Story Breakdown

How to Use Breakdowns.

Now that I’ve given you some examples. Try to do a few for yourself. Watch some films and see if you can pick out the 20+ moments I’ve listed above. While you’re at it, note the elapsed time when these moments occur. General convention is that one page of a script equals approximately one minute of screen time. If you write down when each moment happens, you’ll have an idea of around what pages it occurs.

Create a Template for Your Script

Once you know your basic story and the genre within which you’re working, you can start creating a template for your movie. A template is not a formula. It is not a prescribed set of rules. It’s an guide for you to understand what kind of story you’re trying to tell and what elements must be included in the script if you hope to achieve commercial success.

Create a Database of Movies

The reality of screenwriting is that it is both an art and a craft. The craft is the ability to tell a story that is compelling and original while fitting into a specific commercial format. The art is making it universal and emotionally honest within that format.

The way to understand the rules that you are up against is to look at other movies and screenplays like the one you want to write and look at which of those breakdown story points are similar…