

T
Tin Cup
Titanic
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
Transformers

U-Z
Up
Wedding Crashers
Zyzzyx Rd
 { THE MYTH OF MWP }

In a dark time, a light bringer came along, leading the curious and the
frustrated to clarity and empowerment. It took the well-guarded secrets out
of the hands of the few and made them available to all. It spread a spirit of
openness and creative freedom, and built a storehouse of knowledge
dedicated to the betterment of the arts.

The essence of the Michael Wiese Productions (MWP) is empowering

people who have the burning desire to express themselves creatively. We
help them realize their dreams by putting the tools in their hands. We
demystify the sometimes secretive worlds of screenwriting, directing, acting,
producing, film financing, and other media crafts.

By doing so, we hope to bring forth a realization of ‘conscious media’ which

we define as being positively charged, emphasizing hope and affirming
positive values like trust, cooperation, self-empowerment, freedom, and
love. Grounded in the deep roots of myth, it aims to be healing both for
those who make the art and those who encounter it. It hopes to be
transformative for people, opening doors to new possibilities and pulling
back veils to reveal hidden worlds.

MWP has built a storehouse of knowledge unequaled in the world, for no

other publisher has so many titles on the media arts. Please visit
www.mwp.com where you will find many free resources and a 25% discount
on our books. Sign up and become part of the wider creative community!
Onward and upward,

Michael Wiese
Publisher/Filmmaker