AGENDA - DAY ONE
Session One:
The critical four questions about your main character
Ensure your main character fulfills his or her story destiny by transitioning through each of the four archetypes
Construct a compelling ‘QuickPitch’ (aka, the ‘elevator pitch’) that lays out your entire story from start to finish
[hr]
LUNCH BREAK
[hr]
Session Two:
Determine the thematic question, thematic argument, and thematic synthesis of your story
Incorporate thematic opposites into your story through characters, props, and architecture.
Use the Unity of Opposites to align both the positive and negative characters with theme.
Create your cast of as many as 14 characters, both positive and negative, that inform and amplify your hero and villain
[hr]
[hr]
AGENDA - DAY TWO
Session One:
Work through the 12 foundation plot points of act one.
Craft a Central Question that charts your hero’s physical, emotional, and spiritual journey.
[hr]
POOLSIDE WORKING LUNCH (brown bag it, we've got work to do!)
Chart a story course with approximate page counts for the 12 major landmarks of your story
[hr]
Session Two:
Use the Central Question to craft the plot points of act two so that they build upon each other in an organic, can't-stop-reading fashion
Build act three using the four essential plot points
Tearful farewell, with optimistic looks to the future
Wow! With today’s post of the movie review of Argo I’m pleased to announce that we now have 101 movie reviews posted on this blog. Thanks to everyone who has read (and written!) these reviews. And even though the output has been slow in the past months, the pace is going to pick up moving forward.
Hi Mr. Schechter,
I just discovered My Story Can Beat Up Your Story and I really love it! The only problem is that I’m working on a buddy picture and I’m wondering if you have any breakdowns of movies that follow that format. I’m talking about movies like Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, or Rush Hour, where meeting and learning to accept a seemingly opposite “buddy” is a major part of the character’s arc.
Hi,
I would be interested in how this works with 2 protagonists e.g. rom coms (especially how to lose a guy in 10 days) Love your analysis.
Generally, you pick one person and make the story predominantly from that perspective. So “Notting Hill” is really Hugh Grant’s story, and “Sleepless in Seattle” is really Meg Ryan’s, although Tom Hanks is a hairline behind her.
One of my favorite buddy films is “Midnight Run” with Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a look-see. Also, there’s a much older film, from the ’70’s “Scarecrow” with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman that you might enjoy.
I believe in Syd Field’s updated “Screenplay”, he does an analysis of the movie “Collateral”. This movie primarily only has 4 people in it, so I was curious how you would breakdown that movie. It seems like it simply does not have enough people in it for your method to apply. I was hoping that sometime in the future, you could analyze Collateral. It would be instructive to see two masters breakdown the same film. I really like your approach to films, but I tend to imagine a whole caste of characters being required, that’s why I was curious how you would approach collateral. I love your book, ebook, and Contour. I hope your next edition has the Missing Chapter included!