Screenplay writing for dummies (like me)

This post is a break away from the travel theme of this blog. We're currently working on screenplays for Creative Writing class and we're required to write a blog about the art of writing a screenplay.

Unfortunately I'm a little late on getting this done, due to a case of the flu that would put me in great company with the characters of Outbreak. Or Dreamcatcher (minus the aliens). So here we go, lets answer the question of how a screen play is structured.

Screenplays are often defined by structure. There are four commonly used structures when writing a screenplay. The three act structure, the Hero's Journey, Field's Paradigm, and the sequence approach.

The three act structure is the most common approach to writing screenplay. The first act is the setup, the second is the conflict, and the third is the resolution. It's the most basic form of writing and most films fit into this structure.

The Hero's Journey is based off of Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He basically said that going back to ancient mythology, epic sagas have always had the same structure. There are five stages in this structure: a call to adventure, a road of trials, achieving the goal, a return to the ordinary world, and the application of the goal. The Lord of the Rings trilogy fits into this structure. Come to think about it, most sci-fi of fantasy films are written with with this structure in mind.

Field's paradigm introduced the concept of plot points into screenplay writing. Plot points help to move the film along by introducing conflict in the middle of the acts of the film.

The sequence approach divides the three acts of a film into eight shorter sequences. The first act is made up of two sequences, the second is made up of four, and the third is made up of two more.

There you are; a short introduction to the structures used to write a screenplay. Hopefully I can use one of them to write a half decent one myself.