Talkin' 'Bout Structure, Part II

Now where was I? Oh right, the so-called sequence method.

(Again, as Burley mentioned, I don't have the books in front of me, so what follows is based on memory, along with stuff borrowed from other writers [like McKee] and my own additions. I probably won't delineate between what's from the book and my own crazed imaginings, so take all this stuff with an added pinch of salt.)

What's interesting about the sequence method is that it was developed, not as an alternative or rebuttal to the Aristotelian three act structure, but from observation of how actual movies were put together. The guy who came up with the sequence method (whose name escapes me) realized that, since a projected film consisted of a number of reels that had to be changed, the writers and directors, since the silent era, were (either consciously or unconsciously) choosing to end each reel with a kind of climax, as if each reel were a mini-movie in its own right. This was done so that the transition from reel to reel (which, in the early days, meant a brief gap in the show, as the reel was physically swapped) felt smoother. (Imagine if the reel ended in the middle of a chase or a gunfight, and then a couple minutes of blank screen passed before it resumed.) Even when the technology was in place for seamless transitions, reels were still ending with some kind of climax. This guy decided to see if this was something that unified all the movies that had been coming out of Hollywood since the beginning, and if there was something there to help his film students write their screenplays. This is how the sequence method came about.

So, what is it?

Basically, it's breaking a story down into 8 sequences, usually around 7 to 15 pages (minutes) apiece. Each sequence is, in a sense, a kind of short story or mini-movie, with a beginning, middle, and end, and while it isn't complete in regards to the story as a whole, there's a completeness in and of itself, in what the sequence is trying to accomplish.

And to a certain extent, that's it. I know, not exactly mind-blowing. In fact, kinda obvious, innit? If you have a story you want to fill out to 100 or 120 pages, then breaking it down into smaller pieces is just common sense. Yet, when talking about structure, for the longest time, the only terminology we had was the (in)famous three act structure. And while coming up with a first act is probably within most people's grasp ("It's about a guy who falls in love with a girl but it turns out she's a vampire on the run from a group of vampire hunters but she's actually a good vampire, see, not like her dad who's the one who killed a whole village but the hunters don't know that") and a third act probably is as well ("Uh, they all team up to beat Daddy Vampire, and they live happily ever after"), it's that damn second act that causes all sorts of problems. And that's because it's the biggest part of any movie -- usually about 50-70% of the script. (Well, except for maybe Die Hard... but that's for later.) How do you fill all that space? If, as I've said before, you're a natural storyteller, then you use your silver Scheherazadian tongue and just go until you're finished. But if you're like the rest of us, you need some guidance. And so, if you think of the second act as 4 sequences of varying length, suddenly the problem seems a whole lot more manageable.

Now you could, conceivably, write a feature-length screenplay if you just put eight short scripts together. Sure, it would be awfully patchy, and if it didn't have a recurring main character, it would be more like an omnibus than what we think of as a proper feature-length. But it'd still be a feature-length.

But what say you have a main character you want to follow through the entire story, a character who has some kind of problem to deal with and who grows in some way. (I know, I know, it sounds cliché and banal, but 90% of all stories are about this. 75% of all people know that.) How can the story attain the kind of momentum needed to achieve this?

This is where the real value of the sequence method comes into play, IMO. Now before I get into it, I'll admit a lot of this is an adaptation and expansion of concepts that have been popularized elsewhere. You'll see stuff that isn't too different from what Syd Field was talking about all those years ago. And of course, it's all based on Aristotle's Poetics anyway. But the way Howard puts them together really works for me. So:

There are 8 other qualities (that almost, but not quite, line up with the 8 sequences) that, once defined for the story, become what I call the story core. They are, in order: Point of Attack, Predicament, Main Tension, Point of No Return (PONR), First Culmination, Second Culmination, Third Act Twist/Tension, and Resolution. Everything that you really need to know about a script before you write it is contained in these 8 qualities. Define them, and you have a solid foundation from which to work. (Also, I don't know anything about pitching story ideas to other people -- I'm hoping I get a chance to learn -- but right now, if I had to, I'd use the story core as my pitch outline.)

So what are they?

The first two make up what we think of as Act One:

Point of Attack: This is the moment in the script when we get a sense that the placid status quo of the characters is going to be shaken up. Howard uses the metaphor of "storm clouds on the horizon", which I like quite a bit. This isn't when the protagonist's status quo is shaken -- that's next -- but merely a warning that some kind of earthquake is coming. There's usually some continuous link between this and the next quality, the Predicament -- in Jaws, both revolve around the shark. But I'm not sure there always has to be; it can also simply be one of causality. For example, in A History of Violence, the Point of Attack is when Tom Stall is attacked by the thrill killers and he miraculously takes them out. How did he do it? How is he and his family going to react to the media blitz? The status quo has been shaken up, but at the same time, it could just end right there, with Tom being praised as a hero and then returning to the quiet life of a café owner. But of course, it doesn't -- it's just a lead-in to the...

Predicament: Although all 8 of these qualities are important, there are a couple that are the heart and soul of the method, and this is one of them. The Predicament (which, contrary to what Burley said below, I think is the equivalent to McKee's Inciting Incident, but then again, he's got the books, not me) is the thing that happens to the main character that upsets his or her life. I think it's important to note again, it's an outside force (another character, the environment, a social system) that impacts the character -- it usually isn't some kind of choice the character brings on herself. (However, and this goes for all eight of these, I'm sure there are exceptions.) Instead, the character makes a choice because of the Predicament. And the Predicament can be something very physical (like Woody knocking Buzz out of the window in Toy Story) or it could be emotional or social in nature (as in a woman in her 30s realizes to her disappointment that she isn't young and hip anymore, in A Shockah Script That I've Been Working On, For Like, Fucking Forever). The point is, the main character is knocked for a loop, and that's ultimately what starts the story. And that's why I consider it to be, oh let's call it the "heart", of the method. Go up to somebody and ask them, "What's your predicament?" Assuming they don't look at you crazy, you might get an answer like, "Well, I'm ten thousand bucks in debt, and my girlfriend is leaving me, but I know that if I can get my inheritance from my grandfather, I can get my life back together". (Or whatever.) In other words, the spark for a story. (Which is also why I like the term "Predicament". If you went up to someone and asked, "What's your inciting incident?", hopefully they would look at you crazy.)

The next four make up what we think of as Act Two:

Main Tension: If the Predicament is the heart, the Main Tension is the soul. When the Predicament strikes the main character, she's going to have to make a decision regarding it. What's she gonna do? Is she gonna run to Vegas to get her fiancé back from that hussy? Is she going to use this opportunity to re-examine her life, maybe decide to become a rabbi? Whatever the character decides, that will become the Main Tension. The Main Tension is always phrased as a question, starting with "Will". Will the character get her fiancé back? Will the character become a rabbi? During the course of the next three sequences, the character will attempt to answer that question, ideally (from their perspective, not necessarily ours) with a "yes". The Main Tension is the engine that drives the second act; nearly every scene relates to how that character is trying to answer (or failing to try to answer) the question the Main Tension poses.

What's interesting about the Main Tension and needs to be said again so it's understood (although it might take some time to fully grok it), is that the Main Tension applies only to the second act. For example, the Main Tension of High Noon is "Will the Sheriff get the townspeople on his side to defeat the bad guys?", not "Will the Sheriff defeat the bad guys?". (That last one is part of the third act.) In some senses, a screenplay constructed to these principles is not really one story, but three, mapped to each act. But we'll get to that later.

Point of No Return: The Point of No Return, or PONR is an important quality that is often overlooked by novice screenwriters and screenwriters named "Shockah". Simply put: what keeps the main character from throwing up his hands and saying "Fuck it"? It's important to think about, and (especially with stories that are more about emotions and relationships than shit blowing up and life-and-death stakes) not always easy to determine. Clearly not everything works -- you can't have the PONR be a deadly world-threatening virus in the middle of your romantic comedy. (Or if you do, please let me read your screenplay.) I haven't looked into too deeply, but I suspect that the PONR is usually another form of Predicament -- another external event that forces the main character into action and a decision. (Although sometimes, I suspect the decision has already been made for them by the circumstances.) In The Matrix, the PONR is the choice between the red and blue pill -- which I'd normally decry as blatant and uncouth, but it's pretty cleverly encoded into the mythology of the world.

(I once had an idea for a screenplay where a guy gets on a train and ends up in a town, and the first act is clearly set up as a horror story, with the guy as the hero. But after the elaborate setup, the hero decides to just get back on the train and go home rather than risk his life, and the rest of the story is about something else, and the horror stuff never comes up again.)

Okay, I'm going to take a break here. I don't know about you, but when faced with overly-long blog entries, I tend to get a little impatient and start to skim before long. (Damn TV! Taking away my ability to.. uh... something something.) Hopefully y'all didn't skim. In Part III, I'll talk about the First and Second Culminations (a.k.a. the second half of the second act), the Third Act Twist/Tension, and the Resolution. Then, in Part IV, I'll apply these terms to some popular movies (Jaws, The Matrix, and at least something non-actiony, maybe Sideways) and see if any of it makes sense to me.