How to Create Successful Screen Stories

By Barry Pearson

Early in my writing career, I found myself sitting across the desk from a network executive.

This was when it was still acceptable to smoke. So, I’m listening, he’s filling his pipe with Flying Dutchman, and telling me how much he likes the script my writing partner and I had turned in the week before.

“I love the milieu,” he says, “All that rodeo action with the dusty arena, and the Brahma bulls. Dialogue’s great. Might have to clean it up a bit. I love the characters…thinking of Blair Brown for the female lead …but…”

Uh-oh, I thought.

“Somehow the story isn’t quite there. I’m not sure what it is exactly. We’ll have to work on it.”

I might be giving away the ending of this anecdote, but I have to tell you it would be a long time before I learned how to create a really successful screen story.

 

Along the way, I became a one-trick pony for a while. I discovered that if I created a triangle of characters to start with, the script usually turned out okay.

And I clung to that trick like a shipwrecked sailor on a scrap of decking.

But I was faking it, and I knew it. So I went to work to solve the riddle of what IS a successful story?

First I threw away everything I’d learned in school. I pretended I’d never heard of anything like inciting incident, rising action, climax, denouement, three-act structure, turning point, catharsis, hero’s journey, etc. etc. Dumped it all.

I made the assumption that movies had a unique form unlike novels, plays, short stories, or other types of literature. Then I set out to study movies with a fresh eye. To analyze what screenwriters did to make their movie stories successful.

My trick of creating a triangle of characters became a clue to the riddle. How? I reasoned as follows: I was successful when I put three characters at the center of my story. Therefore, the key to a successful screen story was not in the types of events in the story, but in the relationships of the characters to each other.

That reasoning turned out to be surprisingly accurate. But what was the nature of those character relationships? How were they constructed? How could I create similar characters and relationships in my own stories?

The answers took several years to find, so I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow replay. Instead, let me take you on a story journey through a film that created its own standard of what a successful screen story should be: Casablanca.

In Casablanca you can find a triangle of characters somewhat resembling the trick triangle I used to create stories. There’s Rick (played by Humphrey Bogart), Ilsa (played by Ingrid Bergman), and Major Strasser (played by Conrad Veidt).

Did that Major Strasser surprise you? Did you think that maybe it should be the Claude Rains character, Captain Renault? Or the Paul Henried character, Victor Laszlo?

Why Rick, Ilsa, and Strasser? Why not some other combination?

 

Because Rick, Ilsa, and Strasser exemplify the relationship set common to almost every successful movie —and it’s this central dynamic that any writer can use to create successful screen stories.

Let’s be specific — Rick is the Hero of the movie and Strasser is the “Villain.”

Let’s start with the Hero. As writers, we probably have an elaborate concept of what constitutes a Hero. Question is, does our “Hero Idea” work for screen stories? Or is it more of a literary model?

Here are the key factors that make Rick an exemplary screen Hero:

1. At the beginning of the movie, he’s in a state of paralysis, a self-imposed prison, bounded by the walls of his bar. This imprisoned state of being as the movie opens is typical of almost all successful screen heroes.

A variation on this is the Hero-in-paradise (really a fool’s paradise), in which the Hero is deluded, insulated from the reality of the world.

The screen story Hero, at the beginning of the screenplay, is imprisoned in a state of paralysis, self-imposed, metaphorical, or literal.

2. Rick is crippled by a ghost: he believes he is the victim of a romantic betrayal by Ilsa, his one true love.

Many screen story heroes suffer from an event in their past that haunts them and prevents them from functioning completely and fulfillingly in the present. Another literal example is Jimmy Stewart’s vertigo, in the Hitchcock film of the same name.

3. For almost half of Casablanca, or more, Rick responds to the growing power and threat of the Nazis (as embodied by Strasser) by evading, accommodating, escaping.

This is an essential and little-understood dynamic. The clichéd image of the Hero is a person who is always battling evil. In the successful screen story, the Hero spends as much time evading, accommodating, and escaping from his or her Opposing Force as in fighting it.

4. At a point late in the film, Rick decides that he’s had it up to here with Strasser and his ilk, and, in a mad as hell moment, he decides to fight back. This Hero principle is vividly exemplified in Network when, midway through the movie, Peter Finch yells out the window, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

When you create your successful screen story, you need to give your hero a mad as hell moment so that he rebels and decides to fight his opposition.

Now, what about Strasser? He’s the Villain, the Antagonist. What are the key factors of this character?

1. Strasser embodies and represents an evil force that has been growing in strength and success long before the point at which the movie opens. This is an essential component of the successful screen Antagonist or Opposing Force.

The Antagonist in the successful screen story has already become successful and powerful in the backstory, like Schwartzenegger in The Terminator.

Because the Antagonist is already successful and powerful at the beginning of the story, he is typically unaware of the Hero, and uncaring about the injury or hurt he or she is causing for the Hero or other human beings.

2. In a successful screen story, the Antagonist must be like the Hero in important ways.

Strasser, paradoxically, is in many ways like Rick. In fact, he’s like Rick in a profoundly important way. They’re both callous and uncaring, (but for very different reasons).

3. Strasser, however, is diametrically opposed to Rick in his moral position, in his belief as to what is the best way to live in the world.

In a successful screen story, the moral positions of the Hero and the Antagonist are diametrically opposite.

In another genre of film, the Gangster story (Bonnie and Clyde), the Hero’s moral position is anti-social. In other words, the Hero is the bad guy. The moral position of the Hero need not necessarily be “good.” His or her moral position only needs to be opposite to the Opposing Force of the story.

So where does Ilsa fit in? Well, I’ve left the best to the last. She embodies the character that is fundamental to the success of a screen story. She is the Bonding Character. And the Bonding Character is a type which, in its function, only exists in the screen story. Let’s see what that means:

1. Next to Rick, Ilsa has the greatest amount of screen time of any of the characters. Typically the character with the second greatest amount of screen time is the Bonding Character.

2. Ilsa is very unlike Rick. She’s a freedom fighter. She’s married. She’s gentle, sensitive, loving, forgiving, deeply caring — all the things that Rick is not. This is the quintessential Hero/Bonding Character relationship. In the typical movie story, the Hero and Bonding Character either have no history with each other, or they have a shared history that was unsatisfactory, unresolved, or acrimonious — a history that drove them apart.

When you create your Bonding Character and Hero, make them a mismatched pair, as unlike each other as you can.

3. Another key element: your Hero and your Bonding Character need to be forced together because of the activities of the Antagonist in the backstory.

Ilsa and Rick would never have met had it not been for the growing evil and nefarious activities of the Opposing Attacking Force, the Nazi movement (embodied by the Strasser character).

4. Ilsa combines forces with Rick to defeat the Villain, Strasser. In the successful screen story, the Bonding Character is active in helping the Hero to defeat the Villain (Whoopi Goldberg helping Patrick Swayze in Ghost.)

5. At the end of the story, Ilsa and Rick get together, both physically (although that happens offscreen) and emotionally (when they realize that “they’ll always have Paris,” and agree to part in order to serve the greater good of fighting the Nazi menace).

This is a powerful audience-satisfying element of the successful screen story. These unlike characters, who have been profoundly “apart” at the beginning of the story, “come together” in some way at the end. Often, as in Casablanca, the only believable, audience-satisfying way they can come together is to agree to part.

Sometimes there are only two characters at the center of a story, not three. This occurs mainly in two genres.

The Opposing Force and the Bonding Character are combined into one character:

1. The Romantic Comedy. The two characters come together and fall in love. (When Harry Met Sally, There’s Something About Mary).

2. Person-in Peril. The two characters come together so that the Hero can vanquish the Villain (The Net, Marathon Man),

Now what about the flow of events in a successful screen story?

In my screenwriting seminars, I tell the writers “Don’t be a slave to the page count.” That said, almost every successful screenplay story accomplishes typical developments in a specific order, which just happen to fall approximately on or near certain pages, assuming you’re using standard screenplay formatting and writing a 100 page screenplay.

In longer or older screenplays such as Casablanca (127 pages), the events usually fall later. Let the following page numbers be a guide to how much screen time you should be spending on each aspect of the storyline.

Here then are the significant elements of a successful screenplay:

1. Characters detailed and introduced.

First of all, most successful screen stories give their main focus to two characters. The Hero and the Bonding Character. Rick and Ilsa.

In approximately the first 10 to 15 pages one of these two characters will be introduced and detailed.

Not all movies begin with the Hero. Many begin with the Bonding Character (Witness), a few with the Antagonist (Terminator).

2. Bonding Event occurs.

Somewhere roughly between pages 9 and 28, an event will occur which brings the Hero into contact and interaction with the Bonding Character. This event I call the BONDING EVENT.

For example, in Witness the Bonding Event is a murder witnessed by the son of Rachel Lapp (Bonding Character, played by Kelly McGillis).

This event brings Rachel into contact with John Book (the Hero, played by Harrison Ford).

The most important feature of the Bonding Event is that it is typically the culmination of a sequence of backstory events set in motion and propelled by the evil or negative force in the story.

3. Hero/Bonding Character relationship is developed.

Following the Bonding Event there are a series of scenes that detail the developing relationship between the Hero and the Bonding Character.

4. Locking Event occurs.

These scenes lead up to a second important event, the LOCKING EVENT, which introduces a turn of circumstances that alters the relationship between the two major characters, so that they cannot easily disengage from each other.

Their desires and their situation change in a way that forces them to stay in contact with each other. This applies equally to two central characters who have a hero/villain relationship (Sleeping with the Enemy, Alien), as to characters who have a hero/ally relationship (Witness, Terminator), or a hero/love-interest relationship (When Harry Met Sally).

This Locking Event typically occurs somewhere between pages 20 to 35. In Casablanca, it comes much later, when Ilsa is refused an exit visa.

5. Escalating Event occurs.

Somewhere between pages 40 to 55, there is a development that raises the stakes for the Hero and Bonding Character, the ESCALATING EVENT. Often this development is one that raises matters to a life-and-death issue.

6. Hero tries to accommodate, adjust, and escape.

In a sequence of events from about page 60 to 75, the Hero tries to accommodate, adjust to, and escape from the jeopardy he or she is in—until the moment when the Hero is in such a hellish situation that he or she starts to go on the offensive and fight back.

7. Hero reaches his mad as hell moment.

In essence, the Hero is driven to a state of mind like Peter Finch in Network who yells, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”

8. Hero puts into action the plan that fails.

From pages 75 to 85 there is a sequence of scenes in which the Hero plans to defeat the forces opposing him. This is the “plan-that-fails” segment of the script.

(Again, I caution you not to be a slave to the page count. Use page numbers very approximately. If you find your Hero being “mad as hell” at page 45, you may have overlooked an event, or underwritten the early events.)

In weak scripts, I often find that the writer has skipped either the Locking Event or the Escalating Event. That error will throw the whole shape of the story out of balance.

9. Hero discovers the villain’s hidden weakness.

When the Hero’s plan has failed and he looks to be utterly, finally defeated, he discovers a hidden weakness in his opponent or opponents.

10. Hero embarks on the plan that succeeds.

As a result of knowing the Villains hidden weakness, the Hero plans to exploit that weakness, and thus he puts into action a “plan-that-succeeds” (pages 85 to 95 approximately) in which he attacks his opponent’s weakness, defeats those opposing him, and wins the final struggle.

11. Hero savors his victory, and anticipates, or enjoys his new status.

From pages 95-100 approximately, following the Hero’s victory, the writer needs to dramatize the Hero’s new status and situation, and allow the audience to vicariously savor the Hero’s victory, even if it is bittersweet, which it often is.

I began this article telling about the dramatic special and the network producer. The ending? Well, the special got made, with Blair Brown and Donnelly Rhodes. It looked good. The performers were wonderful. But the producer was right. The story wasn’t quite “there.”

Which proves that sometimes you can fake it and succeed in getting your script produced.

For writers who wish to explore the principles of the Hero/Bonding Character relationship further, two chapters of my e-book IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STORY are free to read online at
http://www.createyourscreenplay.com/itschaptersixsamplem1216.htm http://www.createyourscreenplay.com/itschapterninesamplem1216.htm

The book can be ordered at http://www.createyourscreenplay.com/iaatspaypalorder.htm.

Email Barry Pearson at createyourscreenplay@rogers.com or visit his website at www.createyourscreenplay.com.