by Daniel Plagens

The Art of Screenwriting

The truth is that there are as many ways to define a “good” script as there are writers in the world. A story may resonate strongly with one reader but not at all with another. Screenwriting is, like all creative endeavors, highly subjective. But just as musicians have scales and painters have the rule of thirds, there are some basic tenets to screenwriting. 

There are, of course, generally agreed upon “rules” to formatting a screenplay, but we won’t dive into those here. There is already a treasure trove of online resources discussing the topic, including those from Humanitas program partners Final Draft and MasterClass. So long as the script adheres to the basics, formatting choices aren’t the factor that makes or breaks a “good” screenplay.

That’s the storytelling and all it encompasses–dramatic structure, character, the prose, and plot, to name a few elements. Dozens, if not hundreds, of writers have written countless words on the subject and developed their own models of how a good story works. These models come in all shapes and sizes. Literally. Screenwriters and people who write about screenwriting love diagrams.

You have Syd Field’s “Paradigm” and Dan Harmon’s “Story Circles,” which respectively build upon Aristotle's Poetics and the “Hero’s Journey” Joseph Campbell described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Maureen Murdock developed a female-centric alternative to Campbell’s model she called the “Heroine’s Journey.” Books have been written on The Tools of Screenwriting and The Writer’s Journey, on Writing Screenplays that Sell and Writing Movies for Fun and Profit and How to Write a Screenplay That Doesn’t Suck. TV writers have The TV Writer’s Workbook and Elephant Bucks. Charlie Kaufman wrote a whole movie celebrating and critiquing the (in)famous Robert McKee’s book On Story.

Okay, so Who’s Right?

That’s for each individual to decide. Just like scripts themselves, some models of storytelling may speak to you, some may not. Across all of these different books and blogs and charts, though, it’s hard not to notice some consistencies and broad areas of agreement. Those are the basic tenets.

Many stories are about an identifiable main character, or protagonist, pursuing a specific and tangible goal. The goal can be anything: winning the big game, finding lost treasure, or solving a crime. If the protagonist is unable to reach this goal, there will be consequences. This is where the dramatic tension comes from. The fans will have their spirits crushed, a villain may take the treasure and use it for evil, a murderer will strike again. These are known as the stakes or the threat. To avert these consequences, the protagonist may have to make a great personal sacrifice during the climax, wherein the protagonist will make one great, final effort to achieve the goal. This type of story is often referred to as a quest, journey, or adventure. 

Alternatively, the protagonist may not be driven by a goal but by a difficult choice they have to make. They will have one of two mutually exclusive options to decide upon. They cannot pick both. That is crucial. The dramatic tension comes not from a threat but from the consequences of the choice. In a romantic comedy, the protagonist often must choose one love interest. A teen drama might see a young adult pick between going to college or staying home to help their family make ends meet. The moment the protagonist makes this choice constitutes the climax. To my knowledge, there is no generally agreed upon label for this type of story. 

There are often two things hampering the protagonist as they seek to achieve their goal or make their choice: an antagonist, a character who wishes to achieve the opposite goal as the protagonist, and a flaw the protagonist must overcome. The flaw is typically a personality trait that must be controlled or coped with. They may have an anger problem, they may be too timid, or they may not trust easily. In some cases, it may be that the supporting cast has a collective flaw they must overcome in order for the goal to be achieved. A notable and recent example of this can be seen in the first season of Ted Lasso, wherein the title character must convince the (to varying degrees) cynical people around him of his more optimistic worldview. 

In a feature-length screenplay, this flaw will typically be overcome by the end of the story, allowing them to accomplish their goals. Other times, this flaw will not be overcome and the character will either fail to get what they want or will do so at great cost, typically either by alienating their loved ones or, often in more action-adventure oriented fare, by dying.

In the world of television, it’s a little more complicated. If the flaw is overcome in the pilot, there’s nowhere left for the series to go. Usually protagonists go on a journey over the course of an episode that allows them to slightly overcome their flaw, but not entirely so. In sitcoms, the protagonist or their circumstances might radically change over the course of an episode, but then dramatically and ironically return to as they were at the beginning. This is referred to as hitting the reset button. The Good Place plays with this convention in the second season’s premiere by wiping the memories of its main characters in order to retain the setup of the series, then gradually reformats itself to account for plot developments. 

Similarly, the protagonist may have more than one central goal or choice in television. They will often have one overriding goal or choice to make that lasts the duration of the episode and then they will have a separate goal they are wrestling with for the entirety of the series. The latter is called–drum roll, please–the series goal. These are extremely common. A series choice is rare, but not unheard of. The early seasons of The Office are driven by the Jim and Pam will-they-or-won’t-they dynamic, characterized by a love triangle and at varying times their choosing to pursue someone or something aside from the other, just as much as they are driven by Michael Scott’s misguided pursuits for the affection and respect of his employees.

What Do I Do with This Overview?

There is more to writing a script than just these basics, and there are no simple proscriptions in creative affairs, but understanding them may help you on your journey as a writer.

You may also find that asking yourself questions about your project is more useful than seeking out specific answers. Writing is about creative problem solving, and only you can find the solutions you seek.

When judging the Humanitas Prizes, judges are asked to consider the questions laid out below when reviewing material. Whether you’re rewriting a script to apply to the New Voices Fellowship or the College Screenwriting Awards–or developing a new project entirely–you may find them a useful guide.

• Can I identify the protagonist’s specific goal, the obstacles that must be overcome in order to achieve it, and the stakes or threat that makes achieving this goal so important to the protagonist?

• If the protagonist does not have a specific goal, is there a specific and difficult choice that they must make? Does the story make clear why the choice is difficult and what the consequences for making it will be?

• Does the protagonist have a flaw they must overcome in order to achieve their goal? Alternatively, does the supporting cast have a collective flaw that the protagonist must help them overcome in order to reach their collective goals?

• Do I sympathize with the characters? If not, why? Does the protagonist’s flaw overcome the redeeming qualities in their characterization? If you don’t sympathize with the characters, does it feel purposeful and are you still interested in continuing to the end? 

• How is the scene work? Does each scene start late and end early? Is there conflict present? If there is no conflict, is the lack of tension purposeful? 

• Does the script feel structured? Does the story feel propelled along intentionally or like a string of events only loosely tied together?

• Does the dialogue sound realistic, unique, and interesting? Is there subtext in the conversations between characters or does it feel on the nose? Does the dialogue reflect the intended tone of the piece? 

• If the project is a comedy, does it make you laugh? Why? Consider the corollary: why doesn’t it make you laugh? Are there low stakes treated as high? Is the sacred tastefully mixed with the profane for comedic purpose? Who is the butt of the jokes? Do they punch down? Up? Sideways? Why do you think this?

Exploring the Human Condition

Humanitas’s mission is to recognize film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way. The human condition encompasses all of the characteristics and key events that compose the essentials of human existence, including birth, growth, emotion, aspiration, conflict, and mortality.

What qualifies as “exploring” this condition in a “nuanced, meaningful way” varies. In evaluating a script’s effectiveness in this regard, though, we asked the judges of the 2022 Humanitas Prizes to consider the following questions: 

• Does the story open audiences up to new experiences? 

• Does the writer possess a unique perspective and voice? 

• Does this story have the potential to connect audiences through deeper understanding of a topic or topics? 

• Does this story engage people and/or topics that have been historically left out of explorations of the human condition?

• Does the story reaffirm each human being’s inherent dignity?

A Note of Encouragement

Pursuing creative endeavors can be a lonely and frustrating experience, especially creative writing of any kind. Mastering the basics isn’t enough on its own. Attempting to write for film and television professionally carries its own specific anxieties. In addition to writing, you’ll have to learn to pitch, network, and negotiate the social order of writers’ rooms. “Writing is rewriting,” they say, which to a cynic might be a pleasant way of saying “writing is failing and trying over and over again.” 

But all writers have good nights. They experience what psychologists call flow, moments where someone is so enmeshed in their work that it feels as if they are not the source of their own creativity, as if they are just a conduit for someone else’s words. Some call it “discovery writing.” Even if the writing done that night goes nowhere, whether it’s edited out or the final product never sees a wide audience, there is an excitement and joy in the moment to be appreciated. Perhaps it is a cliche, but the most important part of the writing process, just as it is in the stories themselves, is the journey and not the destination.

ABOUT THE WRITER

As Humanitas’s Program Manager, Daniel oversees the Humanitas Prizes, New Voices Fellowship, College Screenwriting Awards, and the Groceries for Writers project while also handling other day-to-day administrative matters. He came to Humanitas after working for several years in the unscripted television and documentary worlds, and is a writer himself. He was recently a semifinalist for Filmmatic's Inroads Fellowship, and he was named to the University of Michigan Entertainment Coalition’s Blue List in 2020, a compilation of the school’s up-and-coming screenwriting alumni. When he isn't thinking about movies and TV, he's writing The Book of Jobbed, his weekly Substack newsletter about sports and the existential angst they cause.

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