Hey guys, welcome back, we're going to look at structure. So earlier I mentioned that you can think of a script as a chain, a story chain of links that are unique, but also connect. how those links are connected makes a huge difference in making your script understandable, readable and engaging. Structures how you link up your seats. The structure that is common in many stories and films and TV programs are pretty simple. The one that seems to be popular and effective to help arrange and structure your story is the story circle by Dan Harmon.
This is a tool to help you structure your script and I use it to arrange my scenes and major actions to see if that makes sense. Now, word of warning. using it as a template is tempting. But you run the risk of molding your script to fit the structure. You run the risk of letting your fear of not writing your script the right way. get in the way of being creative and different.
It is a tool to help you not to hinder you. So I basically took the story circle and I kind of tweeted, this is my way of writing. So all your scenes with their mini predicaments, solutions, plans, obstacles, consequences stakes, all the mini goals and mini dramas can be arranged with this tool. Okay, so number one on the story circle, and it's going to be basically eight parts. One is you have to introduce the characters, the world and the rules of this world. Two is going to be the predicament that is affecting them.
Three, this is going to be the inciting incident. This is the big problem against the characters moving to predict, make it so bad that your characters have to deal with it, and there's no turning back. So the motivation and the consequences are going to be obvious here for basically the sink or swim portion of the of the structure. In this the characters are going to struggle to solve the predicament and it's going to look like they're taking ownership by taking action, but they're really reacting in it's gonna get them into deeper trouble and they're gonna have a dilemma, you're gonna have to pick the lesser of two evils to overcome and solve the predicament. This is going to lead to Section five, the characters find something crucial to the solution of their predicament, it's going to be a combination of a hard external truth and hard internal truth.
The solutions gonna cost this is gonna lead to six, which is where they accept the external and internal truth of the situation and they realize that they can now act instead of just react. They're going to become their own boss, they're pretending this leads to seven words all or nothing the characters in assault the predicament or they face the consequences. And finally, the last portion to come full circle characters have solved the predicament in their change by their struggles, and have a new external and internal truth. Basically, they've kicked ass. undeniable experiment truth is going to refer to the world that your characters live in. It's going to include the rules that govern that world, and that creates the reality of their situation.
The undeniable external truth can be something good Or something that may be a bit of both. It's definitely got to be something that can't ignore. It can be solution or the predicament, or it could be a curveball. The undeniable internal truth refers to the mental and emotional reality of the characters as they slam into the external truth. Can they handle changing? Can you handle changing on the inside psychologically and emotionally in order to change what's going on on the outside?
Lots of movies have this happen section six as the end of the second act. It creates extra drama for the third act that can make the end express the theme in a meaningful way, an ending that's good and memorable. As people living our lives, we encounter situations when we bump against undeniable external truths that force us to face, our undeniable internal, it's no different with your characters. You have a lifetime to face those things, but your characters have less than two hours. Now, if you feel intimidated by the challenge of structuring your story, just accept it, work at it and realize that when it comes writing our own stories, we seem to forget this innate sense of story structure. And they might be just that maybe writing a story uses parts of our brain differently than just listening or watching a story.
However hard it is to properly structure your script. Remember that it's for the good of your story and for the audience. So that basically wraps it up for structure, and we're going to look at genre and a theme next