Speaker 1: For writers, would you say that story structure is 80% of the work?

Speaker 2: Yes. I'm going to try to expand on that. How so? So, yeah, I mean, I think Syd Field was it who said structure, structure, structure. Field was him, someone like that. Or maybe it was McKee. One of them was like story is structure. And it does seem to be that way. I think here is the thing, though. The structure of a story is its own thing for each story. Each story has its own internal logic and its own internal structure that's very delicate, but very strong. And so as a writer, we have to create moments and scenes that fit together perfectly in a particular order. But the order is not universal. The order is specific to that story. So the trick as a writer, and particularly as a story editor, actually a script editor, is to recognize the structure in each story that is unique to that story and apply it to that story. So if you look at a movie like Tar, which is very different structurally, right? A very, very different movie. It still has its own internal logic and its own internal structure. If you remove something or change something, it's going to fall apart a little bit. So I would say that it's 80% structure specific to that film. But again, it's applying a universal cookie cutter to each story where it gets a little bit problematic. But I would say that with feature films in particular, and again, to TV series to the extent that you've got more time, we want to hold the audience's attention from the moment we have the first frame to the last frame. And that is done mostly through structure. So yeah, maybe it is 80%, but it's 80% specific structure to a specific story.

Speaker 1: And forgive me, Tar, I wanted to see that. That was a couple of years ago, wasn't it?

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And can we just talk about what the story is about?

Speaker 2: Sure, if I can remember.

Speaker 1: She's a conductor?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So in the story Tar, they did something very, very different. She's a conductor who is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with someone who was in an orchestra. But it's very complex. He does something with that film that is purely sort of artistic. As a matter of fact, the opening sequence is like, the credits start and they roll, all the credits roll for the whole movie right in the beginning with the singing in the background that you find out later the character possibly recorded in a jungle somewhere. And the audience sits there for that eight minutes or 10, however long it is, and just watches credits. They are arranged in a way that they look a little bit like orchestra members actually. It's quite funny. The text almost looks like it's arranged in a certain way. So maybe there's something to be said there. But very bravely in the beginning, and then the next scene is like a 10 minute long interview scene where the character is being interviewed by someone, which helped in the setup phase. You're kind of learning about her, but it's a long interview. And so that filmmaker is challenging the audiences in a way where structurally, you would normally say like, you can't do that, you can't do this. This is what a movie structure is. But with Tar, it has its own internal logic, and sometimes it's very delicate. And David Lynch does that as well. If you look at Mulholland Drive, who knows what's going on a lot of the time, but there's a structure, there's a perfect structure

Speaker 1: to it that makes sense for that film. How does structure limit the moment of creation?

Speaker 2: So if you're thinking too much about the structure of your movie in the moment of creation, I think you're probably not going to create unique, fresh, maybe resonant material, which you can do if you're drawing from the memory well, or these other sources where you're really just being creative. I think structure, if you're thinking about structure from the beginning, it might be that you limit yourself around your creativity, because you're like, well, it doesn't fit. I know this has to happen on page 15, we need to have an inciting incident, and I haven't got an inciting incident, what am I going to do? And I feel that you can get into this space of being almost paralyzed by wanting to fit into a certain structure. However, if you do what I've said previously about if you know your story has a structure, and you've seen it, and you're not trying to BS yourself about the structure, but you've seen that there's a structure that can actually be exciting, because you're like, oh, what's coming next? Oh, this is next. And that makes sense. There has to be a logic and a reason and a rationale for your scenes. Otherwise, they are going to be cut. But I think it can be limiting if you're just thinking you're wanting to apply someone else's formulaic structure onto your work, maybe it can limit your moment of creativity. And as we said previously, there is some need

Speaker 1: for it, because then it could just become this experiential mess. And maybe the writer understands

Speaker 2: it, but no one wants it. Exactly. And your audience, you have to think about the audience. I think one of the things about structure is an unstructured film, you may be just focusing on what you want to do as an artist, and you're not thinking about your audience. I'm one where when I'm watching a movie, I'm in direct correlation with direct conversation with the director and the writer when I'm watching the movie. I'm talking, the writer is talking to me, the director is talking to me, it's a conversation. If you're just telling me about your world, and I can't follow what's going on, what you're not talking to me. You've actually done a cardinal sin as a writer is you're not taking the audience into consideration in some way. You could write for yourself. And some of my best work I've done is actually when I want to be the audience. But I'm still imagining myself as an audience in the cinema, not just somebody creating the work.

Speaker 1: So yeah, right. That's a good point. Because I was just gonna say, well, you know, yeah, I'm an artist and I do it for me. But someone's got to understand, even if it's another version of you sitting in that seat. I like that. Exactly. Yeah. I like that. That's a movie right there. It probably has already been done. Adaptation.

Speaker 2: That's what I was thinking. Adaptation came immediately to my mind. Yeah.

Speaker 1: What is plot? That's such a great question. I know Robert McKee knows. You should ask him.

Speaker 2: No. Yeah, it's a great question. Because, you know, I think that question, what is plot, is a little bit like what is character and what is plot? Are they linked? Can we separate them? For me, plot is one of these terms that has been around for a long time. And I think it's has been sort of created after stories were told by story analysis, you know, people who are analyzing story. And so I do think that there's something very magical happening when we tell stories and when we create stories that's very organic in its own little thing. And then when we try and analyze them and make them better, we find terms like plot, structure, character. And then, you know, we have all these terms that we apply to it. And so I actually think your question is great because it puts someone on the spot to try and explain what is the thing plot you're talking about. It's like it's a series of scenes, one following after another, where, you know, when you link them together, there's some sort of causation between the two that creates a story. You could tell some sort of formulaic answer. But actually, what I really like about it is it sort of puts up what's actually going on when you're writing a story in terms of that creative, that sort of organic thing that's, for me, a little bit more mysterious. So, yeah, I don't know. I would say that's why I was joking when I said ask Robert McKee, but I kind of mean it. Like ask a script guru who's got a whole section in his book on plot. They might be able to tell you. I don't actually…if you're really going to get down into the nitty gritty answer of it, I think it's a little bit more imprecise than people actually use it as, if that makes sense. Film Courage

Speaker 1: When you say mystery, and I don't mean to refer to the genre of mystery, but do you think that human beings enjoy being fooled or led along in their story or they want to be two steps ahead because it makes them feel like they're in control and life isn't

Speaker 2: so scary? Great question. I think it's both, definitely. So I think that human beings have always loved stories. And for example, the story of the hunt was one of the sort of first stories where someone is going to now come back from the hunt and tell the community what happened on the hunt and the reason they're doing that is they want to tell you where the animals are and how they got to them and there's a meaning behind why they're telling the story. And they will tell it. There's a clue. There was a little footprint. We followed the footprint and the footprint went around a bush and then the bush was broken and then we followed the bush further and then around the corner was a thing and then there was a cliff and then we had to climb down the cliff and then there was the animal and then it did this and then we had to use this thing to kill it with. And so there is a flow and actually in a way a sort of a plot and a story structure to that story. But the way the audience is being drawn along is that they're being given clues along the way, which I think is why murder stories like detective stories are still so popular. They're sort of within our DNA in some way, following clues to find the animal, to find the killer. I think that human beings love that process. And I do think that it's very important to keep them guessing. It's great if you can have them figure it out just the moment before you reveal it. Like, ah, I've got it. And then they have got it and they feel very clever. Of course, you also do sometimes want to undercut them. But the problem is if somebody doesn't see something coming at all and you haven't given them information about this thing, it's very frustrating for a reader or an audience member if you reveal something and you haven't given them any foreshadowing or they've been given no information. And then it's like cheating in a way that you just make something happen at the end of your story and you're like, well, because I wanted to make it happen. I feel like that can

Speaker 1: be cheating. Yeah. And audience feels cheated, I guess. Yeah. And so it's almost like playing a game. If you're playing Scrabble or Candyland with someone and you never win, you're like, well, I don't know if I want to keep playing. But if you can win one time out of 10. Yes. Okay.

Speaker 2: Exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Just one time out of 10. Then I'll keep playing. I'll keep engaging in the conversation. Yeah.