10 Story Techniques You Must Use to Sell Your Script

The key question that all screenwriters should ask themselves is: how do I write a script that Hollywood wants to buy? Most writers mistakenly think that success is all about connections and star power. Not so. The real trick to writing a script that will sell is to know and use Hollywood’s central marketing strategy. And that can be summed up in one word: genres.

Over approximately the last ten years, Hollywood has been undergoing a revolutionary change from selling movie stars to selling genres. According to former Universal Pictures chairman Marc Shmuger, “There’s a significant shift [from] star power to the premium that is being put on concept and genre.”

Shmuger is telling any screenwriter who is smart enough to listen the first rule of the entertainment business worldwide: it buys and sells genres. Genres are story forms and each has from 8-15 special story beats (story events) that make up the form. The reason Hollywood marketing is based on genre is that executives are selling to a worldwide audience. And people the world over love particular types of stories that speak to their deepest desires.

I’d like to tell you 10 story techniques that must be in your script if you want the best chance of selling it in a genre-dominated business.

1. Know the 11 most popular genres.

Step 1 in writing a script Hollywood wants to buy is knowing the 11 most popular story forms. If you write a script that is not based on one or more of these genres, your chances of a sale plummet. They are Action, Comedy, Crime, Detective, Horror, Fantasy, Love, Memoir-True Story, Myth, Science Fiction and Thriller.

2. Combine 2 or 3 genres.

In the genre-focused entertainment business, the most important story strategy today is to mix genres. 99% of films made, not just in Hollywood but worldwide, are some combination of the 11 most popular genres. Why? It all goes back to that old rule of selling: give the customer 2 or 3 for the price of 1. This, in a nutshell, is how Hollywood works.

Let me give you some examples. The Hangover films are comedy + detective. Inception is action + caper (crime) + science fiction. Titanic, the most popular movie of all time, is love + disaster film (action) + myth. The Dark Knight is crime + myth + fantasy. The Harry Potter stories, the most popular books of all time, are fantasy + myth + horror + coming of age drama. The Twilight films are horror + fantasy. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are fantasy + action + horror + myth.

3. Find the right genre for the story idea.

The single biggest decision you make in the entire writing process occurs right at the beginning, when you are developing your premise, or story idea. The decision is: which genres should I use for this idea? Here’s a shocking but eye-opening fact: 99% of scripts fail at the premise. And why? It’s not because their original story ideas weren’t good. They fail because the writers didn’t know the best genres to use to go from a 1-line idea to 2-hour, 120-page script.

Each genre will take a story idea in radically different directions. So when writers choose the wrong genres to develop their idea, the result is not only a lot of bad scripts but also the waste of thousands of great story ideas. Given that you can use many genres to develop the same idea, the key question is: what are the right ones?

The secret to choosing the right genres is buried in the story idea itself. You need to dig into the premise and find the genres inherent to that idea. Instead of trying to copy a popular movie from the past, you need to find what is original, what is organic to your story. One of the powers of genre is that the right genres highlight the inherent strengths of the idea and hide the inherent weaknesses.

In my genre classes, I talk a lot about techniques for digging into your premise and finding the best genres for you. One of them is to focus on the desire line, one of the seven major story structure steps. It turns out that each genre has a unique, pre-determined desire line. For example, the Crime desire is to catch a criminal. Detective is to find the truth. Horror is to defeat a monster. For Love, it’s to find love. Myth is to go on a journey, ultimately leading to oneself. Figure out the goal of your hero and see if it matches the desire of any of the main genres.

4. Use myth as one of your genres.

Because Hollywood only wants scripts with blockbuster potential, your story must be popular in over 100 different cultures and nationalities.

That’s a lot of communication barriers to cross. Unfortunately, most writers don’t know which genres travel well and which don’t. For example, comedies based mostly on funny dialogue DON’T travel. Myth, on the other hand, loves to travel. That’s why myth is found in more blockbusters by far than any other form.

Myth is the oldest of the 11 most popular film genres, and is surprisingly complex, with 15 special story beats. But boy is it popular. Try adding up the box office of these myth-based films: Avatar, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Shrek and Star Wars.

5. Combine myth with one or two other genres.

While myth is the foundation of more blockbusters than any other genre, it almost never stands alone. That’s not just because Hollywood wants to give people 2 or 3 genres for the price of one. It has to do with the deep weaknesses found in the form itself.

The myth form is thousands of years old. And it has a very episodic structure, so it can grow tiresome and decline in power through the middle of the story. Top professional screenwriters know this, which is why they always add 1 or 2 other genres to modernize the myth form and overcome its episodic quality.

6. Make one genre primary.

Screenwriters who are smart enough to study Hollywood as a business know that it’s all about combining genres. Where they sometimes go wrong is in execution. It’s one thing to say, “Take 2 or 3 story forms and put them together into a seamless whole.” It’s another thing to do it well.

Combining genres is more difficult than it looks, because of what it does to the story structure under the surface. Each genre has a pre-determined hero, opponent, desire line, thematic focus, and so on. Which is why most writers combining genres end up with a structural mess. They have too many heroes, desire lines, opponents, themes and story beats. Any one of these structural mistakes will kill a script, so imagine what happens if you make them all.

When mixing genres, the key is to make one form the primary one. This will give you your hero, a single desire line, a single story line and the most important unique story beats. Then put in other genre elements where they fit, so they amplify the primary form.

7. If you’re writing a screenplay for an indie film, write horror, thriller, or love.

One of the best ways to break in and separate yourself from the thousands of other screenwriters in the world is to write and make your own film. Of course, that requires keeping costs to a bare minimum. And the cheapest genres to shoot are horror, thriller and love. These genres require the fewest actors, sets and special effects. Of these, horror is the most popular worldwide. But the most important determinants of which genres you use for your indie film are which genres are best for your story idea and which genres are you best at writing. 

8. Hit all the genre beats.

Writers of blockbuster movies always know their genres so well that they hit every one of the story beats unique to their form. In genre writing, this is known as “paying the dues.” And it’s absolutely essential or the audience feels cheated. Remember, they are there to see the story forms they love, so you have to know your genres better than anyone else and give the audience what they crave. And that means, knowing how your genres work under the surface, in the structure, where the real story work is done.

9. Be original, transcend the genre.

It may surprise you that the biggest reason a reader turns down a script is because it’s “derivative.” That’s a fancy way of saying that the writer hit all the beats of the genre, but nothing more. Readers have read scripts from every genre hundreds of times. So you can’t stand out from the crowd just by “paying the dues.”

That’s why professional screenwriters not only hit all the genre beats, they do the beats in an original way. This is known as transcending the genre. And you simply cannot succeed if you fail to transcend the genres you’re working in.

Unfortunately, there are no simple rules for how to do this for all genres. Transcending genre is different for each form. In the 1-day class I teach in each genre, I spend a great deal of time on exactly how to do this. Transcending depends on the story beats that are unique to your form. It also requires that you study the best films in your form so you know what has already been done.

10. Be honest with yourself, and specialize in the forms that are right for you.

Genres are extremely powerful structural tools for a screenwriter, and they are the key to your success in the entertainment business. But they are complex story systems. I don’t know a single professional screenwriter who has mastered more than 2 or 3 of them. That’s why it’s so important that you look honestly at yourself and assess your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Determine which genres highlight your strengths and express the themes you believe in. Then apply yourself with laser-like focus to mastering those forms.

When you let genres do the hard story work, and concentrate on writing them in an original way, you will be amazed at how good, and how successful, your scripts will be.

For structure breakdowns of films in all the major genres, go to www.truby.com/reviewarc.html.

5 Keys to Summer Blockbusters

It used to be that summer was the season for blockbuster movies. Now it's a year-round phenomenon. Hollywood is in the business of selling films to a worldwide audience, which means they are always looking for a script with blockbuster potential.

Most screenwriters think a blockbuster is simply a film that does really well at the box office. Technically speaking, that's true. But the reality is that a script with blockbuster potential is a very special kind of script, with a number of story elements that studio executives are looking for.

I'd like to point out five of the most important blockbuster script elements, out of about forty that we consistently see in the top money-making films.

Technique 1: The Myth Genre

The first blockbuster story element has to do with the genre you use to tell your story. A genre is a particular kind of story, like detective, action or comedy. When Hollywood was selling primarily to an American audience, executives thought that movie stars were the key to a hit film. But in the last ten to fifteen years, the vast majority of blockbuster films have had no movie stars.

Instead the emphasis has changed to genre films with great stories. For a film to reach a worldwide audience, it must be popular in over 100 different cultures and nationalities. Story forms are instantly recognizable anywhere in the world.

But you can't just choose any genre if you want to write a script with blockbuster potential. Most writers don't know that some genres travel well while others don't. For example, comedies based mostly on funny dialogue don't travel.

Ironically, the story that travels best is the oldest genre of all, the myth form. Myth is found in more blockbusters than any other genre by far. Add up the box office for the following myth-based movies: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings, Shrek, Star Wars and Avatar.

The reason myth transcends national and cultural boundaries so well is that the form tracks archetypal characters and archetypal life situations. These are fundamental character types that everyone knows, and life experiences everyone passes through from birth to death.

Like any genre, myth has a number of unique story beats you must learn, and include, if you want to tell the form well. And remember: in blockbusters, myth is almost always combined with one or two other genres, such as action, fantasy and science fiction, that serve to update and unify the myth story for a young audience.

Technique 2: The Hero's Goal

The single most important element in an international blockbuster is narrative drive, the ability of the story to propel forward at an increasing rate. Narrative drive comes primarily from the hero's desire line. Desire is one of the seven major story structure steps, and provides you with the all-important spine on which you hang all characters, plot, symbol, theme and dialogue.

Average writers tend to make at least one of the following mistakes when coming up with the desire line: their hero has no clear goal, he/she accomplishes the goal too quickly, or the hero reaches the goal by taking only a few action steps.

There are three keys to a good desire line. First, make it specific; the more specific the better. Second, extend the goal as close to the end as possible. Third, make sure the hero is obsessed with it. Above all, intensify the desire.

Technique 3: The Opponent

As screenwriters, we are taught to focus on the hero, since this character drives the story. That's sound advice. But in blockbuster films, the opponent may be even more important. One of the great principles in all storytelling is that the hero is only as good as the person he fights. Also, the opponent is the key to plot. And in the last ten years, blockbusters have become more plot heavy.

When writing your script, first make sure you have one main opponent to focus and build the conflict. Then look for ways to intensify the central opposition.  Make your main opponent bigger, smarter, more aggressive, more passionate. In writing Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan said, "What was important to me in creating an incredible frightening villain is that everything he says is true and at some level reasonable and also makes sense." Nolan then used this same approach in The Dark Knight when he created The Joker, one of the all-time great opponents and probably the key element in that film's huge success.

Once you're clear about the main opponent, try to come up with one or two secondary opponents, with at least one of them hidden from the hero and the audience.

Technique 4: The Scam

The emphasis blockbuster films place on plot leads to another story technique. And it's designed to solve a problem that plagues almost all screenwriters: how do you create maximum plot in the middle, where 90% of scripts fail? In blockbuster movies, the hero's plan is often a scam, or a plan that involves deception.

The trick here is to make the plan more deceptive for both hero and main opponent. When the hero scams, he becomes a trickster character, which audiences love. When the opponent scams, it gives you more plot and makes him/her a more challenging foe.

Technique 5: The Story World

The rise of the videogame along with the ability of special effects artists to realize wholly imaginary worlds has made the story world one of the three or four crucial elements in a blockbuster film. As little as a decade ago, Hollywood didn't care about story world, because it slows down narrative drive. Special effects were designed primarily to heighten heroic action.

But videogames showed Hollywood the power that comes from having viewers immerse themselves and explore a world in all its facets. And there's no medium that can do that better than the big screen film medium.

Many screenwriters believe that this aspect of the film is the responsibility of the director and the special effects artists. Wrong. A good story world is written into the script, and it is intimately organic to the story. That's why you must make sure that every visual element contributes to the story. In other words every element should have story meaning embedded within it.

How you do that is a major story skill right up there with character, plot, dialogue and rewrite. All of the major techniques for creating a rich story world are found in my Blockbuster story development software. The first step is to define a distinct and recognizable arena. Then create a map of the world, with as much detail as you can provide, especially when depicting the central community within which the story takes place. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Avatar were all written by masters of the story world.

If you are serious about succeeding as a professional screenwriter, start with these five techniques and you will be well on the path to writing a script that Hollywood is eager to buy.

Midnight in Paris

Spoiler alert: this breakdown contains crucial information about the plot of the film.

With Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen has returned to writing from strength. The film is founded on one of the great cinematic story techniques, the utopian world. Here the moment is 1920s' Paris, where some of the best writers and artists of the 20th century lived in close quarters. The film is also based on the concept of The Golden Age. Every society has some version of the belief that an earlier time was not only better than the present, but nearly perfect.

This idea of a golden age isn't just intellectually appealing. It has personal impact on the audience as well. An older audience especially understands the feeling that there was a time in their life that was best, but it's long over now. For many, the desire to get back to that age is intense. Some experience it every Christmas when they remember how magical that morning was for them when they were young. But no more.

Let's put ourselves in Woody Allen's position to see how he might have solved this story problem. He might ask: how do you structure this utopia so that it gains the added impact of a story?

Midnight in Paris looks like a fairy tale romantic comedy. But Allen isn't very good at the love story form. Yes, he wrote one of the great romantic comedies in Annie Hall. But when you look at that film in light of all the films he has made since, you realize that Annie Hall was a one-time home run based primarily on his creation of the amazing title character, Annie.

The love interest in Midnight in Paris has nowhere near the character definition or quirky uniqueness of Annie Hall. She is simply a gentle, beautiful Frenchwoman who wants to live in an earlier time, just like the hero. As a result, there is little chance for the romance of these characters to build in a way that is satisfying to the audience.

The love story structure is really just an excuse for Allen to provide a storyline on which to hang the real gold of the idea, the fantasy comedy elements. With the woman as a desire line, the hero can take a number of trips into the utopian moment. And there he can meet a succession of famous artists the audience knows.

In the Anatomy of Story  Masterclass, I talk about the crucial technique of digging out the gold in your premise - finding what is original to you - and then presenting that gold again and again to the audience over the course of the story. The gold here is Allen's comical take on each of the famous writers and artists of the time. Once he was clear about that, the question for Allen, the writer, then became: how do I create a storyline that can allow me to play as many of these comic bits as possible without the story becoming episodic and collapsing?

The solution Allen chose is the same one used in Crocodile Dundee. In that film the romantic line between Dundee and the reporter allowed for the maximum number of encounters between animal man Dundee and the denizens of New York. Here the hero's encounter with Hemingway is the equivalent of Dundee saying to the mugger, "That's not a knife. This is a knife."

This structure also allowed Allen to write to his strength, rather than what he has been doing for the last twenty years, which is writing from his weakness. Allen has never been very good at the craft of story. In spite of the complexity of some of his story structures over the years (Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters), Allen has usually been unable to create a complex plot where the opposing characters play out their differences through building conflict.

The normal Woody Allen movie consists of a story gag that should take about thirty minutes to play out. He stretches it to ninety minutes and finally has the lead character directly explain his self-revelation, which is exactly what Allen wants his audience to learn from the film.

What Woody Allen is great at is writing comic bits and gags. And he is probably the second greatest American writer of intellectual comedy, behind Mark Twain. Unfortunately, Allen is not satisfied with that gift as a writer, and indeed he has looked down on it since at least the early 70s.

In this film Allen has found a story structure that allows him to feel he is a writer's writer, but also gives him permission to enjoy his guilty pleasure of writing brilliant intellectual comedy. The first time the hero meets Hemingway we hear drop dead perfect Hemingway prose coming out of his mouth. The scene is hilarious, especially if you know your American literature.

And that's another pleasure of the film. Allen's relatively small audience is composed of the educated and the sophisticated. So when they get the literary and visual jokes, they also get to feel how smart they are.

The story is really just an intellectual candy store, with the love story bringing us back to the store again and again. Of course while we are enjoying the pleasures of a utopian moment in this film, we also learn, in a great visual gag, the opposite lesson that you can't live in the past.

I don't know if this film signals a possible return to good Woody Allen, as some have suggested. I do know it provides a clear lesson to the screenwriter in how to find the right structure and genre embedded in your story idea.

African Cats

I had the pleasure of co-writing a wonderful film that’s just come out, called African Cats. This is Disney Nature’s third release, after Earth and Oceans. These films were all made by the highly talented nature documentarians at the BBC, who work together not unlike the writers and directors of Pixar. African Cats was led by Keith Scholey, co-writer and co-director, and the world’s premiere expert in filming big cat behavior. So this was a really fun project for me.

Ironically, one of the reasons I loved it was for the unique story challenges it posed. You have to identify these challenges right at the beginning of the writing process, or your script will have severe problems. First, we had to make this an epic event, worthy of a feature length film. That meant we had to avoid the typical nature documentary, which is predictable and familiar, and way too informational and dry.

We also had to write a story that was dictated by the animals. Obviously, you can’t script animals; you have to find the best story in what they actually do. That can be very difficult, especially when you want to avoid anthropomorphizing them. So the main challenge of the plot was how to overcome the episodic quality inherent in all nature films, especially when the animal depicted must go on an annual migration.

Animal stories are also constrained by the main characters. The more the animal is limited by what he can learn, the more the story is guided by predictable instinct. One solution, but also a problem, was to have two main characters, a lion and a cheetah. This makes the film feel like the story about the world’s big cats. But it also breaks the single narrative story line into two tracks, and the tracks may never cross.

So what did we do? I always say in my genre classes that the main trick is to transcend the genre. How you do that is different for every form. Nature films are a sub-genre of the True Story (which also includes memoir). True stories are at their best when they are deeply personal, when they focus on the family. For us, that meant focusing on the two mothers.

Motherhood is the greatest challenge in the animal world, both emotionally and strategically. These mothers, whether lion or cheetah, are ferocious fighters for their cubs. They despair at losing one. They rejoice when a cub comes home. When you see the intense feelings of the two mothers, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have no need, or even possibility, of anthropomorphizing these animals. Call them what you will, these animals love.

Unlike all other animal activities, which are single bursts in the present, motherhood requires a strategic campaign that can cover years. So we knew that tracking the cub-raising process would give us most of our plot.

Motherhood also unifies our story line. It gives the audience a sense that, below the surface, these two main characters are really one. Ironically we united them further by using extreme contrast. Luckily for us storytellers, these two feline mothers are complete opposites: the lioness raises her cubs within the strong society of the pride while the cheetah raises her cubs alone. Each way of living and mothering produces different terrors, mothering techniques and plot beats.

While the two moms should give us enough plot (we wouldn’t know for sure until all the footage came back!), it wouldn’t necessarily overcome the story’s episodic nature. We began to solve that problem by first admitting that this story will always have episodic qualities. That’s life. That’s a journey. And to this day, it’s a major form of plot.

But we also knew a great technique in writing, which is to turn a negative into a positive. Make your weakness a strength. If we’ve got two major characters and a journey, let’s get all the benefits of the crosscut we can.

The crosscut was one of the keys to this plot, because it allowed us to cut on the cliffhanger. The cliffhanger has been used in storytelling forever. But this technique was refined for the film medium in recent years through television, in shows like ER. Multi-strand stories on film allow you to sequence scenes based on the most dramatic moments of each story.

The crosscut in turn affected how we wrote the narration. Most narrations in nature films are too wordy and informational. They often step on big reveals and smother drama. The crosscut allowed us to convey lots of information through juxtaposition of scenes rather than by voiceover. For every step of the cub-raising process, we could show, by quick comparison, how the two mothers must use opposite techniques, with opposite costs.

That in turn allowed us to keep the narration lean and emphasize the dramatic. Our discipline was to give only enough information to tell the big cats apart and highlight the underlying strategies the cats use for each challenge they face. We let the “greatest hit” drama beats tell themselves, and that brought the audience into the action, instead of dryly backing them away.

You cannot transcend a film’s genre unless you also transcend the form’s basic theme. Animal films are about survival. About life. It goes on, but the process is brutal. It’s a war out there. One of the ways we punched the epic quality of the film was to frame it as a fight for the entire lion kingdom, which arguably is the most dangerous place on earth. So we were playing that theme hard (and yes, it really happened).

But to transcend our theme, we knew we would have to show that within this world of brutal survival, where there is no justice, there are moments of courage, sacrifice and love. Once again the mothers were the answer. Because when you see what these mothers do for their cubs, these big, beautiful cats become the Shakespearean characters of the animal world. Rest assured, if you see this movie the tears will come. Don’t fight it. Your secret is safe with me.

John Truby answers your story questions

Question: What questions should a writer ask him or herself prior to crafting their story?

Most writers can't tell at the premise stage whether they've got a good story because they don't have the training to see the deep structural problems in the idea before writing it as a script. 

The extraordinary fact is 99% of writers fail at the premise. This is the great unknown gatekeeper that keeps most writers from being successful. If you screw up the premise, nothing you do later in the writing process will make any difference. The game's already over.

The biggest mistakes writers make at the premise:

The idea is not original.

The idea doesn't have a clear desire line for the hero that extends throughout the story.

The idea doesn't have a strong main opponent.

Question: How much time and effort should a writer put into outlining their script and fleshing out their characters before actually writing the script?

Much more time and effort than most writers think.

For every hour you put into prep work on your story, you save ten when it comes to writing, and rewriting, it. Don't make the mistake so many writers make of thinking, "I'll fix it in the rewrite." They never do.

A good story is linked under the surface so it builds steadily from beginning to end. But amateurs don't know that, so when they get an idea, they immediately start writing script pages, and they inevitably write themselves into a dead-end 20-30 pages in. Also, writer's block is almost always caused by not knowing where the story is going. That's why, before writing script pages, you always want to start by figuring out the seven steps of your story. The seven steps are in your story right now. It's your job to find them, dig them out and make them say what you want them to say.

Question: You've consulted on over 1,000 movie and TV scripts. What are the typical weaknesses you find in scripts?

I'll give you five.

The story idea the writer comes up with is not original. Biggest mistake writers make.

Writers often use the wrong genre to develop the idea, or they impose a bunch of pre-determined genre beats onto the idea instead of finding the story events that are original to the idea.

They think a script is all about finding the "high concept" premise, but they don't realize that high concept only gives you two or three big scenes. So they don't know how to extend the high concept into a 100-page script.

They don't know how to build the story on the seven major story structure steps, so the plot fails to come out of character and the main character doesn't change.

They think of the hero as a separate individual with a list of superficial character traits. Instead they should think of the hero as part of a web of characters, all connected in some way but with each character being structurally different from the others.

Question: Why is it so important to master genres?

It goes back to the 1st rule of the entertainment business: it doesn't buy stars, directors or writers. It buys and sells genres. If you don't know what Hollywood is really buying, you have no chance of selling them your script.

Genres are different kinds of stories. More importantly, genres are really good stories. They are the all-stars of the story world. That's why Hollywood buys and sells them. That's why you have to know these genres cold. The game is won by mastering story structure and genres. And mastering genres comes from specializing in 2 or 3 forms that highlight your strengths as a writer and express your philosophy of life.

Question: How do you determine what genre or genres your story is?

This can be very tricky, and most writers end up choosing the wrong genre for their story idea. Each genre takes the basic steps of story structure and twists them in unique ways. Also, each genre has its own set of unique story beats - anywhere from 8-15 - that must be included in your script if you are to tell the story right.

Because genre is the single most important decision you make in developing a story idea, I spend a great deal of time in my Masterclass talking about how you tell which are the right genres for your unique idea. Some of the elements that determine the right genres for your story are the hero, the opponent, the key thematic question, the hero's goal in the story, and the unique story strategy inherent to each form.

Question: You've said writers often underestimate the importance of plot. Why is it so important to learn, and how do you approach teaching it?

Plot is the most underestimated of the major writing skills. Most writers know the value of a strong main character and lean, hard-hitting dialogue. But when it comes to plot, they think they'll just figure it out as they go, which never happens.

The bad news: Plot has more techniques you need to know than all the other major skills combined.

The good news: Every one of them can be learned as long as you are willing to put in the work.

Plot is what makes the character's internal development pleasing to the audience. It's the artistry that sets you apart, that tells the audience you are a real storyteller. Plot is the sequence of events by which the hero tries to defeat the opponent and reach the goal. The two biggest mistakes writers make in plot is 1) Their story is episodic, meaning events stand on their own but don't connect and build under the surface and 2) They hit the same beat, which means the events are superficially different but really all the same.

Question: Why do some writers react negatively to the idea of structure?

They wrongly believe that it hurts creativity. It goes all the way back to the old romantic notion that art comes from divine intervention. The fact is: art comes from craft. And the most important element of craft is structure. When you have the right story structure for your script then each scene you write is moving you along the right path for your particular main character. The results are not comparable. The first way you write yourself into a dead-end about 20-30 pages in. It is practically inevitable and is one of the marks of an amateur. The second way you figure out the story structure so your creative bursts are linked to the right path.

Ironically, structuring your story first is much more creative than just winging it, because you have a strong foundation on which to take creative chances. You know your structure is there to tell you if the creative jump you want to make is going to work.

Question: You say character must drive the plot instead of being pushed around by the plot. But don't you think everyday life pushes us around most of the time? In order for the audience to recognize itself in the story, shouldn't the story talk about that too?

This phrase is often misunderstood. Driving the plot doesn't mean a hero who takes all the action steps to succeed. Only the most action-oriented character does that. And it makes for a poor story because it means the opposition is doing very little to knock the hero off course. Result: no conflict and bad drama.

Making the hero drive the plot means that the plot comes out of the weakness and need of the hero. This way, the hero's surface actions while going after some kind of goal lead ultimately to character change within the hero. If the writer doesn't make this connection between character and plot, and come up with plot beats that will ultimately force that character change, the story has no personal meaning for the audience. In a good story the opponent will push the hero around a great deal, in fact, the more the better. This builds conflict and forces the hero to dig deeper to fix the great weakness that's ruining the hero's life.

Question: You write that dialogue isn't real talk, rather it's highly selective language that could be real. Could you please explain that?

If dialogue were real talk, all you would need to do is follow your friends around with a recording device and your dialogue would be guaranteed authentic. It would also be boring. Why? Because it lacks content.

Just as a story is a highly selective sequence of events, dialogue is selective, heightened talk. It is packed content. And here's where it gets tricky. Dialogue with lots of content doesn't usually sound like real talk. It sounds written, and that will kill your story. So you need to learn the techniques for making highly selective language sound like it could be real.

Question: How important is the process of rewriting?

For most writers, the second draft is worse than the first.

This is one of the dirty little secrets of screenwriting, and it's one of the biggest reasons many writers give up. Writers always think they are the only person to experience this, while in fact it's the norm. Part of the problem comes from writers following the conventional wisdom that "writing is rewriting." It's true you have to rewrite your script many times. But many writers think that they should write their first draft quickly - just get it down on paper - and they'll fix it in the rewrite. This is a disaster because once a script is written it's like cement. It hardens in your mind and it's much harder to fix the problems. That's why it's so important to figure out the story structure before you write the first draft.

The other big reason why the second draft is often worse than the first comes from the fact that most writers don't realize that rewriting is a set of skills, just like crafting character, plot and dialogue. You have to know how to rewrite. And that means, among other things, knowing the right order to rewrite. For example, the first thing most writers fix in the rewrite is the dialogue. That should be the last thing you fix. First are the structural problems, and even here there is a definite order for how to rewrite to make certain that every draft is an improvement over the one that came before.

Question: What is the most important thing to know when you are adapting a book into a screenplay?

Entire books have been written on the subject of adapting a book into a screenplay. Always the question arises: how do you remain true to the original material and still have the freedom to take advantage of the cinematic medium?

The trick to adaptation is: find the bones. First determine the deep structure of the novel. Mark every scene where a key structure step occurs. Those are the events that must be in the script. Study those beats and figure out if the novel's original structure needs to be fixed or changed in some way. Then go back to the novel and see if you want to include any of the non-structural events. These may be in the script, so long as they contribute to the script's basic structure.

Question: How do writers unearth stories that want to be told?

Stories that want to be told are not "out there." They're in you. In my class, I talk about a number of key writing exercises that help you find what is totally original to you. Incredibly, most writers don't know, and it's a fatal mistake. Then we go through the techniques you must know to turn that original seed into a professionally told story. An original idea professionally told is an unbeatable combination. It's not easy, but it can be done and it's the only recipe I know that works.

Question: Your 3-day masterclass on story is legendary. Can you give us a detailed rundown of what you cover and why people keep coming back over and over?

The morning of the first day is where we set the foundation for a great script. We cover the 7 steps of deep structure and the story beats of the 3 major variations of deep structure. Once this foundation is set, the class covers all the professional techniques in the same order that you would write your script.

In the afternoon, we start with the techniques for developing a winning premise, because 99% of scripts fail right there. Then we go through the five steps to creating powerful characters, the key to every good script.

The morning of the second day is devoted to plot, where many writers have tremendous difficulty. This is where we learn the 22 steps of every great story, the single most powerful set of tools in all of storytelling. Afternoon of day two starts with a discussion of story shapes, which are one of the secrets to crafting a surprising and unique plot. Then we dive into the techniques for constructing scenes and writing sharp dialogue.

In day three, we go through the 12 major genres on which 99% of movies are based. These include Action, Comedy, Crime, Detective, Fantasy, Horror, Love, Masterpiece, Memoir-True Story, Myth, Science Fiction, Thriller and Mixed Genre. Here we get into what each genre really means under the surface, some key structure techniques for writing each one, and how to transcend your genre so you stand above the crowd.

When the three days are over, students have a precise set of tools that they can apply to any story they write. And I believe at the end of the class, they are substantially better writers than they were before the class, whether they started as a beginner or as a professional.

Why do people keep coming back? Because for many writers it's the only thing they've found that works. My class is all about being practical. It's about taking the most complex craft in the world - which shows people solving life problems - and breaking it down into specific techniques that affect an audience. Every time. Every script, no matter what genre.

Part of what makes the class so powerful and useful to writers is that the techniques don't produce cookie cutter scripts that no one wants to read. That's because the techniques are all focused on how your unique main character drives an intriguing plot. So each script is original and surprising at the same time.

Genres: The Secret to Your Success

Here’s a fact that should catch your attention: 99% of screenwriters fail at the premise line. You may come up with a terrific one-line idea for a movie, but if you don't develop it the right way, the best scene writing in the world won't make a difference.

The single most important decision you make when developing your premise is: what genre should I use? Genre is a particular type of story, like detective, comedy, thriller or action. The reason genre is so important is that the entire entertainment business is based on it.

That sounds like a pretty extreme statement until you look at how Hollywood has set itself apart from the rest of the world. The rest of the world has always emphasized the original artistic vision in their filmmaking. Which is great for art, but bad for commerce, because for each film, the audience has to re-invent the wheel. They have to guess whether they want to enter the theater. And they have to work hard to figure out the unique story patterns that make that film work.

Hollywood realized a long time ago that it is not in the business of selling original artistic vision (though it sometimes happens anyway). It is in the business of buying and selling story forms. Genres tell the audience up front what to expect from the product they are buying. If they like a particular kind of story, chances are they will like this particular film, especially if the writer and director give the expectations a little twist.

For years, Hollywood films were only one genre apiece; say western, detective or family comedy. Then someone had the brilliant idea: hey, let's give them two for the price of one. That's why virtually every film made now is a combination of two, three or even four genres.

The implications for you as a writer in Hollywood are huge. First, you have to figure out what genres are best for your idea. Second, you have to know those genres better than everyone else writing in those forms. Third, you have to know how to transcend the forms so you can give the audience a sense of originality and surprise.

The problem with genre is that each one is a complex system of story, with its own unique hero, opponent, story beats, structures and themes. Fortunately, this information, though complex, is knowable. You just have to put in the time and effort to learn it.

When I first start developing a story, I look at a number of elements to help me choose which genres would get the most out of the idea. The first element is the hero's role in the story. When you look at your premise, you can usually imagine a basic action that the hero would take throughout the story. For example, is the hero essentially a fighter (Action), a lover (Love), an enforcer or criminal (Crime), an endangered investigator (Thriller) or a victim (Horror)?

A second element to look at is your hero's desire line. The desire, one of the seven basic story structure steps, is your hero's particular goal. It provides the spine of the story, so every hero should have one. It just so happens that each of the major genres is associated with a desire line. One way to get a sense of the best genre for your idea is to match the probable desire line of your hero to the key desire line of each genre. For example, the goal in a fantasy is to explore an imaginary world. In myth, it's to go on a journey, ultimately leading to one's self. In sitcoms, the hero wants to escape from an impossible predicament. In thrillers, the hero's desire is to escape attack.

An opponent who fights the hero and tries to prevent him or her from reaching the goal is another important element that helps determine your genre. The relationship between hero and opponent is the most important relationship in your story. A good opponent must be a unique individual but also fulfill a crucial story function. For example, in television drama, the main opponents are usually other family members. In comedy, the opponents tend to be various expressions of society at large. In the masterpiece, the opponent is some kind of system in which the hero is trapped. In love stories, the main opponent is the lover.

Another way that the various genres set themselves apart from one another is that they each ask a different central question or force the hero to make a crucial decision. The key question in thrillers: Is your suspicion justified? In comedy: do you lie or show your true self? In action: do you choose freedom or life? In fantasy: how do you live with style and freedom?

Part of exploring your premise line has to do with discovering the deepest thematic question your hero must confront in playing out the drama. How your hero answers this deep question is the real stakes of the story; it's what makes the audience want to watch this character all the way to the end. One of the benefits of genre is that a framework for these deep questions has already been worked out. You provide the details and the variations.

Keep in mind that when you explore your premise, you are at the very beginning of the writing process. So you may not know the key question your story will ask. The important thing is to make a guess now. It will help you extend and focus your idea, as well as lead you to the best genre for carrying the story.

Genres aren't just systems for expressing certain themes. They are also strategies for storytelling. Action stories set up a kind of heavyweight fight with an intense punch/counter-punch between hero and opponent. Science fiction sends the hero to a unique technological future that highlights strengths and weaknesses in the present world. Thriller places a weakened hero in a tight box and shows him or her struggling to escape. Crime pits a criminal who thinks he is above society against a defender of society's rules and values.

The above elements, though helpful, only tell you which genres are probably best for your idea. They don't tell you how to write them. That’s where the story beats come in. Each genre has anywhere from 8-15 unique beats, which are key events that must be in your story or you are not doing the form. For example, if you write a love story without a first kiss the audience will want to have you shot.

One of the great advantages of genres is that they help you with plot. Plot is the most underestimated of all the major writing skills, with a lot of specific techniques you must learn to work as a pro. Most writers know the value of a strong main character and tight, witty dialogue. But they think they’ll just figure out the plot as they go. Which never happens, and it’s a big mistake. The ability to pack more plot in your script is the single most distinguishing feature in a script and film that hits big.

Once you know the key genre beats of your story, you have a detailed map of the plot. But that only puts you in the ballpark of a winning script. The final key is to learn these beats so well you not only hit them but also twist them. Twisting the beats is what makes your genre story original and separates it from all the other scripts in your form. This year, a number of films that are getting Oscar attention are transcendent genre films, such as Toy Story 3, Inception, The Social Network, Kick Ass, and A Prophet.

How you transcend your genre is quite varied and depends on the genre. But certain elements always apply. First, you have to make your archetypal main character – such as fighter, lover, enforcer, searcher – real and unique. In short, you must turn a type into an individual.

Transcending your genre also involves changing the hero from what I call a “traveling angel” – a perfect person who goes around solving other people’s problems – and placing him or her at the center of the drama. That means giving your hero a strong weakness and need that he or she must overcome by the end of the story.

This is one of the main techniques Hollywood’s best screenwriters use to transcend their form. For example, Tony Gilroy used this technique in transcending the thriller with Michael Clayton and in transcending the action story with the Bourne films. Said Gilroy, “I had been running around for years trying to get somebody to get interested in scaling down action. To make it more intimate. My contention was that if you brought action down to the ground level, it could mean a lot more with a lot less.” Translated into screenwriting techniques, that meant turning Jason Bourne into a real person haunted by guilt and the need for revenge.

Another technique for transcending your genre is to combine the basic genre beats with elements of the family drama. One of the best comedies of the last few years was Little Miss Sunshine, a combination of myth and comedy, which is a hybrid form as old as Don Quixote. In a myth the hero goes on a long journey. Myth is a very popular genre, but it can become episodic as the hero meets and defeats a succession of opponents who are strangers to the hero and the audience.

The writers of Little Miss Sunshine solved this inherent problem of the myth form by bringing the family along for the ride. This way the hero had ongoing opponents the audience knows – mainly the dad – as well as episodic opponents. Instead of a succession of unconnected events, the story has a steadily building conflict. The jokes are funnier and it lets the writers build to the funniest gag of all when the family gets to the beauty pageant at the end of the journey.

One final point you need to know to have the best chance to succeed as a professional screenwriter has to do with mixing genres. Hollywood’s key story strategy today is that every film they make must combine at least two genres, and often three or four. It’s the old marketing technique of give the audience two or three for the price of one. For example, Inception combines science fiction and caper. Avatar is action + love. The Bourne films are action + thriller. The Other Guys is a buddy picture, which is really comedy + action + love. Little Miss Sunshine is comedy + myth. And The Social Network is true story + thriller.

Mixing genres is a great strategy, and you must use it. But it’s more difficult than it looks. Most writers end up with a mess, with too many heroes, desire lines, opponents, and themes. The first technique for mixing genres is to make one genre the primary one. This will give you your hero, a single desire, and a single story line. Then put in other genre beats where they fit, so they amplify the primary form.

Don’t let the complexity of transcending a multiple genre story scare you. It’s actually great news. The techniques are there for you, and everyone reading this article can master them if you commit yourself to study and practice. That’s what the craft of writing is all about.

But the complexity also means you have to focus. I know a lot of talented writers, but I know no one who has mastered more than two or three genres. If you concentrate on the two or three forms that express your life philosophy and highlight your strengths as a writer, you’ll go a long way toward being the screenwriter that Hollywood calls when that next assignment comes along.

True Grit

The Coen brothers are the moral philosophers of American film. They have one subject: moral accounting. That’s why no matter what genre they seem to work in, they’re always doing crime stories.

The classic crime story is a heavyweight fight between a master criminal and a master cop. The middle of the story has an intense punch/counter-punch as each takes his best shots. When one wins at the end, usually the cop, we get the pleasure of a good heavyweight fight.

That’s fine for a lot of screenwriters. But the Coens have always known that you have to transcend your genre, because then your script or film is not only more popular, it has a chance to be great.

A transcendent crime story isn’t just about catching a criminal. It’s about tallying up what is owed over the course of a lifetime, with life and death consequences. The Coen’s Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, Fargo, No Country for Old Men and True Grit all play out this brutal accounting system.

True Grit is set in the old west, but it’s not a Western. The classic Western is all about nation building, transforming wilderness into civilization. Shane is a classic Western.

True Grit is crime in western clothes. Tom Chaney has murdered a girl’s father and he must pay with his life. The law is supposed to handle the moral accounting in society. But this time the law fails. So it falls to headstrong, 14-year-old Mattie to make sure the job is done. This gives the film a clear, strong desire line. And that is a crucial benefit when the hero and her allies, Marshall Rooster Cogburn and Agent LaBoeuf, go on a journey to track the killer down.

Accounting is also central to Mattie’s plan. This film is filled with bargaining. She’s a ferocious bargainer for her father’s horses. And she refuses to let Rooster shirk his responsibility. This is the deal we made, she insists, and you must keep your word.

Though essentially a crime story, True Grit uses the myth structure, with its series of tests on the road, to unfold the story and play out the accounting. As in the best myth stories, the hero brings her “family” – Rooster and LaBoeuf – along for the ride. The dramatic opposition comes from the series of bad guys they must fight on the road.

But the most important opposition thematically is within the family. Each conflict with the bad guys allows the family members to tally up his or her proper payment to the others. The true endpoint of the story is not whether they bring Tom Chaney to justice. It is whether these three main characters – Mattie, Rooster and LaBoeuf – will come to understand the true worth of each of the others.

In the final scene, Mattie has one last payment she must make to old Rooster. She can’t make it, and for someone with such a strong moral code this is tragic. It’s not the ending we want in this movie. But it’s the ending the movie has to have.

The Coens never sermonize. Their knowledge of the screenwriting craft is too great for that. Study True Grit and the rest of the Coen canon to learn how to convert your moral vision into characters and plot. Those techniques are one of the main ways you tell the world that you are a master of the craft.