When talking to other writers, especially novices, the question often comes up, “If you don’t like the 3-Act structure, then who’s theory do you use?” I’ve studied quite a few: Aristotle’s Poetics, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, Truby’s 22 Steps, McKee, Campbell, Lajos Egri, and others. The main problem that I found with most of these theories is that they are too linear.
My dissatisfaction with the 3-Act paradigm built up over time and culminated in an aha moment while analyzing my ten favorite films. That analysis binge happened after having a script universally rejected around town after it drew a bit of heat for its concept and the interest of a couple of producers. After the initial disappointment, I called my agent and asked what the general consensus was about the script. She told me that almost everyone had the same note: Character problems. It was a criticism I’d heard before.
I went searching for a better theory than the 3-Act system or the others that I had studied. I was looking for a structure or design principle that was more character centered, a subject barely touched on in most screenwriting books. I deconstructed scripts and movies, and eventually uncovered an organizing principal that feels more organic. The best analogy I have found is Object Oriented Programming, which I will explain in a forthcoming post.
As I deconstructed these films trying to crack their character beats, I was also looking for sequences. Howard Suber, one of my favorite professors and a legend at UCLA, always said that he didn’t believe there was an overall structural theory that applied to all films, but if there was one it probably had something to do with sequences.
I had also noticed that popular films tend to be comprised of at lest two stories woven together. Most of the popular books and theories espouse a single story paradigm that doesn’t fit the mold of Hollyood films as I see them.
My method for breaking down these films for analysis was very simple and straightforward. I would create an outline while watching the film, and identify the dramatic beats in each scene. Then I would analyze the beats to determine their function in the overall narrative.
So, as I was breaking down Lethal Weapon, the seventh in my analysis binge, a pattern emerged. I saw the two stories and I recognized a type of sequence that I had seen before and had labeled it as a character sequence, but nothing more. The two stories were the detective story about finding the killer of Amanda Hunsacker and the story of this suicidal widower cop partnered with a veteran and family man.
I saw the beats that comprised the sequences. It was suddenly obvious that questions controlled and focused the sequences and beats. Sub-plots and their function became apparent. Character beats that handled introductions and development stuck out like sore thumbs once I had identified the different story sequences and beats. I went back over my notes from the previous analyses, and the sequence structures were there. How did I not see them before. I didn’t have to shoehorn certain films to fit my theory, or come up with exceptions for certain films. Every beat of a film could be labeled. It was all so obvious.
Next: Object oriented programing, or OOP.
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