Good Answers to Good Questions

Style Bard asked some great questions about Quik-E-Structure Check, a post about structure. And the Wave-inatrix is proud and happy to pass those questions along to my resident expert Margaux Outhred, who along with Andrew Zinnes is adding a level and a layer to the Script Whisperer that is pretty amazing. So without further adieu, heeerrrres Margaux!

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Dear Style Bard,
I’m a bit of a structure nut, so I'm the perfect person to answer some of your questions:

What's the length of script (page wise) is this based on? Could it be better gauged by a script percentage?

--Great question. Generally, a lot of structure points used to come from the 120 page, 3 Act script guideline. Pages, 30, 60, and 90 would have been your plot points to check out maybe 10 years ago.

However, 110 pages has really become the new standard in scripts, mostly because studios prefer movies to be shorter, especially 3rd Acts. It’s not uncommon to find scripts coming in at 105 pages these days. And family movies will come in as low as 90 pages. That is mainly to do with what studios perceive to be the attention span of their audience. However, regardless of page count, the 3 Act structure is still the primarily used structure in mainstream Hollywood, and even in most independent films.

The percentages don’t come into play as much for two reasons: One, is that page number really is a standard that people look to. What the Wave-inatrix said about studio execs and agents who will flip directly to specific page numbers to look for a significant moment is absolutely true. Even if there was a perfect formula for percentages, if you don’t have a big event on page 30 (although I would argue page 28 is the new page 30), that will tell the person reading that you haven’t nailed your 1st Act/ 2nd Act transition. Readers and executives will judge a script based on what happens in relation to certain page numbers. If they love the script and don’t even notice the page numbers along the way, then you’ve done a great job. However, these are people who read multiple scripts in a single day, so they often need the cheat of page numbers to help their judgment on the writer’s execution.

The other reason why percentages for a script wouldn’t be a good guide is that the 3 Act structure should be a bigger guiding force for you. At a very general level, you might find that the 2nd Act of your script with be twice the length of your 1st Act, but your 3rd Act would be not quite as long as your 1st Act. In the 120 page script model it works out nicely; the 1st Act was 30 pages, 2nd Act was 60 pages, and 3rd Act was also 30 pages. Now, with a 110 pg. script, people want to get into the Adventure quicker, thus the page 28 jump, and they want quicker 3rd Act also. That’s often where people trim the fat, but that goes along with having a slightly shorter 2nd Act also. Obviously, you can see, this is not an exact science. I actually don’t even want to attempt a bad percentage example because it really wouldn’t explain this any better.

The 3rd Act structure works so well because it encompasses a structure for both plot to occur and escalate, and even more importantly, a structure for your main character’s emotions to follow. Just as your plot should shift and grow at page 10, 30, 50, 75 (and even 90 if you include a battle scene), your main character’s emotional quirks should be challenged and evolving at each of these points too. I know it’s a tall order, but when this is done properly, that’s where you get scripts that are truly examples of why this system works so well.

And one other small reason why the percentages would throw you off: Page numbers equate to minutes on screen. That’s also why executives cling to the importance of page numbers. One page equals one minute on screen. If you watch movies like TOOTSIE, or even the recent 3:10 to YUMA, you can clock it with a stopwatch where the major emotional and plot points occur. While these two films follow the older timing and structure in terms of page numbers or minutes, what’s wonderful about these films is that the major emotional turns ARE the major plots points.

What can we do to make adjustments from here? I'm guessing if we have a 75th page to get to, it's a bit tricky to relocate major action segments.

-- If you have a simple outline (often a brief one-page outline will provide you a clean bird’s eye view of your whole movie), it should be easy to see where your holes are. It shouldn’t be that tricky to relocate major action segments because they should be building into a climax by the end of your script. You’re not going to put your best action setpieces up front in your film. And again, your main character should be driving this story, and learning an emotional lesson along the way. Your main character shouldn’t be capable of doing things early in your film that he/she may do later in the film. It is by going on this SPECIFIC 2nd Act adventure, that your Main Character learns his/her lessons and becomes better able to beat his/her opponent.
If you are stuck, track your character’s emotional arc first to make sure your character is learning the necessary lessons to beat his opponent. Often those small lessons help make up story beats where your outline might have been thin before.

Are action features what we're mostly looking for here, or are important dialogue expositions (not necessarily revelations) important as well?

-- Action and dialogue are one in the same here. At each of these structure points, something interesting needs to happen. If a helicopter explodes in the background, yes, that may be interesting, but is it relevant to your Main character’s journey, and does it propel your story forward? EVERY LINE, even EVERY WORD in your script must propel your story forward. These structure points will serve to reveal something about the character we didn’t know before (which still propels your story forward) and/or they may challenge your main character more. Your main character should always have a goal they want to accomplish and each of these structure points makes that goal both more important to accomplish, yet harder to achieve.

Should another approach be to write down what our major turning points and reversals are and then locate them and see how far off they are?

--Yes, that would be another way to do this. However, that can be the beginning of a frustrating, slippery slope. If you find, for example, that your first major structure point isn’t at page 10, but page 25, don’t let that discourage you. Use it as a helpful guide. At that point, it would be more helpful to play with your outline and go back to that bird eye’s view. That’s also sometimes where using index cards can be helpful. Don’t lose what you have on your pages, but, focus instead on your more general scene choices. Do you have index cards of each scene? Are there any scenes that could be combined with another, or some that can be erased completely? Sometimes if a writer tries to force structure after the fact, they can end up deleting and cutting and pasting their script into oblivion. Structure is a guide, not an absolute.

Looking at the major things that happen on these pages, I feel like I'm actually getting a different feel for where the focus of my script lies. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I'm thinking... just intimidating.

--Writing is nothing if it’s not a process. Be open to that fact that it might take writing an entire script to really learn what the script is about. (It’s happened to me.) You might stumble into a nugget of an idea, which is actually a more entertaining movie…great. At least you found it. I always advise against letting your script meander…but if it takes you somewhere, often that might be worth listening to. Yes, it’s always intimidating. I’ve heard Nora Ephron talk about being intimidated by a blank page. Just keep going and the gems will emerge.

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