Screenwriting 101: Mastering the Art of Story

The first question any writer must ask is: where do I want to take my audience? Professor Fletcher shows you how to reverse engineer stories to pinpoint their cognitive effects and put those tools to use in your own writing (and viewing) experiences. Travel back to the dawn of scriptwriting and reverse engineer three storytelling innovations of ancient Greece, connecting each to a modern script.

Every script has a setting, both a time and a place where the story occurs. Your "story world" is more than the physical or temporal - what makes the world are the rules you create for it. Understand the value of the rules that underlie your story and see how genres allow you to use pre-existing structures while enabling you to embrace a multitude of possibilities.

Character is the key ingredient in most successful stories; make great characters and audiences will want to follow them anywhere. Professor Fletcher presents a simple recipe for creating memorable characters with three simple ingredients. Discover why fear is the most powerful driver of human behavior and why this is a key to creating and sustaining great characters.

Your job as the writer is to create a great story; the rest of the work is up to others. So how do you make sure your story creates the cognitive effect you want? The answer is tone. Look at the two most important ways writers shape tone and then dive into four influential tones used in screenwriting, using both literature and award-winning scripts as your guide.

One of the most common pitfalls of scriptwriting is poor plotting. The human mind is actually designed to plot - the key is learning how to constrain this natural tendency so your story doesn't simply wander. See how plotting backwards can help you stay on track and why you should forget about creating a three-act structure.

Begin your exploration of great film scripts with Casablanca. Learn how to identify its cognitive effect and reverse engineer the four main story components to unlock the tools you will use to understand every script. Casablanca will also introduce you to the first of the "big three" storytelling genres: the heroic.

How does a script go through 19 rewrites and multiple directors to emerge as one of the most influential films of the 20th century? Reverse engineer this story that traces its roots back to ancient Rome and see how a sublime tragedy can be even more powerful when brought down to a human scale.

The basic plot of all romantic comedies is essentially the same, so the surprise success of When Harry Met Sally can teach writers volumes about all the other ways you can make a story great. Professor Fletcher demonstrates the subtle ways screenwriters can add naturalistic details to make a predictable story still feel realistic and rewarding.

Take a look at the film whose immense success gave us the term "blockbuster," examining why the feeling of relief is one of the most primordial of human emotions and how it can best be put to use in good storytelling. Also gain an appreciation for the value of improvisation and collaboration with actors in the filmmaking process.