How would I define a plot? Events that are related to each other and causing a chain of developments with a beginning, a middle and an end. The king dies, later the queen dies. This is summon of events, not related. The king dies, later the queen dies of grief. These events are related and therefore it's a plot. Screenplay plot compared to novel. In a novel there is more room for the story, the inner journey the protagonist is taking on. A screenplay is a visual medium so the plot is more focused on the actions, the visible part of the journey the protagonist is on.

Here we go! Looking forward to getting stuck into GOYOQ and workshopping my new screenplay on the Black Board....and it is a Christmas Story, so it'll help get me into the Christmas spirit - there are less than 6 months to go! Once again, thanks for doing all this work Scott, especially on top of the actual QUEST. Hopefully the BlackBoard and GOYOQ will churn out some great stories and writers and propel some of us on to greater opportunities. And, of course, good luck to the 6 QUESTERS!

Thanks for that 14Shari as it sets off the discussion on solid footing: Beginning, Middle, End. Interesting to be going through a reflection on Plot this week as we are in the midst of studying Aristotle's "Poetics." Here is his iteration of B-M-E:

“A beginning is that which is not itself necessarily after anything else, and which has naturally something else after it. An end is that which is naturally after something itself, either as its necessary or usual consequent, and with nothing else after it. And a middle, that which is by nature after one thing and has also another after it.”

Your second point -- how the events need to be related -- offers a bridge to the next level of understanding and that opens the door to characters and their intimate involvement in plot because related most often equals relationships, and those are almost always inhabited by characters. As to your points about a screenplay compared to a novel, your point about "inner journey" and "visible part of the journey" highlights a fundamental reality about a movie: It is an externalized reality, conveyed almost exclusively through Action and Dialogue. That does not mean, however, there is no inner world in a story universe. Quite the contrary, and it's there we dip into all the richness of emotions, feelings, thoughts, memories and so forth which give us Motivation, Intention, Subtext and so forth. One trick for screenwriters is to figure out how to convey that good 'stuff' in a platform that is primarily visual in nature. Thanks for kicking off the discussion! I hope our conversation this week is a good learning experience for all of us as we start our GOYOQ process in talking about Plot.

Thanks, Mark, and good luck to you. Hollywood can always find a spot for a good Christmas story. Putting on producers hat: Maybe it can play EVERY November and December, become a perennial! I'm excited to see how the synergy works this year between the blog and the Black Board, now that we've got a prior experience with GOYOQ under our belts. Onward!

So is "cause and effect" important here as well? The plot is the story spine from page 1 to page 120 made up of the cause and effect of the Protagonist's actions....which illustrates the importance of an active protagonist...if you don't have one you end up with a dull story lacking in effective and interesting plotting?

Let's hope so....and if it isn't my breakthrough script, I can still read it to the kids every year on Christmas eve! ;-)

Many thanks to Scott for allowing us to follow along with his process! It's always interesting to see how different people work. I think plot is indeed those series of connected events which tell a particular story from the earliest event to the last event that is part of that story. I'm not sure if an event is the same as an action. Is an epiphany an action? Hmmm. I've seen many characters come to realizations which move story forward without a specific action, it has been more a synthesis of many experiences/actions, so, maybe they are different things? I'll have to think on it - already you have me thinking. :) How is plot different between novels and scripts? I'm not sure that there is a difference. How a given plot is delivered to the audience may be different. There are many prose projects where the inner workings of a character are not on display - many prose writers use external imagery to convey thoughts. There are many cinematic projects where internal thoughts/emotions/realizations are very much on display and leave the viewer in no doubt about what the character is experiencing internally. Plot doesn't need to roll out in a linear fashion in either medium...? Hmmm. Yup, thinking again.

YAY! It's here! It's here! I'm most definitely looking forward to this massive undertaking. Good luck to the *real* Questers... and to those of us following along on the BB:: LET'S DO THIS! And a giant HIGH FIVE thanks to Scott :) WOOHOO!

For me, if a story takes us from point A to B, then the plot is HOW we get between them. By default then the plot of a screenplay differs from that of a novel of the same story by its very nature. This is why some screenplay adaptations don't work and consequently some novelisations read better than the film. If the multiple sub plots of a novel are required for the story to work, then omitting one due to the constraints of a screenplay can kill it. Some plots just work better in the right medium.

I'm considering thinking about plot and structure as setup and payoff. Sure, cause and effect are one way setup and payoff works, but sometimes you set up a deficiency that is made whole later in the film. The deficiency doesn't cause the balancing to occur, but when it does occur, it's usually due to the plot. So plot is a series of events in a narrative that first set up the promise that certain events will happen and then proceed to pay off those expectations in surprising yet justifiable ways.

Will or should happen, I should say.

Brainstorming ideas to submit for this was just the thing I needed to get my imagination bubbling, and now I need to write! I'm looking forward to following the quest. It's exactly what I needed, at exactly the right time. I admit, I tend to struggle a little with plot. Coming from poetry, I've got a strong sense of pacing and symbolism. But few poems have a plot, and when they do - it's generally internal. Recognizing the difference between internal reaction and on-screen action sometimes takes me a couple of drafts. I'm always having to find ways to externalize and make more active...

NEGenge, your comments remind me of Hegel: Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis Another way of looking at three-act structure whereby the Protagonist begins in the Old World, living an inauthentic life [Thesis]. Once they depart their Old World, they discover those patterns of behaviors and beliefs don't fly in the New World, and so the opposition and challenges they face in Act Two [Antithesis] force them to get in touch with their True Self. And that leads to Synthesis. Basically a fancy way of saying - again - that in most movies, Protagonists go through a metamorphosis. Thanks for your thoughts!

High five back at ya', Despina, with a creative juju blast as well!

Thanks for that, Martin. I attended an event years ago at which Roger Ebert spoke and he contended that short stories were a much better fit to adapt into movies than novels, precisely because, as you indicated, there's often too much stuff in a novel. Your observation about getting from Point A to Point B, and the HOW it gets there, puts a spotlight on that whole MIDDLE section. And that is, in my experience as an educator, where many screenwriters stumble and fall: They get lost in Act Two. All the more reason to delve deeply into the Protagonist's inner life and their relationships to other characters, to be able to track their metamorphosis. That can help provide shape to the HOW.

bolo, your point about setup and payoff is hugely important as it relates to Plot. Beyond the satisfaction we feel when a writer crafts an especially resonant setup and payoff, they serve as a great way to measure a character's transformation. Perfect example in The Heat. Midway through the story, serving as a Transition in the relationship between Ashburn (Bullock) and Mullins (McCarthy), the former admits she was a foster child. This helps to explain why she has such trouble establishing meaningful relationships. Of course over time, she and Mullins DO bond. Then in the Denouement, Mullins calls Ashburn telling her to look at Ashburn's 1982 high school yearbook, itself a payoff to a setup, and inside the yearbook Mullins wrote [paraphrasing]: "Hey, foster kid. You've got a sister now. Mullins." It's a terrific moment, one that evoked a sea of "ahhs" in the audience I saw the movie with. So yes, setups and payoffs can be hugely important in movies, and can be a key part of any Plot. Thanks!

Laura, glad you're here. My advice: Just keep digging into your characters, especially your Protagonist. Ask this question: Why does THIS story HAVE to happen to THIS character at THIS time? In almost all movies, a Protagonist has a narrative destiny, working out their Want and Need. Re poetry: You will enjoy the week we devote to Style because I contend scene description in a screenplay is much more like poetry than prose. Welcome!

This rings true with all the successful iterations of Phillip K Dick shorts. And yes, it is Act Two that I am most dreading on this quest :)

Hi Scott. To me plot refers to the series of actions that make up the core story. Outlining often makes sense before writing a script because you are literally writing down the plot points that move the story from Act 1, the protagonist in her ordinary world to Act 2 with her on the journey set forth and then to Act 3, which, as you note is the metamorphosis of the hero. Yes, the plot will work out the hero's want and need. Compared to a novel, Yes, I agree that the screenplay is a visual medium and the plot must be revealed through imagery over words that paint the internal/external journey of the hero. You also have more time in a novel to explore the plot and sub-plots of secondary characters - 300 pages v. 100 Final Draft pages is quite a different exercise. Not that you can't get all of the information in, but it must be done succinctly with good use of the page - you don't have the luxury of delving into every last plot detail in a screenplay. And the plot details you choose must be shown succinctly. Love thinking about plot! Wonderful!

Still thinking plot, especially the script vs. novel question. I don't think the definition of plot changes between the two. Plot is plot. Can novel plots be more complicated? Yes. A short story can be an entire script. A novel can have a more convoluted plot - which doesn't require any sub-plots actually, just more reversals in the main plot can make it longer. Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall, fell, and couldn't be saved. You can't lose any bits of that. He wouldn't have died of a fall if he hadn't fallen. He wouldn't have fallen if he hadn't gotten up there in the first place. Now, what drove him up there? Did anyone try to talk him down? Why didn't they send doctors instead of horses and men? All those answers can be plot points in a longer version, which could create a different story. In a novel, a writer might get inside his egghead and discover he's afraid of the bigger ostrich eggs at school; in a script, a screenwriter might show him running from the ostrich eggs in the school yard. You've still got the same answer to the question, still created a plot point, and still told the same story. Whether the novel actually goes into his head is a choice for a novelist. They could write the chase scene from the perspective of an onlooker, another egg, whatever, and it would have no internal dialogue, exactly the same as a script. In fact, it's quite likely that the novelist's editor would be encouraging the visual scene instead of a rummage through his feelings. Show, don't tell is pretty much the mantra there as well. :)

When I saw the question yesterday, my first thought was, ah...well...gee. Guess plot is one of those things we understand at a level beyond words, work with, discuss, cuss at, but are hard pressed to put into an easy answer when asked. As the saying goes, "stuff" happens and decisions have to be made about that stuff, and consequences dealt with. Too often in film the answers are too easy, and that's no fun. We love stories, but we also love roller-coasters. We're strange beasts. @NEG...interesting that you chose Humpty Dumpty because I was thinking to take it down even further. A joke. There's this dapper man (character) walking down a street in NYC (place and action) when a bum walks up to him (nemesis) and asks for a fiver for coffee (inciting incident). The dapper man pulls himself up tall and regal (character reveal/beat/battle) and says, "Sir, neither a borrower or lender be." William Shakespear." (escalation of conflict) To which the bum says, "F#@ck you. David Mamet." (resolution). There's set up and pay off, we assume the dapper man is different for having learned a bum can be as educated as he, and the bum feels a bit less like a bum. They've both changed. It has to be set in NYC because of the pretentious references to theater (the city is crawling with it), it has to be set at that time (probably a weekend or mid-day when things aren't nuts), and it has to happen to those two people or there's no conflict and change. Novel writing is changing rapidly with the indie movement. The leaders of the movement do study books on film, teach film structure as novel structure, and advocate the use of beat sheets. With some exceptions, novels are getting shorter. In the past, novels needed more characters and B, C, D stories to constantly keep the reader hooked through the breaks and string out the story and tension of the protagonist. Now most of that is hinted at in the first book so it can be developed in the second book. Franchise and curiosity about secondary characters is everything in the changing business paradigm of long tail. Our best novelists are always experimenting -- some have told novels entirely in dialogue, and one of the top dogs right now doesn't do a single bit of telling anywhere in his brilliant books. I keep thinking about Scott's remarks about script length and why it's generally 110 pages. If that's going to change, will visual storytelling change, taking plot with it. What interests me most is plot in TV. Your protagonist has to arc (hopefully) to the 100th episode over an extended plot, yet each episode has to have a plot, as does each season. Serialization of TV shows is changing that somewhat, but it's still quite a challenge to previous notions of plot and could change our definition of it?

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