Structure

Why structure exists

An audience gives you its attention and can take it back at any moment. Structure is how you keep it. You raise a question, delay the answer, and make the wait worth it.

William Goldman argued that a screenplay is structure above all. Fine lines cannot save a story told in the wrong order.

Beginning, middle, end

The beginning shows a person and their world, then disturbs them. Something happens that the character cannot ignore.

The middle is the struggle. The character tries, fails and tries harder, and the cost rises each time. Many weak scripts are weak here, because the writer knew the start and the finish and hoped the middle would fill itself.

The end is the last attempt and its result. The question raised at the start gets its answer. Syd Field named the three parts set up, confrontation and resolution.

The turning point

A turning point is an event that sends the story in a new direction. After it, the character cannot go back to the plan they had.

A short film may have only one or two. To find yours, look for the place where the character's situation changes for good. If you can remove the event and the story carries on the same, it was not a turning point.

Eight lenses, no laws

Take One can seed your beats from eight frameworks: Freytag's pyramid, Save the Cat, Syd Field's paradigm, the Hero's Journey, the Sequence Approach, Dan Harmon's Story Circle, Kishotenketsu and the Indian interval structure.

Each one is a way of looking at a story, drawn from the plays or films its author knew. None is a law. Try one, see what it shows you about your draft, and change any beat that does not fit your film.

If a framework makes your story feel like every other story, put it down and follow the character.