Story Structure Theories

Reviewed By: Angie Oliverson

REVIEW

As a film fan, I was excited to see this link to an article on screenwritersguild.com called “Story Structure Theories” about movies and storytelling. The direct link article claims to be an evaluation of screenwriting and storytelling software—yet says very little about any computer program and it’s design or execution. Most of the article discusses different storytelling theories. For serious story writers the short descriptions of theory are a good starting point for further research. Like most areas of academia or theory no one agrees on much of anything. Aristotle’s principles of drama managed to dominate storytelling for many centuries until the advent of film changed things. Syd Field, Robert McKee, John Truby, Joseph Campbell, Christopher Vogler, and Maureen Murdock all wrote books analyzing story structure by steps or turning points or acts. Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley wrote the computer program called “Dramatica”, which claims to subdivide story structure into four classes, then four subclasses, then four more classes, and so on. Robert M. Goodman, the author of the article, doesn’t seem to think much of this particular program. He ends by stating “The challenge for anyone who wants to master the craft is that every competing theory arrives with its own language and definitions. Don't assume even the simplest of words (e.g., "protagonist") will have the identical meaning within these different frameworks.” Little in life is certain. It’s not over ‘til it’s over. That much I knew. Other parts of the Screenwriters Guild site also relate to storytelling and story writing. Under the Doctrine page there are lots of hints and tips to aspiring screenwriters. One interesting quote states “Structure is not just an important problem, it's the key problem.” Another interesting tidbit for future film storytellers is the term premise. “Premise is your story stated or reduced to a single line. . . . in a town where nobody likes to read anything, you must be able to convince a Producer that this would be a terrific story—by giving it to them in one line.” Both of these statements tell me that a screenwriter and storyteller should get as much practice as possible. There are several commercial aspects to the site. Visitors can purchase published scripts. Several different professional screenwriting programs are offered, as well as a side by side comparison of each along with endorsements by well-known names in Hollywood. A database of agents and studios is also available. The site is mainly white with black font and yellow accent. A banner ad across the top of the page promotes a contest with an application deadline of November 9th. No year is given, so the contest information is either very early or very late. Movie review links were current. There is a site-wide search engine on the homepage. All of the pages load fairly quickly. The main site navigation menu uses Flash and can be a little finicky, but is not difficult. From the homepage there are lots of non-Flash links to navigate the site. One link I almost missed was a handy list of “Word Tools” on the web. It doesn’t have a lot to do with storytelling, but could prove very useful for writing. In closing, the screenwriters.com site is general has some valid and useful ideas to promote storytelling—though very much in the written sense. If you are looking for how to tell a story through the camera then this site does not have what you are looking for. One last quote from the “Step 1” page of Doctrine states: You're going to have a lot more ideas than time to write them in your life. Make sure you pick something that you're passionate about. Try to write something that may change your life. That's a pretty high standard. But it's very important. First of all, if it's that important to you, it might just be that important to a lot of other people. And secondly, when you're done writing it, even if you don't sell it, you might have changed your life. And, that's not a bad reason to write anything. I think that this standard could be applied to conventional storytelling as well.