what we have decided to accept also inc ludes a sort of set of ru les

Planti ng and payoff can also have a more mundane use i n the telli ngof a story. It can provide us with a bit of i nformation that i s relativelymeani ngless at the time, but that becomes much more critical later i nthe story.

the character's attitude toward anyof these conditions is what must be provided in the story if characterizationis to flower.

A theme is that area of the "human dilemma" that the author

he theme thus becomes not somepoint to be proven, but the subject matter itself, that aspect of humanexistence this story will explore.

But in fact, in thetraditional three act structure, where the second act is approximately halfof the story, the main tension is the conflict solely of the second act.

Screen\Nr i t i n g T o o l s • 4 5tagonist: Mildred Pierce, Citizen Kane, Ninotchka, Shane, Tootsie-the listis endless. Once in a while we encounter a story where two people wantmore or less the same thing and strive to achieve approximately the samegoal. Yet in these stories, sllch as Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy andthe Sundance Kid, and Some Like It Hot, the protagonist is usually theperson who makes the deci"sions that create the story. Clyde, Butch, andJoe/Josephine, while not having more screen time than their partners, dotake the role of the protagonist because they are the characters whoseactions the partner follows; it is their decisions that determine both characters' actions, and it is their desire that overwhelms the partner's desire.Only in the light of the protagonist's objective can a screen story beplotted, because the pursuit of that objective determines the course of theaction, however straightforward or deviolls the path may be. Here are thethree main points to remember about the objective:1. There can be only one main objective if the film is to have unity. Astory with a protagonist who has more than one ultimate aim mustinvariably dramatize the success or failure of one effort before goingon to the other, and this breaks the spine of the work and di ssipatesour interest. A screenplay is like a suspension bridge, with one endanchored in what the protagonist wants, and the other end anchored tothe disclosure of whether or not he gets it. A bridge that forks in themiddle, with branches leading to two different destinations, can neverbe structurally sound. (The fact that other characters also have desiresor objectives must not obscure the fact that the story we are followingis the pursuit of the protagonist's objective.)

when onewants to cut directly from one scene to another with any significant jumpin time, is to create a transition from one scene to the next

internal conflict

Another way to look at this is to accept that the world awriter imagines is, to its very core, part of that writer's style.

Because of this, eventually the character "belongs" to the actor even morethan it does to the writer;

producer

his