Film Courage: Eric in your book The Story
Solution you claim that you’ve come up with
a completely new paradigm for writing screenplays
and novels and we’re curious what this is?
Eric Edson: Just a quick word on how it came
about.
Because I know it’s pretty outrageous for
a lot of people to be claiming that “What
new under the sun could there simply be and
all?”
For a long time (for years) before I became
a professor here [at CSUN] while I was still
a full-time screenwriter, I was teaching at
UCLA extension Writer’s Program.
Largest such writing program in the world
and it’s really great!
Really great people teach there.
And it was a really great way to get out of
the house one night a week (out of my room,
out of my office).
And I was working with really bright and talented
people in various and sundry ways.
Great characters, warm, three-dimensional,
super dialogue that kind of crackles and pops.
But when they finally turned in their final
project at the end of the quarter (they are
on the quarter system there), they just laid
there.
They were flat.
Thus the story wasn’t happening or going
anywhere.
They would have three or four events and then
try to stretch that out over 110 pages or
however long a screenplay would be.
I gave them the books.
We read the books.
We went over it in the structure, the classic
structure and Joseph Campbell and all of that.
And yet when they sat down to write it, some
how it didn’t gel into a concept or command
of screen story structure.
And screenwriting is screen story structure
more than it is anything else.
So I went looking (as people do) for patterns.
There had to be a way to teach story construction
not to the exclusion of all else but focus
on only finding an objectified way to teach
story construction (this is how you build
a house board one), you know that kind of
stuff.
And hundreds and hundreds of films…and yes…I
began to see a pattern that I hadn’t heard
anybody talk about before or mention before
or hadn’t read about it before.
And I kind of codified it and put it as a
paradigm and cleaned up the questions that
it raised and I kept looking.
And I became more and more convinced and then
I set out to prove myself wrong.
I mean this I thought was a real important
step.
So I went back searching through movies that
had been hit movies, that had emotionally
affected audiences all over the world from
pretty far back.
I went as far back as 1929 with Buster Keaton
(THE GENERAL) I don’t know if you ever saw
it?
It was one of his last (if not last silent)
films.
It is something of a masterpiece of a the
silent era.
Same thing, the same beats, the same moments,
the same sequences, accomplishing the same
stuff.
So I codified it and began to teach it in
the grad courses.
People were rather cynical about such a thing
to begin with.
But what I found out over a few years after
codifying it and simplifying it (you know)
packaging it in a way that understandable
and useful as a tool, because that’s what
it is…a tool…a darn good one and useful
one, too.
One by one, I won them all over.
And I proved it.
Yes, it’s true.
And it was like an interesting experience
for all of us because again it is about discovery.
Just let me try this for a few minutes.
One of the single most important aspects of
screenwriting (any long-form narrative.
Novel writing, too) just screenwriting in
particular, is change.
Everything in the story must keep changing.
As it flows (it has to be different 5 or 10
minutes from now) than what the circumstances
were previously 10 minutes ago.
It has to keep changing.
And I came to believe there had to be a pattern
of change and what I discovered what this…this
gets a little numeric.
Stick with me for this because it’s important
and I think incredibly useful.
Three acts in a screenplay, you’ve got three
acts.
First act: In Act 1 there are 6 sequences
following one another that I came to call
Hero Goal Sequences.
Here is the definition of a Hero Goal Sequence:
A Hero Goal Sequence is any 2-7 page section
of your screenplay in which and through which
your hero or heroine pursues one short-term
goal (physical short-term goal).
One as one step toward achieving the overall
story goal…just that little piece of it.
And at the end of that (7 or so, nothing is
exact) 7 or so pages something happened or
some discovery is made by this hero that I
call fresh news.
In other words they turn up something that
was unknown by them and by us (the audience)
about what they are doing that puts an end
to that current single goal.
And offers up a new, short-term physical single
goal to be pursued in the next step.
And that there are 6 of these hero goals sequences.
6 little individual pursuits of individual
specific goals in the entirety of Act 1 and
what we call…there are many names for this.
There is Plot Point 1, the first major turning
point that kind of thing.
I call it “Stunning Surprise.”
When Stunning Surprise 1 happens, which ends
Acts 1 officially and dramatically and kicks
the hero forward tumbling head over heel into
Act 2.
I call it Stunning Surprise 1 because that
should be the emotional impact of both the
hero and the audience.
It needs to be emotional and it needs tone
impactful, not abstract.
That always happens in Hero Goal Sequence
6, always.
And it continues.
In the first half of the second act there
are 6 more Hero Goal Sequences.
And Hero Goal Sequence number 12 always contains
the mid-point sequence.
That’s a separate discussion, the mid-point
sequence.
It is a fascinating part of movies that work
and it’s rich and layered with things that
go on relative to character growth and relative
to the plot being bumped up to the next level.
But it always happens in number 12.
In the second half of Act 2, there are 6 more
wonder of wonders, 6 more Hero Sequences.
Hero Goal Sequence 18 always contains stunning
surprise 2.
Not 17, Not 19.
18 in every movie that works for audiences,
in other words, every hit movie that you can
analyze because it’s doing something right,
this is the pattern.
And then in Act 3, it’s the only act where
it can vary, where the numbers vary.
And it Act 3, you have been 2 and 5 hero goals
sequences.
I don’t recommend 5.
Good movies have been made with 5 like AS
GOOD AS IT GETS which is one of my favorite
romantic comedies.
The kind of stuff…It has 5 Hero Goal Sequences
in rather extended Act 3.
But the audience is getting antsy and it’s
time to get out by then.
The standard, the average of movies that work
is 21 hero goals sequences.
18 for Acts 1 and 2 and then another 3 in
Act 3.
This is a way (I know it sounds kind of weird
and mathematical at this point) but this is
a way of quantifying change.
It tells you in advance…this must happen
in these few pages.
It also goes beyond that, I mean people were
asking “Well, what specifically happens
in each one of these?
Can you nail that down?”
In a general way I do that in the book.
I say “Well these things usually happen
in Hero Goal Sequence Number 4.”
Things like that.
But that’s up for grabs and up for people
to play with.
But structurally the bones are, these 20 to
23 Hero Goal Sequences laid out in this exact
way.
They don’t change.
