[…] “In almost everything I’ve done I’ve tried to see the whole, but I don’t think anything I’ve ever done I ever really did see the whole at the beginning of writing. …read more […]

I see a recurring thought here, and that is the idea that the scene or the smallest unit is the crux of writing. This ties in with your scene writing exercises, which I am finding wonderfully informative to the writing process. It makes a lot of sense. In writing a good scene you can come up with larger themes of a bigger story, or maybe some crucial moment that takes you there. I don't know that thinking in three act structure makes sense. You can take anything and call the first part a beginning, the middle is the middle and the end is the end. If the end isn't climatic, it's ambiguous. If the beginning isn't a setup, maybe it's just a flash forward or back. Maybe it's out of sequence. I don't see Kaufman, Lynch, or Nolan always thinking in those terms, except maybe subconsciously or without making sure acts exist.

In a very basic respect, Jon, screenwriting is scene-writing. I've even heard the idea that each scene is a mini-version of the movie itself, and that probably ties into your point about how a story's themes get played out in individual scenes. Re three-act structure: Whatever works. For me, the idea of three movements -- Beginning, Middle, Ending -- is pretty innate to narrative, not only per the overall, but also subplots, sequences, and scenes. You can invert them, reverse them, chop them up, cut in during the middle, cut away before the ending, but the fact is within the story universe, those three movements are almost assuredly in place. That doesn't mean there aren't different ways of structuring a story. I like to think of a conventional approach to a Protagonist's metamorphosis in four stages, but even there, that slots into three act structure, at least the way I teach it. But again, whatever works. A story ought not be restricted to ANY system or approach, a writer's obligation is to tell it the way the story wants to be told.