To show just how different two people's ideas of what a script outline is can be, when creating the script for the later abandoned fifth Superman movie Superman Lives, Kevin Smith talks in this video about how he valued dialogue above all else in his writing, and thus created something very different to what the studio executives were thinking when they asked him to write a script outline (clip ends 11:10).
In addition, what little exists online about script outlines is based solely on the rigid Hollywood storytelling rules. Although the details vary from source to source, the general points you're 'supposed' to hit in the script outline are as follows, and as an example I'll be using Back to the Future as an example, simply because it's a well-told story that follows this formula to a tee:
1. The opening image: what we begin with at the very start, e.g. a room filled with ticking clocks.
2. Inciting incident: the event that takes the characters out of the status quo and sets them on the adventure, e.g. Doc unveiling the DeLorean and the Libyans' attack.
3. First act break: The premise and the majority of the characters are fully established and now the story proper progresses, e.g. Marty being hit by his grandfather's car and sitting down to dinner with his mother's family.
4. The mid-point development: the plot begins to turn, characters previously on the back foot get a firm footing and start to push back, a crucial plot point or twist changes the direction of the story, or any number of other things, e.g. Marty finding the Doc Brown of 1955.
5. The point of commitment: the characters reaffirm their goals, establish a plan, otherwise strengthen their resolve to remedy the situation, e.g. planning the scheme to channel a bolt of lightning into the flux capacitor and thus return Marty to 1985.
6. The nadir: the moment when all seems lost, the characters are at their lowest point, the antagonists have a clear road to victory, e.g. George McFly, despite knocking out Biff, withdraws into his shell and lets himself be pushed around again while the time paradox that has already erased Marty's siblings begins to take effect on him as he starts to disappear.
7. The climax: the final conflict sees the situation resolved, e.g. George finally overcoming his being a pushover completely and the entirety of the clocktower scene.
8. The resolution: the situation now fixed, the remaining subplots are tied up before the end credits roll, e.g. Marty finds that his warning to Doc in 1955 was heeded, Biff is now a submissive mechanic while George is a published author, and he can now go on a date with Jennifer in the 4x4 he was pining after in the beginning of the movie.
9. The closing image: the final note that we leave on, e.g. the DeLorean taking flight and heading out to 2015.
Of course, this format is based on the idea that structure makes a story. That statement implies that structure isn't important, on the contrary, a poorly structured story can drag down even the best dialogue and individual scenes, but on the other hand following a structure this rigid doesn't automatically make a story better. Again, structure is still important, an over-long opening can bore audiences, a climax that's too short can leave the audience feeling underwhelmed, a lot of problems can be solved with a strong structure, I just have a problem with a structure this inflexible.
The Hollywood-standard idea of a three act structure is inherently flawed anyway. The idea of an opening act to establish a story is sound, and a climax of some sort is kind of necessary in blockbusters, but what of the second act? 'Rising action' is what it is described as, to simply 'ramp up the story'. What does that even mean? "Just pile in some stuff in the middle" is the general undertone of most writings about second acts, and you'll note that far more attention is given in writer's guide articles and books in how to write a good opening or a good climax than whatever goes in the middle. You'll also note how the above structure for outlines clearly defines the beats at the beginning and end, but starts to get a bit vague and nebulous around the middle.
This is why I follow Hollywood structure as more guidelines than actual rules. Keeping a good structure is an important element of a good story, but I'm not going to change a story because it hits a lesser plot beat three pages after the Rules of Hollywood Storytelling say I should.
With all of that said, the outline for the film follows.
FILM NAME
OUTLINE
by
Ashley Watts
Lines of text steadily appear on a screen. It's a conversation between two people, "BryoPod3" and the person who the screen belongs to, over social media. Whenever "BryoPod3" responds, we hear someone suggest responses completely different to what eventually appears, continuing a one-sided argument with the typer while they talk to "BryoPod3" about 'having the worst block I've had in a while' and how 'they're becoming insufferable'. The voice confronts the typer over that last remark.
Erin looks up from her computer and stares accusingly at the animated anthropomorphic fantasy character, who stares back at her, clueless.
The very model of the unpublished writer, Erin works part-time at a cinema to pay for her to sit in her room failing to write the fantasy movie script that'll finally establish her as a screenwriter, and just might get made into the most original Hollywood movie of recent years (or get hacked to bits and made for next-to-no-budget on the indie scene, one of the two). Her attempts to write aren't much helped by the two main characters of the film, the endlessly optimistic but dim Kaero and the laid-back cynic Tilde, who are now living with her and won't leave until she finishes the story.
We follow her as she tries to keep her life intact while juggling a job and punching through a severe case of writer's block, both of her characters questioning and criticising anything she tries to write, all the while keeping the two from running amok. Thankfully neither are the type to go on a Gremlins-style rampage, but that doesn't stop them from making her life difficult as they follow her wherever she goes.
It all comes to a head when Kaero gets Erin fired, and that's swiftly followed by him getting run over by a truck. Not able to take what's happened, Erin runs away, but the pair keep reappearing wherever she goes, finally giving up the attempt as she returns to her flat, Tilde still cradling Kaero's dying body. Erin looks at the two, and inspiration strikes
She stares at the screen, thinking. The last words of the unfinished script stare back. After a pause, she starts typing.
Although serviceable, the outline's a bit rougher than I'd like. The concept I had for the film was one of those comedic faux-documentaries in the style of This is Spinal Tap or that zombie film a PCA student made a year or two ago, and thus has more of a 'day-in-the-life' structure of various vignettes interspersed with talking heads, more of a loosely connected series of sketches than a focused plot. Even by that standard though, I don't have many ideas for individual scenes. The scenes that I'll be using for testing in this module will be scenes with simple conversations between Kaero (who I will go to a professional-quality amateur voice actor to perform the limited lines required for the tests) and the writer (who, although female in the script, will have whatever lines required performed by myself).
The biggest sticking point for me was the ending. I know that while I won't have the standard Hollywood everything-is-happy-forever ending where Erin succeeds and wins a multi-million dollar deal with a big name director and blah blah blah, I do want to end on a somewhat positive note, with whatever happening at the climax giving Erin the inspiration to break through her writer's block and resume writing. What exactly happens to cause that is up in the air. One idea I had is that somehow Kaero gets hurt, maybe run over or something, and as he seems to be dying and Tilde holds him in her arms, Erin finally has the idea she needed for how the script will end. Since it's been established in the film prior that they'll vanish when she finishes, the world of the script finished and ready for them and their story, Tilde asks if it has a happy ending. She gets no reply.
Another idea was that since Kaero's the one getting into crazy antics and that the two follow Erin around everywhere, it's only a matter of time before Kaero did something at Erin's work that gets her fired. I didn't want to follow standard movie plotting with this and have that always insufferable part of the movie where the characters have fallen out and just sit around moping about it before inevitably overcoming it and winning everyone back in the big climax, instead going for a more 'realistic' (in a loose sense of the word, given the film's premise) approach where Erin actually understands that Kaero didn't mean to do it (perhaps it involves one of those scenes where it isn't actually his fault, but unlike any other time when this happens in movies Erin doesn't refuse to listen to his explanation and assume the worst). Erin then draws upon her experiences through all of this to finally fill in the part of the story that was causing her trouble.
As it stands, the current ending is a combination of the two. In theory it sounds like very standard, very lazy plotting to pile on the negatives at once near the end to give the characters something to overcome, and it could easily end up that way. In the future I think I'll revise the ending to the more downplayed and upbeat (without being OTT in its happiness) second idea, because although the first idea does have that powerful final note of Tilde asking how the story within the script (i.e. her and Kaero's future) is going to end, and neither she nor us get an answer, it is still overly melodramatic for my taste and may well feel like a jarring tonal shift in execution.
But, like all projects in development, the only true answer to this creative conflict is "we'll have to wait and see". When it comes time for the scene breakdown, that is when both the question of the ending and the specifics of the mid-section will have to be nailed down.
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