Save the Cat! (27 page)

Suddenly from out of nowhere at the midpoint, some new thing — an even bigger and more unexpected thing than we've seen before, and one that seems insurmountable — becomes a problem for our hero. You must be sure the stakes are raised at the midpoint to give the hero new challenges and lead him to his ultimate win.

STRUCTURE
After "concept," the single most important quality of a good screenplay is its structure. Very often a producer or executive will applaud the idea, love the writing, and toss out the script because the structure is a mess. They cannot see how the movie is organized. And without that, they often don't know what it is. Good structure is one of several prime components that will help sell your script — and is the easiest to learn. So learn it! It is part of the language we use to communicate with each other in development meetings, so you must be fluent.

SUBTEXT
— That part of a scene, sequence, or screenplay that lies beneath the surface and is in fact its real meaning. The subtext of an argument between a soon-to-be-divorced couple about buying apples is not whether they choose Macintosh or Pink Lady but the fact that the couple is having problems — and an argument about produce proves it! Do not hit us over the head with what's really going on, it's much more subtle — and better screenwritin' — to hide the meaning. It's not what they're talking about, it's what they're not talking about that makes these moments so rich.

THEMATIC PREMISE
- What is this movie about? Yes, even the silliest monster movie or most spastic comedy has to be "about something." If it's not, it's not a good movie. In essence every good movie is a debate about the pros and the cons of a particular point of view. It is a question raised and answered by the movie. The place to stick that question is up front, loud and clear. It is frequently spoken by a minor character to the hero in the form of question early on, like on page 5, and sets the debate into motion that will be proven, one way or the other, in the course of the movie. This question and debate is the movie's thematic premise.

THESIS. ANTITHESIS, SYNTHESIS
a.k.a. Act One, Act Two, and Act Three — Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis describe the thematic progression of the hero's journey. In Act One, the hero's world is set up. In Act Two that world is turned on its head; it is the upside down version of what he left behind. But by mastering this surreal new world, the hero gains the knowledge to combine what was and its opposite to form a synthesis of everything he has learned. That synthesis occurs in Act Three. It is not enough for the hero to survive the journey; he must transform his world in order to truly be great.

TRACKING — If you have a hot script, either on its way out to the town or about to be, odds are it will be "tracked" by development executives who closely follow its progress. They have even set up an inter-studio Intranet to talk to each other about scripts and whether or not the script is worth the effort of pursuing for purchase. Based on the concept, track record of the writer, and word of mouth, the script will be considered either hot or not. Sometimes, executives will try to outfox each other with misinformation on a hot script, but this sort of maneuver can backfire on them next time. This current tracking system is one of several reasons, mostly economic, that the spec sale frenzy has ended in Hollywood. Tracking scripts in this way cuts down on the chances of any of the studios or their buyers getting burned.

WHIFF OF DEATH
- The added extra bonus found in the All Is Lost point on page 75 of a well-structured screenplay. It is that very special moment where something metaphorically, or actually, dies. And since this is the place where the mentor bites the big one, the moment when best friends and allies you thought looked sick now kick the bucket, and the spot where Spot is removed, this is the perfect place to put such story beats. The All Is Lost point is rife with the whiff of death because it marks the end of the world as is and the beginning of a new world the hero will create from this seeming end.

+/- — This symbol indicates the emotional change of a good scene. I first heard about this from Robert McKee. He believes that every scene should mark a sea change like this, going from one emo-tional extreme to another. And he's right. If you think of each scene as a mini-movie, you must have a
before
snapshot and an
after
snapshot to show this change. Deciding what the emotional shift in each of your scenes involves is the key element in making that scene a success. When I am using index cards and my corkboard to work out the structure of a movie, I mark each card with this symbol and make sure I know what the emotional change is in each scene.

>< — This symbol represents the conflict in each scene. When the scene starts, who has a goal, who's in the way, who wins? These questions can be boiled down into one neat statement using this symbol to denote who's up against whom. Don't start a scene unless you have figured out who your players are and what they want.

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This is how I got hired as a page at NBC. I cold-called a producer for a job. I met with him, he had nothing for me, but the meeting went so well he called his friend at NBC and trot me an interview. The producer had been a page himself.