Every month I receive a couple of screenplays to read. Most are from aspiring independent film directors trying to attach crew to their next film project. I approach each screenplay with an open mind, but more often than not I don’t make it past the first 10 pages because the screenplays miss every basic element to tell a good and compelling visual story.

For every 20 screenplays, one is good and gains my interest, regardless of the story. Simply because it achieved to tell a compelling visual story and follows the rules of screenwriting. The writer has at least put the effort into learning the mechanics of visual storytelling and applying it to the story he or she wants to tell.

Then there are probably around 4 screenplays that have the absolute potential to become a good screenplay but need a couple more rounds of rewrites to get finally there.

and then there are the 15 other screenplays that are just plain bad and not even come close to be called screenplays.

• I’ve seen screenplays containing Youtube links to illustrate or clarify what the scene is all about.
• I’ve seen bullet-points screenplays, which I thought at first it was an outline but after confirming with the writer it turned out to be the ‘final draft’.😒
• And then there are the independent filmmakers who first want you to sign an NDA before they will send their script. This usually doesn’t mean you get something unique to read. This means, in my experience , you are about to read a script that’s so bad, you better don’t tell anybody about it.

I would love to read only ‘killer’ screenplays and to get excited by every single one that comes my way. That’s why I’m putting a series of blog posts together to give the independent filmmaker some guidance for when they are writing their next feature film or short film.

Today we start with the very basics on how to tell a visual story.

Content

The story idea for a screenplay
Visualize?
The conflict
Simple and clear plot
Where does the story live?
Emotions
Outlining the screenplay

It all starts with…

The story idea for a screenplay

A story is about a HERO who WANTS something, but something or somebody OBSTRUCTS the hero from reaching/achieving or getting it.

Before you flesh out your story you need to determine:

1. Who the hero is?
2. What the hero wants, his or her goal?
3. Who or what obstructs/prevents/blocks the hero to get what he wants?

Take out one of the three elements and there is no story anymore. It’s very important to well define those three elements, because they form the main story line in a screenplay for movie, TV show or any other visual story.

For example:

• A story about a hero who doesn’t want anything or has no goal in life, does all day nothing… boring
• A story about hero who wants to marry the girl, but doesn’t need to fight for her love is… boring.
• A story about a bunch of people who have to deal with all kinds of struggles to get what they want is… confusing and will turn… boring.

It’s very important that you identify who the hero is and who is going to carry the story. Next you find out what they hero wants and this is best to be a clear goal because it’s the driving force of the hero. The hero wants something. The goal determines how the hero will act, and that on its turn will determine how the story will unfold. The desire or goal will evoke emotions in the hero and will drive the hero to take physical action. This mechanism makes the hero drive the story instead of undergoing it.

The audience loves to see heroes who take action. Otherwise the story will be just plain booooo…rrrrinnnng.

Once you know the what the goal is for the hero in your screenplay, it’s easier to find an obstruction or the obstacles the hero needs to overcome to reach his goal. Something or someone needs to prevent the hero to reach the goal. This can be another character, the bad guy, or it also can be a physical obstruction, such as a closed door or an island in the middle of the ocean.

Visualize

Since the story is meant for TV, feature film or short film, those three elements (hero, goal, obstruction) need to be made as visual as possible. All inner desires or wants of the hero need to be visualized. They can’t just stay inside the hero’s head, they need to be visualized outside the hero’s mind. The same goes for what obstructs the hero of getting what he wants. Make all those obstacles visual, even when it’s a mental problem. Show that problem in the character’s behavior towards the people around him.

The show of the hero’s emotions make those inner desires, wants and physical obstacles visible to the audience.

The conflict

Obstructing or preventing what the hero wants creates CONFLICT.

Without conflict there is no story or screenplay. A story is in essence one big conflict for the hero or a chain of conflicts to overcome. Conflict is in every step of the hero’s journey towards what he or she wants, or the goal.

The more conflict there is between the characters or in the scenes,the more the audience is engaged in the story and the more satisfied they are at the end of the story.

Make what or who obstructs the hero from getting what he wants well defined and impossible for the hero to overcome. Make it as hard as you can on the hero. Don’t try to put nuances in it, like it’s not that bad or there are options of getting out of it. That would be a mistake and a recipe for a boring screenplay. The problems the hero faces need to be really hard and unavoidable.

For example:

• In Romeo and Juliette it is a matter or life or dead for Romeo to be with Juliette versus the two families get along but only one of the family members doesn’t agree about their relationship. All of a sudden it’s not a big deal and the story isn’t as compelling anymore.
• In Cast Away, the hero gets stuck on an island in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight, versus he needs to paddle of a lake to get to the civilization again.

Therefore the tougher or meaner the bad guy is or the taller the mountain is to climb, the more compelling the story or screenplay is going to be and the more the audience is going to be pulled into the story or screenplay.

Simple and clear plot

The audience wants to know without too much thinking what the story is all about. The story needs to be explained in one sentence.

The more complicated the plot is, the easier it is to lose the audience.

A good movie has a simple plot but complex emotions. The other way around, a complex plot with simple emotion, is a recipe for a disaster of a screenplay. It’s the complex emotions from the hero and characters in the story an audience will relate to. If they can feel with the hero and the other characters it gives everything that happens in the story meaning. If they don’t feel anything for the characters, even the biggest explosion or the wildest car chase has no meaning or value in the story.

The less the audience has to think about what the plot is the more youcan feel and invest in the characters.

It’s very important to understand when outlining, constructing the story or scenes, that the audience experiences the story through the actions and the emotions of the characters.

The audience wants to see how a conflicted situation affects the character emotionally and what he or she does about it.

Where does the story live?

The story lives in a very specific place in a feature film, short film or TV-show. It is not in the cinematography, the production design, or special effects. It’s not in the CGI or graphics. The story, quite clearly, lives in the characters. It is in their needs, desires, dreams and actions. It’s in their disappointments, pain and struggle. It’s all in their emotions. It’s ‘ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.’

We go to movies to see other people deal with extraordinary circumstances that are not totally within their control. We share those experiences with these characters from the safety of our seat.

Without characters there is no story. And without actors there are no characters. So at the center of the story are these characters, portrayed by these actors, guided by the director. And the audience is paying money and spending time to see these ‘ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.’

Always keep that in mind when writing a screenplay. This is what the audience wants!

Emotions

This is nowadays the most overlooked element in a movie. So many movies are now all caught up in making it all visually as spectacular as possible that the true emotions that drives the characters often are put on the back burner.

Any successful and memorable fiction film, short film or TV-show takes the audience on a roller-coaster of EMOTIONS. I goes from tension to fear, to happiness, surprise, to relieve,…

Life itself is a rollercoaster of emotions spread out over a lifetime, while a film needs to compress these emotions in less than two hours. The more variation of emotions (ups and downs) there are in the course of the movie the more it will satisfy the audience when walking out of the movie theatre.

We humans want to feel. The audience goes through different emotions throughout the course of a movie, but only when they are drawn into the story. And that’s the job of the writer and director to achieve in the screenplay and on screen. Just as in real live, emotions is what drives us, not logic.

When the emotional component of a story is left out, characters seem flat and unreel and the audience will never fully understand what the conflict means to the hero and to other important characters in the movie.

After you have put is some thoughts in who the hero is, what he or she wants and what will prevent the hero from getting it, you can start putting the story of your screenplay together. Time to outline the screenplay.

Outlining the screenplay

Many independent screenwriters still fail in telling a super basic and simple story.

The following simple mechanism helps every visual storyteller to create a compelling story plus it works also to create interesting scenes for the screenplay. It’s called…

The THEREFORE-BUT structure:

• In the beginning of the story something happens
• Which makes the hero feel a certain way

• THEREFORE the hero does something about it
• BUT there is a problem’
• EMOTIONALLY  the hero feels a certain way

• THEREFORE the hero does something about it
• BUT there is another problem
• EMOTIONALLY  the hero feels a certain way

• THEREFORE the hero does something about it
• BUT there is another problem
• EMOTIONALLY  the hero feels a certain way

And so on and on…

There are 3 important elements to the THEREFORE-BUT structure:

1. THEREFORE – Is the action

It’s the goal, the objective the hero wants to achieve, the need he wants to fulfill or the thing he wants to reach in the scene or sequence. This is shown by what he does, the actions he takes in the story or scene.

• BUT- Is the problem, the obstacle

It is the obstacle the hero needs to overcome, or the problem he needs to face. This creates the conflict – the reason why the scene is in the screenplay. It’s the thing or the event that prevents the hero from reaching his goal in the scene or sequence. This can be a physical problem as simple as a door that can’t be opened or another character who is obstructing him to reach his goal, the bad guy.

• EMOTIONALLY- Drives the action

Because the hero can’t achieve his or her goal in the scene or sequence, it will make him feel a certain way and makes he’ll undertake action. Actions are always driven by emotions. The hero can be angry, frustrated, or deceived…. This pushes him into the next scene or the next event in the story.

Creating a THEREFORE-BUT-structure makes that your hero constantly keeps facing problems he or she needs to solve or overcome to reach the goal. This storytelling mechanism makes the story for the audience interesting to watch. It keeps them engaged “how is he going to solve the next problem, what will come next”.  The THEREFORE-BUT-structure prevents your screenplay and movie from ever being boring.

Each scene is also built with those same elements. In the beginning of the scene you have the hero who wants something BUT there is something that prevents him for reaching it, which pushes him into the next scene.

The thing that prevents the hero from getting what he or she wants should be as close as possible to the opposite of what the hero wants, this creates the most tension and conflict in a scene and story.

Building the conflict!

A last note on conflict and problems and story:

In the beginning the problems the hero faces should be relativity small, but as the story progresses they need to become bigger and much harder to overcome, up to a point that it almost seems impossible for the hero to overcome.

Don’t start with blowing up the castle to kill the bad guy and end the story with breaking open a door. It’s the exact opposite that needs to happen. When the audience understands the hero is capable of blowing up a castle, then the hero can for sure kick in a door. This will bore the audience. Each time the obstacles get harder for the hero to overcome, the audience always wonders how the hero is going to succeed next, or will the hero succeed after all?

After each scene or sequence the audience needs to have unanswered questions about what is coming next, this is the only way to keep them interested in your story till the end.

Empathize with the hero!

The audience loves to see the emotions and suffering of the hero to overcome the obstacle. That’s what stories are all about… seeing and feeling emotions together with the characters of the story. In short empathizing with the characters.

Never ever hold back on conflict!

There are no coincidences for the hero to get out of a conflict, only coincidences that brings the hero into a conflict, into bigger problems.

For example:

• conflict with the bad guy
• conflicts with his friends
• conflict with his family
• conflict with a supernatural force
• conflict with nature or the environment around him.

The hero must be in conflict with everyone, even with the good guys, the people he or she can trust. There is always some level of jealousy or it takes an effort to convince his or her allies to go on an adventure…

The purpose of the external conflicts the hero faces is to get down to the root of the character’s internal conflict and slowly teach the hero a life lesson or making the hero change behavior, point of view, values and believes, on things.

Here is what not to do in a screenplay…

The AND THEN-structure:

• In the beginning of the story something happens.
• Which makes the hero feel a certain way.
• AND THEN the hero does something
• WHICH makes him feel something

• AND THEN the hero does something
• WHICH makes him feel something else

• AND THEN the hero does something
• WHICH makes him feel something else

And so on and on…

The AND THEN-structure is the way kids tell how their day went when coming home from school and is a recipe for creating a boring screenplay and therefore also a very boring movie.

This structure will create a bunch of unrelated events or sketches placed after each other. For every AND THEN step is a new setup and it doesn’t build further on the previous events of the story. In this structure the hero’s decisions are based on emotions that don’t drive the story forward and the audience will not be wondering what’s coming next or “how is the hero is going to solve the problem”. The AND THEN structure is missing the vital BUT part, the part that creates the so needed CONFLICT, the thing the audience wants to see play out on the screen. This means the writer has lost the story and therefore also the audience.

Quick example

John and Alan, both got send back to the grocery store by their wives to get the milk they forget. Simple setup, but two different stories.

John’s story:

John gets in the car and speeds to the store which is closing in 10 minutes. On the way he gets trapped in roadworks. The pressure is on, he’s going to be late. He drives over the sidewalk to bypass the obstacle. He turns the corner and skids into a parking spot right near the door. They are about to close but John manages to convince the security guard to let him in. He rushes to the isle and grabs the milk. He’s now at the cash register and realizes he forgot his wallet. He now needs to make a decision: leave the milk or grab it and sprint out the door. He takes a deep breath and makes a runs. He pushes the security guard out of the way and runs to his car. Out of nowhere a police car pulls up obstructing his way. He quickly needs to divert and runs for the fence in the corner. He jumps over and finds himself now chased by a pitbull that was sitting in the backyard. Just in time, inches before he gets bitten, he jumps over another fence and can escape through the back alley. Coast is clear and John faces now a long walk home. Upon arrival his wife shows him, with a big smile on her face, the milk she found in the grocery bag she overlooked.

The end…

This is Alan’s story:

Alan gets in the car and drives to the grocery store. He parks the car in front of the story and gets out. Then he walks in and grabs the milk. He’s now at the cash register and pays for the milk. He wishes the cashier a good day and walks out. Next Alan gets back in the car and drives home. Upon arrival his wife shows him, with a big smile on her face, the milk she found in the grocery bag she overlooked.

The end…

Both stories have the same outcome, but one of the heroes has a story to tell about how he got the milk, while the other hero has not much of a story at all to tell.

When I’m reading a new screenplay, regardless of hitting the right story points at the right time or having the right structure. I always look for the THEREFORE-BUT structure and it starts on page 1. If I can’t see this story structure I know there is no story and it sadly makes me not read past page 10. Sad but true. You have no idea how many aspiring screenplay writers sin to this most basic mechanism of storytelling.

No matter what, the ground rule of storytelling is:

YOU CAN’T BE BORING!!!…. NEVER EVER