Advocating for a Character-Driven Screenplay Structure1 min read

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Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was considering the possibility that there might be more to screen drama than external conflict-driven plotting when, as if hit by a thunderbolt, a new paradigm of story structure downloaded onto the page in front of me.

I had been teaching script analysis, a lecture class analyzing the dramatic structure of successful films, for a few years by then, and it had led me to notice ways that character elements were able to move stories forward. They were not simply providing an added layer of human interest. They were serving a structural function and, taken together, showed their own progression from beginning to end, distinct from the plot progression.

Back in film school, I had been taught the classical model of three-act structure: a problem is posed at the beginning, and various attempts at solving it are presented until a final, particularly formidable, obstacle is overcome, which opens the way to resolution. I had also been taught that a structure must be based on a single main character. Who that character is would be determined by two factors: that the character, one, undergoes a sympathy-creating moment at the beginning; and, two, experiences an internal transformation at the end.

I initially approached my script analysis classes as I had been taught, identifying the major structural markers: 1) the point of attack; 2) the end of the first act; 3) the first culmination of the second act; 4) the second culmination of the second act; and 5) the climax. But an emphasis had also been placed on taking a pragmatic approach to structure, grounded in human psychology. So I became curious to know the psychological function of each structural point.

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