3 Steps That Makes Your Screenplay Rollercoaster

Every story has a beginning, middle and end — age old myth, nothing new since Aristotle proposed and proved grand theory: pity, fear, and catharsis. Screenwriters, storytellers use different language to portray the same words but differently. Laos Egri says — character, conflict and resolution; Syd Field says — setup, conflict and resolution. Blake synder in his famous book ‘Save the cat’ told the same thing — thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis. Joseph Campbell in his seminal work says the same old myth — ordinary world journey to extraordinary world returning to ordinary world with elixir or solution or resolution or trophy.

This gives the wholesome nature of the entire story or movie or play but at the same time when we make close observation, we tend to find similar things happening in every scene — beginning, middle, and end.

So what is a scene?

A scene is nothing but an event that starts either positively or negatively but end opposite to the opening of a scene. For example, A boy wants to propose a girl is the goal of a scene.

One day Raj thinks that he and Sophie have been friends for so many years and she will be in love with him like he has feelings towards her — believing for sure that she accepts him and decides to propose her…

Raj — I love you Sophie…

Sophie — Yeah I know Raj…we love each other…we are childhood friends right?

Raj — …this is more than friendship Sophie…

Sophie — are you saying that you wanna marry me?

Raj — without any hesitation says ‘kinda’

Sophie — I can’t…

Raj — why…am I not good for you?

Sophie — Not like that…in fact I would ever marry anyone in my life…

Raj — what’s wrong with you Sophie?

Sophie — I’m lesbian! (Raj shocks…)

When we analyze carefully this scene, it has beginning, middle, and end.

Beginning — the boy wants to propose girl.

Middle — not sure whether she accepts him or not, which is conflict.

End — she rejects him because she isn’t straight.

The scene begins with a positive hope and ends with negative result and it is also important that every scene should contain conflict. Without conflict in a scene, it would be a mere expository scene. Mere exposition will make the audience bore to death. So what is exposition and how it should be resolved?

Again consider the love proposal scene in an expository way — Raj wants to propose Sophie and it is a big day of his life…his first love…so the writer or director decides that it is big moment in character’s life so that we should be shown his entire feelings that are revolving in his mind…

Raj goes to Levis store to buy a pair of shirt and jeans…next he goes to the fancy store and finds a greeting card for his lover and then he goes to boquet shop to order a beautiful roses for tomorrow’s big event and in the early morning he wakes up by 5 o’clock and camera exposing him in the shower and wearing new dress and packing his stuff, greeting card and goes to boquet for roses and then waiting for Sophie for two hours and finally he finds Sophie kissing her girl friend in the park where his heart broke into pieces — this is all mere exposition and kills the audience right in their seats.

Instead the scene could be cut short and wind up in a minute rather than exposing unnecessary things for five minutes. To put this scene another way — Raj waits for Sophie in the park after a while he gets a call from his mother that his father needs urgent medical checkup and when he is about to leave the park he finds Sophie kissing her girl friend in the park which gives double shock to our protagonist Raj — Sophie is a lesbian.

The clever way to kill exposition is when it is used in conflict or comedy. In fact it turns out to be a great scene. In the above scene, Raj is pretty sure that Sophie will accept him anyways — he is conflict free. But when Sophie turns out to be a lesbian, he heart goes haywire — conflict.

Bottom line is that every story must have a beginning, middle and end: these three elements should reflect in every scene — setup, conflict, and resolution. The character or protagonist should maintain the conflict throughout the length and breadth of every scene till the climax avoiding exposition cleverly.

Thumb rule is if you maintain conflict in every scene then exposition would be killed instantly and any movie could be a rollercoaster to watch.

Movie example of cleverly implanting exposition in a conflict scene — one of my favorite — Mr & Mrs.Smith, starring Angelina Jolie and Brad pitt.

In an escape scene, where Angelina and Brad were being chased by their respective agents, their lives were involved in lot of trouble. They have to fight for their lives. Lots of Guns and ammunitions were being bombarded at them while they were escaping in a SUV on the highway. Conflict is they have to save their lives and in the mean time they both get to know each other their past and family backgrounds. The clever way to kill the exposition of their past in a terrific high-packed action scene. Otherwise it would have been another boring scene if they were get to know each other in an ice-cream parlor that your papa is so and so and my mamma is hot dog lover though she is a bitch who ditched my papa for not bringing hot dog on her wedding day.

Note: kill the exposition in every scene and inflict conflict upon the character that makes the character choose actions accordingly will bid your script at high price.

Ramu Maddy

Newlight Cinemas