Archive for the ‘narrative throughline’ tag

Understanding The Narrative Throughline

What’s driving your screenplay?  And why do you need to know?

Understanding what drives your script helps you determine the essential foundation of your story (or throughline) and allows you to strengthen the script by incorporating elements (scenes, sequences, and characters) that “serve” your story.

There are three-types of screenplays:
1. Character-Driven
2. Theme-Driven
3. Plot-Driven (also called Premise-Driven)

CHARACTER-DRIVEN
Character-Driven screenplays are essentially about the transformation of a character or a group of characters.  The natural throughline (or organizing principle) is the character arc of one or more of your characters.  Juno is a character-driven film.  There’s a theme and a premise, but the engine of the movie is Juno’s realization (transformation) that she’s not as mature as she thought, adults aren’t necessarily any more mature than teenagers, her parents are pretty wise and cool after all and, she’s actually in love with her best friend, her baby’s daddy, Paulie Bleeker.  If your script is character-driven your protagonist needs to have a compelling transformation.

PLOT-DRIVEN
Most action-adventure films are all about the premise.  Sometimes they have a vague underlining theme but few action protagonists experience any type of character transformation (James Bond is the same guy at the start of every film and the end of every film, from Dr. No to Quantum of Solace). If your script is plot-driven, you’ll need to have an exceptional premise – think Aliens, Ocean’s Eleven, Terminator, Jurassic Park, and Die Hard. An amusement park with dinosaurs– that start killing the tourists!  The most incredible Las Vegas casino heist ever – with escalating obstacles, complications, and life or death stakes!  Who needs character arcs?

THEME-DRIVEN
Theme-driven films are the hardest to pull-off successfully without sounding like you’re giving a lecture.  In a theme-driven film, the premise and characters are secondary to the message the screenwriter wants to convey.  If your script is primarily thematic, you must select elements that best illustrate your message but that also work on their own terms.  One such film that pulls this off brilliantly is the Oscar-winning western, Unforgiven.  The film Unforgiven has wonderful characters and a compelling plot, but every element in the script serves its central theme, which is:  violence doesn’t solve anything and actually makes things worse.  All of the elements in the film are carefully chosen to illustrate that point – the sheriff whose methods of “keeping the peace” are often more vicious than the crimes he prevents, the “eye-for-an-eye” vengeance that leads to suffering rather than justice, and the horror of wanna-be gunslinger when he’s faced with the reality of actually killing a man.

THE KID
That was… the first one.

MUNNY
First one what?

THE KID
First one I ever killed.

MUNNY
Yeah?

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THE KID
(breaking down, crying)
Oh Ch-ch-christ… it don’t… it don’t seem… real… How he’s… DEAD… how he ain’t gonna breathe no more… n-n-never.  Or the other one neither… On account of… of just… pullin’ a trigger.

MUNNY
It’s a hell of a thing, ain’t it, killin’ a man.  You take everythin’ he’s got… an’ everythin’ he’s ever gonna have…

THE KID
(trying to pull him-self together)
Well, I gu-guess they had it… comin’.

MUNNY
We all got it comin’, Kid.