Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

A BEAT is an exchange of behavior in action/reaction. Beat by Beat these changing behaviors shape the turning of a scene.

Limitation is vital. The first step toward a well-told story is to create a small, knowable world.

The weakest possible excuse to include anything in a story is: “But it actually happened.

If the answer you write down at the end of the scene is the same note you made at the opening, you now have another important question to ask: Why is this scene in my script?

Look closely at each scene you’ve written and ask: What value is at stake in my character’s life at this moment?

If the audience shrinks, the budget must shrink. This is the law.

The biographer must interpret facts as if they were fiction, find the meaning of the subject’s life, and then cast him as the protagonist of his life’s genre:

transudes

Research is meat to feed the beasts of imagination and invention,

his four basic genres: Simple Tragic, Simple Fortunate, Complex Tragic, Complex Fortunate.