Screenplay Structure: How To Create Your Story Blueprint
STRUCTURE IS FORM
The structure of your screenplay is the foundation. It supports the plot, theme, premise, characters, and all the crucial elements: beats, scenes, and sequences. Without structure, your story would collapse. Most screenwriters use a variation of the classic three-act structure, with specific structural elements within each act, to layout a script.
Creating a structural “blueprint” will help guide you through the outline process and eventually, with writing the complete screenplay. You create your story blueprint by noting each event (or plot point) of your story that fits into the structural elements. When you understand which plot point makes up each structural element (the Inciting Incident, the MidPoint, the Climax, etc.), you have poured the foundation for the structure of your screenplay. Now you can build on that foundation – writing the outline and creating the beats, scenes, and sequences of the script.
I have written a brief, mini-eBook, “Screenplay Structure: How to Create Your Story Blueprint”, to help you with this very-important step in the screenwriting process. Just click on the book cover to download a free PDF copy and get started!
STAY-TUNED: In my next post I will explore the Plot-Driven, Theme-Driven, and Character-Driven Script.
Posted: June 30th, 2009
at 3:06pm by Laura
Tagged with climax, denouement, first turing point, inciting incident, midpoint, point of attack, resolution, screenplay blueprint, screenplay map, screenplay outline, screenplay storytelling techniques, screenplay structure, script blueprint, script map, three-act structure
Categories: Structure, Plot & Technique
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