Buys You Some Pages of Character Introduction and Development If you open with a character tied to a chair, bleeding from their face with a gun to their head, and then flashback to them happily walking the halls of their high school, it pulls us into your story even more. We're always going to be looking for seeds, plants, and clues as to how those characters are going to get to that point.Īnd an additional screenwriting trick is to flashback to those characters and showcase them in the exact opposite frame of mind and situation. When the script skips back to the beginning, we're always going to have that cliffhanger in mind. Builds Instant Anticipationīecause we've seen a vital third-act story-point - and hopefully have experienced a well-written opening cliffhanger - anticipation as to how the characters got there is instant. When done right, we're engaged and compelled to read on. This adds immediate and compelling mystery in the first few pages of your screenplay as we transition to the beginning of the story after a vital third act scene or sequence teases the reader or audience about what is to come.Īnd it's pretty cool - from a studio reader's perspective - to open a script with an immediate cliffhanger. We're thrust into the story and characters without really knowing them yet. So how can you serve the story in that fashion while also offering an engaging hook?īeginning with the ending is an effective way to hook the audience. But that provides a conundrum for many writers because they also need to introduce their characters - often in their Ordinary World - and set up the upcoming conflict. Screenwriters are instructed that they need to hook the reader or audience within the opening pages of the screenplay.
#The grass is singing movie script free#
Learn more about structure by downloading this free eBook! Offers an Instant Hook
How does beginning your script with the ending service the story itself? There are several benefits to employing this type of cinematic story structure in your screenplays.
This specific structure employed by American cinema often utilizes original organization by showing the end first, and having the audience view how they got there. The story is about the journey and focuses on the how as opposed to the what.
Fabula/Syuzhet Structure comes to us from Russia, using terms that originated from Russian formalism and employed in narratology ('the branch of literary criticism that deals with the structure and function of narrative and its themes, conventions, and symbols.')įabula is the meat of the story while the syuzhet is the narration and how the story is organized. One particular structure - Fabula/Syuzhet Structure - usually entails showing the ending of the movie first. Structure is less about hitting specific beats at certain page numbers and more about deciding what type of framework you want to build your story on, and how that framework helps to tell that story. Different structures work for different reasons. There's no single answer to how you should structure a screenplay. Why do some movies begin with the ending?
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