In this first module, we start by questioning what’s wrong with the 3-Act structure, a concept you’re most likely already familiar with given that it’s the most well-known story structure paradigm.

I don’t believe in any approach based on a set number of acts or sequences, insisting on act breaks or steps based on a set number of pages or minutes. That isn’t structure, it’s format (or formula). Story structure is at the same time more flexible and more complex than that, so we first need to clarify what it really is before we can harness its full power...

If we agree that the logistical 3-Act structure (based on a set number of pages or minutes) is a superficial and limiting paradigm, what can we replace it with? This is what we talk about in this second module.

Here we introduce a new approach to story structure that is both flexible and powerful. Freedom and power… What’s not to like?

Abraham Maslow’s Theory of Human Motivation can have extremely powerful applications to screenwriting, from helping you to assess the potential audience of your project to making sure that its genre, story-type and budget tally in order to increase your chances of getting it made.

This is the focus of this third module.

As we start exploring the foundations of screenwriting and script development, we take a look at the most common story-type: plot-led stories.

This fourth module, along with the next four (Behind the Scenes I-III and Into the Script) forms the first section of the rocket that is going to propel your project to the top of the reading pile and hopefully get it made...

So even if you believe that your project is not plot-led, please bear with me. All the concepts, all the tools discussed in the ‘Foundations’ section can be used in any story.

Learning how to handle plot-led stories is the same as learning to walk before attempting to run and jump: if you don’t get the foundations right, you’re seriously limiting your chances of success when dealing with more sophisticated story-types.

This first ‘Behind the Scenes’ module explores the tools used to generate and manage conflict in a screenplay. We’re opening a toolbox that can be used in any story at scene, sequence and story level.

The great benefit of this approach is that it will help you to improve your scene writing, so you can master the craft at scene level before tackling larger story chunks at sequence or script level.

Think about managing conflict as a way to define the direction, the drive of your scene, sequence or story. This is one of the most essential parts of storytelling, yet it’s often mishandled.

When you manage conflict as explained in the previous module, you define the main direction, the story drive: a start point, an end point, obstacles and a question mark, raised by the dramatic question: Will the protagonist reach their goal or not?

That’s great and it’s a key part of storytelling, but if you stop there, you’ve defined a two-dimensional story. Just as you don’t want your characters to be two-dimensional, you don’t want your story to be flat either.

This is what this second ‘Behind the Scenes’ module brings to the party: How, using managing information, you can add a third dimension to the story, generate intellectual interest with mystery, create emotional tension with suspense, break linearity with surprise and sometimes even replace the dramatic 3-Act structure entirely at story level with dramatic irony. The old adage “Information is power” has never been more true…

Managing information is one of the keys to storytelling mastery, yet it’s a misunderstood or neglected topic in most screenwriting approaches. It’s time to change this!

The tools explored in this module might be less structural but they are nevertheless essential—especially if you’d like to reach a wide audience abroad—because they allow you to tell a moving, entertaining and meaningful story without relying primarily on dialogue.

Visual storytelling, planting and pay-off are tightly connected and will help you not only to cross borders but also to create meaning and emotion in your story.

In today’s world, where reaching a global audience is not only possible but often required, it’s a bad idea to develop projects without fully understanding—and then mastering—the power of these tools.

You most likely already know that screenwriters should “show rather than tell”. This module will not only explain why, it will also show you how you can achieve this, and much more.

Now that we’ve gone ‘behind the scenes’, opened the toolbox and given a name and a function to the main screenwriting and script development tools and principles, we can take a step back. In this module, we look ‘into the script’ and show how to bridge the gap between scene and screenplay.

To achieve this, we’re going to explore how we can ‘Sequence the Action’, then how to ‘Craft the Draft’. Finally, we’ll look at "Gravity", our case study for a plot-led story.

Character-led stories are often mistaken for “stories with strong characters”, or character-driven stories. It’s time to correct this misconception and explain what a character-led story really is and why, from a structural point of view, it is significantly different from a plot-led story.

This is key to avoiding aimless stories or artificial stories, because what’s at stake in a character-led story isn’t what the character wants but what the character needs.

When the unconscious need of the protagonist is more important than their conscious want, how do you design the story so that there is still something at stake, so that we still wonder what’s going to happen next? The answer lies in this module, along with additional tips and tools specific to character-led stories and a detailed case study of "Silver Linings Playbook".

When you don’t have a plot-led or a character-led story, when you don’t have a clear protagonist, often it’s because the main problem lies in society and is unsolvable, which leads to a multi-stranded narrative.

This has huge consequences from a structural point of view, the main one being that we can’t use the dramatic 3-act structure to design the whole story, given that there is no main dramatic action or evolution.

Theme-led stories tend to be in the minority if we look at feature films, but many TV Series have a strong theme-led element as most of them – especially serials or limited series - are multi-stranded.

So if you’d like to find out how Crash, Magnolia, Traffic, Cloud Atlas, Game of Thrones or Big Little Lies build on plot-led and character-led stories to create a more complex story form, this module is designed for you and comes with a detailed case study of "Dunkirk".

Up to this point, we’ve defined the foundations and have explored the most common story-types: plot-led, character-led and theme-led.

This is better than a simplistic, dogmatic paradigm, but it still doesn’t encompass all stories. Many successful stories are hybrids (they combine two story-types) or exceptions (they have no clear story-type).

These are the most advanced kinds of stories, hence often the most exciting, but also the most difficult to pull off. You need to understand a few key principles in order to handle hybrids or exceptions without either destroying them during the development process (if they were working in the first place) or failing to make them work.

This is what we’re exploring in this penultimate module, mostly through a selection of short case studies that illustrate how unconventional hybrids and exceptions often work brilliantly.

This was an intense – and hopefully exciting as well as rewarding – journey, it’s time now to bring it to a close in the most practical way. This last module explores how all the tools and principles introduced up to this point can be used during the development process, and adds a few more for good measure.

We’re going to look at the difference between selling tools and story design tools, and we’ll try to point you in the right direction for your next draft in ‘The Rewrite Stuff – 12 Ways to a Stronger Screenplay’.

This module is designed to get you fired up and ready to go, so fasten your seatbelt… It might be the last part of the course but it’s the beginning of a whole new journey!