Speaker 1: Why does story structure exist?

Speaker 2: I think that story structure exists because people have expectations. Obviously it all started, in my opinion, with Aristotle's Poetics. You know, he described the three-act structure. He described, you know, the way stories move. But it's not just that, it's the fact that we want to see a journey. And regardless of what story structure you're following or what school of thought you're following, you want to see a journey. You don't want to see someone doing something and then not see an ending. You know, you don't want to see someone just remain the same through an entire story. So I think that you need structure because you need a pattern of change. You need to have a protagonist that is going through something. And because of the events of the story, they change, they arc, they grow in a way that by the end, they don't necessarily become a whole new person, obviously, but they've been affected by those events and they have overcome something or they have changed in a way or something has happened to them. So I think that structure is that, is the expectations that we have, but also because that's the way life works, you know, it's like from birth till death, you expect that journey. So there are steps to follow. And I think that's what we want to see in a story. Obviously we're not watching someone literally from birth to death, but we're watching, even if it's a snippet of their story, we still want to follow a beginning, middle and end.

Speaker 1: And just like in life, it's not just constant action. There's resting points and there's times when nothing's happening. It's totally boring. And then there's other times where you wish it was boring.

Speaker 2: And so it's kind of, those are kind of like the turning points of the story, right? Like something happens to you when we would call that maybe the inciting incident, right? That disrupts the world of your protagonist. And then maybe we get a little leeway because they're trying to assess what they want, but then the midpoint comes and something terrible happens and we go into a new direction and then things like that, you know, so like we're having this ups and downs, but hopefully through that, your protagonist is changing, right? There's some flaw that they have and some goal that they have that probably oppose each other. So we're trying to track that arc and that change.

Speaker 1: What confuses writers most about structure?

Speaker 2: I think that for writers, the problem is that they're either trying to follow a formula or they're forgetting that structure and character are connected. So yes, there are a lot of formulas out there, right? The three-act structure, the eight-sequence approach, save the cad, hero's journey, so many more. But I don't think screenwriting should be, you know, a fill in the blanks type of thing. It should be more creative than that. Obviously, those are great ways to kind of map out a story and I use them myself when I'm writing. I love the eight-sequence approach. I'm super OCD about things and I like mapping it, but it's also because it works and it gives you ideas of turning points. At the same time, I don't believe things should be, you know, at minute 12, this should happen, at minute 24, this should happen. It's not that level of exact science. But I think that when you're tracking, you know, structure and when you're working with things like that, you are trying to get somewhere in that sense. You need a path, you need to follow something like that. So, I think that one of the problems for writers is that structure needs to be linked to that character, as I was saying. So, they kind of like make things happen to the character instead of the character making things happen. And that's what I see the most. So, it shouldn't just be that things, you know, are changing in the world. It should be the way the character is doing things that are impacting him and are changing things that are happening. So, a hero should be there and kind of like giving obstacles to themselves in a way, you know? We talk about Breaking Bad, right? Walter White is his own enemy in a way. And by the end, he becomes his own antagonist. But he is constantly doing things that are just impeding where he wants to go and how to get to that goal. At one point, obviously, he gets money crazy, you know, and power crazy. And then he starts doing things that are going to get him eventually caught. So, if we're tracking a structure, those are the things that we should be thinking of that change in the character. That if we're thinking about a feature, obviously, there should be that wound at the beginning or that flaw that the protagonist has that we're tracking through these turning points. And that's why we need structure. And that's one of the things that writers tend to forget. They should be, the turning points should be emotional turning points for the protagonist. They shouldn't just be changes like, oh, these big things happen that's external to the characters. It should be linked to them.

Speaker 1: So, we were talking about Juno in another section. Let's suppose we decide to write a screenplay Juno 20 years later. Maybe she's got a pretty good paying job somewhere. How would we make it where things start happening to her or she's initiating it? So, she gets a letter from someone saying, I'm the child you gave up for adoption or she's looking for that child. What would make it more interesting?

Speaker 2: I think that in that case, it's interesting, if I were writing this, if she were to get the letter, because that disrupts her world, right? Maybe she's thinking, but let's say she gets this letter, right? Maybe she gets the letter at a time where she's thinking about having kids with a spouse at that point, right? So, getting this letter disrupts her plans because she was thinking about having kids, which obviously for her at that point would be hard, right? She gave up her baby years ago when she was a teenager. Now, she's at a point in her life where she's ready to have a kid. She has a wife or a husband or whatever, a partner, and she wants to have a family, right? What if that happened? And then she gets the letter from the child she gave up, I want to meet. So, what do you do? You know? And that becomes something about her. Yes, there's an external thing that happens, this letter that comes, but it will directly affect her emotional core wound and flaw. Obviously for her, she might've always wondered, you know, about what if I had kept this baby, what if, you know? So, getting that letter will shake her world, but she still needs to arc and grow. She needs to, for example, accept that she gave up that baby and accept, you know, that things turned out a certain way, at the same time, maybe she needs to come to terms with the fact that yes, that's something she had to do in the past, but now she's in a different position and she could have a baby. Maybe when she was having that discussion, when the letter came, she wasn't sure and her partner wanted to have a baby, but she's still struggling with, can I have another baby? Maybe, should I have another baby? I mean, imagine, you know, all of the things that would go on in her head, like, should I be having a baby? I already gave one up. Is it okay if I have one? You know, all of these things that she might be questioning are the things that are going to move the story forward and along, right? So, every turning point later would have to do with that. Then maybe at the first act turning point, she will meet this kid, you know? And then that will be her journey that she'll set out through the remainder of the story, right? Act two is where that journey will get explored. Then maybe by the midpoint, she realizes she is pregnant or something like that, you know, and then what will she do this time around and things like that, that just could keep evolving, but all tracks through her emotional journey, which again, is linked to that core wound that she has connected to what happened in her past and that she needs to overcome by the end of the story and that in that climax, you know, she would be hopefully, you know, realizing, okay, I'm okay with my past, I can move forward and I can have a life.