Writing tip on dramatic structure

I had forgotten about this ancient writing tip until Bill Johnson asked permission to send it out on a newsletter. Mamet's take on structure is about as user-friendly as it gets.


Writing Tip, Screenwriting, by Charles Deemer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I teach screenwriting at Portland State University. Other professors frequently send their fiction students my way when those students have particular trouble with dramatic structure in their work. Dramatic structure, or the art of storytelling, seldom gets the focus in other creative writing classes that it gets in screenwriting. This is because a screenplay is a blueprint for a movie, much more about storytelling than about rhetorical style.

Playwright, screenwriter, director David Mamet presents the foundation of storytelling this way:

· Once upon a time -
· And then one day -
· Just when everything was going so well -
· When at the last minute -
· And then everyone -

If you can complete these sentences, you have the outlines of a tight, beginning-middle-end story. Let's work it out for a film you probably are familiar with, E.T.

· Once upon a time -- there was a lonely boy.
· And then one day -- he met a stranded alien.
· Just when everything was going so well -- the alien said, "E.T. go home."
· When at the last minute -- the boy revived E.T., rescued him from scientists, and helped him catch his spaceship.
· And then everyone -- was sadder but wiser, learning that love is letting go.

Mamet's paradigm focuses on the major turning points in the story, the foundation of a tight structure. Structure is like a skeleton: as skeletons, all of us look alike. But add flesh, we are different. We react to the flesh of a story - but it is the tight skeleton, structure, that holds it all together.

***************