The thought of writing a synopsis, either for a screenplay that’s about to be developed or an already finished screenplay, makes most screenwriters sick. Even though screenwriters don’t feel good about writing it, they must do it because it’s a movie producer’s best friend. In this post, I’ll try as much as possible to reduce the amount of frustration you feel when it’s time to write one by giving you simple strategies that work, but first, let’s know what a synopsis means.

WHAT IS IT?

We’ll be looking at some dictionary definitions of the word “synopsis,” and at the end of those definitions, we’ll combine all the definitions to get what we need as screenwriters.

1) Wiktionary definition: “a brief summary of the major points of a written work, either as prose or as a table; an abridgement or condensation of a work.”

2) Oxford Languages’ definition: “a brief summary or general survey of something.”

Combining the definitions above to get what we need as screenwriters, we can say that a synopsis is a brief summary of the major points of a screenplay.

WHY IS IT NECESSARY?

From the definitions above, you can see why synopses are loved by movie producers. Instead of reading 70 to 120 pages of a screenplay and, in the end, the movie producer doesn’t like it, the movie producer will only be reading less than or equal to a page or at most two pages because the screenwriter has summarised all the “major” points of the screenplay. In Nigeria, if after reading your synopsis, the movie producer likes what you’ve written, your screenplay is as good as sold.

HOW TO PROFESSIONALLY SUMMARISE USING MICROSOFT WORD:

As a screenwriter, you have only a page or at most two to prove to a movie producer that you have a screenplay that makes sense, so don’t blow up your opportunity. When you submit your synopsis, the first thing a movie producer sees is how professionally structured and written it is before he or she starts reading the content. If it isn’t structured properly, the movie producer might just conclude that there’s no need to waste time reading the content since you couldn’t even structure it properly. For anything you’ve written to be called a synopsis, it must have the following:

1) Title: Yes, a title. You read that right. I don’t know the reason you’ll give as a screenwriter for giving your reader something to read that doesn’t have a name. Your screenplay title should be centred.
2) Submission: Beneath the title, you should let your reader know that what you’ve submitted is a synopsis. You can do this by writing either “Synopsis by” or “A feature screenplay synopsis by,” and this should be centred.
3) Screenwriter: Your reader should know the name of the person whose synopsis he or she is reading. This should be in the centre beneath “Synopsis by”.
4) Contact Details: The sole reason for sending your synopsis to a producer is to be contacted if he or she likes what you’ve written. How can that happen when the producer can’t find your contact details (email address and/or phone number)? There are two ways to write this: either beneath your name (centred) or at the end of your write-up (bottom left).
5) Logline: This one-sentence write-up should appear beneath the contact details (for screenwriters who prefer writing their contact details above) or beneath the name (for screenwriters who prefer writing their contact details at the bottom). This shouldn’t be centred, but written from the left to the right margin of the page.
6) Synopsis: Beneath the logline, write the word “Synopsis:” (left of the page), and then beneath the word “Synopsis:”, start your write-up.

GUIDELINES FOR WRITING YOUR SYNOPSIS:

The write-up of your synopsis needs to look and sound a certain way, so now that we’re done with how to professionally structure your synopsis, let’s jump into the guidelines for writing your synopsis.

1) Introduction: To start writing your synopsis, you’ll have to introduce your protagonist to your reader.
2) The Main Conflict: The main conflict in your story must be highlighted, and then you must show how your protagonist overcomes it.
3) Connection: Make your reader feel emotionally connected to your characters by showing the emotions and motivations of your characters so that the story becomes more relatable and engaging. This should be as brief as possible.
4) Ease: Your synopsis should be simple and easy to understand. Avoid using technical terms that may not be familiar to the reader. You should also avoid using words that will send your reader to the dictionary every minute; that can cause distraction and frustration in the end, which will cause your synopsis to be thrown away.
5) Block Letters: When a name appears for the first time in the write-up, write it in capital letters.
6) Present Tense: Your write-up should be written in the present tense and in the third person singular.
7) Paragraphs: Use paragraphs. It makes your write-up easy to read.
8) Length: The length of synopses shouldn’t be more than a page, at most two pages, because you’re summarising the major points of your screenplay.
9) Font: Using MS Word, your font size should be 12, and your font should either be Arial or Times New Roman because they are easy-to-read fonts. The title can be in a different font, but it should be easy to read.
10) The End: Your synopsis should include the resolution of the story and leave the reader with a sense of closure. “I won’t write how it ended because my work might be stolen,” is what most screenwriters say. If you don’t want to write the end of your synopsis, there’s no need to send it out, because whoever reads it wants to have a sense of how it ends. However, the only thing you can do is creatively withhold the details of how it ended. In other words, say how it ended without giving too many details.

READ: The Inciting Incident: How to Start Your Story with a Bang

The power of any screenplay is having a beautifully crafted logline alongside it. However, writing a logline seems to be a turnoff to most screenwriters, not just beginners but also professionals. It’s very important to note that when it’s time to write a logline, you should be ready to either send pieces of paper to the bin or make the backspace button on your keyboard your finger’s friend because writing a logline that works isn’t something that comes easily. Don’t be afraid; even though it’s a bit tricky, screenwriters write it every day, so you can too.

In this post, you’ll get to know what a logline is, why it’s necessary to write one, and how to craft a compelling one for your screenplay using a formula that has worked countless times for many screenwriters.

WHAT IS A LOGLINE?

We’ll be looking at some dictionary definitions of the word “logline,” and at the end of those definitions, we’ll combine all the definitions to get what we need as screenwriters.

1) Wiktionary definition – “a very short summary of a script or screenplay.”

2) Wikipedia definition – “a log line or logline is a brief (usually one-sentence) summary of a television program, film, or book that states the central conflict of the story, often providing both a synopsis of the story’s plot and an emotional “hook” to stimulate interest.”

Combining the definitions above to get what we need as screenwriters, we can say that a logline is a brief summary of a screenplay in one sentence that stimulates the interest of the reader.

Can you now see why I mentioned it earlier as being a turnoff to most screenwriters, even professionals? How can you invest so much time into writing a screenplay, and the logline says, “Summarise the whole thing you’ve written into one sentence?”

Synopses and loglines summarise a screenplay, but the difference between them is that synopses summarise a screenplay on a page, whereas loglines summarise a screenplay in a sentence.

WHY IS IT NECESSARY?

Here, we’ll be looking at why it’s important to write a logline from two angles: one when writing a screenplay and the other when selling a screenplay.

1) WHEN WRITING: For screenwriters who prefer to write a logline before the screenplay, you’ll immediately know where you should go when writing because it’s very easy to finish a screenplay without knowing what your protagonist’s goal is. For screenwriters who prefer to write a logline after the screenplay, the logline will make you ask yourself, “What is the goal of my protagonist?”

2) WHEN SELLING: From our definition above, a logline is defined as a brief summary of a screenplay in a sentence that stimulates the interest of the reader. If you fail to write a logline as a screenwriter, you’ll have a difficult time finding a producer who is interested in your screenplay. The moment you tell a producer you have a screenplay to sell, the first question you’ll be asked is, “What is the screenplay about?” At this point, the only thing the producer wants to hear is your logline, because that’s the only thing that will stimulate his or her interest in your work and not waste his or her time.

HOW TO CRAFT A COMPELLING LOGLINE?

In music, there’s something called a hook. That part of a song that takes you to the moon whenever you listen to the song; that part of a song that keeps playing in your head when you’re asleep; and that part of a song you can sing best even when you don’t know the verses. A well-crafted logline should be able to “hook” your readers. It should be able to make whoever you tell about it want to read your screenplay. If your logline doesn’t have such strength, nobody would want to see your “blockbuster” screenplay.

For your screenplay to have such strength, you should have a clear idea of what your story is about. If your logline doesn’t make sense to you, the screenwriter, it won’t make sense to anyone. It all starts with you. For whatever you’ve written to be called a logline, it must have the following:

1) Protagonist: There has to be someone pushing the story forward, and that person should be in the logline.
2) Goal: The protagonist should be after something.
3) Stake: There should be something the protagonist must do if he or she doesn’t want to get into serious trouble, either with life or with someone.
4) The Protagonist’s Name: When writing a synopsis, the protagonist’s name is what you start with, but when writing a logline, the protagonist’s name should never be mentioned.
5) Length: A logline should never be more than one sentence.
6) Write-up: Loglines should be written in the present tense and in the third-person singular.
7) Adjective: Using an adjective gives the reader a deeper knowledge of your protagonist and why the journey is important to him or her.

FORMULA:

Due to how difficult it is to come up with a well-crafted logline, the use of a simple formula is very important. Feel free to create yours only when you totally understand it, but for now, here’s the formula to use whenever it’s time to face the giant. The formula is “PGS,” which stands for protagonist, goal, and stake, and the order is [protagonist] + [goal] + [stake]. Using this formula, let’s analyze some logline examples using the formula.

Example One:

Logline: A desperate lawyer must find a man who will get married to her despite her profession before she gets to menopause.

THE BREAKDOWN:

Protagonist: The protagonist happens to be the lawyer; this means that the lawyer will be the one pushing the story forward. I hope you can also see the power of using an adjective in a logline.

Goal: The lawyer’s goal is to find a man who wouldn’t be scared to get married to her because she’s a lawyer.

Stake: If the desperate lawyer doesn’t act fast, she will fall into a serious problem with life, and in this case, it’s called menopause.

Example Two:

Logline: A fresh graduate must disguise himself to save his late father’s company, which is about to be ruined by the acting head.

THE BREAKDOWN:

Protagonist: The protagonist in this logline happens to be the graduate, and once again, you can see how powerful and deep an adjective makes a protagonist to be. Using the word “fresh” shows that the graduate will make some mistakes due to inexperience.

Goal: The goal of the fresh graduate (protagonist) is to save his late father’s company from ruin.

Stake: If the fresh graduate doesn’t act fast, his late father’s company would be ruined by someone, and in this case, it’s the acting head.

QUESTION:

I have some questions to ask you after our use of the formula, and these questions are as follows:

1) Did you notice any character names in our logline?
2) Was the write-up longer than one sentence?
3) Were the loglines written in the third person singular and in the present tense?
4) Was the logline difficult to read and understand?

Use the above formula whenever you need help writing a logline, but feel free to only break the rule when you understand the rule.

READ: Synopsis Writing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Your Story

Screenplay elements are what distinguish a screenplay from any other document. If the right screenplay elements are used in their correct positions, no one needs to tell someone who is a friend of the movie industry that the document he or she is holding is a screenplay.

Screenwriting is a form of visual storytelling, and these screenplay elements together would make your reader visually see the story you’re telling, so not knowing how and when to use these screenplay elements correctly would make your screenplay difficult to read and understand. In this post, you’ll be taught how to use these screenplay elements correctly so that you can visually tell your story and your screenplay won’t scream novice. There are six screenplay elements, and they are as follows:

1) Scene Heading or Slug Line.
2) Action or Action Description.
3) Character.
4) Parenthetical or Actor’s Direction.
5) Dialogue.
6) Transition.

Let’s see a photo gotten from Screencraft before the explanation begins.

SCREENPLAY ELEMENTS EXPLAINED

SCENE HEADING: A story is broken down into scenes in a screenplay, which simply means that we move from one scene to the next until the storytelling is complete. A scene heading is an instruction from the screenwriter given to everyone involved in the movie production. This instruction tells everyone “where and when” a particular scene is to be shot.

A scene heading or slug line majorly tells everyone involved in the movie production three things, and it’s the first thing that begins a scene. These three things are:

1) Where the scene is to be shot (INT. or EXT.)

2) The location and scene.

3) The time of day (day or night).

SCENE HEADING EXPLAINED

To give you a clear idea of what a scene heading or slug line looks like and how it’s used in a screenplay, we’ll be seeing some examples.

INT. CAR – DAY

The instruction from the screenwriter to everyone involved in the movie production based on the scene heading example above is that the scene should be shot inside a car during the day.

EXT. HOTEL – NIGHT

The instruction from the screenwriter to everyone involved in the movie production based on the scene heading example above is that the scene should be shot outside the hotel at night.

QUALITIES OF A GOOD SCENE HEADING

1) Capitalised: Scene headings or slug lines should only be written in capital letters. Writing a scene heading like this: “Ext. Hotel – Night” is totally wrong.

2) Clarity: Scene headings aren’t meant to confuse anyone. It should be easy to read and understand. Writing a scene heading like this: “INT. RICHARD’S HOUSE – DAY” would be confusing to the reader because he or she would be asking, “Where in Richard’s house should this scene be shot?”

As a screenwriter who wants to be seen as a professional, this is the correct way to write the scene heading: INT. RICHARD’S HOUSE – LIVING ROOM – DAY. Your reader will know straight away that you want this scene to be shot inside Richard’s living room and that it should be shot during the day.

ACTION DESCRIPTION: This is the second element of a screenplay, and as the name implies, the only thing that happens here is the description. When reading a screenplay, the action description is the next thing that follows a scene heading, and it basically describes three things. These three descriptions are:

a) Environmental Description.
b) Character Description.
c) Character’s Action Description.

ACTION DESCRIPTION EXPLAINED

1) Environmental Description: The screenwriter describes what he wants a particular character’s home, office, or wherever to look like. The environmental description isn’t always needed until the story says it is. Let’s see some examples.

a) KELVIN (30s) walks into a one-bedroom apartment with no furniture; it only has a bed that has clothes littered on it.

b) This house is a one-bedroom apartment with no furniture; it only has a bed that has clothes littered on it.

Do not describe an environment if it has nothing to do with the scene; don’t waste your reader’s time. When describing the environment, you should be careful of the things you mention because whatever you mention that can’t be gotten easily will cost money.

2) Character Description: The screenwriter tells the reader the name of his or her character(s), their age, and whatever else he or she feels is important for the reader to know about the character. The screenwriter doesn’t just write these things; there are rules when describing your characters.

RULES:

a) When you’re writing a character’s name in your action for the first time, you should write it in capital letters. For example: RICHARD,  VICTORIA, and so on.

b) The next thing that follows the name is the character’s age. You can choose to be specific (32) or not (20s).

c) The next thing that follows the age is any special information the screenwriter has to give about the character he or she is introducing.

d) Whenever you want to mention the same character name again after the first time, you shouldn’t write it in capital letters.

Example:

a) RICHARD (32), a disabled man, picks up a stone and throws it at a car.

b) VICTORIA (20s), a lady who loves touching her ears, picks up a stone and throws it at a car.

c) GEORGE (40s) picks up a stone and throws it at a car. George takes off his slippers and runs away.

From the example above, you’ll see that I’ve been able to show you how the four rules listed above work.

3) Character’s Action Description: This is where the screenwriter describes the exact thing he or she wants the character(s) to do in the scene. Let’s see some examples.

a) STANLEY (32) sits on a couch reading a book as his phone rings.

b) DIANA (20s) opens the curtain to see Richard drive into the compound.

QUALITIES OF A GOOD ACTION DESCRIPTION

Remember, the goal of this post is to make your screenplay look professional; hence, you must write it the way professionals write theirs, and the following are the qualities of a professionally written action description.

a) Present Tense: Whenever you want to describe an action, write in the present tense.

b) Third Person: Action lines are written in the third-person singular. Pronouns such as “he,” “she,” “him,” “her,” or “it” should be used.

c) Clear: It should be concise, straight to the point, and easy to read and understand.

d) Dialogue: Write dialogue where dialogue belongs; it doesn’t belong in the action.

e) Left to Right: It should be written from the left margin of the page to the right margin of the page with no indentations.

Question:
a) Why should the action line be written in the present tense?
b) Why should action lines be written in third-person singular?

Answer:
a) As a screenwriter, whenever you write a screenplay, you’re telling a story that hasn’t been produced (watched), which means your writing is still alive, but when you write in the past tense, it means the story you’re telling has already happened, so why would you spend time writing what has already happened?

b) Action lines are written in third person because, as a screenwriter, you’re a third person in the lives of your characters, which simply means you’re an outsider who is looking into the lives of your characters.

CHARACTER: A character is an imaginary person in a story. When a character’s name first appears in the action description, it should appear in capital letters (CHARLES); afterwards, it can appear in normal letters (Charles).

The character’s name to begin a dialogue is written beneath the action description, not on the left margin but at the centre of the page. The character’s name must be written in capital letters.

PARENTHETICAL: This is an instruction from the screenwriter given to the actor who is taking up the role of the character, and this instruction appears in parenthesis or brackets beneath the character name. For example: (upset), (beat), (sarcastically), and so on.

DIALOGUE: This is the conversation that goes on between the characters. Dialogues appear either beneath the character name or beneath the parenthetical.

TRANSITION: Screenwriting is a form of visual storytelling; this means that, whilst writing, you as the screenwriter should be able to see how events would unfold on screen using your mind’s eye.

In post-production, the video editor executes the transition in movies, but as a screenwriter, you can instruct the video editor on how you want the transition in your screenplay to be. Do it only when it’s necessary.

These transitions are written on the right side of the page with a colon at the end. For example: CUT TO: , BACK TO: , DISSOLVE TO: ,

Even though the “popular” six screenplay elements have been mentioned above, there’s another element called “extension.” Let’s see an image from Writers store.

EXTENSION: We write extensions next to the character’s name on the right side and put them in brackets. There can be as many extensions as possible, but the most common extensions are:

a) (V.O.): This means voice-over.
b) (O.S.) or (O.C.): This means off-screen or off-camera.

READ: Screenwriting Terms Every Screenwriter Should Master

Some screenwriters believe that the protagonist is the good character and the antagonist is the bad character, but is this true? Most screenwriters go a step further, believing that the protagonist wants something and the antagonist is the character who tries to stop the protagonist from achieving his or her goal, but is that absolutely true?

Another area of confusion for screenwriters is that since the protagonist is the good character and the antagonist is the bad character, who then is the main character? Is the main character still the same character as the protagonist? If yes, why don’t we just call the main character the protagonist and forget calling another character the main character?

If you’ve ever been this confused about these character titles, the role they play in a movie, and how to identify them, that will be a thing of the past because this post will expose everything you need to know about them. Let’s get the first thing straight: without a protagonist, there isn’t a story. That brings us to the next question: who really is a protagonist?

WHO REALLY IS A PROTAGONIST?

There are millions of definitions as to who a protagonist is, but the simplest of them all is that a protagonist is the character who pushes the story or plot forward through the decisions he or she makes.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A PROTAGONIST IN STORYTELLING

From the definition of a protagonist above, the major importance of a protagonist is to move the story forward. No other character in a story can do that. Let’s see an image (Freytag Pyramid) from Research Gate.

From the image above of a plot structure, you can see that there are different stages and that to move from one stage to the next, the screenwriter, every character, and the story depend on the protagonist to take the first step to move from the exposition to the rising action, to the climax to the falling action, and to the resolution. This simply means that if the protagonist is static, everything concerning the story you’re telling will also be static.

QUALITIES OF A PROTAGONIST

1) Goal-oriented: The reason why the protagonist is so powerful is that he or she always wants something, and it’s his or her desire that causes him or her to make decisions that push the story forward.

2) Decision Maker: To know the protagonist in a movie or in your story, look for the character that makes critical decisions that change the whole dynamics of the story.

THE PARTIAL TRUTH ABOUT AN ANTAGONIST

Some screenwriters say that the antagonist is the character who tries to stop the protagonist from achieving their goals. Even though this definition sounds correct, it is only correct when the protagonist and the main character are the same person.

Since there are no formulas for writing a story, there are some stories where the antagonistic character isn’t after the protagonist but after the main character, and in these types of stories, you can see that the above definition isn’t exactly true.

WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT AN ANTAGONIST?

Scenario One: When the protagonist and the main character are the same person, the antagonistic character goes after the protagonist because he or she is also the main character.

Scenario Two: When the protagonist is different from the main character, the antagonist leaves the protagonist and goes after the main character. Let me use a typical Nollywood movie to illustrate this.

WHEN THE PROTAGONIST AND THE MAIN CHARACTER ARE THE SAME

This is a story about a man who killed a lady’s mother whilst he was a thug, but now he’s repented and goes job hunting. The lady whose mother he killed is in charge of recruitment in the whole city, and she’s out for revenge to make sure he doesn’t get a job anywhere in the city.

In this story, the man doubles as the protagonist and the main character, and the lady becomes the antagonist. The lady isn’t after the protagonist, but after the main character.

WHEN THE PROTAGONIST AND THE MAIN CHARACTER ARE DIFFERENT

This is a story about a mother whose son has been married to a lady for twelve years, and the lady hasn’t given birth to any children. In this story, the son is the protagonist, the lady becomes the main character, and the mother becomes the antagonist. The question is, “Who is the antagonist after?” She’s after the lady, not her son.

From the above, you can see that these two scenarios have gone ahead to show that an antagonist only goes after the main character in a story. Who exactly is an antagonist?

WHO IS AN ANTAGONIST?

An antagonist is a character who tries to inflict pain on the main character. I know you think my definition should be “an antagonist is the character who tries to stop the main character from achieving their goals,” but the question is, do main characters have goals? The answer is no. Protagonists are the only characters with goals. A main character can have a goal only when he or she is the same person as the protagonist.

ARE ANTAGONISTS ALWAYS BAD CHARACTERS?

The answer is no. The antagonistic character in a story isn’t necessarily the bad character, but an antagonist is always the opposite of the main character. Let’s see some examples together.

Example 1: The Good Antagonist

If the main character spends too much money, the antagonist becomes the character who tries to inflict pain on the main character by teaching him or her how to spend wisely. Even though the character is called the antagonist in this case, we all know that the antagonist is doing something good.

Example 2: The Bad Antagonist

If the main character is a herbal doctor who heals everyone who comes to him, the antagonist becomes a jealous character whose aim is to inflict pain on the main character by chasing all the herbal doctor’s clients away.

WHO IS THE MAIN CHARACTER?

The main character in a story is the character who is affected by the decision of the protagonist. What this means is that if the protagonist and main character are the same person, the decision made affects the same person. If the main character and the protagonist aren’t the same person, the decision made affects another character who is the main character.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROTAGONISTS AND MAIN CHARACTERS

The differences below should help you identify who they are in your story, and this difference exists only if and only if they are different characters.

1) Protagonists have goals, but the main character doesn’t have a goal.
2) The dress of the plot structure fits the protagonists when it’s worn but doesn’t fit the main characters.
3) Protagonists make decisions, and the protagonist’s decisions have an impact on the main character.
4) Main characters don’t push stories forward; protagonists are the only characters that possess such power.
5) Audiences are more focused on the main character’s journey than the protagonist’s.
6) Protagonists and antagonists can work together to hurt the main character, but the main character can never join forces with the antagonist because they are always the opposite; that is, they always want different things.
7) The arc of the main characters is always obvious to the audience, but the arc of the protagonists may or may not be obvious to the audience.

READ: Screenplay Elements 101: How To Make Your Script Unique

As someone who wants to become a screenwriter, the words inciting incident even though they may seem strange now, shouldn’t be strange words to you after reading this post. This is because, for every story you intend to tell, you need the inciting incident for the story to be attention-grabbing. Including the inciting incident in your story changes the relaxed nature of your protagonist as it gives him or her a goal, which sets the story you want to tell in motion.

Have you ever watched an interesting movie without an inciting incident? No, I don’t think so. No reader wants to read a story where the protagonist’s life is smooth sailing. The challenge your protagonist faces is very important to the story you’re about to tell, and it starts with the introduction of the inciting incident. Let’s see a diagram from Research Gate.

From the Freytag Pyramid diagram above, you can see that a story remains flat until the inciting incident is introduced; that’s how powerful inciting incidents can be. You can also see from the diagram where and when to place inciting incidents in stories.

It’s important to know the perfect time to introduce your inciting incident, and this depends on the story you’re about to tell. If you don’t introduce your inciting incident at the correct time, you’ll make your audience lose interest in the story you’re about to tell as they will be asking themselves what the story is about; you wouldn’t want that. Let’s start by knowing what the words mean.

WHAT’S AN INCITING INCIDENT?

To get the concrete meaning of the words, let’s know the meaning of each word individually before combining them to see what they mean. According to the Oxford Language, to “incite” means to “stir up,” whilst an “incident” means “an event.” Thus, combining the meaning of the words means “to stir up an event.” Using the combined definition, let’s redefine an inciting incident to suit our screenwriting needs.

An inciting incident means “a stirred-up event that destabilises and gives the protagonist a goal.” This means that every event introduced in a story’s exposition should build beat by beat until the point where it blows up. From the Freytag Pyramid above, you can see where the beat-by-beat events blew up.

WHEN SHOULD IT BE INTRODUCED?

This is a question manual screenwriters ask. The reason for calling them manual screenwriters is that they seem to want a quick fix for everything. They want a drag-and-drop formula, not minding the story they’re telling. Some books, blogs, or even fellow screenwriters tell you to place it here and there, but have you looked at the story you’re telling to see if the inciting incident needs to be dropped at that time?

This is the reason why you watch some movies and notice that the screenwriter placed the inciting incident either too early or too late because he or she wants to follow a formula. Yes, formulas work for some things in screenwriting, but when it comes to placing the inciting incident in a story, the screenwriter must be connected to the story to know the right time to place it.

All that can be said about this is that it should be dropped at the end of the exposition, but there’s no fixed page to drop it. In some stories, the exposition is longer than in others. That’s the sole reason why you need to be connected with the story you’re about to tell. When you’re connected to the story, the story itself will tell you the right time to insert it.

THE WRONG INCITING INCIDENTS

These are the inciting incidents that aren’t loud enough. Even when it happens, it doesn’t destabilise the current state of the protagonist. They are the ones that occur without your reader realising it because the protagonist’s goal remains unclear. The correct inciting incident is the opposite of the previously mentioned.

EXAMPLES OF STRONG INCITING INCIDENTS IN STORIES.

1) The story of a politician’s son who falls in love with the daughter of his father’s political rival, and when he tells his father who he’s in love with, his father replies, “That will never happen.”

2) The story of a man who, after showing so much love to his wife and daughter, finds out the girl he has been calling his daughter doesn’t belong to him but to someone else.

3) A well-known pastor finds out his daughter is pregnant; he tells her to secretly abort the child, but she refuses to abort the child.

From these above-listed stories, you can see how loud the inciting incident is; you can see that the current relaxed state of the protagonist changes; and you can clearly see the goal of the protagonist. These are the kinds of inciting incidents your story should have. Whenever you wish to write a story, write a story with a very strong inciting incident.

READ: The Three Act Structure: How To Keep Your Story on Track

One very important thing to note about foreshadowing is that, in the hands of a skilled screenwriter, it can be a powerful tool, but in the hands of a less skilled screenwriter, foreshadowing will absolutely ruin the story being told. That’s why it’s important to know what the term means so that you can use it effectively; hence, the reason for this post.

Screenwriters are gods to their characters, but not to the audience or reader. That simply means a screenwriter can say “sit” to his characters, and they’ll immediately sit, but that command will never be possible for his or her audience because they can walk away if they notice you aren’t capable of telling the story. For a screenwriter to be god over the audience, he or she has to hold a magic wand, which happens to be a technique called foreshadowing. Let’s take a deeper look at the term by first knowing exactly what it is.

WHAT IS IT?

We’ll be looking at some dictionary definitions of the word “foreshadowing,” and at the end of those definitions, we’ll combine all the definitions to get what we need as screenwriters.

1) Oxford Languages defines foreshadowing as “a warning or indication of (a future event).”

2) Wiktionary defines foreshadowing as “a literary device whereby an author drops hints or symbolic representations of plot developments to come later in the story.”

(3) Wikipedia defines foreshadowing as “a narrative device in which a storyteller gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story.”

Combining the definitions above to get what we need as screenwriters, we can say that foreshadowing is an advance hint a screenwriter gives for a future event in the story.

HOW TO USE IT EFFECTIVELY

Every audience wants to go on a step-by-step journey with you, the screenwriter; however, you can hide a series of steps by dropping a hint in a subtle way, and in a later scene, your audience will realise that you replaced those steps with a hint, but they were the ones who failed to pay close attention to the hint you dropped; that’s the whole concept of foreshadowing. To understand better, let’s see an example.

Movie Title: Betty’s Love Triangle

Written by: Tomi Adesina

The Movie:

After Betty’s heartbreak with a man she has been dating for six years, she decides to throw faithfulness to a man out of the window. Betty starts dating Femi, a software guy who has been asking her out for a while, and James, a cab driver and owner of a small chop shop.

After a while of dating Femi, Betty takes her picture to his house and drops it on his TV stand in the living room. When Femi asks why she dropped her picture there, she says, “I’m marking my territory”. Femi knows that Betty loves eating a particular brand of small chops, so one day he places an order for the chops, and James brings them to his house.

Femi asks James to come into his living room and sit so that they can have more discussions about food. James walks in and is about to sit on a couch when he sees Betty’s picture in the living room on the TV stand. James sits and asks Femi if Betty is his sister, but Femi replies “No, she’s not my sister; that’s my wife”. Go and watch the movie on the IROKO TV app, and let me continue with my post.

From the above example, we can see that the hint in the story is the picture. We can also see that James didn’t go to Femi’s house immediately after Betty planted the hint, but he did so in a later scene. Furthermore, did you notice how Betty gave the audience something else to think about whilst she was planting the hint by saying “I’m just marking my territory”?

In this story, the screenwriter hid the step-by-step sequence of events of how Femi and James got to know they were dating the same girl and just replaced those steps with a hint (the picture). The audiences are very smart people, so as a screenwriter, don’t ever think you can outsmart them by just popping something out of nowhere and that’s the end of your story. Using this technique properly will make them know that you gave them an advanced hint, but they were the ones who failed to see it.

As a screenwriter, when all roads seem to lead nowhere in your story, never forget to use your magic wand. Whenever you wish to use the foreshadowing technique, please take note of the following, listed below:

1) Don’t force foreshadowing into your story; let it come organically.
2) Make sure what you’re about to foreshadow makes sense.
3) When you want to foreshadow, find a way to make the audience think of something else whilst you plant the hint. Betty made the audience think she was a jealous lover as she planted the hint.

You must understand your story before foreshadowing can work perfectly. This technique, if used properly, would make your audience happy, but you shouldn’t try to use it the wrong way because if you do, let’s forget that part.

READ: Logline 101: How To Craft A Compelling Logline

The foundation of any good movie or screenplay is a very good plot structure. As humans, we need our skeletons to stand upright, and so do stories, but with stories, instead of calling it a skeleton, it’s called plot structure. Inasmuch as we humans need our skeletons to stand upright, placing the leg of a skeleton where the head should be will never make us stand upright; the same thing applies to stories.

As a screenwriter whose dream is to one day write a blockbuster, you should be able to place the head of your story where it belongs and the leg of your story where it also belongs, and to do that properly, you need to use a pyramid called the Freytag Pyramid. First, let’s get to know what a plot means.

WHAT DOES A PLOT MEAN?

We’ll be looking at some dictionary definitions of the word “plot,” and at the end of those definitions, we’ll combine all the definitions to get what we need as screenwriters.

1) Oxford Languages definition: “the main events of a play, novel, film, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.”

2) Wikipedia’s definition: “the story of a piece of fiction.”

Combining the definitions above to get what we need as screenwriters, we can say that a plot is an interrelated sequence of events that come together to form a story.

WHY DO I NEED THE FREYTAG PYRAMID?

No one will want to watch a movie or read a screenplay where everything is going well for the protagonist with no challenge, nor would someone want to watch a movie where everything is going bad for the protagonist; there needs to be a balance of both. A screenplay with a good plot structure takes the reader on a steady, high, downward, and then back to the steady journey. Gustav Freytag invented the Freytag Pyramid to help screenwriters determine where to draw the line when writing so that they don’t go too far.

The plot structure is always represented on Freytag’s pyramid. This Freytag’s pyramid has five elements, and these elements are represented in the diagram below.

From the plot structure diagram above gotten from Research gate, you can see that a plot structure has three “major” turning points and two plot points. The first turning point is also known as the inciting incident or plot point one; this is the point of twists and turns between exposition and the rising action. The second turning point is the climax. The third turning point is also known as plot point two; this is the point of twists and turns between falling action and resolution.

DIFFERENT ELEMENTS OF THE PLOT STRUCTURE

1) Exposition (the setup): This is where you’ll introduce your protagonist to your reader. You should also equip your reader with information about your protagonist so as to make your reader emotionally connected to your protagonist and the journey he or she is about to embark on.

1a) Plot point 1 or The Inciting Incident: The screenwriter becomes RUTHLESS toward the protagonist.

2) Rising Action: The protagonist’s journey has started, and nothing fantastic happens to him or her as every event that occurs makes him or her want to quit life.

3) Climax/Point of No Return: This is the height of the screenwriter’s ruthlessness, as the screenwriter gives the protagonist an escape route, that is, a chance to make a decision.

4) Falling Action: The protagonist follows the escape route of the screenwriter through the decisions he or she makes. The screenwriter gradually takes his or her foot off the ruthless accelerator.

4a) Plot point 2: This is where the screenwriter makes something miraculous happen.

5) Resolution: The point where the screenwriter ties up the loose ends he or she created.

The story you’re about to tell may have a different plot structure, but no matter how creative you want to get with your plot structure, make sure these five elements are well represented.

HOW TO USE THE FREYTAG PYRAMID

To know exactly how to use the Freytag Pyramid when it comes to plot structure, we’ll be using a typical Nollywood movie as our example. Let’s analyze a movie where a rich man who loves to give suddenly becomes poor after helping his wicked uncle in his time of need.

1) Exposition (the setup): Richard is a wealthy man who loves to help people who need help in his community.

1a) Plot point 1: Richard gives one of his uncles (his jealous uncle) money, but his jealous uncle takes his money to a native doctor to make him poor.

2) Rising Action: Richard becomes a beggar, and the people he helped whilst he was wealthy turn their back on him. His children are sent out of school; he has no money to eat; he has no money to pay hospital bills as one of his children dies; and his beloved wife becomes a problem.

3) Climax: Richard decides to become a vulcanizer of cars on a major road, not minding what people will say.

4) Falling Action: Richard still has all the problems, but at least he now has enough money to buy sachet water, bread, and groundnuts, which he couldn’t buy before.

4a) Plot Point 2: Richard’s niece enters her father‘s bedroom to sweep the floor; she sees a bottle under the bed tied with a red cloth. She takes the bottle outside and unties the red cloth. Richard’s uncle confesses and runs mad.

5) Resolution: One of the people Richard once helped in his wealthy days comes to vulcanize his car’s tire and recognises Richard; he promises to help him. Richard becomes rich. Richard’s wife apologises. Richard’s remaining children go back to school. THE END.

That’s how the plot structure works, but did you know that you can start writing your screenplay from any part of the pyramid? You can break the rules only when you understand the rules.

READ: Foreshadowing 101: What It Is and How to Use It Effectively

Knowledge of these screenwriting terms is very important for a screenwriter who is starting his or her journey into the screenwriting world. Knowing these terms will help you flow with the conversation of other screenwriters, as they won’t be able to tell that you’re a novice. It will also help you understand the screenplays you’ll be reading. Trust me, you’ll need to read as many screenplays as possible. Here are some of the screenwriting terms you need to know:

ADAPT: To write a screenplay from a pre-existing story.

ANTAGONIST: An antagonist is a character who tries to inflict pain on the main character.

BACK TO: This is a transition that is used when going back to a scene that was left for another scene.

BACK TO PRESENT DAY: This is an indication that a character has finished remembering past events and is back in reality.

BEAT: Indicates a short pause.

CHARACTER: This is an imaginary person in a story.

COMMISSIONED SCRIPT: This is a screenplay written by a screenwriter who has been paid to write.

CONTINUOUS: The movement of a character’s action from one scene to another without interruption in time.

CUT TO: A quick switch in scenes.

DIALOGUE: The conversation that goes on between the characters.

DOUBLE BEAT: Indicates a longer pause.

EXT.: This means exterior. It simply means the scene should be shot outside.

FICTION: This is a story that isn’t based on facts. It is a fabricated and untrue story.

FADE IN: This is used at the beginning of a screenplay. It means the shot should be brought in slowly from complete darkness to a normal scene.

FADE OUT: This is used at the end of a screenplay. It means the shot should be taken slowly from a complete scene to darkness.

FLASHBACK: This is used whenever a character wants to remember a past event.

FORESHADOWING: This is an advance hint a screenwriter gives for a future event in the story.

INSERT: This is used when the screenwriter wants to direct the camera to something important in the scene, usually inanimate objects such as a wall clock, a ring that fell on the floor, a piece of paper, and so on.

INT.: This means interior. It simply means the scene should be shot inside.

I/E (INT./EXT.): This means in a particular scene, the camera will be taking shots from the inside (INT.) and outside (EXT.).

INCITING INCIDENT: This is a stirred-up event that destabilises and gives the protagonist a goal.

INTERCUT WITH: This is a transition that takes us back and forth between two or more scenes.

LATER: This is the passage of a long time period.

LOCATION: The entire environment that is considered for shots to take place.

LOGLINE: This is a brief summary of a screenplay in one sentence that stimulates the interest of the reader.

MAIN CHARACTER: This is the character that is affected by the decision of the protagonist.

MOMENTS LATER: This is the passage of a short time period.

MONTAGE: The sequence of brief actions.

NON-FICTION: This is a story that is based on facts (a true-life story).

O.S./O.C.: This means off-screen (O.S.) and off-camera (O.C.). This is used when an off-shot character speaks to an in-shot character.

OUTLINE: A scene-by-scene breakdown of a story.

PLOT: This is an interrelated sequence of events that come together to form a story.

PROTAGONIST: The character who pushes the story or plot forward through the decisions he or she makes.

QUERY: This is a written pitch.

SCENE: This is a particular place in a location where an event is to be shot.

SCREENWRITER: A person who writes a screenplay.

SCREENPLAY: A written breakdown of a story into scenes for a motion picture with instructions from the screenwriter.

SHOOTING SCRIPT: This is the director’s and the cinematographer’s copy. The shooting script is more complex because all the shots have been planned so that shooting can be easier and faster.

SLUG LINE/SCENE HEADING: A group of block letters that begins a scene.

SPEC SCRIPT: A spec script, also known as a speculative script, is a screenplay written without being paid to write, but the screenwriter has the intention to sell it after it is written.

STORY: The sequence of real or fictional events.

SUBTEXT: This is the underlying meaning of dialogue.

SUPER: This is the short form for superimpose. Whenever it’s seen in a screenplay, it means whatever is written there should be displayed on top of the shot. For example: two years later, one month later, etc.

SYNOPSIS: A brief summary of the major points of a screenplay.

V.O.: This means voice-over. It’s used when a character seen on screen says what’s on his or her mind without his or her mouth moving; it can be used when a character is remembering what another character said; and it can also be used when a character’s voice is heard over the phone, radio, or walkie-talkie.

With the above simply defined screenwriting terms, you have no reason to be afraid of the gathering of screenwriters who use these terms, nor do you have a reason to be afraid to speak in the gathering of screenwriters using these screenwriting terms.

Please note that this isn’t the entire list of screenwriting terms, but with these few terms, you can be comfortable whilst you learn more for yourself. When it comes to screenwriting, the more you write, the more you learn.

READ: Plot Structure 101: The Anatomy Of A Great Screenplay