I agree. People on screenwriting blogs sometimes get at me because I like the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet, and the Board. While Blake does follow a particular beat by beat, and only 40 scenes method, he always stresses that the story must always be about itself. So, if you try to stuff it into rigid check points when it wants to expand a little here and there, you only hurt yourself.

Agree with the last comment. Snyder gives you an idea of what the skeleton should look like, but if the flesh and skin and beating heart of the script you come up with aren't any good, then it's irrelevant.

And yes, I know that metaphor was tired after one clause of the sentence.

510 stages? That's 5 stages per script page. What a ridiculous notion.

Yeah - 510 stages sounds like punishment. It's a screenplay, not Moby Dick.

I think the proliferation of these templates all over Hollywood is doing more harm than good, as every script reader seems armed with one. I feel someone who leans heavily on these lists could read a great script but miss the forest for the trees because beat 11 was switched with beat 12 and beat 18 came too late. It's getting out of hand and is part of the reason the summer tent poles (which I feel adhere more to this stuff than any other fare) are so predictable these days. You can satisfy all 15 or 20 or 510 story steps and still not write anything worthwhile.

I disagree with the direction of your argument; "what to write" is taken out of context; for example, when you are told to write an Inciting Incident, you're being told what to write but not what to write. See what I mean.

@Sarah: You may see that distinction. Others, however, do not. They think, "If I learn this formula and write a script to that formula, then I will end up with a good story." And that's where the problem lies, as far as I'm concerned, with language like, "Our approach tells you what to write."