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Oscar-win ne r r Tlt e Apar lt nc nt ,
Ww ' rilin9
W SttrrsetBoulevard,ThL,Lost Weeknr[) and
nine-more-times Oscar nominee for screen-
writing, gave his 10 straightforward rules for
screenl\'riting success to writer-director
Cameron Crowe (himself an Oscar winner for
Almost Famr.ns)in a seriesof interviews.
Crowe published those interviews in
"Conversations With Wilder," a book in the
tradition of Francois Truffault's "Hitchcock."
Here are those rules, with some thoughts on
how to put them into practice:
weapon in sight. His voice-over laments:
"Saigon ... shit. I'm only in Saigon."
He catches flies in his hand, smokes ciga-
rettes, burns holes in photos of his stateside
wife and drinks himself into a stupor alone
in his hotel room. Obviouslv disturbed, on
this ragged edge of his life, he r,r'antsa mis-
sion. As two soldiers climb the stairs to the
hot el r oom , h e t e l l s u s i n v o i c e - o v e r :
"For my sins, they gave me one...
and when it was over, l'd never
want another."
That iine burns into memory. "Why," we
\,\'ant to know, "would he never want an-
ol.her mission?"
These are the opening moments of Apoca-
Iypse Now, a masterpiece by any standards,
and a fllm that follows the paradigm of
Wo r l d , C h a r a c t e l a n d Q u e st.
l)rama is the story of a character's
s t r u g g l e t o w a r d a g o a l o r o b j e cti ve th a t
character cannot and will not do r,r'ithout.
Ihe story starts with that goai being re-
vealed and then opposed.
The protagonist has to want that goal out
of all proportion, out of all reason and against
all hope. There must be an absolute and total
dedication to that goal or deslre that pushes
the character into dramatic action. 3b

Don't spend 10 pages of yout script "set-

ting things up."Don't give us 20 pages of
"back story" that sets up how happy the char-
l'
acter was with his wife and children before
the inciting event.
Hook the reader on the first page. How? A
murder, a brutal rape, a kidnaping, some un-
solved mystery, some unsolved question, a
dare or a challenge. What if the murder or 7 ,,a::: ::,:4,,
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rape happens later in the film? Then fore- a
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shadow it at the beginning. Create an unfor-

gettable scene to start the script. Here is an
example:
A tranquil rainforest, palms poking
through the misty green canopy. It's serene
and strikingly beautiful until...
The sounds of helicopter blades break the
silence, and then military helicopters swing
low over the forest, which erupts into flames.
Muslc overlaps the scene: "This is the end"...
from a 1960s hard rock song by The Doors
with references to madness and patriclde.
The scene and the song take us to the heart of
darkness, a setting not just geographical but
spiritual and psychological. It dissolves to a
holel room, where a man lies on an unmade

So the first thing to ask yourself when you
begin to write your screenplay is, "What does
my character want?" Then seize the moment
when the character loses the girl, or gets fired,
or witnesses a murder.
'Ihis is the throughJine, or the spine, of the
stoly. If the character wants the girl in the first
act, he must not change his goal and want re-
venge in the second act. There must be a clean
line of action. He must struggle for the girl for
the length of the script. Once we are lnvested
in rooting for a character to achieve a goal, we
want to see a resolution to that struggle.
We all wanted to see if E.T. would get
home. We all wanted to seeif the priest could
get the demon exorcized from that girl. We
wanted to find out who was killing everyone
at the Bates Motel. We wanted to see if Tim
Robbins would ever get out of prison in The
Sltawshank Redet npl ion.
Knowing what your character wants is the
key. Ask yourself what the character wantecl in
every good film you've ever seen. The struggle
for that goal or thing will be clearly established
early in the film, and that will be the goal the
audience is invested in.
Develop a clean line of action for your char-
acter'.lf the essential action of your character is
revenge, ihen it's a good idea in your outline to
plan the scene in the end in which he gets or
does not get that revenge. That means unite that
end scene. \,\4ren you rt'rite the ending, it shines
a beckoning light at the end of the tunnel.
The story, however, u,on't have a clean line.
It will probably depart from that clean line.
Robert Towne saicl screenpiays are bridges be-
tween two points: what the character wants
and whether or not he or she gets it.
A good way to know where you're going is
to outline. An outline helps to shape the artis-
tic vision. The outline should be used as scaf-
folding that aliows you to buiid on what you
imagine, not as a cage that stifles it.
Remember, a character may or may not get
what he wants. It is only necessarythat for the
duration of the film, he struggles in a clean line
toward that goal.
"Plot" is the hidden second storY.
The surface story is the one we folloq as
in "There's a spooky house on a hill where a
man lives with his mother (Psycho).There is
a seriesof murders." The surface story points
to the woman n'e believe is living in the
spooky house. The plot - the hidden story
- is that the murders are really being com-
mitted by the man, who lives in the house
alone and dressesas his deceasedmother.
In The Sixth Sense,the surface story in-
volves a psychiatrist struggling to treat a
child who claims that he "sees dead peo-
ple." The hidden story is that the shrink has
been dead all along. That's n'hy the kid can
see him.
The better and more elegant you are at
disguising the hidden second story, the plot,
the more the audience feels a sense of par-
ticipation in uncovering the plot points and
assembling the puzzle you have laid out.
The first act establishes everything: the
setting, the character and the dramatic prob-
lem. The first act entices, beckons and teases
us into the story. The second act generally
complicates the elements that have been es-
tablished in the first act.
There are three basic components to
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story: the setting (the world of the story),
who the story is about (the characters) and
the dramatic problem the character or char-
acters must overcome (the quest).
Most stories establish those three basic
story elements in that order. First comes the
setting, or world. This includes the physical
setting as well as the milieu, texture and tone
of the period.
A film might open with a bird's eye view
of the suburbs that could be Anyu'here,
America, the quintessential suburban sprawl.
The main character begins by teiling us,
"This is my world. This where t live..."
We swoop down into one house, into a
bathroom to view a private moment. A man,
nude in the showeq is obviously masturbat-
ing. Our character tells us in voice-ovet,
"This is me. This is the high point of my day.
It's all downhill from here."
The opening moments go on to establlsh
other characters in the story - first the wife
( " S e e h o w h e r c l o g s m a tch th e p r u n i n g
shears? That's not an accident."), then the
daughter ("Angry and rebellious. I wish I
could teil her that's all going to pass."),
then the neighbors ("1 get tired iust looking
at them.").
T h e s t o r y t h e n e s t a b l i sh e sth e q u e st, th e
struggle and the dramatic problem. As the
main character walks toward the car for a day
at the olfice, his brlefcase opens, dropping
papers on the sidewalk, an embarrassing mo-
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ment. He is ridiculed by his wife, and as he
sits in the back seat for a ride to work, he re-
alizes that he's not happy. He has lost him-
self and his life somehow. In voice-over, the
character says, "But you know what? It's not
too late to get it back." And with that, the
main struggle and through-line is established
for both the movie and the character in the
Academy-Award-winning Americsn Beauty.
If in the first act you haven't established
in full dimension the character or the basic
premise, then the story will fracture later.
The NreivYorkTimescrossword puzzle. Op-
tical illusions . Psycho.What do they have in
common? They all let the audience add up
two plus two.
Storles are patterns that follow pre-
dictable paradigms, chronology and logic.
When the patiern has a part missing, or a
part that does not seem to belong, we in-
stinctively go in search of the missing piece.
Our brains try to complete the pattern; lve
try to figure out the plot. The audience will
be invested in figuring it out only if the pat-
tern can be figured out. If the pattern is so
random we can't make heads or tails of it,
the brain turns off and there's no hope of
reconstructing a reality.
If the writer al1ows the audience to "add
up two plus two," he wili be allowing the au-
dience to exerciseone of the basic brain func-
tions and experience the resultant sense ol
satisfaction.
M os t of t e n , t h a t i s w h a t t h e c h a r a c t e r s a r e
t hink ing.
Somewhere around the end of the second
act (in essence, near the beginning of the
third act) something happens in most good
narratives that will decide the character's fate.
It's a pivotal point, an event that determines
whether or not the character will achieve
what he or she wants.
ln "Ham1et," it's the famous moment
when Hamlet recites the speech "to be or not
to be." Hamlet is deciding whether to con-
tinue living or to die. He's near a breaking
point; it's going to be one or the other. It's
going to be decided non'.
ln American Beauty, the murder of Lester
Burnham, the main character played by Kevin
Spacey,is foreshadowed in the opening scene.
We expect it throughout the movie because of
the character's opening volce-over ("In a year I
wili be dead. Of coulse, I don't know that
yet."). The pivotal scene in the movie is the
garage scene. The neighbor (Frederick Forrest)
appears and he's ang44,bursting with emotion.
Will he kill Lester right there? But the scene
turns, and the emotionally distraught nelgh-
bor tries to passionately kiss Lester instead.
Past that moment, there can be no going
bac k : v ola t i l e t h i n g s h a v e c h a n g e d . a n d t h e
r univ er s eh a s l i n e d u p i n a c e r t a i n w a y f r o m
which there can be no retreat. From that mo-
ment on, what is to be must be. It's a1l un-
folding accordlng to some invisible plan.
has wanted all along. When he discoversthat
she is a virgin, he can't go through with it.
S h e a s k si f h e 's O K . A f t e r a fe w l i n e : h e sm i l e s
and says, "No one's asked me that for a long
time. Yes.I am." We tacitly understand Burn-
ham has "gotten his life back." This occurs
o n l y m o m e n t s b e f o r e t h e n e i g h b o r p u ts a
b u l l e t i n h i s h e a d . D o n 't h a n g a r o u n d . Th e
character got what he wanted.
l n A p o c a l y p s eN o w , th e e n d i n g co m e s
when Martin Sheen, after weeks of fiercely
fighting his way upriver, finally, with ma-
chete in hand, is closing in unseen on Col.
Kurtz (Marlon Brando). Everything in the
movie - his obsession with Kurtz's file, the
rising tension before the assassination- has
built to this moment. Kufiz senseshis killer
and readies himself 1or the moment of his
death. In a vioient intercut, the slaughter of
Kurtz and the beheading of a water buffalo
c r e s c e n d ot o a v i o l e n t o r g a smo l b l o o d . Ku r tz
h a s b e e n k i l l e d . S h e e ng a th e r sw h a t i s l e ft o f
h i s s q u a d a n d l e a v e si t a l l b e h i n d . An d th e n
that's it. Don'i hang around. The movie is
o v e r . We w a n t e d t o s e e h o w th e str u g g l e
turned out. And once we know, once we see
w h e t h e r S h e e nw i l l h a v e th e w i l l a n d co u r a g e
to actually kill Kurtz, lt's over.
A n d d o y o u r e m e m b e r th e m e n ti o n o f
foreshadowing under Tip 1 about openings,
a n d t h e c h a r a c t e r Wi l l a rd 's vo i ce - o ve r l i n e ,
" F o r m y s i n s , t h e y S a v e m e o n e ...a n d w h e n
i t w a s o v e r , l 'd n e v e r w an t a n o th e r "? Th e
e n d i n g p a y s u s o f l f o r a g r e e i n g to g o a l o n g
o n h i s r i d e u p r i v e r . N o w, w e kn o w w h y.
So there it is. The nine tips for screenwriters.
B u t w h a t a b o u t t h e t e n th o n e ? Th e te n th
o n e i s a c t u a l l y t h e f i r s t on e , b u t I l e ft i t o u t,
because it's beyond the writer's control. It's
Wi l d e r 's f i r s t t i p . . .

lt's a warning. He's saying essentially the

The strength of a movie is, of course, the
pictures, while the power of a novel is the
inner monologue and observations of the
author.
In a movie, try to allow the power of the
moving picture to convey the story. Then try
to allow the second most powerful device,
the dialogue, to move the story forward.
Only as a last resort, use voice-ovet, such
as when a point of view must be estab-
llshed that cannot be conveyed another
way. Needless to sa, many Oscar-winning
screenplays open with voice-over. But even
then, use it only to supply the story with
what pictures or words cannot deliver.
Screenwriter Robert Towne said, "A movie :,,:'same thing William Goldman said in his book
is really only a few moments between two t:itt"Adventures in the Screen Trade" in the fa-
people." A movie funnels the audience to- ll:::mous line, "No one knows anything." No one
ward a make-or-break moment between two :::::really knows what an audience will respond
people. The final climax, the moment when :::: to, not to mention what agents and producers
the charactergetsor doesnot get what tre or :,:::respond to. What may be popular one year
she wants, is the moment everything in the may be stale and clich€ the next. Ancl if you
movie has been leading us to. think the audience ls fickle, you should see
In American BeauQt,Lester Burnham has ,::::what the conga line of producers, directors
lusted after the high-school girl (Mena Su- :llt anA actors do to a script in development.
varl). She is a symbol. If she finds him attrac- :l::: Write the thing that moves you, the thing
, tive, he's on his way to "getting his life nack," :::,ithat obsessesyou. Wdte the TV episode you
t o being v i r i l e a n d v i t a l a g a i n . I n t h e l a s t m o - t h i n k t h e y s h o u l <1h a v e ma d e , o r th e fe a tu r e
ments of the fiim, she is about to grant him 1;r,:film you would like to see. Then send it out
his ultimate fantasy. It's what the character *a the world like a Buddhist prayer flag. !S
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