The principle for writing good screenplays begins with good idea generation and then the use of structure to extrapolate that idea into a coherent story. The hero's journey (also known as the monomyth) is the structure that the vast majority of successful movies use.
Sources of Good Ideas
a) Ideas that push cultural boundaries work well. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, The Defiant Ones, On the Waterfront and so on were all controversial in their time and still very watchable movies.
b) Ideas that tug at the emotions and arouse passions. Imagine the worst thing you would want to happen to you. What are you most embarrassing moments? What causes the most pain?
c) Cathartic events. Protagonists engage in conflict and challenge but the final act is always cathartic.
d) Aspirational and self-actualizing events. Make the audience move toward their ideal selves.
e) Fantasy and escapism. Take the audience to a new place, we're tired of this world today.
f) Humour. What are the funniest, most ridiculous, most hypocritical, incongruous, bizarre, irrational moments of life.
g) Education and morality. Teach them something or show them how we should be.
h) Special people. Take us into the world of people we fear or admire. Show us the lives of people who have travelled to places we dare not or cannot go.
i) Romance and love. How sweet it is when we can get it.
j) Different people. Show us how different people live. Compare and contrast.
k) The power of the group. Show us how we are more intelligent, able and greater together than alone.
l) Ambition. Is it pleasure or poison. Does it fulfill or corrupt.
m) Friendship. How real are our friendships. Do we know who our real friends are. What happens when they betray us.
n) Intellectual cross-pollination - search the media, information sources...
o) Simply choose a story and write a screenplay. Good ideas will come to you during the project - make sure you capture them.
Structural Templates
a) The classic template is the HERO'S JOURNEY; more than 2000 stages of the Hero's Journey that you need to know about...
The Hero's journey can be reformed in an infinite number of ways:
b) The THREE KINGS, where the three rivals battle it out.
c) The LONE WOLF, where the Hero succeeds without he aid of allies, the Goddess or the Shape Shifter.
d) NO WAY BUT DOWN, where an anti-hero falls from grace and does not recover.
e) DUAL HEROES - where two heroes conflict and a third acts as an antagonism.
Screenwriting, Screenplays, Screenwriters - Good Ideas for Stories Check For The New Release in Health, Fitness & Dieting Category of Books NOW!
Check What Are The Top Cooking Books in Last 90 Days Best Cheap Deal!
Check For Cookbooks Best Sellers 2012 Discount OFFER!
Check for Top 100 Most Popular Books People Are Buying Daily Price Update!
Check For 100 New Release & BestSeller Books For Your Collection
Learn more...
WRITE THAT SCREENPLAY!
The Complete 2000+ stage Hero's Journey, Monomyth and other advanced story structure templates / worksheets can be found at http://www.clickok.co.uk/index4.html
You can post this article on your web site or blog as long as no changes are made, the author's name is retained and the links to our site URLs remain active.
watch cell phone Buy New 3 Month Meals Ready To Eat
No comments:
Post a Comment