I have to confess, I use bits of all kinds of paradigms. Eight sequences like the Sequence Method, Fun & Games from Save The Cat... In the end, I think all methods are basically the same, but the way one method *explains* something might work better for you than the explanation in another method...

I agree with Debbie. Many methods, although different, are also the same, but it is what works for the writer that makes the difference. For me, I use both the 3 Act Structure and the Hero's Journey outline. I use both when setting up my stories. By p. 30, I look to have my first act completed and by p. 70, I'm moving into the 3rd Act. However, I don't always stick to this, but the more screenplays I have written, I notice that they "fall out" easily in this structure. Having read The Hero's Journey, I do look to include the elements of the journey through my story as well. I want to see those moments in the story. Thanks again, Scott!

I'm not entirely sure if we're hardwired for story from the beginning, or we absorb a certain pattern that equates to "a complete story" as we read, watch, and listen to stories for years. But, I think at some point, there is an instinct for it. There's a reason there are three little pigs and Goldilocks meets three bears. The third time a running gag appears in a film it is exponentially funnier than the second time, and, if it shows up a fourth time, just annoying. (A few exceptions, Galaxy Quest's "...hammer!" but, even then, it's grouped.) This is true in the youngest children. Play the "gravity game" with a child. Curiosity the first time. A grin the second time as they catch the repetition. Hilarious gales of laughter the third time when they anticipate it. Fourth time? Bored. When we read a script or a novel, even one that's unusually short or long, we have a sense of where we are by the number of pages in our hand, yes, but, read a unfamiliar script as one big, long html document, where you have no idea how many more pages there are, and a sense of where you are still remains. If certain things haven't happened in a certain order and you run out of document, it's "Huh? Where's the link for the rest?" When I read "structure" books, from Poetics to today's new releases, it seems that there's no imposition of structure going on really, just an acknowledgement that structure already exists and this is how that particular student of story codifies it for themselves. Snyder liked beats, but they superimpose over the usual three acts with a midpoint. Eight sequences? They still fit with the three acts and a midpoint - 2 sequences / 2 sequences / midpoint / 2 sequences / 2 sequences. Call it beginning/middle/end or who/what/how or unity/disunity/synthesis? Okay. Beyond that, we identify story genres and types, different names for them depending on who's thinking, but again, a codification of what types of stories are already existing. What plot points seem essential to a "coming of age" story? Or a "Fool Triumphant?" I don't know if our brains work that way because human beings live in a world where time only goes in one direction - mandating beginnings, middles, and ends for most of the things/events we experience, and what is story really expect re-telling experience? Or if we teach them to work that way? Whichever, we do seem to expect and build repeating patterns into novels and films and documentaries and, well, most things. Sorry for the long ramble... And thanks again for making me thing. :)

I agree screenplay plots have paradigms. Most basic one is the three act structure with plot point one at the end of act 1 and plot point two at the end of act 2. I use this paradigm as a starting point. Every other paradigm might be used in addition if it suits the story well.

Thanks for that, Debbie. My guess is most writers take a Smörgåsbord approach. And perhaps that's as it should be. While I don't recommend any particular take on the craft, apart from having a preference for character-based screenwriting, an approach I've developed during the last decade of writing and teaching, I do think the point you make is a valuable one: While everyone may be saying pretty much the same thing, the way this one or that EXPLAINS something may work for you. Much of that boils down to different language systems. Default attitude: There's no right way to write. Ever writer is different. Every story is different. We do what we do to find the writer we are and try to fuel our creative process the best we can.

Lisa, thanks for your comment. While there is some muttering against 3 Act Structure out there among some screenwriting gurus, there are several reasons to continue to subscribe to it: * It's in Aristotle. * It's all around us in nature, three beats, three component parts to narrative: Birth / Life / Death, Father / Son / Holy Ghost, Three Strikes You're Out, Thesis / Antithesis / Synthesis, Id / Ego / Superego, and on and on and on. * Plus the Questers will learn in Core I, Lecture 1, it's not just three acts, but the very idea of three movements in sequences and scenes. In other words, that rhythm, that pattern is ubiquitous. * Finally everyone in Hollywood development circles references three acts. So while it may SOUND attractive to talk about 5 acts, 7 acts, 9 acts or whatever, that's not how most development execs, producers, agents, managers, and talent talk about script structure. Which is not to say you can't use something other than 3 act structure in your writing. Hey, whatever works. Just know when you are communicating with actual people who actually work on actual scripted project in Hollywood, they will almost assuredly talk about your story in terms of three acts. Re the Hero's Journey, obviously being an acolyte of Joseph Campbell, I'm a fan of it. However the 17 parts he articulates, or even the 12 that Vogler uses in his excellent book "The Writer's Journey" ought not, in my view, be looked at as a paradigm for script structure. First off, that's not how Campbell intended us to look at as if it's this strictly linear thing where we go from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. Some of the 'stages' do tend to follow one another, but others can occur almost anywhere in a story, even be repeated, inverted, etc. Second, as I noted some time back from a comment by a producer who lamented all the Hero's Journey scripts he read that came across as "formulaic," the problem becomes when someone looks at the Hero's Journey in a LITERAL way, as if this is THE paradigm for a screenplay. It's not. Nothing is. Stories are organic. What works for THIS story may not work for THAT one. That's why when I work with the Hero's Journey, I tend to look at the broad strokes, such as Campbell's three parts -- there we go again: Separation / Initiation / Return. Separation from the Ordinary World and initiation in the New World. The idea of transformation or metamorphosis which Campbell asserted was the whole POINT of the Hero's Journey. Certain of the Hero's Journey 'stages' are present in almost any script such as the Call To Adventure, but some are not. Moreover I've been studying Carl Jung for the last 5 years, someone who influenced Campbell hugely, and found a whole other approach that dovetails into the Hero's Journey, but from the perspective of characters and archetypes. So what am I saying? Whatever works for you -- Hero's Journey, Three Act Structure -- awesome! Keep doing it. You've found an approach that connects with your creative world view and instincts. But we should never be literalists about this stuff, and that goes for anything I have to say about screenwriting theory, too. Stories transcend theory. It's critical we study theory, we test things out, we practice this, that and the other, we immerse ourselves in reflecting about things like Plot and Character, all hugely important. But at the end of the day, our goal is not to create a formula, rather a story that feels organic, alive, vibrant, a living breathing narrative entity. Here's to you - and everybody involved in GOYOQ - in finding that Story!

NEGenge, you're talking my language! I've read where by the time a person graduates from college, s/he will have read, heard or seen at least 10,000 stories. While that will have a conscious impact on us, it must also have a subconscious one, too. Moreover if you subscribe to Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, there are archetypes whirling around which resonate with us when a story uses them. In a perfect world, I'd like to think we do all the prep-writing we can, create an outline, then when we jump into page-writing, we just go by instinct, retaining what we learned from prep, the most valuable or meaningful elements the ones we will remember, and having the freedom to exist with our characters and see where they take us. Thanks for your observation. And always feel free to ramble at this site. Some of the best insights come from rambling, getting in touch with our right brain with a sudden burst of awareness.

14Shari, then you slot right in with a vast majority of screenwriters. Draw that horizontal line, then those two vertical lines, that is screenplay structure in the macro sense at its most basic.

My fave, simplest subscription is describing the three acts as: put your hero up a tree; throw rocks at him/her; let your hero figure out a way back down. That's "home base" for me and always helps me quickly tell a story. At the start of every project, I revisit a bevy of paradigm explanations -- Hero's Journey, Save the Cat, Screenwriting from the Soul, 8 Mini-Movies, etc. -- and always seem to find nuggets of wisdom to accompany me as I "break story". I may not always be a stickler for "this happens on page X", but at least I know, understand and respect tried and true structure of those key beats. I tend not to wander very far from all that -- the trick is winding up with something that's both "recognizable" and yet "surprising".