Film Courage: I know last interview we had with you we talked a lot about your book which was
brand new at that time and the book is The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable
Story for Screening, Stage or Fiction. I'm not sure if we asked you this before but
how much of the book is dedicated to developing the character and how much of
it is dedicated developing plot? Erik Bork, Author/Screenwriter: It's a good question you know it's really its
concept driven almost more than character or plot character or plot is
all part of the overall concept but the book is really about there's these seven
different elements that you want to make sure your idea possesses so and those
seven elements describe the problem at the heart of the story so the problem
has to be punishing and relatable and original and believable and
life-altering and entertaining and meaningful those are the seventh acronym
of problem so each one of those seven things has to do with plot and character
you know you want your characters to be original in some way you want your
plotting to be original in some way but most importantly you want your concept
to be original in some way the concept that kind of holds it all together
once you have an idea that meets all the criteria that you've laid out in your
book how do you go about structuring that idea into a screenplay
well a lot of people I mean I've worked with clients as a coach you know
consultant and help people do this and help guide them through the process but
I also do it myself as a writer and I do think that the Save the Cat book [Author Blake Snyder] and its
tools are helpful I mean I my favorite thing about saving the cat really are
the ten genres and working with and they each have like five subgenres each that
he goes into in the second save the cat book save the cat goes to the movies
those genres I think are super helpful and very original and revolutionary for
writers coming up with ideas for a movie so I highly recommend those but he also
has the beach heat which is the thing that saved the cats most known for which
is the 15 point structural paradigm which I think was Blake Snyder building
on other paradigms people had for 3x structure going back to probably
Aristotle but certainly Syd field and other people's sense that and I think he
came up with some really good ideas for here's what the first half of act two of
a movie usually looks like even but the second half of act 2 usually looks like
and here the second half of Act one tends to look
like let me came up with fun names for these different structural beats or
sections in a movie so I think that is a helpful tool some people don't like it
and you know or have a love/hate relationship with trying to like fulfill
especially when it's like it has to happen on this page or that page which
I'm not super strict about but but I do think he had some pretty good arguments
for why he felt this is a good page languor this is a good place in the
movie for certain things to happen so anyway when you do up one of those beats
it ends up being like a four-page document I think ideally where so what
that means is you're not spelling out every single scene you're not figuring
out every single thing that happens in your movie yet because that would take
ten or fifteen pages there's no way to really do that in four pages if you're
trying to do that in four pages and I've seen people do it often
with the note they're gonna get back is this isn't enough for a movie there's
not enough scenes here there's not enough that it's happening for this to
fill two hours so it's really about kind of summarizing the key sections of the
movie and then the key points like the midpoint and the breaking neck - and the
Brainiac three which are just moments you know you kind of figure out what
those moments are and then you summarize the sections in between so you kind of
have an overview of the structure so that was one of Blake's Lake Snyder's
big contributions of the world and and I and I think it's helpful so I I will use
that as one method for kind of working toward a structure would you say most of
the writers of screenwriting books and teachers it's basically all the same but
they they name things in a different fashion it's just their style of
presenting it I think there is some truth to that that people are a lot of
times saying the same things in different books and different paradigms
for story and screenwriting but I also think people do come at it differently
and sometimes have different conclusions about you know some of the precepts that
they come up with I mean like for instance the dramatical theory of story
which I've played with a lot over the years has a pretty different and
specific take on how stories work compared to you know save the cat and
like the hero's journey the Christopher Vogler book that is my understanding is
that's a certain kind of story he's talking about which is a hero's journey
type story which not every story is a hero's journey type story but if you
writing that that book really goes into kind of what the the structural points
tend to be in those kind of stories and but yeah I do think to a large extent
people are speaking about the same things like most people agree that like
the end of act 2 of a movie about 3/4 of the way through there's usually a major
defeat crisis all is lost moment and then there's a one last kind of chance
in the third act to solve whatever the main kind of problem of that story was
and they might call it different things but they kind of are talking about the
same thing did you read any of the William Goldman books like which lie did
I tell or I did I read adventures in the screen trade I think I also read which
lie did I tell but those are more about my life as a screenwriter as opposed to
here's how to do it you know I don't think he was trying to teach so much as
talk about what what life can be like doing it professionally what was your
takeaway from what he talked about in terms of what life could be like I know
he's a very straight shooter yeah well I mean I guess I think I read adventures
in the screen trade before I was really working in the industry as I recall and
you know it was probably a foundational book at the time for understanding what
it's like in Hollywood as a writer I remember him saying things like you know
it basically takes me six months and in six months I'll have a screenplay it'll
be a real screenplay it may not be the screenplay you want I mean I'll just be
a screenplay that will get made into a hit movie but it will be a it will be I
can create this product in six months I remember that staying with me and of
course the thing people often quote is that nobody knows anything line which i
think is sometimes misunderstood a little bit because I don't think he was
saying nobody knows anything about what tends to work in story or in movies I
think what he was saying is no one can say for sure what movie is gonna be
successful at the box office which to me are two somewhat different things and so
I mean I think there are people that know some things about story structure
and character and writing and what what tends to work better than what tends to
not work as well they're not hard and fast rules that are a hundred percent
applicable at all times but I do think there are principles that are a good
understand and follow as in any endeavor it's not just something that you just
dive in your first time and wing it and it all goes great usually however it's
true that nobody can say for sure this idea this script this movie's gonna
definitely sell or not sell be a hit or not be a hit and that is something that
he talked about a lot that you know it's not an exact science
you