NARRATIVE & SCREENPLAYS

The foundations of screenplay construction were laid in the early days of

Hollywood (albeit appropriated from well-established principles of mythology
and narrative) and have since remained largely intact. A screenplay tells a
visual story in which plot events follow a rigid internal logic of
cause and effect so that the audience knows what is happening
to whom and why. …[T]he plot normally pivots around the
protagonist, a dynamic central character with clear needs,
desires and problems who encounters an antagonistic force
while in pursuit of his goals. His attempts to overcome this
opposition as he undergoes a life-changing series of events
drive the narrative, building to a climax where he emerges
victorious but also mindful of how close he came to defeat and
of what he learned along the way. Modern variations are
surprise, downbeat and/or ambiguous endings, where the
protagonist either snatches defeat from the jaws of success,
fails miserably or loses so much in reaching his goal that it brings the wisdom
of the whole enterprise into question. …[W]hen done well they are amongst
the most memorable examples of cinema: Chinatown, Apocalypse Now,
Seven, Get Carter, The Long Good Friday….1
Costello, John (2004) Writing a Screenplay. Pocket Essentials Film. Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, p. 51.

By the way, I’ve just given a lengthy quote from a book; in your academic life, you
generally won’t quote such a long fragment – if its more than two sentences you’ll
usually put it into your own words. If it’s a single line, you’d incorporate it into a
sentence, two lines or more and typically you’d use a colon and indent it, using a
font such as Arial Narrow, below your paragraph. But you will try to break up large
chunks of text with headings and sub-headings as I do below…

TODOROV’S 5-PART NARRATIVE FORMULA

Every narrative can be broken down into three basic stages: situation, conflict, resolution (or equilibrium,
dis-equilibrium, new equilibrium). Crucially, your protagonist is not the same as at the outset, but has
been changed in some way from events. Your old friend Tzvetan Todorov posited five stages:

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset;

2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action;
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption;
4. an attempt to repair the disruption;

5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium 2

1
To this list you could add Easy Rider and Boys Don’t Cry amongst others.
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Does YOUR narrative reflect this?

EXPOSITION & THE OPENING SCENE

This is critical: get the opening scene right and you’ve grabbed your
audience, whose eyeballs are twitching to go elsewhere in our media-
saturated world…
Places
The essential elements of a strong opening are: introduce atto go, people
least to see…
one major
character (usually the Protagonist and/or Antagonist); set the tone
(mood/atmosphere); set the pace; and introduce the world of the story
[diegesis] via a powerful incident or situation which sets in motion the events
of the plot.3
Exposition is important, but clunky, stilted dialogue isn’t going to keep those eyeballs gripped:
Exposition is a technique by which background information about the
characters, events, or setting is conveyed … . This information can be
presented through dialogue, description, flashbacks, or even directly through
narrative.
As exposition generally does not advance plot and may impede present-time
action, it is usually best kept in short and succinct form, though in some
genres, such as the mystery, exposition is central to the story structure itself.
The alternative to exposition is to convey background information indirectly
though action, which, though more dramatic, is more time consuming and less
concise.4

THURLOW ON ‘THE ACTIVE QUESTION’

‘Each story will have running through it what is called the Active Question:
Will they get married? Will she stop using drugs and run in the Olympics?
Will he get revenge? Will they escape – the robbers with the bank haul,
Thelma and Louise from the tyranny of men? If the characters we create
have a tale worth telling, they will want something: to get the girl, exact
revenge, achieve justice, steal the goose that laid the golden egg…. A story
becomes interesting when the writer sets up obstacles that prevent the hero
getting what they want (Thelma and Louise first lose their money, essential
for their fight). The story hooks us as they overcome those obstacles and/or
villains and thereby grow and change in the process.
In order to grip the audience, the characters must be seen to go through a
range of emotions: fear, self-doubt, sorrow, elation. The screenwriter
achieves this through conflict (you will never marry that man; …you’ll never
be good enough to run in the Olympics). As the conflict unwinds, the
audience will be seeing themselves in the hero or heroine and will be sharing those emotions. Conflict is
to drama what sound is to music. It is the heart of drama, the soul of drama, the secret of suspense, the key

2
Taken from http://www.watershed.co.uk/east/content/narrative.html You can find a much more detailed breakdown
of a typical narrative at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propp#Narrative_Structure, a summary of Propp’s theory.
3
Costello, 2002, p. 53.
4
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_(literary_technique)
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to emotional engagement, that thing that keeps filmgoers on the edge of their seats. If you laugh out loud
while reading a book or feel a tear jerk into your eye while you are watching a movie, the writer has done
his job.’
Thurlow, Clifford (2008) Making Short Films: The Complete Guide From Script
to Screen. 2nd edition. Oxford & New York: Berg, p.34.

PROPP’S CHARACTER ARCHETYPES

As well as proposing that narratives can be broken down into 31 basic functions, Vladimir Propp (in his
study of fairytales which continues to influence literary and media studies today) argued that there are
essentially just seven basic character types, or archetypes:
1. The villain — struggles against the hero.
2. The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical
object.
3. The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
4. The princess and her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies
the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the
narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the
father can not be clearly distinguished.
5. The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends
the hero off.
6. The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the
princess.
7. False hero/anti-hero/usurper — takes credit for the hero’s actions
or tries to marry the princess.
These roles could sometimes be distributed among various characters,
as the hero kills the villain dragon, and the dragon's sisters take on the
villainous role of chasing him. Conversely, one character could engage
in acts as more than one role, as a father could send his son on the
quest and give him a sword, acting as both dispatcher and donor.5
Think about how this can be applied to Star Wars as a straightforward example, but also your film.
FURTHER RESOURCES:
Perhaps the most useful online resource is
http://www.screenwriting.info/ This is targeted at actual, would-
be, US, scriptwriters, and has links to sections on each of the
specific components of a screenplay. Like a great many other
sites, it rather unsubtly extols the virtues of screenwriting
software which automatically formats your work. You could
arguably use one if you can find a shareware version.
At http://www.dailyscript.com/index.html you’ll find a daily free
script (such as http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/ford-
fairlane_early.html)

5
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propp#Narrative_Structure
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The BBC has a brief guide, featuring guidance from two veteran scriptwriters:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/howtowrite/screenplay.shtml
You can pick from an extensive list of Hollywood feature-length movie scripts at
http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml
The Leeds-based ‘Re-thinking the Screenplay Network’, at
http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=llp&folder=56&paper=57, poses some
fundamental questions about the role of the screenplay
Film Education provide a useful downloadable guide at
http://www.filmeducation.org/secondary/StudyGuides/screenplay.pdf
Part of the Pocket Essentials range (small-form books originally sold at £3.99, now
£4.99), Writing a Screenplay (John Costello 2004, 2006) is a very accessible guide.
For a bit of light relief, you can read up on the true adventures of a Hollywood
screenplay writer in Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke by Rob Long (2007) – currently
available from £0.01 on Amazon.

THE SCREENPLAY TEMPLATE

Attached is a copy of a short film FUEL, for you to use as a guide to your screenplay layout.
Details of screenplay layout are as follows:

1) Font
The font should be courier 12pt. Use A4 paper and single space.

2) Slug lines
Each scene begins with a heading that tells the reader the
location and approximate time of day. The slug line should be in
CAPS. Scenes are not usually numbered, pages must be numbered.

eg. INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

3) Dialogue
As each character speaks, their name is put above their dialogue
in CAPS. Dialogue is indented and does not run across the whole
page. Any actor direction for the character is written underneath
the character name before they speak.

eg. JACK
(looking very worried)

It wasn't me, it wasn't me.

4) Narrative description
You will need at times to describe what the audience will be
seeing on the screen. This may include what the character is
doing, the look of a location, props, weather conditions etc.
Description is written across the page like normal prose text.
This distinguishes it clearly from dialogue. When you are
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introducing a character for the first time, their name should
appear in CAPS in the narrative.

5) Page numbering
Number each page in the right hand top corner of the script. (That
hasn’t been done with this script)

6) Cover page
Your script cover page should include the name of the script, the
name of the author and contact details, including address,
telephone and email.

‘Every moment in a screenplay

takes place NOW. Use the active
voice (a window slams shut) not the
passive voice (a window is slammed
shut).’

F U E L

By Rachel Tillotson

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POST PRODUCTION SCRIPT - 27th March 2001

JUMP MONK FILMS

c/o Tall Stories
Studio 40
1 Clink Street
London, SE1 9DG
Tel: 020 7357 8050
Fax: 020 7357 0889
Email: tallstories@compuserve

OPENING: FILM FOUR OPEN ANIMATED LOGO

1. EXT: CAR PARK - DAY

Three women in their 50's walk down a road overloaded with

shopping bags. The FIRST WOMAN, abrupt and aggressive, is large
and very well rounded, the SECOND WOMAN, tall and skinny ,
suppresses her temper behind pierced lips, and the THIRD WOMAN is
nervy, forever struggling and has trouble keeping her glasses on.

FIRST WOMAN
oh belt up...

SECOND WOMAN
its got nothing to do with you

FIRST WOMAN
....constantly winging about something

THIRD WOMAN
wait

TITLE CARD: FUEL

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2. EXT: CAR PARK - DAY

The three women, depressed and infuriated arrive at the same car
in bitchy moods. It's a tiny old dusty vehicle. Clearly there's
going to be a squash. The effort begins...

FIRST WOMAN
Come on hurry up

SECOND WOMAN
Never again!

FIRST WOMAN
Oh don't be so pathetic...

3. EXT: CAR DRIVING DOWN STREET - DAY

The car needs petrol. Curses instantly arise. The car is

straining...

THIRD WOMAN
On the right. I don't think this is a good idea.

A garage is spied. It's an old dusty half derelict East end type
of affair. No one's around.

4. EXT: FORECOURT OF GARAGE - DAY

Their car rolls in. It comes to a stop with a splutter.

FIRST WOMAN
Who the hell's in charge here?

5. INT: WOMEN'S CAR - DAY

A Greek, DANNY, (owner of the boots) mid 30's calmly leans down
into the corner frame of the cars window where it is now a few
inches open. His sudden appearance makes the FIRST WOMAN jump.
She clasps her heaving bosom. He is so smoooooooth.

DANNY
Problem ladies?

FIRST WOMAN
Yes (passing out £20). Fuel. Lots of it.

DANNY (not surprised)

Of course. No problem. (Pause) and perhaps - a little something
else?

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He holds her stare as...

6. EXT: FORECOURT OF GARAGE - DAY

...a wide garage door opens. From behind, one after the other men
appear. GREEK MEN. Tall, short, lean and muscular Gods. They
stride calmly and confidently towards the car. They seem to be on
automatic.

… [I’ve cut out the remaining 15 scenes] …

END CARD ONE

END CARD TWO

CUT IN: Shot of AMAZONIAN WOMAN winking at Camera

END CARD THREE

The End.

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