The Essential Screenplay (3-Book Bundle): Screenplay: Foundations of Screenwriting, Screenwriter's Workbook, and Screenwriter's Problem Solver

Good structure is like the relationship between an ice cube and water. An ice cube has a definite crystalline structure, and water has a definite molecular structure. But when the ice cube melts into water, how can you separate the molecules of ice from the molecules of water? Structure is like gravity: It is the glue that holds the story in place;

It is the paradigm of dramatic structure. A paradigm is a model, example, or conceptual scheme.

The paradigm is a model, an example, or a conceptual scheme; it is what a well-structured screenplay looks like, an overview of the story line as it unfolds from beginning to end.

What’s the distinction between form and formula? The form of a coat or jacket, for example, is two arms, a front, and a back. And within that form of arms, front, and back you can have any variation of style, fabric, color, and size—but the form remains intact.

If you don’t believe the paradigm, or in the three-act structure first laid down by Aristotle, go check it out.

The paradigm is a form, not a formula; it’s what holds the story together. It is the spine, the skeleton. Story determines structure; structure doesn’t determine story. The dramatic structure of the screenplay may be defined as a linear arrangement of related incidents, episodes, or events leading to a dramatic resolution.

If we wanted to take a screenplay and hang it on the wall like a painting, this is what it would look like:

In The Art of Fiction, Henry James says that the incidents you create for your characters are the best ways to illuminate who they are—that is, reveal their true nature, their essential character. How they respond to a particular incident or event, how they act and react, what they say and do is what really defines the essence of their character.

So what is character? Action is character; a person is what he does, not what he says. Film is behavior. Because we’re telling a story in pictures, we must show how the character acts and reacts to the incidents and events that he/she confronts and overcomes (or doesn’t overcome) during the story line. If you’re writing your script and sense your c