Plotting Your Story Using Screenwriting Tools: Soth versus Schechter by DS Kane

Publishers will want to wrangle every last penny of revenue from anyone’s first novel. One of their best sources is the movie that can be made from a novelist’s first publication. The major reason is that movies drive incremental book sales for the author, years after the book has backlisted.

With that as their reasoning, for decades, book publishers now tend to read every potential book with their eyes imaging it in a movie theatre. The inevitable result is that novelists have started studying screenwriting to ensure they can fulfill the publisher’s unstated demand: Could a movie be made from this manuscript?

Since the most important way to develop character is through dialogue and stage direction of the character (what they do when they feel something), screenplay writing skills have become increasingly important. Teachers like Eric Witchey use tools like E-D-A-C-E (Emotion leads to Decision leads to Action leads to Conflict needs to another Emotion), and A-B-C (agenda leads to backstory leads to conflict) where dialogue and behavior driver character development.

My literary agent returned from meetings with NY publishers with a third and fairly new requirement for fiction manuscripts, based on what they feel is commercial: Eliminate all set-up and backstory (except what can be medicine-dropped into the dialogue of the characters), and have the story be solid action with no breaks. This is what you see when you’re at the movies.

There are two superb teachers of screenplay writing, Chris Soth and Jeffrey Alan Schechter. Soth (www.milliondollarscreenwriting.com) has a PDF eBook called Million Dollar Screenwriting: Make Money with the Mini-Movie Method, available from his website for less than $50. Schechter wrote a PDF eBook called Totally Write Guide to Bulletproof Screenplay Structure Guide, which he made available from his website, but it was later turned into a software product called Contour, available from Mariner Software (http://www.marinersoftware.com/products/contour/) for less than $50. Each one has a system that is far advanced past the old three act structure that Chris Voglar (The Writer’s Journey) suggests for story development. The objective is to produce two-minute scenes, ideal for a movie.

I reviewed Schechter’s system and started using it several years ago as a result of a conversation with Dennis Phinney of ActFourWriters.com. Linda Rohrbough (a former ActFourWriters.com member) suggested Soth’s system and I examined it last year. While there were similarities, I found the mini-movie system offered a simpler design to my plot. But, it wasn’t complete. When I cross-indexed the two systems, I finally had a product I could use, complete with a way to justify the times when I would have to break the rules. I developed a Microsoft Excel workbook that you can use, complete with the cross-index embedded within, called BLANK Outline and Grading Sheet.xls.

I use the tool to craft the early stages of my story. The instructions are simple. Enter your chapter and page number and the Description of the scene into columns A, B and F, and ensure they correspond to the aspect of your novel’s theme related to the scene in column G. Do this for all 44 plot points, all 8 mini-reels. Each scene should be about two minutes of real-time action in a movie, since the 44 plot points would then become an 88 minute movie. The other way to see it is that all 8 mini-reels would become a 96 minute movie. Examine the spreadsheet and do the math. It works. In effect, your time line becomes what a movie of your story would require in terms of minutes.

When you are finished, write the manuscript. When it has gone through all of the critiques necessary to complete its improvement cycle, review it against the Excel workbook and make corrections to the workbook so they correspond in all aspects (page number for each chapter, and all plot point descriptions. Send the workbook out with the manuscript to your test readers, and ask them to enter letter grades (column H) and comments (column I), enter evaluations (letter grades and comments) for every principal character (rows 66 through 7), and grades and comments for every aspect of the manuscript (rows 92 through 167). When you receive the returned workbook, review their comments and make your final changes.

If you are working on plotting a novel and want to use the BLANK Outline and Grading Sheet.xls, you can copy it from this blog entry (below), or request it from me via email (dskane@dskane.com).

MANUSCRIPT NAME, by AUTHOR - Full Manuscript Review Feedback Form
This form has been developed to help you as a reader to summarize your reading experience with this novel.  Read the novel the way you'd read any published work.  Do not edit the writing on a line by line basis.  After each chapter, give the chapter a letter grade, using the guidelines presented below.  Upon completion of each act, give the act a letter grade to help the author focus on what needs rewriting.  Where a B or C is given, a quick one-liner identifying flaws may be noted at the right.  Keep it brief.  The alotted space is small for a reason.  For an A, D or F, no further feedback is needed.  After finishing each act, make some notes on the characters.  If at any time, you are pulled out of the novel by an error or question of fact, please make a note in part three.  Finally, once you have are done reading the novel complete your review by filling out Part 3.
		Part One - Chapter and Act Grades
Chapter	Page	ACT 1	Schechter Function	Soth Mini- Movie Reel	Description	Letter Grade	Comments
		Act One					`
1	1	1- 1 - Innocent / Orphan	Meet Hero	Reel 1 - Our hero’s status quo, his ordinary life, ends with an inciting incident or “call to adventure”.
2		1 - 2 - Innocent / Orphan	See Hero's Flaw in relation to the Stakes Character
3		1 - 3 - Innocent / Orphan	Meet Villans
4		1 - 4 - Innocent / Orphan	Villan slows the Hero Down	Reel 2 - Our hero’s denial of the call, and his gradually being “locked into” the conflict brought on by this call.
5		1- 5 - Innocent / Orphan	Inciting Event - Hero now gets emotionally involved
6		1 - 6 - Innocent / Orphan	Hero's Goal as it relates to Stakes Character - Hero's Problem is now made clear
7		1 - 7 - Innocent / Orphan	Ally aids Hero by propelling him out of Status Quo
7		1 - 8 - Innocent / Orphan	Hero is ready to move forward with Stakes Character but stalls
8		1 - 9 - Innocent / Orphan	Villan stops Hero or threatens emotional stakes
8		1 - 10 - Innocent / Orphan	Depth of feeling between Hero and Stakes Character is made evident - They Hook up
9		1 - 11 - Innocent / Orphan	Villan threatens to take Stakes Character from Hero
10		1 - 12 - Innocent / Orphan	Hero decides he must save Stakes Character
Chapter	Page	ACT 2 Part 1	Schechter Function	Soth Mini- Movie Reel	Description	Letter Grade	Comments
10		2a - 13 - Wanderer	Yes 1	Reel 3 - Our hero’s first attempts to solve his problem, the first things that anyone with this problem would try, appealing to outside authority to help him. Ends when all these avenues are shut to our hero.
10		2a - 14 - Wanderer	No 1
10		2a - 15 - Wanderer	Yes 2
11		2a - 16 - Wanderer	No 2
12		2a - 17 - Wanderer	Yes 3
12		2a - 18 - Wanderer	No 3
12		2a - 19 - Wanderer	Yes 4
13		2a - 20 - Wanderer	No 4	Reel 4 - Our hero spawns a more grandiose, more extreme plan. He prepares for it, gathers what materials and allies he may need then puts the plan into action -- only to have it go horribly wrong, usually due to certain vital information the hero lacked about the forces of antagonism allied against him. We’re halfway home. On to the fifth mini-movie...
13		2a - 21 - Wanderer	Yes 5
13		2a - 22 - Wanderer	No 5
13		2a - 23 - Wanderer	Yes 6
13		2a - 24 - Wanderer	No 6
13		2a - 25 - Wanderer	Yes 7
14		2a - 26 - Wanderer	No 7
Chapter	Page	ACT 2 Part 2	Schechter Function	Soth Mini- Movie Reel	Description	Letter Grade	Comments
14		2b - 27 - Warrior / Magician	Yes 8	Reel 5 - Having created his plan to solve his problem WITHOUT changing, our hero is confronted by his need to change, eyes now open to his own weaknesses, driven by the antagonist to change or die. He retreats to lick his wounds. Mini-movies five and six might be viewed as one mini-movie of retreat followed by another mini-movie of renewed attack. Our hero, shaken, runs away from the antagonists he never knew were so tough, and licks his wounds. A mini-movie later, he’ll return with a new plan of attack.
15		2b - 28 - Warrior / Magician	No 8
15		2b - 29 - Warrior / Magician	Yes 9
17		2b - 30 - Warrior / Magician	No 9
18		2b - 31 - Warrior / Magician	Yes 10
19		2b - 32 - Warrior / Magician	No 10
		2b - 33 - Warrior / Magician	Yes 11
		2b - 34 - Warrior / Magician	No 11	Reel 6 - Our hero spawns a new plan, but now he’s ready to change. He puts this plan into action...and is very nearly destroyed by it. And then...a revelation.
		2b - 35 - Warrior / Magician	Yes 12
		2b - 36 - Warrior / Magician	No 12
		2b - 37 - Warrior / Magician	Yes 13
		2b - 38 - Warrior / Magician	No 13
		2b - 39 - Warrior / Magician	Yes 14
		2b - 40 - Warrior / Magician	No 14
Chapter	Page	ACT 3	Schechter Function	Soth Mini- Movie Reel	Description	Letter Grade	Comments
		3 - 41 - Martyr	Big Yes	Reel 7 - The revelation allows our hero to see victory, and he rejoins the battle with a new fervor, finally turning the tables on his antagonist and arrives at apparent victory. And then the tables turn one more time.
		3 - 42 - Martyr	No
		3 - 43 - Martyr	Big No	Reel 8 - The hero puts down the antagonist’s last attempt to defeat him, wraps up his story and any sub-plots, and moves into the new world he and his story have created.
		3 - 44 - Martyr	Final Yes
Guidelines for Letter Grades
A		A clean read with no speed bumps.  I have no good suggestions for how this could be improved.
B		A few speed bumps or things you might want to consider are noted at right
C		The fictional dream imploded, or I got lost.  Focus attention here on your rewrite.
D		I take it this chapter is a first or second draft.
F		Manuscript would be stronger if most of this chapter was deleted.
Part Two - Character Grades
Character			Letter Grade		Comments
Guidelines for Letter Grades
A		A memorable character with believable objectives
B		A few inconsistencies or things you might want to consider are noted at right
C		Character motivation or behavior is hard to follow or not believable.
D		Either get to know this character, delete her or kill him off early.
F		Manuscript would be stronger if character was deleted or combined with another character.
Part Three - Overall Impression
		Letter Grade	Comments
Voice
Characters
Setting
Sensory
Emotion
Dialogue
Plot
Resolution
Commercial Appeal
Greatest strength
Biggest weakness
Five things I wanted more of:
	1
	2
	3
	4
	5
Five things I wanted less of:
	1
	2
	3
	4
	5
Errors or Questions of Fact:
	1
	2
	3
	4
	5
	6
	7
	8
Did you like the title?
Was there too much backstory?
How did you feel about the pacing and tension?
General Comments			Anything else you can suggest?  Use the rest of this page