To form

This is not a secret, but all movies follow a structure, Acts I, II, and III with one event that takes place between each of those three acts. It’s like clockwork when watching a movie. Based on how long that particular movie is, a certain event will happen (internal or external) to the main character within in five to ten minutes of those three acts.

Obviously there are several things that go into this, but scripts that turn on those three acts have been made into movies for decades. So, why is it so hard to write a good script. You know something has to happen by page 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 (a page = 1 minute on screen) . You watch, as I do, several, if not all movies that follow this, but yet we struggle to get it.

Furthermore… after reading an article in one of the many magazines I read about writing for the screen, there was an article about writing spec TV shows that sell. Without going into detail, I got out of it that TV shows (depending on the genre) not only follow a similar structure as movies but they are way more polluted with (because of the whole commercial thing) with more breaks and hooks. At the end of the article, it basically says that if you don’t follow these structural rules, there isn’t a flying chance in hell that someone will buy your spec (This doesn’t take into account all of those thousands of writers that do understand this).

The ending of this story is that, without structure, the script is dead on arrival (if it ever gets to someone's "desk"). And if there is that necessary structure to the screenplay, that doesn’t mean shit because your writing could make the script reader fall asleep or don’t care by page five. This means, what happens on page 30, 45, 60, and 75 will never be read anyways.