Hollywood Scriptwriter Formulas and The Best of All Possible Worlds · 4:11am Jul 26th, 2013
(Contains spoilers to The Best of All Possible Worlds. The title of this blog entry kinda makes that obvious, but I thought I’d spell it out for those of you who are in the middle of reading it right now. I also mention a couple of recent movies, but I don't think I spoil anything not covered by a trailer.)
I stumbled across a week-old article by Peter Suderman for Slate.com, about how nearly every big studio movie in the past couple of years have been following the formula set out in Blake Snyder’s book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need. And I do mean “formula”, as the book sets out how fifteen distinct story beats should be placed to the minute.
Now I tend to analyze my stories to death, both as I’m creating them and long after I’ve posted them, so I thought it would be fun to try and apply this same formula to The Best of All Possible Worlds, which I will henceforth be forced to abbreviate as “BoAPW” (sorry, DannyJ).
I found there was one major adjustment that I needed to make: Save the Cat (abbreviated as “StC”) assumes your story has three acts (Setup, Confrontation and Resolution, to use one of several competing naming schemes), but BoAPW has four:
* Act I is the Introduction through Chapter 11. It establishes the setting, characters, and the central topic of how being a god-like ruler of Equestria kinda sucks.
* Act II is Chapters 12—20. It covers Voltaire’s solution to Celestia’s problem, and begins to set up Genevieve as the counter-argument to Celestia’s desire to be esteemed rather than worshipped.
* Act III is Chapters 21—33. It’s basically the Griffish Revolution, plus the culmination of Genevieve’s side-plot.
* Act IV is Chapters 34—44. It covers the protagonists fighting against Genevieve’s takeover of not only Equestria, but reality itself.
Now of those acts, Act III is strictly-speaking not necessary. If the laser-sighted focus of the story is supposed to be about rulers who wanted to be treated properly or else are terrifying gods, then the Griffish Revolution has no place in the story. And Geneveive’s one chapter in this section can easily be moved into Act II without changing anything. So, if we mostly ignore Chapters 21–33 in BoAPW, how well can I force my story into a mega-million dollar formula? To match my story up, I took those chapters out of my Word master file for the story and scaled the resulting page numbers to the magic 110 number used by StC—I used page numbers instead of chapters because my chapter lengths in this story go all over the place. So, here are the fifteen story beats from StC, the predicted chapter numbers in BoAPW, and where (or whether) I met the benchmark in my story:
1. Opening image: This sets the tone and suggests the problem the protagonist will face. StC says this should happen in the first minute, which would correspond with the Introduction of BoAPW. And what do you know? I present the images of the watch (a predictable world) and the coin with King Friedrich’s face on it (absolute authority) in that very chapter.
2. Theme is stated: A character says something to the protagonist that spells out the story’s main idea. Should happen in the fifth minute of your 110 minute movie says StC, which lines up with Chapter 2 in BoAPW. The closest I get to this is not anything a character says to Princess Celestia, both rather a bit of narration from the end of Chapter 1: “Surrounded on all sides by ponies, Celestia felt like she was all alone.” Actually, I think this is the lamest part of StC’s formula, as it assumes the audience is too stupid to know what the story’s about unless it’s summed up in a paragraph or less by a character who must be addressing the protagonist and nobody else, because once again, we’d be too stupid to get it otherwise. The most-obvious recent example of this to me was Admiral Pike’s dressing down of Kirk in Star Trek: Into Darkness, which happened at precisely the designated time. It was a scene that contained several lines from Pike that make little sense in terms of the plot or characters to that point, but were instead there so that the screenwriter could mark off Point #2 in his StC checklist.
3. Set-up: The main characters and setting are introduced. StC says the first 10 minutes should cover this, which would be the Introduction through Chapter 3 in BoAPW. I actually split this task into two chunks: the characters are established in their own worlds in Chapters 1 and 2, and then Chapters 4 and 5 cover the introduction of Voltaire into the palace and Genevieve into the asylum.
4. Catalyst: A major event changes the protagonist’s world and sets the story in motion. StC recommends putting this in the 12th minute of the story (which is almost exactly where Oz the Great and Powerful puts the cyclone), and that would be Chapter 4 for my story. My catalyst is the moment Voltaire falls through the portal into Equestria, at the end of Chapter 3.
5. Debate: The protagonist spends time thinking about a choice; this is also where the stakes of the story are laid out. StC says minutes 12 to 25, which would be Chapters 4—8 for me. I don’t really have much of a debate section in my story: nobody really offers up a rational defense for treating Princess Celestia like a goddess, and the only counterargument (replace Celestia with a real goddess) doesn’t get posed until Act IV. But I guess you could say that Chapters 6—8 establish Voltaire’s bantering relationship with the Princess, which vaguely counts.
6. Break into Act II: The hero commits to his new situation. StC says Minutes 25—30, which would be Chapters 8—10. The actual Chapters 9—10 have Voltaire discovering that Celestia truly is nearly god-like in power, while still wanting to be treated as a mortal, contrasted with Genevieve discovering potentially god-like power in the magic pencil.
7. B-story: A secondary story about a character affiliated with the protagonist, who will assist the hero. StC rather demeaningly devotes a single minute, the 30th, to the subplot all by itself, because heaven help a moviegoer who has to keep track of two complex plots at the same time! My subplot belongs to Blue Belle, and her feature chapter is 16, in the center of Act II instead of at the beginning. Actually, I even have a C-plot devoted to the eventual antagonist. Peter Suderman’s article notes how both Save the Cat and the movies blueprinted according to it assume the protagonist will always be a guy, so Minute 30 is pretty much the only time in the entire movie when a female has the spotlight—for example, Oz the Great and Powerful, set in what L. Frank Baum meant to be the female-dominated setting of Oz, is nevertheless centered on a male, with Theodora as a B-plot that seems a bit shoe-horned in (or just plain poorly written). My Little Pony is another female-dominated setting, and I at least play lip-service to this by making Princess Celestia the main character...or a main character; Voltaire was just too much fun to write for to give him less than co-billing with Celestia.
8. Fun and Games: This is the section where the premise of the story is most-charmingly handled. StC cynically describes this as the source of all of the “trailer-friendly moments” in the movie: Oz the Great and Powerful pretty much brings the story to a halt in order to meet this requirement at the specified 30—55 minutes mark that StC sets out. I don’t really reserve any specific chapters to having fun; Voltaire is almost always enjoying himself in this story. If you want trailer-friendly moments, there’s always “Ivan’s turned the philosopher into an ass” (end of Chapter 4), pretty much all of Chapter 10, and Voltaire’s ludicrous dream at the start of Chapter 12. And no, the scene you are thinking of from Chapter 8 is not on that list!
9. Midpoint: The A and B plots meet, leading to a false victory or a false defeat, and the stakes are raised. Happens at the 55 minute mark according to StC, or Chapter 18 if my story was strictly following formula. It turned out to be a pretty close prediction, as my meeting of the Voltaire/Celestia and Blue Belle plots happens in Chapter 17. Only, I wouldn’t call that a “false victory”—Celestia gains a very real victory over public opinion with the telling of the Frog Princess story that is never taken away. Also, the stake raising in my story takes place later on.
10. Bad guys close in: The villains recover from their setback in the last point and make life worse for the main characters. StC sets this at Minutes 55 to 75, which would be Chapters 18—20 in BoAPW if I was following the rules; in fact, it would also be Chapters 34—35 because of that cut-out Act III. I don’t really have an equivalent for this in my story.
11. All is lost: This is a mirror to the Midpoint: a false defeat if the earlier moment was a false victory. Some kind of ham-fisted death reference is pretty much required at this point. StC says Minute 75, which would be Chapter 35 (remember, I’m pretending that Chapters 21—33 don’t exist for this analysis). My equivalent is Chapter 19 for Genevieve (King Friedrich’s cruelty breaks her naive faith in humanity) and Chapter 20 for Princess Celestia (the outbreak of revolution breaks her heart). And hey, if the mover of the sun falls unconscious in a series that already covered the “Nightmare Moon” angle, that pretty much is death.
12. Dark night of the soul: The protagonist has a moment of contemplation, asks the big questions, and realizes how far he’s come so far. Minutes 75 to 85, or Chapters 35—37. I would say that Princess Celestia’s reawakened memories of Luna in Chapters 29—30, and her telling of the story of Discord in Chapter 34, correspond with this. Note that I had to get these out of the forbidden Act III of BoAPW.
13. Break into Act III (or IV): The protagonist suddenly figures out how he’s going to beat the bad guys. Minute 85, Chapter 37. Well, my Act IV was extra-long, so it started four chapters early. And the moment of realization happens in Chapter 35 with the discovery of the rebellion; a moment that is actually inside of Act IV instead of happening just before it starts.
14. Finale: Let me quote from Peter Suderman’s description of this story beat: “Relying on all he has learned throughout the story, the hero solves his problems, defeats the villains, and changes the world for the better.” This pretty exactly describes what Chapter 38 in BoAPW accomplishes. StC times this as the 85th to 110th minutes, which implies the movie ends the exact second the bad guy dies. I instead manage to have a six-chapter anti-climax to clean up the loose ends.
15. Final image: In another forced moment, there must be an image at the end of the story that precisely mirrors the Opening image, to hammer home what the protagonist has learned and how the world has been changed...forever! 
Since I didn’t plan for my ending to mirror my opening, this is a bit of a stretch, but you can say that Voltaire and Celestia’s froggy farewells represent egalitarianism, in contrast with King Friedrich’s coin, and Voltaire laughing his way out of Equestria represents a sense of fun that overturns the grim predestination represented by the watch.
Or of course I could be completely wrong about my own story. I wouldn’t be surprised: I am the king of stealth interpretations of other people’s works, and I’m well aware of several authors who loudly denied the universally-held interpretations that sprang up around their stories.
Oh, and for all my digs into Oz the Great and Powerful, which followed this formula to the letter, I actually don't regret watching it. So I guess like tropes, screenwriting formulas can be good for something.
Yes, tropes are not bad. I still think that, as creators, we should try to avoid being formulaic as much as possible. That said, this formula obviously has merit, if it sees so much use.
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Coincidentally, when I began mentally comparing one of my own stories against this formula as I read, I noticed that the adherance to it broke down at the same time your story's did.
1237099
I think the reason for the divergence, not just for us but for a lot of other writers, is that we treat our antagonists as actual characters with their own character arcs, while the formula just treats them as objects to impede the protagonist.
1237105
Man, my stories are all about the antagonists. Like, as much as BoAPW is about Voltaire. There's nothing I love more than a memorable villain. That's why Discord will always be best pony to me, even though he's actually a chimera thing.
1237105>>1237099 The problem with comparing your works to the cinema screenwriting is that you're comparing across mediums. Written stories can devote entire chapters to world and supporting character building, and can go into a great deal more detail. Cinema, on the other hand, can only supply maybe fifteen minutes worth of both without lengthening the movie.
1237324
This is also true.
Very interesting post. Thanks.