You Need BOTH Character Beats and Story Beats in Your Screenplay... (do you know the difference?)
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- Knowing the difference between story beats and character beats is critical to planning and writing a successful screenplay. Without them, you'll be stuck in the revision stage... kind of forever. In this video, I break down what story beats and character beats actually are.
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🖋 N O T E S
0:00 The difference between story and character beats
0:30 Story Beats
3:23 Character Beats
6:14 Why it matters
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// I G N O R E
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Just want to say your channel has been vey informative. I wrote my first screenplay this past year, first time writing a script in about 10 years. So thank you for the videos as they helped make this movie better!
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This channel deserves 1000x more subscribers it has.
I agree!! Thanks for watching and commenting.
Great stuff! Thanks 🙏🙏🙏
Thanks Jake. I always look forward to watching your newest video on Mondays.
I appreciate that!
My preference for structuring/outlining a story is the Dan Harmon Story Circle.
1. Character (in his zone of comfort).
2. But he needs something.
3. So, he's thrown into an unfamiliar situation.
4. He tries to adapt.
5. He achieves his goal.
6. But pays a price.
7. He returns to familiar situation.
8. He has changed as a result of his journey.
Super info - helpful and interestingly presented.
Another great video Jacob! Do you start by plotting the story beats first and then weave the character beats into it or do you start by plotting the character beats and then weave the story beats around it? I always begin with the story and then tailor the character and their transformation to fit within it.
If I'm writing a feature, I typically start with story. If I'm doing a TV pilot, it's more of a hybrid approach, although in TV character is a bit more important than story.
Thanks for this.This clarified on the different kinds of beats. Do yu have a video on just character beats and what that would look like. I watched your other video on character arcs and in it, character arcs are not nice and neat.
You're welcome. And I don't think I have very many videos on character beats... something I'll have to explore. I do a deeper dive into them in my screenwriting course, the Screenwriting Fast Track, but that may not be what you're looking for. You can always email me: ask@bigredstripe.com if you have a specific question, and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction.
@@BigRedStripe I do plan to take the fastrack course. Hopefully by the summer of 2023
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In that case is BEAT a synonymous for PLOT POINT ?
Are story beats plots?
No. Story beats are the pieces (or moments) that make up the plot. One metaphor that might help is if you've ever been on a long trip in the car, every stop on your journey (food, gas, stretch breaks, etc.) are "beats" of the trip... the pieces, the moments that make up the trip. You wouldn't have arrived at your destination without doing those things. And every story has beats, the moments that get the character from A -> Z ... they can't just teleport to the end, they have to go on a journey and stop at specific places. And those places define their trip.
This might be the most myopic, narrow-minded guess at what really constitutes a story that I've ever seen. 'Story Beats' is a made-up definition that no one else ever uses, so it's just a buzz word that doesn't mean anything. At all. The kind of meaningless thing someone might dream up for a RUclips clip title. No one has ever defined it. It's all hat, no cattle.
It appears what you're talking about is conventions, and what those are, are things in the story that the reader or viewer expects to happen. Of course to tell a good story you have to give them many things that they do not expect to happen. But no story will work if you do not also serve those conventions in some manner or another. And every genre has a different set of them. What's important is knowing what those conventions are. Miss fulfilling just one of them, and you might as well go try to learn how to take up the trombone, instead.
'Lovers meet' is one example of a convention in a courtship love story. A dead body is one example of a convention in a murder mystery. A villain being brought to justice is one example of a convention in a crime story. A protagonist prevailing over the threat of death is one example of a convention in an action story. Each genre has a half dozen or more, all different, and all must be served.
Stories must feel familiar and comfortable to a reader or viewer, and serving those conventions is how to accomplish that. At the same time, there must be things that are fresh, unique, different, and unexpected, and which evoke emotion, curiosity, and wonder. A good writer knows how to write both what is expected and what is not expected, and writes both. Ironically, what is not expected is also a convention. They need that, too. It's expected.
What you refer to as 'Character Beats' also has no common definition whatsoever. That will just confuse people who want to actually learn how to write. Actors define beats as the state of mind that either the situation or a line from a different character puts their character in, where they must respond in some way, or perform some action. What immediately proceeds every line of dialogue they are required to say or every action they are required to perform, is a beat to them. The reason they see it this way is because they are rightfully focused on their performance a little bit more than they're focused on everything else about the story. The old saying, 'what's my motivation?' has legitimacy, and this is why.
Writers respect that, but they see beats in a completely different way. They define them differently. To a writer, a beat is just a moment. What defines a beat for a writer is what separates one beat from another-the change in focus from one moment to the next. That can be a micro change, a medium change (which might also define scene breaks) or a major change (which might define a sequence break or an act break). And it's a lot more than just three or four categories-it's a spectrum. There is no clear definition, but to write well what happens in every moment must be clearly understood. It can happen in three words. Or 300 words. You can call that a beat. Or you can decide to not call it anything.
What is important is not terminology. What is important is understanding how to write. There is absolutely nothing here they can help anyone learn to write. It's all eyewash, and it does nothing other than get in the way of actual learning. It's a sad world where anyone with an iPhone camera and an Internet connection can blather on mindlessly, somehow convinced that they actually know what they're talking about.