by Linda Seger
Look for a Goal
The easiest story lines are about a mission or achieving some goal. A character wants something—and goes after it. Sherlock Holmes wants to solve a crime. Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre wants to find gold. The boys in Stand by Me want to find a dead body.
Goal-oriented story lines are the easiest to adapt because you can usually find the beginning, middle, and end of the story line by asking three questions: “What does the character want?” (when he or she gets it, that’s the end of the story); “What does the character do to achieve the goal?” (middle of the story); and “When does the ‘want’ begin?” (the beginning of the story).
Detective stories and action-adventures tend to be easy adaptations because the goal is clear. A character comes to Perry Mason/Miss Marple/Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot, etc. and asks for help (the want is established—the story has begun). The character accepts the job and begins investigating/discovering/ finding out (this “doing” action makes up the middle of the story). The character then resolves the problem, usually after great threats to life and limb, culminating in a big shootout or an exciting capture (the end of the story).
Here we see a clear beginning, middle, and end to the story, and one action—“achieving the goal.” You can see these goal-oriented story lines in many “incident-related” true-life stories. In Everybody’s Child the goal is to get Jessica out of the well. In Fatal Vision the goal is to establish whether Dr. MacDonald is innocent or guilty. In Killing in a Small Town, the goal is to find out who did the crime and why.
If only finding the story lines were so clear and simple! Most stories won’t be so neat. Not every story is about a goal. But there are other ways to find the story. Sometimes you can find it by defining the problem.
Look for a Problem or Issue
Many stories are about problems or issues that need to be resolved. Finding the story line includes asking questions that are slightly different from the questions asked for goal-oriented stories.
After you’ve read the material, ask, “What is the problem that needs to be resolved?” (the end occurs when the problem is resolved). “What do the characters do to resolve the problem?” (the middle of the story). “When did the problem become apparent?” (the beginning of the story).
In The Color Purple, Celie is in an abusive relationship with Mr. That’s the problem. Toward the end of the film and book, Celie resolves this problem by leaving. That’s a resolution to this problem. By looking at just this much of the story line, you can see a clear beginning (Celie enters into this relationship) and a clear ending (she leaves).
Part of this problem is connected to Celie’s low self-esteem, and Mr.’s sending away her dear sister, Nettie, who was Celie’s only friend, the only person who really loved her. When Celie thinks that Nettie hasn’t written to her (since Mr. is hiding all the letters), she has no one to help her. The introduction of Nettie, and of Celie’s lack of self-esteem, and Nettie’s going away are all part of the material we need to know before we can see the development of the story. So all this information is still part of the beginning of the story, which defines the problem.
So what happens in the middle? To find the middle, ask, “How does the character get from the problem in the beginning to the resolution of the problem at the end?” What does the character do? What happens to the character? Who influences the character? What developments occur to change the character from “the character with a problem” to “the character who has resolved the problem”?
Again, in the case of The Color Purple, much of the development occurs because of the introduction of Shug, who likes Celie, who helps raise her self-esteem, and who helps her find the letters from Nettie. This relationship makes up much of the middle of the film. When Celie finds the letters, and then discovers the courage to stand up to Mr., we are seeing a process that will lead to the resolution of the problem and the reunion with Nettie—which happens at the end.
Some films with problem-oriented or issue-oriented story lines include A Room with a View (Lucy needs to find her own identity in order to recognize that George is the right man for her, not Cecil); The Elephant Man (John Merrick needs to find acceptance and recognition of his humanity); One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (the patients need to escape from the tyranny of Nurse Ratched).
When you work with these story lines, use words such as “the need,” “the problem,” “the issue,” and ask, “What has to be learned or changed?” In most of these stories there’s a very strong main character whose need or recognition of a problem actually creates the story. McMurphy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, makes decisions and actions that allow the story to happen. If he weren’t there, the patients would continue playing cards, going to therapy meetings, and taking their medication—thus, no story.
Some story lines are even more subtle.
Look for a Journey
Some story lines place most of their emphasis on the transformational journey of a character. The story comes from the journey rather than from defining a clear-cut goal. But even journeys have beginnings, middles, and ends.
Another set of questions can help you discover these story lines. In this case, you may want first to find the middle of the story, asking, “What happens to my character in this story? How is my character changed? influenced? transformed? Who helps in this transformation? Is there anyone who hinders it?” Most of these answers will lead you to the middle of your story. The middle will develop all of these transforming relationships, and show how (and usually why) the transformation is occurring.
Now ask questions that will help you find the beginning of the story. “When did my character begin on this journey? What was the motivation? Did something happen that forced the character to begin this change?”
Then ask questions about the end. “When do I know that the character has changed? What clues clarify that this character has been transformed? Is there a particular moment or scene in the story that shows an end to this particular journey?”
Journey stories can be the most difficult to adapt because they’re more subtle. They can easily lose their story lines. They become development episodes that don’t add up to a cohesive story line (“one action”). Sometimes there isn’t a clear climax, so you might enjoy the journey, but when you get there, you wonder whether, and where, you’ve actually arrived.
At the same time, if we like the characters, journey stories can be very satisfying because we clearly see how characters develop and how transformations occur. Think about the award-winning journey stories of GoodFellas, Driving Miss Daisy, and Dances With Wolves. If you liked the characters, you probably liked the film.
Many story lines combine aspects of the goal-oriented, problem-oriented, and journey stories. Chances are, one or all of the questions mentioned above will help you find your story line. You can also use these questions to help you identify adaptations that didn’t work. Were their story lines cohesive and well defined (even though they may have been subtle?) Where did they swerve from their story line?
CREATE THREE ACTS
As you define the beginnings, middles, and ends, you are also defining Act One, Act Two, and Act Three of your story. You are beginning to put your story line into dramatic form.
By defining your story line in these dramatic terms, you are beginning to craft and shape the story into a screenplay. In its simplest terms, Act One refers to the material that sets up your story. It introduces your characters. It establishes the problem, issue, need, or goal. It gives you the information you need to know before you start developing the story.
Act Two develops the story. It develops relationships. It shows the actions that the character is willing to do to resolve the problem or reach the goal. It sets up the obstacles that create problems for the character.
Act Three pays off the story, it resolves it. Hopefully there’s a dramatic build leading to a climax or a “big finish” that makes the ending exciting, intense, and/or
emotionally satisfying. This act intensifies the conflict. Raises the stakes. Leads to an inevitable conclusion.
Most of the screenplay will focus on the development of the story, so Act Two will be longer than the other acts (in a two-hour film, Act Two will usually be about sixty pages long, or one hour if you figure about one minute of screen time to a page). Since Act Three is usually the most exciting, the fastest-paced, and most intense, it will generally be the shortest act. In a two-hour film, it’s usually between twenty and thirty minutes long. And Act One usually runs twenty-five to thirty-five minutes.
Dividing up the story in this way, let’s look at the three-act structure in Dances With Wolves.
ACT ONE: Sets Up the Situation—Lieutenant Dunbar wants to see the frontier and is sent there. He begins the journey that will change his life.
ACT TWO: Develops the Situation and Relationships—Lieutenant Dunbar develops relationships with the Indians. He’s transformed by their way of life.
ACT THREE: Shows Consequences of Decisions Made in Act Two—The lieutenant returns to his post, where he is captured by white men who accuse him of treason and of “turning Injun.” He’s beaten and chained but finally rescued by the Indians. He decides to leave the Indians, since his presence is a liability to them.
LOOK FOR THE CLIMAX
Once you begin to find the shape of the material and have a sense of where it will fit into your story, begin looking for key events in the story that are dramatic, active, exciting, and cinematic.
These events will begin to form the backbone of your story, or what is often referred to as the “story spine.” I find it most helpful first to identify the scene (or scenes) at the end of the story that clarify that a character has reached the goal, resolved the problem, or ended the particular journey. This is the climax of the story.
The climax is particularly important in film, since a rising dramatic line that ends with a “big finish” gives a sense of “rush” and excitement and culmination to all the development that has gone before. If you have a strong climactic scene in your book or play, use it.
Generally, action films will contain the strongest dramatic climax. To understand why they work, think about how you felt while watching the ending of such films as High Noon, the Die Hard films, or any of the James Bond films.
Not every story will lend itself to this kind of a big finish. But no matter what sort of story you use, be careful not to let the action slow down or dissipate at the end. The idea is to create a climax that builds in action and intensity.
You won’t always find the climax at the end of the story. Sometimes a novelist ends the story, and then writes some more about character and theme before the book ends. Some of the screenwriter’s search for the ending might include looking for big scenes or moments within the story that can be shaped into a climax. Sometimes a screenwriter must work backward from the end of the book, searching for the scene that resolves the problem or ends the journey.
IDENTIFY THE CATALYST
What scenes establish the problem? How does the problem get set up in the original material? The scene where this occurs—the “catalyst”—is the scene that starts your story, or the first event that begins the story spine. In detective and action-adventure stories it is usually a crime or some other illegal activity that occurs. The main character then enters to resolve the problem. In Out of Africa, the scene where Karen Blixen goes to Africa is the catalyst, as is the one where Lieutenant Dunbar heads for the frontier, where Jessica falls into the well, where Lucy meets George in A Room with a View, and where the men in Deliverance head out for the wilderness.
Generally the catalyst will be placed within the first ten or fifteen pages of the screenplay. Until it occurs we won’t know what the story is about.
IDENTIFY TRANSITION SCENES
What scenes move the story from Act One to Act Two, and from Act Two to Act Three? These are called transition scenes. Since each Act focuses on different material, these scenes help change the focus from one act to another. In Dances With Wolves, Lieutenant Dunbar decides to get dressed in his military uniform and go out to meet the Indians. This scene moves him from the action of the first act where he watches the Indians in the distance to his decision to meet them.
This scene is the First Turning Point and it begins Act Two. It turns the action around and establishes a different focus for the next act. Notice that it’s an active scene. Lieutenant Dunbar makes a decision and takes an action. The action in Act Two will develop around his relationship with the Indians.
What scenes show the character confronting the consequences of actions taken in Act Two? In Dances With Wolves, Lieutenant Dunbar returns to his post in order to get his journal, and is immediately captured by the white soldiers. His decisions in Act Two have led to this confrontation. This scene is the Second Turning Point. His Act Two transformation has brought him into conflict with white soldiers. The scene where he returns sets the action of Act Three, which includes beatings, interrogations, greater jeopardy, and finally an escape.
Notice that each of these turning-point scenes shows a decision made by the main character: Lieutenant Dunbar goes out to meet the Indians; Lieutenant Dunbar decides to return to his post to get his journal. Decision scenes create strong turning points. If you find them, you’ll probably want to use them.
You might think of these transition scenes as “hinge scenes.” The story hinges on these important scenes, which move us from one place to another. Such scenes won’t always exist in the original material; you may need to create them. But they’re important because they help shape and focus the material, and help you keep the story moving through the setup, development, and payoff.
In a two-hour film your First Turning Point will generally occur about thirty minutes into the film, and your Second Turning Point will usually occur about twenty to thirty minutes from the end of the film. From my observations, if a first act is too long (say forty minutes or more in a two-hour film), there will not be adequate time to develop the middle, and audiences often say that the film “lagged,” or “slowed down.”
You can test this concept by looking at the film Awakenings. The First Turning Point occurs about forty-six minutes into the film, when Leonard takes the medicine and awakens. It’s quite a late turning point, although there are interesting scenes and considerable information in the beginning. When I taught this film at a Writers Guild seminar, a high proportion of those attending thought the beginning was “slow” and felt that the long first act condensed the important second act about Leonard’s development and transformation. In cases such as this, the balance seems just a bit off. And this “little bit off” can give audiences a sense of uneasiness, or disappointment. (I should add that I loved this film, but would have liked a tightened Act One and an expanded Act Two.)
If an Act Three is less than fifteen minutes long, there’s usually not enough time to create a strong build to the climax. If it’s more than thirty minutes long, the tension can begin to dissipate. To see how this can happen, you might want to look at how the tension dissipates toward the end of The Color Purple and the end of Kiss of the Spider Woman, from the novel by Manuel Puig.
SEPARATE THE STORY LINES
In a novel or play, there is often more than one story line. There are relationship stories. There are action stories. There are stories that carry an idea. We might say that most novels will have stories that advance the action or move the story forward, and stories that dimensionalize characters and convey theme.
As I mentioned before, a strong film will balance the elements of direction and dimensionality. The story line that gives movement can be called the plot line, or A story. The story line(s) that give dimensionality to the story by developing characters and relationships and theme are the subplots.
Generally there will be several subplots, perhaps B, C, and D story lines. Be careful if you have more than four subplots, since too many subplots can make a film muddy, confused, or difficult to
follow.
When you are pulling out the story lines from your source material, look first for the A story line, one that gives movement and direction. Then begin finding the structure for the subplot lines.
EXPLICITLY DRAMATIC STORY LINES
In order to discuss story concepts, I want to look at three books that have strong dramatic story lines. These are by no means great novels, but they did create highly commercial films because of story lines that adapted easily to the screen. By using these novels as models for an easy adaptation, we can also begin to see ways to strengthen the story lines of more difficult adaptations. The three are Three Days of the Condor, from a book by James Grady, The Towering Inferno (based on two books, The Tower, by Richard Martin Stern, and The Glass Inferno, by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson), and Die Hard 2 (based on 58 Minutes by Walter Wager). What do these three have in common that makes them highly adaptable?
1. Each of them takes place over a very short period of time, from an evening to three days. (58 Minutes actually covers more than fifty-eight minutes—it covers an evening.) The shorter the period of time in a novel, the easier it is to keep a tight focus to the story.
2. Each of these stories has a rising dramatic line. The suspense quickens, the tension builds, the story gets more and more exciting as it goes along.
3. Each of these stories has a clear three-act structure that supports this buildup. A clear problem is set up within the first fifteen minutes of the film (the murder of the CIA team in Three Days of the Condor, the fire on the top floor in The Towering Inferno, and the terrorist attack in 58 Minutes). The protagonists try to resolve the problem throughout the second act as the stakes get higher. And the third act is a fast-paced payoff, culminating in a strong climax and a short resolution.