Let’s break away from the topic of success for a moment while the Successity Blog delves into another topic close to my heart – screenwriting.
Some people think screenwriting is a poor man’s cousin to novel writing or other forms of prose. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Screenwriting is indeed very structured, in the sense that most screenplays are written in three Acts and within 120 pages, etc. But just because they are structured doesn’t mean to say they are necessarily formulaic. Indeed, writing screenplays is hard precisely because if you’re not careful they are capable of being formulaic.
The analogy I love most about screenwriting is a musical one. Take Ravel’s Bolero. Eleven minutes of highly structured music. The same rhythm. The same tempo. The same dynamic. Seemingly the same key until the very end. And yet from such a rigorous almost monotonous structure great beauty can evolve. When Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean danced to the Bolero on ice in the Winter Olympics to win Gold, who wasn’t mesmerised, who wasn’t moved to tears? And that what writing screenplays is like for me. A rigorous structure, but what great beauty and symbolism can result!
Bob McKee in his story structure course analyses CASABLANCA as a fine example of a well-structured Hollywood movie. I have rarely felt such power in a presentation, and the deep symbolism that demonstrably resides within that structure nearly swept me off my feet. I shall return to that in more detail in a later blog.
The Successity Blog will from time to time discuss screenwriting, not least because I hope to track the evolution of my optioned screenplay as it develops, hopefully to a conclusion of success. If you are new to screenwriting, and even if you aren’t, you could do worse than remind yourself of the basic principles by reading or re-reading some of the books. In the next blog I will list out my favourite screenwriting books and manuals.
‘Till then…
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