May 30, 2005

• 1. Ross gets married. 2. Joey says something stupid, but funny. 3. Chandler and Monica fight and make up. 4. Oh, Phoebe! Is there no end to your zany tomfoolery? 5. Rachel gets a new hair-do. 6. A dark, mysterious figure, posing as a trusted leader, maliciously engineers complex chain of events that sees him tempt a young, troubled apprentice with a pregant wife into acting against his principles; together they take over the galaxy and instigate a black period of hatred, violence and oppression, until the apprentice's son grows up and, after fighting through a series of demanding trials with his twin sister and best friend, makes the traitor finally choose good over evil and destroy his villainous master. 7. Ross gets divorced!
• What, 36 were too many for you? Seriously, nice link. And quid - hah!
• I wish I was pregant.
• Being pregant is better than being postgant
• Seriously there's a weird problem with the list. He starts out with Overcoming the Monster, and then Rags to Riches which sounds fine, but then at the end of the list is Comedy and Tragedy? That's like saying there are four basic sciences: entomology seizmology and oh yeah, chemistry and physics!
• I'd add the following: 8. Jack, Janet and Chrissie have some sort of misunderstanding. 9. Jerry, George, or Frasier overreact to something. 10. Stranger insults the village or family through an unwanted act, and Bruce reluctantly steps in to fight for the return of their honour.
• The bloke obviously doesn't know what a plot is. Comedy and tragedy are not plots, but genres. Aristotle understood the difference between plot and genre. I would expect an author of a book on this topic and of this scope (700 pages) to at least have read and understood Poetics.
• I suddenly feel sorry for the dude if he spent 34 years on this and started out with a wrong premise. He rows the Atlantic with a spoon for an oar.
• You forgot... 11. New York cop John McClane gets trapped in some type of structure that is being threatened by terrorist. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.
• Ohhh, and a variation on... 10. Stranger insults the village or family through an unwanted act, and Bruce Banner (aka The Hulk) reluctantly steps in to fight for the return of their honour.
• This thread's beginning to remind me of the old joke about the world being divided into two kinds of people: those who think the world's divided into two kinds of people, and those whoe don't.
• I dont know why this kind of thing needs to be put in a new book, these ideas have been around for eons. Anyone wanting a serious discussion of these issues should check out Robert McKee's "Story," an amazing book for writers or anyone (as seen in the movie "Adaptation")
• He got it wrong, there's only one basic plot: 1. A person does something, or not.
• This thread's beginning to remind me of the old joke about the world being divided into two kinds of people: those who think the world's divided into two kinds of people, and those whoe don't. Have you heard about those who divide the world into three groups of people? Those who can count, and those who can't.
• Anyone wanting a serious discussion of these issues should check out Robert McKee's "Story," an amazing book for writers or anyone (as seen in the movie "Adaptation") I wouldn't place much stock in Story or any of its ilk; Adaptation was an ineffective parody of formulaic scriptwriting books. Having read a half-dozen or so of the things, I can honestly say: don't waste your time. The problem with formula books is not that they're formula - that's fine. You can do decent writing while sticking within a pre-established plot; look at some of the better hourlong TV dramas, which are much more formulaic than films, but are clearly well written. And there are plenty of good, watchable formulaic movies - a very good recent example was Pirates of the Carribbean. The reason I say don't waste your time, is that there are too many such scripts out there. Tons. More than a sane person could ever read. Some of them are probably brilliant; some are probably awful. The bulk of them are, well, most likely average. There are fantastic scripts that will never get filmed because they're lost somewhere in a sea of submissions and get passed over. You could write the best Hollywood screenplay anyone's cranked out in a decade, and still not get it produced because there's just too much competition. Unless you have a really good "in," such as knowing someone who could get your script on a producer's desk, find an outlet that isn't Hollywood screenwriting. It's not worth the time, effort, and dedication to write a Hollywood movie only to see it languish unmade forever.
• I wouldn't place much stock in Story or any of its ilk...The reason... is that there are too many such scripts out there. Your comment could apply to most cookie-cutter scriptwriting books like those of say Sid Fields, but doesn't McKee's "Story" speak to more than just the audience of screenwriters? Although the book uses examples from movie scripts, its main topic is how to create a compelling story. This applies not just to scripts but to novels, short stories and even non-fictional writing.
• Actually, Mr. Knickerbocker, there's two: Something either happens. Or it doesn't.
• Worse than this, there are computer programs out there like 'movie magic screenwriter' and 'Dramatica' which are supposed to help you write your script/book. They're heavily used in Hollywood, which may explain the shittiness of Hollywood movies.