Film Courage: Are you anti-plot, against plot, in the middle? Author/Screenwriter/Instructor Matthew Kalil [The Three Wells of Screenwriting] So I'm definitely not against
plot. I wrote sitcom for 25 years. It's all about plot, advert breaks happen at
certain times. You need to have certain things happen in certain places to
motivate the advert breaks [commercials] interestingly enough now though with television not
having so many ever breaks you know with Netflix where you its on-demand and so
you don't have your advert breaks I think I do think plots changing slightly
the three-act structure and the terminology around the 3x structure
that's developed over the years it's really useful after you've written
something I find and I I just can't get this out of my head but for me it feels
like human beings have been telling stories for thousands of years before
we've been analyzing them so like we told stories naturally around the
campfires you know we told stories about the hunt Amata way to find the animals
there was some sort of structure in that in a way yes there was a main character
trying to find an animal and there was following throughs and so there was some
sort of a structure already to that which is maybe a universal myth I'm not
sure but weaving time stories for a long time longer than we've been analysing
stories so for me plot and the analysis of plot can be a real source of people
getting stuck in their writing because they feel that they need to have a plot
that works before they write now if you just write without a plot you can also
end up down a dark hole of loose ends that you know lead nowhere and just
right for the rest of your life without having a structure but I find plot and
the analysis of plot a good place to be once you've written something but for me
plot arises out of characters in a space doing something and that creates the
plot the characters themselves are almost it's like this whole separation
of character and plot is is not actually real when you're either creating it or
watching it character the plot are intrinsically linked we separate them in
order to analyze and maybe in the rewrite write our stories better but I
do find that so if you just focus on plot and drop the characters
it can result in stories that are feel a bit empty and it can result in stories
that everyone's written before what I find really funny about these books on
plot and some really good books are written on plot and I point to them in
my book I don't talk about plot at all in my book what I find really funny
about books on plot is they'll say these seven beats need to be in a story they
don't have to be there in that order they don't all have to be there and I'm
like what do you mean if they don't have to be there metal and they don't all
have to be there this is kind of it's like a weird and if you read close means
we've all got this disclaimer of like you know they don't have to be in that
order and they don't have to necessarily all be there I'm like well what are you
really trying to say so I'm slightly suspicious of generating your idea
writing from plot first I think it can be really useful in the rewrite it's
definitely really useful in the story edit I use it all the time when I'm
trying to help writers strengthen the strengthen their stories but actually
the best villain plot that I've ever heard the best quote on plot and it's
not even about plot it's from that book on filmmaking that I mentioned earlier
by Alexander Mackendrick he says something like the only thing you need
to know what's happening now in your story should not be as exciting or
interesting as what may or may not happen later it's reasonable what is
happening now shouldn't be as interesting or exciting as what may or
may not happen later so something's happening later and it's drawing the
story forward and it's that thing that's happening later that you need to put in
your plot somewhere so we need to know that something's gonna happen in the you
know you need to set it up so that something is gonna pay off and that'll
drive the story forward and they'll keep people watching oh I like that because
it's kind of an escapist you know it's not really part plot but it's kind of
linked to structure in some way so yeah I I'm not anti plot but as a matter of
fact I'm Pro plot when it comes to analysis of the story and trying to make
it stronger because I do believe you have to take a sledgehammer to your
story once you've written it and hit it and either breaks something's wrong with
the structure and so you need to like make it work but I sometimes find that a
lot of the even when people use plot to analyze movies they try and identify
like the inciting incident and they do the same weaving the engine to buy
different places and I'm like what is this it's not an exact science I think
writing isn't an exact science and people who claim that it's an exact
science are actually lying in my experience of writing is it's not an
exact science it's it's a bit different to that and so yeah so I I kind of worry
about the usefulness of extremely plot driven writing books they can be useful
for some people in some places and I wrote from that for a lot of my life
what is taking a sledgehammer to your story though like how do you
metaphorically do that so yeah I always think of it like this when I when you
write from a character-driven sort of perspective or from a maybe a more
organic perspective you tentatively connect scenes together to form a sort
of like a structure and it can be a very fragile crystalline structure it might
not be very strong and taking a sledgehammer to it means asking yourself
those really hard questions that structure sort of asks you to ask in a
way is like what is your character want now and have you told us it early enough
you know and you hit it and if it survives it survives or when is the
transition into the new world or when is our transition into the second act is
that stronger physically enough that's another so these are the kind of taking
a sledgehammer to your story and if it falls apart then it's probably not
strong enough but if it's really crystalline strong enough structure it
holds then maybe your story is good enough that's kind of what I mean by
taking a sledgehammer it's all those difficult questions that story execs
will ask you or you know people who read lots of books will ask you and and I
think I think we we do have to do that we can't be Precious about our stories
either even though they these for me they can be really beautiful creations
that come out of a case of good intention at some point they're gonna
that you know your audience is gonna hit sledgehammers at it
and does it hold does it not hold you know you have to you have to put it
through the wringer a bit that's when you're bringing off from the key they do
that with screenwriting videos - trust me I know they do I know it's hilarious
I wonder sometimes how useful they are they may be useful I definitely came
from that position in the beginning when I was when I first taught definitely I
was all like you know why are you doing this is ridiculous it was just like this
sort of but there's an anger around that sometimes and I wonder about that I
actually do question where that's coming from where is this sort of anger towards
story so I was coming from a place of insecurity because I was I didn't really
you know I hadn't written much I was like you know and I was like - oh my god
these students what am I gonna do I'll be strict because here I'm strict and
now listen to me I have changed now I'm gonna look more soft and I'm a lot more
nurturing in the way that I help people bur their stories into the world as
opposed to you know trying to kill them as they arrive so yeah yeah I suppose I
am I'm actually suspect of a way that the intention is coming from in the in
the shotty story people that can shot at people you know the drill master story
guy I'm like yeah I don't know it seems to be coming from a mislaid place it's
just a scene in for my first interview in LA and I'm gonna get kicked out the
tongue no no no like the scene in Forrest Gump Gump you know one needs
like rightness face and what do you story yes resonance that's your first
job what tell us what that's about so resonance for me is I have a quote in
that chapter my books got quotes in every chapter so I have a lot of quotes
in this interview but I have a quote in that chapter that begins with which is
this it is it's a complicated quote and it might not be easily to understand
understand just saying it but it's a quote from Gustave Flaubert Madame
Bovary and the quote is something like language is a cracked kettle on which we
beat our Tunes for bears to dance to while all the while we long to move the
stars to pity so it means language is we want to move
the Stars to pity with our angry we want to our language to be this beautiful
thing that expresses everything we feeling and expresses our emotions but
actually language is a cracked kettle on which we beating our Tunes for bears to
dance - then why bears a dancer but it's like a language fails us when it comes
to certain things I really believe I think things like religion and faith
language fails us and logic fails us at that point and I also believe that with
creation when we create things language fails us to really explain what's going
on at the core of creativity and that moment of creativity which is kind of
about books about so my little KVA is always with the word resonance the word
resonance came out of an inability to explain what happens to me when I'm
watching a movie and I moved or when I'm looking at a painting and I moved or
when I'm listening to a piece of music and I moved I use the word resonance
there because for me it feels like something in the painting is vibrating
and it vibrates something in me and I resonate with it and that's what I mean
by resonance is I look at a painting like for example
yeah I look at a painting for example in the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam there's
this one particular painting that I saw we'd filled with crows which is a
beautiful painting and it's just really moved when I was in the museum looking
at this painting it really moved me and resonated with me in a really deep way I
hope it wasn't cuz I was in Amsterdam and things can move you there which
shouldn't but I'm sure it wasn't that but other things move me you know
paintings and moments and movies move me particularly music will move me
characters maybe in a certain way will move me and that movement and that
resonance is what I'm trying to create in the scripts that my writers are
writing is how do we take that resonance how do we make our audience in reading a
script never mind watching it but how do you make that in them resonate with
what's on the page that for me is the real trick of writing
and I do believe you're doing we do that by doing what Hemingway says we do which
is it's very easy you just said the typewriter and bleed you know we take
our memory well we put it on the stage you put our pint of blood on the stage
and that's what the way we create resonance because if it moved us in our
memories if it stayed in our memories for some way so for some reason it might
have had a resonance it might have this charge that we then put on the page and
then people reading it resonate with it so that's kind of what I mean by
resonance of course it can get really complicated because you do need
structure sometimes to get to that point where people are moved you know you need
to have certain things in place so that you know you we care about the character
so that when they do something we moved by it but I still believe that they're
certain sort of events in our lives even objects and senses and sounds and
touches and tastes which we free take from our memory where they have they
carry this weight of resonance you put them on the page and there it is and
it's a it's a it's a difficult thing to to do consciously but you can and it's
also difficult to kind of talk about because it's so abstract but you
recognize it immediately when you see it I mean I know you know what I'm talking
about but it's difficult to kind of do it except by accessing your memories and
being very vulnerable it's also about being vulnerable I think and putting
yourself out there you some of some of your vulnerability and then people will
resonate with it I think because if it's too much of just your own vulnerability
it becomes a manifesto without that structure exactly this is where you know
what I always say is like I don't want this book I don't want to hear about
your life your boring life because I actually don't I want to hear about
something else maybe you know I don't want to just read about your life I want
to read about I want aspects of your life to be
present in the story you telling and that's different the story you're
telling is a story it's you have structure it should have you know and it
but but you put your memories in the aspects of it and then it really starts
to come alive and just to kind of go back to the story structure thing maybe
and back to that van Gogh painting cuz I love that van Gogh painting it was using
an example because I know I don't know what van Gogh was doing when he painted
but I know that he didn't have a test and he didn't read a book on
screenwriting theory and he didn't put his painting up and say to everyone
right guys look at this painting are there enough crows in the painting
refuels crows or the other do you want more yellow and then hand out flying
forms and in the audience or fold it in and then like handed it back to him and
he changed it so that didn't happen so he was doing something else which I
think he sees he was resonating and he was just moving with emotion he put that
on the canvas now of course he didn't have to pay millions of dollars for that
canvas which is why you need maybe audience test subjects to give you you
know see if your movies working or not but if you write from a position of okay
I got a piece and audience I'm gonna make money out of this and let me read a
book on structure I don't know if you hit the resonance not always
you