Broken Frontier

So you’ve got the story started.

You used an interesting visual puzzle to kick it off, so you know the audience is hooked. You’ve given some initial answers to the journalist’s questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why and How). You’ve also established the Protagonist and shown what daily life is like for them before introducing the first major reversal, a.k.a., the Inciting Incident or the Point of Attack. With that, Sequence A comes to an end. Written correctly, Sequence A will leave your audience really wondering what will happen next. They are so intrigued by the Point of Attack that they absolutely must turn the page or, in our case, buy the next issue.

Sequence B deals almost exclusively with the posing of what is known as the Dramatic Question. This is the question that will drive the entire rest of the story. Note very carefully that the Dramatic Question and its answer drive the entire rest of the story. If the Dramatic Question you’ve come up with isn’t that big, then it’s not the right question.

The end of Sequence B is one of the most confusing semantic areas in screenwriting theory. It has been given so many names that we must pause for a moment to sort them out. Turning Point #1, the Main Tension, the Predicament, the end of the First Act -- all of these labels basically refer to the same thing, but let’s avoid confusion and stick with Dramatic Question, or D.Q. for short.

The reason we want to think of it as a question is because the entire second act (the next four sequences) will deal with the Protagonist’s attempts to answer that question. Each sequence, in fact, will represent a new attempt to answer the Dramatic Question. Each of the first three of those attempts will fail and create even greater complications. If we don’t think of the first turning point as a question, we can quickly find ourselves off-track and our story spinning wildly out of control.

I want to look at an example of this in practice; because this is a screenwriting theory, I’m going to stick with the movies.

Toy Story uses the sequence approach in near-perfect fashion. Let’s back up a minute and see how Sequence A plays.

Toy Story opens with a visual puzzle (the clouds on the wall of Andy’s room -- we don’t know if we are inside or outside and so our curiosity is aroused). We are quickly introduced to the Protagonist (Woody) and his environment. We get the answers to the journalist’s questions as Woody interacts with the other toys and tries to reassure them that Andy’s birthday party is nothing to worry about. The Point of Attack comes when Buzz arrives and Andy knocks Woody off his spot on the bed and puts Buzz there instead. As you can see, the first sequence has performed everything necessary to move us into the story.

Sequence B follows Woody as he interacts with Buzz and tries to prove to the others (and to himself) that Buzz is nothing to worry about. Everything Woody does, however, quickly fails and Buzz is very obviously Andy’s new favorite toy. This is the end of the first act, the Predicament, the Main Tension. But let’s stick with our agreed-upon term, Dramatic Question. Posed this way, it might look something like this: “Will Woody be able to get his place back as Andy’s favorite toy?”

I’ve already noted that the Dramatic Question must be big enough to drive the rest of the story -- and this one certainly is -- but I want to note a second, perhaps more important component of the Dramatic Question: that it asks something deeper than just plot.

It is important that the D.Q. reach beyond something mere plot machinations can resolve. In other words, if your Dramatic Question is, “Will the robbers be able to pull of the big jewel heist?” you are going to find yourself stuck with a pretty flimsy story. Flimsy because a D.Q. like that doesn’t have any character and/or emotional issues wrapped up in it as well. The D.Q. for Toy Story includes these issues by bringing in the idea of being somebody’s favorite. (Woody, of course, will learn that being Andy’s favorite isn’t the most important thing, but I’m jumping ahead.)

As you can see, Sequence B is far from simply being something to fill out the first act. Played correctly, Sequence B deepens the audience’s relationship with the Protagonist and heightens our concern for them as they approach the D.Q. With a big enough D.Q. to end the first act, the audience will find they are far too deep to climb back out and they’ll make a commitment to the whole story.

One of the best ways to practice posing good Dramatic Questions is by attempting to discover and articulate those in other films. Take a look at a few of your favorites and see if you can identify who the protagonist is and then what the Dramatic Question is. Be careful, though, the protagonist may not always be who you think it is and picking the wrong protagonist can lead to the wrong D.Q. When you’ve got a few, share them in the Forum.

Until next time, keep writing.

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For those of you both inclined and in the financial position to do so, I highly recommend the purchase of the two best books about the sequence approach to screenwriting: Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach, by Paul Gulino, and The Tools of Screenwriting, A Writer’s Guide to the Craft and Elements of a Screenplay, by David Howard.