I put together a small graph to explain my opinion on rules and structure etc. Rules cannot save a bad piece of writing. No matter the rules. Rules cannot make great writing become bad. The writing is what is important. In my graph I am trying to show that Great Writers and Bad Writers share characteristics. The difference is the writing. So if you feel that you have to break some rules or stray from the norm, go for it. You may find I am the only person cheering you on, but cheer I will. I am so sick (truly sick) of people calling writers that want to experiment or push a boundary Amateurish. Look at the graph. The middle is safe and warm. Your lack of sales must be due to the market or Hollywood not knowing you are great. Or it is because you have made your writing look exactly like everybody else's writing? Just be brave and write what you want. Tell the best story you can, even if it means wondering off the reservation. Also sit back an enjoy the wave of comments telling me how wrong and I am; and asking me how much I make as a writer... blah blah blah. Yes, William Goldman is the highest category of writer (It's my graph)
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Craig - any good researcher/analyst/guru of smartology worth their salt knows they can't make a graph that posits theories and conclusions without sourcing data set/research group statistics; explaining assumptions; and providing definitions to terminologies. Oh wait - that would be too much like having "rules", now wouldn't it? Yeesh. (And they probably don't have typos in their charts, either.)
Awesome graph- did you come up with that?
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@Bill Sorry for any Typos, I am Dyslexic and rely on tech (sometimes too much), plus just knocking it out quickly. You did notice the Title "Just my Opinion". I'll just have to stop cashing my analyst cheques with a guilty confidence, becuse I can't be worth my salt. https://au.linkedin.com/in/craig-griffiths-73403015 I write for love and passion and would drop everything to do it full time in a heart beat. But I am afraid, criminally analysis just pays way to good. @Al yep. It was about 3 minutes work in paint. I can understand people having some way of (or need for) organising thought. I understand that some form of criteria is needed. But look at the Mona Lisa and Andy Warhol's soup cans. It is hard to make rules around art.
@craig that pie chart is awesome! can i steal it? I want to reinvent myself as a screenwriter guru, travel worldwide, share my secrets to aspiring writers. the pie chart is the holy grail from an average to a great presentation! thanks bro
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An open invitation to everyone..... Steal Everything I Do. I would be honoured and (embarrassed by my grammar and spelling - most of the time) happy for as many people as possible to see this. I hope it makes people that are feeling boxed in free to express themselves. That is why I write.
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There's a lot of good stuff in that chart, Craig. Dan is making sure none of us 'newbies' get out of line. And it's not a pie chart, it's a graph. A pie chart is round and looks like a pie.
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Really great, Craig. One teeny suggestion. I would reverse your color scheme. Have red start as the "bad" writer, and the bright green as the best. Just a thought.
Craig - may the heavens continue to bless your moneymaking activities, but I think it's a really terrible conclusion to state that, for "great writers, rules and structure do not exist." They are probably, more than anyone, the greatest practitioners of rules and structure. And I'm not talking about "On page 27...x needs to happen." I'm talking about understanding the essential elements of drama....and making sure that they as storytellers are faithful in implementing those elements. Like....a protagonist (or multiple protagonists) with a goal or goals....some external elements (like an antagonist/antagonists) and maybe some internal conditions (like flaws) that might get in the way of achieving the goal or goals....a twist or two.....an action line that rises....with stakes that are rising....in a story that moves, isn't flat, and is paced properly....with maybe three-dimensional characters who aren't wooden and who aren't caricatures....and whose dialogues are rich, and maybe made more complex by subtextual speaking at times....with maybe a B story to go along with the A story....and maybe a joining of those story lines in order for a culmination to take place....and a climax that maybe doesn't feel forced....and maybe even in a story that has a theme. I hope you were excluding those rules and elements of structure in your Opinion Graph, then. William Goldman's great stories all follow those rules, and are structured that way, too.
@Bill what you are talking about is story (we are on the same page here). That is what I am saying is the most important thing. The point I am trying to make is, if someone starts rolling out the page count, or "action has to be less than four lines", ignore it and work on your story. Look at Gravity - the script is nearly all action. Things Like NEVER MENTION A CAMERA ANGLE..... If a Camera Angle is a character in your story (it is just an example people - no need to go insane). Mention the camera Angle. Plus so many of these rules are derived by looking at the greats and trying to figure out what they did. They didn't follow the rules, the rules follow them. "The Princess Bride", "Marathon Man", "Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid" and "Maverick" all have the same structure, I'll have to go an check.
Gravity is not a good example, the script was written for a specific director by his son
@Dan forget that it was written by the director. They didn't pay for it out of their own pockets. They sold it to a studio with a director attached (who happened to be one of the writers). May have even made it a little easier to sell. But if the rules can never be broken. How did a movie that is nearly entirely action get made? How did they manage to sell it? That's the point of that example. The first producer to read it didn't throw it across the room, like I have heard time and time again, because the action was more than four lines long. I think rules are an example of previous great works looked at with a forensic view. Disregarding the great work and think there is some magic formula. Great work is great work regardless of what happens in page 11.
Craig. How many feature film screenplays have you sold or been hired to write not following the rules?
Craig - I'm talking about structure (form) of story (content). Those elements I named above are not "story", they are elements of structure....and I'd certainly consider those that I mentioned as (some of the) "Rules of Drama" that all great dramatists follow faithfully. Following those rules does not make "great writing become bad": on the contrary, great writing is guided by those rules. I also disagree with your comment, "they don't follow the rules, the rules follow them." The "rules" are the well-defined logic of dramatic structure. They are the DNA of storytelling. It is only logical for writers to have followed that storytelling logic that is laid out in those elements, because that logic and those rules are what helps make a story work instead of misfiring. From ancient Greeks like Euripedes to Romans like Andronicus to Elizabetheans like Shakespeare to modern writers like Ibsen, Lehman, Goldman, Zaillian, Tarantino, me and the people who will come after me. You may not think that great writers grok and follow those rules - innately or through enlightenment - but they did then, and they do now. And probably in all the stages of writing, too - from brainstorming to outlines, and from first drafts, to re-writes, and to final drafts. I'm not trying to nitpick you, and I'm not trying to be semantical - I just think we have a huge schism in our understandings and beliefs of the form and content of art; of the fundamental, time-tested rules of dramas; and how they should apply to all writers of drama. You seem to have a romanticized notion of what the "great writer" does (or doesn't do) with regards to structure. My notion is more down-on-the-ground and firm in the belief that rules and structure ALWAYS exist, and especially for great writers. Again, I wish you the best in your endeavors.
@craig the gravity director is no chump hack. look at his track record. no one throws his name, script in the trash. he throws producers in trash.
btw, i still dig the chart. i'm using for my screenwriter seminar road tour
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I'm a literary editor and I think the graph is a great way to explain your thoughts on the subject and I agree, I'm always telling my clients not to worry about rules as such, but just to finish the book and get the story written. Everything else can be sorted out afterwards and edited to make it publish worthy.
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Know the rules - then don't worry about them.
Question: would you rather be a "good" unpaid writer or a "bad" writer paid 100K a script to use the structure you're talking about?
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A lot of people seem to think it is okay not to follow the rules of formatting. Those people better hope the person reading their script has that same opinion.
I don't think that the graph is trying to tell anyone not to follow the rules formatting- just to try and push yourself a little-take a few chances. There are some 'rules' that have to be followed, but if you are scared not to take a chance once in awhile, then, I don't know why someone would even get into writing?
hee hee hee