http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/06/25/toy-story-3-beat-sheet/
CAUTION: that analysis contains "spoilers"
I don't accept that any good story can be "spoiled" by knowing what will happen before you read/see it and I've discussed why in these posts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/prologues-and-spoilers.html
And
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html
The analysis of Toy Story 3 is where you'll find how the film fits neatly onto the Beat Sheet developed by the late, great, Blake Snyder.
http://www.blakesnyder.com/tools/ is where you can download the beat sheet to use.
It's explained in detail in Snyder's
Save The Cat! screenwriting series
Now what has this screenwriting trick to do with solving the problem of why Romance is not the most respected genre in publishing?
Where is the Nobel Prize for Best Romance Novel?
Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet - that's where.
What is that "beat sheet" and where did it come from?
Snyder tells in his books how he watched hundreds of films, over and over, and extracted the "beats" (at what elapsed time each story-development plot-point is reached).
He found that all the widely heralded, highly regarded, raved about, high box office grossing films all had the exact SAME STRUCTURE.
It isn't a "rule" some gate-keeper in Hollywood made up and imposed.
It's a habit evolved by producers from audience feedback.
They learn how to do it by doing it.
On Twitter, I recently exchanged notes with a producer who had posted a tweet of advice saying learn to please an audience. So I tweeted back, prodding with "how do you learn to please an audience?" and he retorted - by getting up on stage of course.
I didn't fling back my writerly response, "I'm a writer, not an actor!"
It wouldn't have done me any more good than it ever did Dr. McCoy.
But I thought about it until this morning I found the link to this Toy Story 3 blog post in my mailbox.
Also yesterday, my fanfic writing friend whom I used for this writing lesson on converting exposition to action -
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/05/tv-show-white-collar-fanfic-and-show.html
- mentioned that she has found her speed and facility with plotting increasing as she bats out tiny vignettes based on the TV show White Collar and gets reader feedback.
She can really TELL when she has done it correctly. The response to a well plotted piece is orders of magnitude greater than the response to an ordinary piece.
And that's exactly why I recommend fanfic writing as a way to learn this trade. It's how writers do what actors do in Little Theater. Learn to please an audience. What those producers whose blockbusters Blake Snyder studied have that we don't have - is just that, HOW TO PLEASE AN AUDIENCE. And Snyder found and codified the secret. The Beat Sheet, and his analysis of genres.
As I've said before, writing is a performing art, an insight given me by the first professional writer to take me under her wing and pound some sense into me -- Alma Hill. I've discussed that here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/wrting-as-artform-performing-art.html
So what does it mean to "perform" a plot "well?"
Beats.
Rhythm, just like dancing, playing an instrument, acting onstage.
The Beat is what gives a piece the exact pacing that reader/viewers expect.
You know how it throws you off if your dance partner, Yoga or Martial Arts partner, or sex partner, misses a "beat." Fun turns into not-fun, and it's all in expectations of the actions of another.
In storytelling, the writer is the dance-partner of the reader/viewer. That's why writers who just want to do their Art their own way fail in the marketplace - because they're dancing solo with a partner who wants carnal contact.
Why is Romance Genre so emphatically disqualified from the super-huge audiences commanded by blockbuster films like Toy Story 3?
Beats.
Pacing is the very important element that puts off the wider audiences and they don't even know it.
We've examined how "outsiders" explain their aversion to Romance Genre here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-do-they-despise-romance.html
and here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/06/is-there-taboo-against-romance-in.html
That's what trained professional writers see (and what widely read readers feel) is "wrong" with Romance.
But I submit that the real problem is the PACING - the exact points at which the plot moves forward a notch and the exact direction in which it must move to satisfy reader/viewers used to productions aimed at the very wide audience.
In graphic Art, trainees spend years and years studying and perfecting the ability to perceive and execute what is called "Line" - an element of composition that is the connecting point between the interior artistic content the artist wants to convey and the viewer of the work who may know nothing of art. "Line" guides the eye and commands the attention. "Line" says it all. (watch Olympic Figure Skating).
"Line" is what causes you to gasp when you first see an object, pierced by it's beauty.
"Line" is what makes you remember a company logo, and it's why companies pay millions to artists to create such memorable logos.
"Line" is what blockbuster movie fans look for and respond to when they think they're actually focused on something else.
The Romance Genre, packed into a side-channel of paper publishing for so long, has developed its own "Line" and its own "Beat Sheet."
And those elements, as original and enjoyable as they are, clash horribly with what the general audiences expect.
Not, mind you, with what general audiences WANT -- but with what they EXPECT.
Having expectations dashed is painful, not entertaining.
If Romance Genre can take its distilled essence (Love Conquers All; Falling In Love clarifies reality rather than obscuring it) and re-cast that essence into the Beat Sheet and Line that larger audiences expect, it will not only be accepted, it will be more popular than anything else ever has been.
Now that seems to have nothing to do with Toy Story 3.
Well, folks, "Romance Genre" is our "Toys."
People are expected to "grow out of" reading Romance.
Read the analysis on blakesnyder.com (and maybe some of the comments, too) and you'll see the analogy holds better than you would expect.
http://www.blakesnyder.com/2010/06/25/toy-story-3-beat-sheet/
Just like the Toys, the Romance Genre clings to us, reaches for other readers, fights being discarded.
The "Debate" section describes where we are now in this Romance Story.
New "adult" motifs are injected to hold older attention. But just as with SF/F, the Romance readership cycles generation to generation -- just as with Toys. A new generation is reading Romance, a generation raised on visual media.
Also note how the blogger at blakesnyder.com keeps harping on how THEME carries Toy Story 3 to the wider audience. It's about toys - so it's for kids, right? But THEME is the most fun an adult can have with a story. So it hits both audiences.
Romance, like SF/F and all genres these days, has to change "Line" and "Beat" to sustain a "reach" into a readership broad enough to keep publishing profitable.
The world is changing. Novels have to become visual, structured like movies. Don't forget the as yet unrealized field of novels with text and video co-mingled. Only technology keeps that from Kindle distribution.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Posts
