When I read Corey Mandell's blog posts about story structure, my world turned upside down. Of course, I'd already been exposed to books like Save the Cat where story is broken down into neat little pieces and each piece has a page number. Books like Save the Cat give writers a wonderful foundation in the basics of storytelling. They're fun to read and have a lot of good advice. But for people who restrict themselves to the Save the Cat formula eventually have to grow up and move on to bigger and better things. I met someone at the Great American Pitchfest who listened to Corey Mandell for one hour, and felt like his world had collapsed. Corey had just destroyed everything he learned about writing in film school by throwing Save the Cat out the window and focusing on the principles of compelling conflict. Basically, make sure that every scene has some kind of conflict. If the protagonist is calling her boyfriend so that the audience can learn about her plans for prom night, why not have her little brother trying to steal the phone away from her at the same time? Is her little brother part of the plot where zombies take over the high school during the dance? No. But he can still provide some wonderful conflict and make a boring exposition scene exciting and funny at the same time. Corey points out that each story is different and has different requirements for its structure. If you chain yourself to the Save the Cat formula, you might miss some of the possibilities. Many famous movies didn't follow traditional story structure at all, like The Dark Knight. Batman defeats the joker...only to have an entirely new villain show up and destroy every assumption the audience had. Here's a link to Corey's blog post "Why Story Structure Formulas Don't Work"
http://coreymandell.net/blog/screenwriting-advice/why-story-structure-formulas-don’t-work-part-one/
When I revised my sci-fi short film, it took me a while to find the key to making it work. I had a lot of information I needed to give the audience, but having a news reporter drone on for two pages was definitely the wrong way to go. I had to think outside the box. And guess what the answer was? A holographic simulation!!! Instead of having the protagonist listen to a news report about what he was going to do to save the world, I had him act out the scenario in a simulation chamber so that the audience learned that the world was in trouble, the protagonist was the genius scientist who was going to save it, and show how smart and capable he was at the same time. Excitement, danger, ticking clocks, and characterization smashed together in just a few pages. Not only was it informative, but it was fun to watch and it set up the essential thread that held the whole story together. Now, every time I write, I don't worry about trying to match up page numbers to a story formula, I make sure that each scene's momentum drives into the next scene, and the next, and the next so that each event is the natural consequence of the previous scene. I constantly search for the thread that holds everything together. For Guardians of the Galaxy, it was the cassette tape (the director confirmed this in a podcast with Jeff Goldman). For Big Hero 6, it was the relationship between Hiro and Tadashi and how Tadashi saved Hiro from a life of senseless gambling. That's what made everything else work because Tadashi died and Hiro is dealing with his grief for the rest of the movie. Find the key to the story, and everything else falls into place. Find the right kind of structure, and the story unfolds, right at your feet. That's what I strive for as a writer. And as an editor, that's what I help people find in their own stories.
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