I wanted to second the idea that the Cut to the Chase book is quite good - I worked with the editor, Linda Venis, for a few years as she is the Director of the UCLA Extension Writers Program.  She collected chapters from an assortment of working writers who taught for her program so it's a nice collage of advice from people with different experiences.  Worth a read (and of course the publishing company will send out review copies for instructors so what's to lose?)

Rosanne Welch

On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 11:35 PM, fin wheeler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi John,

Have you read Cut To The Chase by UCLA Writers Extension staff?
It's more up to date than Save the Cat (no one writes/reads 120 page scripts anymore) but still has a 40 card approach.

Regards

Fin Wheeler

On 10 Jun 2016 11:04 am, "JOHN FRAIM" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
This might be for that small group of screenwriting fanatics out there. Maybe it’s a larger group than I suspect. I don’t think so but it’s hard to judge or predict anything these days. 

Attached is an attempt to create a new story using the outlines of two of the leading screenwriting plot structuralists in Hollywood: John Truby and his Anatomy of Story and Blake Snyder's Save the Cat Outline. 

Of course, a type of synthesis is required. But hopefully, the need for synthesis will not overshadow the new method suggested. Attempting to find symbolic “correspondences” and “meaningful coincidences” or “synchroncities" between the steps and sequences of the two screenplay theories. Of course, all of this can be extended out to compare commonalities between all screenplay structure steps. 

As various Hollywood gurus fight for ownership of a particular number based sequence steps for a screenplay, Truby’s 23 and Snyder’s 15, but one could add the Sequence Method of 8 steps at USC. The old Syd Field structure reminding of 3 steps but evolving to 5 steps. The steps in Campbells Hero With a Thousand Faces and Chris Vogler’s books. 

The below is not about discovering a new way to write screenplays but somehow discovering a way to make all that screenwriting information out there come togther for the first time. And not battle each other in scrimmage wars of culture. In both, the screenwriter/autor fills in the space between the black type with colored type. His or her ideas engerned by the particular structure point in one of the two guru’s outlines. 

The real war, as Thomas Paine reminded well in Common Sense, was always between the government and the people. As long as the government could convice the people to fight amongst themselves, the government won the battle. But the story takes place when many are learning that the battle is really all of them against those few in control. It was the samein demographics and all types of other things with the American Revolution. 

In progress. Like everything should be these days. 

John








--
Author of "Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture "
Coming in Fall 2016 from McFarland 

Editor of "Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia"