Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Screenwriting 102(6) - Hauge's Structural Checklist

I've been reading Hauge's Writing Screenplays that Sell - it's been sitting under my desk so long (having been discarded from the library) that I didn't realise and bought another copy... how stoopid (SIC) am I?

Anyhoo, I've got to the Structural Checklist, and having read that like my tutor, Hauge believes your first draft should simply be written without consideration to anything but your own imagination, I now get to the meat of what goes into the second draft and beyond...

Note: I personally can't write a whole draft without considering first what is about to follow. Let's hope that doesn't stump me at any point.

  1. Every scene, event, and character in the screenplay must contribute to the hero's outer motivation
  2. Early in the screenplay, show the audience where the story is going to lead them
  3. Build the conflict
  4. Accelerate the pace of the story
  5. Create peaks and valleys to the action and the humor
  6. Create anticipation in the reader
  7. Give the audience superior position
  8. Surprise the audience and reverse the anticipation
  9. Create curiosity in the reader
  10. Foreshadow the major events of the screenplay
  11. Echo particular situations, objects, and lines of dialogue to illustrate character growth and change
  12. Pose a threat to one of the characters
  13. Make the story credible
  14. Teach the audience how to do something vicariously
  15. Give the story both humor and seriousness
  16. Give the movie an effective opening
  17. Give the story an effective ending

This list will seem obvious to some and cryptic to others, but I can't go putting the whole of Hauge's book online can I? Needless to say, Pages 90-107 cover this in more depth

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