You're right QQQ. I won't bother to argue with someone who's right. I had to spend a minute to re-read exactly what it was I last wrote. Seems that I spent most of the post focusing on major structural beats of a story. What I promised to follow was a more in depth review of what to place in between these major beats so your story can flow like a roller coaster.
With that ride in mind, hop aboard. By now you've figured out who your major players are and you've also mapped out a loose structure. What we want to follow are specific moments that build in tension and conflict. Each of these beats or scenes will in one way or another reveal one thing about your hero and or story. Each of these reveals will be executed either through action, pictures or dialog. Preferably action and pictures over dialogue but great dialogue is one of the major points that stick with movie goers. Often great dialogue becomes part of culture. "Go ahead, make my day" "I'll be back" or "of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine". Just to name a few.
When you begin to fill in the empty space each beat should involve a place, a time, a person and most importantly, the conflict. For example. John is in an office, at night, trying to steal a file from a computer however he trips the alarm and now has 60 seconds before the cops arrive. Very short scene yet the consequences are huge. Now I don't know what's in the file nor why he wants it but that obviously could fall at many a places on the spectrum depending on your story.
You want to have these things in place for EVERY beat of your story. The next thing you want to make sure is to have your beats alternating from positive to negative. This isn't a hard fact however the more Ups/Dwns you have the more your reader and audience will be likely to enjoy the ride. There are stories where it's blow after blow but rarely are these commercial successes and almost never will you watch or read something that's just high five after high five. Where's the drama in that?
It's important to think of these beats as life. You can't enjoy the gold if you've never suffered the pine. Movies are emotional experiences because of this ride. Hopefully as the story progresses the more you become emotionally invested and these beats are there to build this investment.
A great exercise I learned along the way involves sitting down with a pen and paper and a good movie. As the film plays your homework is to write down each beat as it happens. You'll write who's in the scene, where is the scene happening and what is the conflict. As you work your way through the movie hopefully you'll see a trend of good and bad. Your hero falls but in the next beat he learns something of value but in the following scene falters only to gain ground in the next and so forth.
This up and down, jerky motion of movies is but a constant. It's the formula that keeps you in your seat when you get that pressing urge to relieve yourself. You don't want to miss what's next. You check your watch, can I wait, can I hold it? What's the most popular place after a great movie?
The restroom.
So now that you have your major beats start to think about how you're going to fill in the spaces in between with memorable moments that build drama and tension and continue to reveal story through action, pictures, dialogue and what.....? Conflict. Conflict. Conflict.
Write on!
