Beginnings

Today we’re going to talk about beginnings. Beginnings are important for many reasons. The opening of your movie will win over or lose the audience, just like that. When it comes to writing a spec script—that is, a script you intend to pitch to a producer or studio—beginnings are also crucial for winning over your reader. Readers have so many scripts assigned to them every week that they won’t read beyond the first page if you don’t grab their interest right away. No lie. If you can convince them to turn to page two, they’ll probably stick with the script until page five. If they make it to page five, they’re likely to read on to page ten. And so on.

When it comes to structuring your story, the beginning is important because it’s the foundation upon which the whole of the adventure rests. Develop a flimsy foundation and the whole story falls down. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at how to craft a great point of attack or opening image.

Every story begins somewhere. Get in too early and the audience gets lost in the mundane details of the character and becomes frustrated when they have no idea where your story is going. Get in too late, and they can’t grasp how much the life of your character is turned upside down when the inciting incident or catalyst occurs (see Chapter 4). For all of these reasons, it’s absolutely crucial to pick the right place to begin.

Every writer will develop his or her techniques in deciding what the opening image should be. Most brainstorm several possibilities and settle on the one that sets the story up best. Sometimes, you may have a clear vision from the very start of a project. Other times, as your story grows and takes on a life of its own, it cries out for an entirely different beginning. The key, as a writer, is to be flexible as the story comes into focus. When brainstorming a new story, I always think about where I want to leave the viewer at the end. That helps me sort out the significant themes driving the conflict and what values are at stake. I may not know exactly how I’ll get to that ending or precisely what the climax looks like, but I do have some sense of how the tensions at work in my story resolve themselves.

Michael Arndt—writer of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006), TOY STORY 3 (2010) and STAR WARS VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015)—once told me that writing a script is a lot like playing golf. If you can’t see the green or the flag in the hole, you don’t know how to aim your shot. In this sense screenwriting is very different from, say, writing a poem. Begin with the end in mind and you’ll successfully create your most important tent-pole moment.
  

You don’t have to know all the details surrounding how the climax plays out. It’s enough to know it involves a showdown between the antagonist and protagonist, or that the protagonist will make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good. At this stage of the process, you don’t have to know exactly how it happens or how you get there—just that it will happen.
 

When you begin with the end in mind, something magical happens. The conflicting values of the story world come into focus. Ultimately, these values may also change. As ideas play out and characters evolve, you might end up taking the story in an entirely different direction. That’s the point of a first draft—to find out where you’re going. In the rewrites, you can hone and fine-tune the story.
  

The tension between underdog and dominant values fuels the central conflict of great stories. In his Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri calls this principle the dramatic premise. There’s a lot of confusion around this term and on numerous occasions, I’ve encountered writers who adopt the term “premise” to refer to a brief summary of the plot, synonymous with a logline. Over the course of this book, I want you to learn to think of the premise of your story in terms of the values at stake, the way Egri defines it. It’s that tension that empowers you to design an insanely great story and build suspense over the three-act structure.   

Underdog values are those at risk in the world when we enter into it. They are jeopardized by the dominant values of society, often embodied by the antagonist: “Great love transcends death.” “Hope succumbs to pride.” “Freedom triumphs over tyranny.” There are as many premises as there are great stories to be told. Let’s take a closer look at a few examples. 
           

In the climax of the original STAR WARS IV: A NEW HOPE (1977), Luke gives in to his belief in the mysterious Force. Against all odds, he destroys the Death Star despite the technological superiority of the evil Empire. Good, and everything the rebellion represents (freedom, justice and courage…), triumphs over evil, oppression, and servitude.
            

Randall Wallace ends BRAVEHEART (1995) on the death of William Wallace. Wallace stands firm for freedom and self-sacrifice in the face of great adversity. He understands that revenge was never enough. His commitment to a higher calling in the storybook world inspires future generations of Scotsmen, and solidifies a vision for sacrificial leadership.
             

The first scene of THE PATRIOT (2000) reveals a tomahawk locked away in a chest. The voice of Benjamin Martin hints that the past, and everything the weapon represents, are coming back to haunt him. That particular image stays with us throughout the first act. It causes us to wonder, along with Martin’s sons, what happened in the Wilderness. The tomahawk signals that THE PATRIOT is a movie about war. It also creates a dramatic tension with what we uncover on-screen about Martin turned gentleman farmer, striving to make the perfect rocking chair in his plantation barn, far away from the brewing conflict.
              

Finally, another example to which I often return to identify the qualities of a great opening scene is KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979). The story centers on workaholic Ted Kramer, who struggles to become a good father when his wife, Joanna, leaves him. Joanna comes back for their child and Ted must fight for custody. The opening is chilling. We meet a jubilant Ted on his way home after being given a promotion. Meanwhile, Joanna waits alone, chain-smoking in their apartment living room. We know this because the ashtray beside her is full of cigarettes. Ted enters and goes straight to the phone to make a business call. While he’s on the phone, Joanna announces she’s leaving him.
               

We barely see Joanna pack her suitcase. When Ted arrives, it stands ready at the door. The audience enters the narrative at a critical moment: Joanna walks out, leaving her son behind. In the span of three minutes, the audience grasps everything there is to know about Ted and Joanna’s failed marriage. We infer the years of fighting and hurt. Please remember this capital rule of great storytelling, and great story rhetoric: Show, don’t tell.

Creating a multi-dimensional opening scene takes a lot of brainstorming, writing, and rewriting. We’ll learn more about crafting great scenes later in the series. For now, focus on what’s at stake when we meet your protagonist. What does she want? What does she need? How is she blind to that need and how does her blindness affect others? Above all, avoid the temptation to pack the suitcase.

Got that? Don’t forget to read back over your notes from today before going to bed. Research shows that if you do, you’ll retain around 70% more of the information you’ve learned.

© SJ Murray, 2018