Film Courage: How is screenplay structure different from outlining a screenplay?
Writer/Instructor and Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson (The Professional Pen): I actually
don't think it's different at all. Your structure should be there from the beginning and if you're
outlining from the beginning you should be able to follow your structure there. To me the biggest
difference is in my opinion I look at a beat sheet like one-liners of your biggest moments
and then I look at an outline of fleshing that out so that now you know exactly what's happening in
every single scene not necessarily just those big beats even though for some people that's all they
need but now you start to see the connecting beats that get you from the large beats to the next
large beats and then the screenplay is actually the creative part of writing out the scene
right so that's how I explain it to my students some people don't make beat sheets some people
just make outlines some people don't make outlines and they just make beat sheets and some people
just write the screenplay you have to figure out what's best for your process in my opinion
you want to do some work before you get to that screenplay because the white page is intimidating
and if you don't know where you're going it will eat you alive right so just like with your google
maps you got to put in the address and know what you're following even if you decide okay
I'm going to shut it off now I kind of know where I'm going I don't have to keep looking at my gps
great same thing for your beat sheet or your outline so for me I usually use the Pixar
formula as my beat sheet I love the Pixar formula if you're looking for one you can go google it
now i've added some things to my Pixar formula for my students because there's some more
emotional work I want them to do before they get past this point but basically it asks you about
the beat sheets not the beat sheets the big beats starting at once upon a time and now you have this
layout of what your story is that you can post next to your computer or wherever it is you want
to put it so that you always know where you're going because as creatives we will veer off the
road and that's how we end up with uncle such and such a story that never makes it back to where
it's supposed to be so if you have your outline or your b sheet or your Pixar formula or whatever it
is that you're using you always have something to come back to to go oh yeah because you also have
another uncle who's like where was I what part was I on blah blah blah blah well now you don't have
to ask anyone it's right here you've written it down where you're going and because every scene
is supposed to be cause and effect what happens in this scene is because of what happened in that
scene then looking at that beat sheet lets these are the scenes that I need to get to the next beat
and these are the scenes that I need to get to the next beat because that the point is I need
to get from a to b to c to d to e whatever for some people they only need to know a g m and z
right I need to know a through z so my outlines are a long my outlines can be 60 pages long if
I'm writing a feature and if it's like I did one and I want to say it was somewhere between 30 and
50 pages long because it was a feature and it was science fiction so there was a lot of stuff
and rules that you have to figure out if you don't know the answers to those questions you don't want
to get to the page because then you can kind of get lost in the sauce but some people don't need
everything written out I like it all to be written out because I also do my revising in the outline
so as I start writing the screenplay and new things do come because the outline
doesn't have to make it's not in concrete right so new things do come oh that's great that's good
what you now have to realize though is that new thing is going to affect
the outline what's coming next maybe what came before it so now you can go back to
the outline and go okay I got this new thing so let me move this copy and paste move that
around blah blah blah and now you can see what the new story looks like without having to do
it in the screenplay which takes a lot longer believe me i've done it right so I utilize my
outline throughout the entire process which is why it's so much longer but back to your
original question the structure is there that's why you're outlining structure needs to be there
if you're outlining and there is no structure your screenplay won't have any structure
so the outline tells you what and what you don't know if you're outlining correctly I'm
actually in the middle of teaching my outlining class right now it's called idea to story 2.0
I have it online for people to purchase to do it at their own pace but then I do it once a year
where you get me live and so we're now going through all of those moments because I feel that
if you have a an effective outline then you will write your screenplay far more efficiently and so
I give them workbooks and worksheets that they can do throughout that they can do with any project
they're doing but mostly so they can eventually figure out what their process is because they
all may decide I don't need this worksheet I don't need that I don't need to do this outline
but if I do this thing this is the thing that I need that helps everything to open up so I'm
just trying to help them to figure out what their process is while teaching them structure and then
hoping that they decide to do outlines forever but they may not so that's kind of a go go at your own
pace you said I have two two characters right so the first idea of the story is go at your own pace
you get all of the videos all of the worksheets et cetera and you can just watch them on your own and
figure it out as you go and if you have any questions then you can sign up
for kind of like an office hour thing with me and then i'll kind of talk you through your homework
if you sign up for the live version which I only do once a year then we spend two or three hours
of lecture every week and then 45 minutes to an hour of just one-on-one talking about your story
because if you take a screenwriting class a lot of the times you're in taking the general information
but you're not translating it to your story so the only way that I know that they actually learned
what social proof was is if I start talking to them about their characters and social proof
I only know if they really understand an inciting incident if I'm talking to them about their
inciting incident and what information we got in during the normal before the inciting incident so
on and so forth and so I think people enjoy that part because then they start to realize oh yeah
I don't I don't know right and it's like yeah so you can't go to the blank page yet
because you don't know but learning that you don't know is just as helpful because now what
holes need to be filled before you get to the page when a writer is outlining a screenplay does that
mean they are creating structure at the same time yes exactly that's exactly what that means
they should be looking to understand what scenes make up my normal and when I say normal that means
the everyday life of these characters whether the cameras showed up or not like we're all living
our normal lives every day so your characters are people who are doing whatever it is they do
for an action film that means we're probably going to open in action because in their normal lives
they're already a police officer firefighter ex-military whatever it is they are right
so now you're asking yourself in the outline what scenes am I using to show my character's
normal life right until we get to the inciting incident which is the thing that's going to crash
into that normal life create change therefore causing a goal or a problem so you have to ask
yourself what do those scenes look like what's that sequence of the inciting incident what
is the inciting incident how does it make my protagonist feel all of these great questions
and then you're going to start to figure out well what is the debate is there a debate do they have
to decide to go on this journey or is it so urgent that no matter what they're going on the journey
then you have to fix so you have to figure out what do those scenes look like right because that
that there being a debate what's the debate who are they debating with where are they debating why
are they debating right you get to figure all of that out so the same is true throughout the entire
screenplay but in the outline you're putting in all of the structure all of those big beats
but asking yourself what are the scenes how do I visually show this beat because a million people
can probably tell you the inciting incident is a car crash great where were they going what
were they doing who else is in the car where did the car crash happen did the ambulance
come or did they stay there by themselves and pass away or did they end up getting out did
random people on the side of the road come pull them out like what is the scene right and so in
the outline you get to start asking yourself what those scenes are and putting them down not in
screenplay format but just the information of they were driving their child to the nursery when they
got hit by a a semi autumn semi truck whatever that came through the light and then we cut to
the jaws of life getting them out that's the information you need in your outline so that when
you get to your screenplay you can write it all beautifully however it is you're going to write it
well if we take something maybe that's less dramatic so if we go back to our
our sort of metaphorical Pam character who's like this office administrator everybody needs her now
she's remote working her phone is buzzing all the time she has no separation between her job and her
life but then maybe the inciting incident because she's going to find this other job which she'll
moonlight during office hours and they won't know it because she'll have a second computer
maybe she meets a woman in a store and they just have a fun exchange talking and she says what do
you do and she says oh I'm an office administrator and the other woman does these surveys right
and she's kind of fascinating there's something a little interesting about her
so she goes hey give me your email and all so then maybe that's where and she sees this woman and
she's kind of intrigued by her because she she's just different Pam always does the right thing
and this woman's a little bit rebellious a little bit interesting and maybe that's the the incident
yeah it's not the jaws of life but it's something yeah something is changing her normal her normal
is I'm working at home from zoom every single day I'm answering the calls and I
gotta get dressed from here up so that I can be present when they need me blah blah blah blah
today for lunch I decided to go for a walk and while I'm on that walk because I go into
the store to buy my lunch or whatever I meet this person that person just changed her life
so that's the inciting incident and that small information is what's in your outline then you'll
flesh that out to actually be full scenes and however it is you describe them in the action and
the dialogue and blah blah that's the screenplay but in the outline you say pam's working from her
desk all the time she's dressed from here on up blah blah blah she's always answering the phone
and today she decided to go for a walk for lunch and she bumps into
insert person right right that's what you would have in your outline okay so that would be the
inciting incident if it wasn't as dramatic where there was a full act yeah the inciting incident
can be the smallest thing like comedies don't have huge inciting incidents romantic comedies have
a breakup or meeting the other person or whatever it is but whatever that thing is it's different
because if it's not different why am I here I don't I'm not here to watch people's everyday
lives I have my own life I go watch my friends lives what I mean I am here because something is
changing for them and I now need to watch them to struggle through it grow through it whatever
is going to happen on that journey that's why I'm here so there has to be an inciting incident
something has to come in and make change cause problems cause a goal that needs to be achieved.