As I see it, successful scripts generally have one of 8 essential challenges or story problems for their main character, when you boil them down to their essence. (Which is a good thing for writers to do.)
These have some cross-over with the ten “genres” in the Save the Cat books, which I find to be an extraordinarily useful tool. I’ve referenced these (and relevant movie examples) after each.
I think it’s very helpful to think in terms of what your main character wants, what’s in the way, and why it’s so important, which is why I’ve described them subjectively in terms of those things. (Those are also the elements a logline should focus on, by the way — the external challenge of the movie, not the internal arc.)
Without further ado, the list:
1. Someone or something is trying to kill me (or us). I have to stop it.
(“Monsters in the House” like Alien or Halloween; “Dudes with a Problem” like The Bourne Identity, Armageddon or Apollo 13; “Institutionalizeds” like The Godfather.)
2. Someone or something is trying to destroy my life as I know it. I have to stop it.
(“Monsters in the House” like Fatal Attraction; “Dudes with a Problem” like Cape Fear; “Rites of Passage” like Bridesmaids; “Superheroes” like A Beautiful Mind; “Out of the Bottles” like Liar Liar, Field of Dreams or All of Me.)
3. I have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rise up and be somebody, in a big way, that will forever change my sense of self.
(“Golden Fleeces” like Rudy, Rocky or School of Rock; “Fools Triumphant” like Working Girl or The 40-Year-Old Virgin, “Institutionalizeds” like Almost Famous or Wall Street.)
4. I have to rescue someone from a potentially terrible fate.
(“Golden Fleeces” like Finding Nemo, The Hangover or Saving Private Ryan.)
5. I have to reach a distant and life-changing “prize,” which seems nearly impossible to do.
(“Golden Fleeces” like The Wizard of Oz, Apocalypse Now or The Sting.)
6. I have to defeat bad guys who have hurt and/or are threatening innocents.
(“Golden Fleeces” like Star Wars; “Dudes with a Problem” like Die Hard; “Superheroes” like Erin Brockovich; “Rites of Passage” like The First Wives Club; “Whydunits” like Chinatown.)
7. I have to escape this terrible situation, which prevents me from living freely and happily.
(“Golden Fleeces” like The Shawshank Redemption, 12 Years a Slave, or The Pursuit of Happiness; “Institutionalizeds” like Office Space or American Beauty.)
8. I want to find, win over or hang onto a desired partner, but something is hugely in the way of that.
(“Rites of Passage” like My Best Friend’s Wedding, Swingers or Superbad; “Buddy Loves” like The Black Stallion, When Harry Met Sally or Brokeback Mountain; “Fools Triumphant” like Mrs. Doubtfire, Forrest Gump or Coming to America.)
If you can think of successful movies that you question whether they fit with any of these, please comment and let me know! I’ll respond with my thoughts.
I usually try to pick apart any theory about screenwriting, not because theory is bad (it is a tool, and thus can be useful), but because any theory or explanation that is always true is not likely to be useful (e.g. “Every story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.”).
I have to admit, however, that (1) I have a difficult time finding exceptions to your general principles, and (2) your categories / principles are valid, and not truisms.
In the case of the 8 problems, the only successful * movie I can think of that kind of doesn’t fit is The Rules of the Game, but one can make the case that it has a collective protagonist (representing the aristocracy) and that this protagonist is motivated to preserve its way of life, i.e. to maintain the “rules of the game” (#2), and the group protagonist does so at the end.
What I discovered that for me is far more important than any exception is that the rule breakers / benders in traditional American film (Orson Welles, Nicholas Ray, Robert Altman, et al.) do not try to establish a 9th category, or to destroy categories altogether, but rather accept the validity of the 8 problems and then work to revise the traditional handling of one or more of those problems. E.g. for all its innovation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is # 8; Eraserhead is # 7.
* “Successful”: La Regle du Jeu was booed at its initial Paris premiere.
Thanks Steven, I love your comments! And not just because you seem to mostly agree with me… 🙂
you said “It’s also very important that the main story problem is really hard to solve, and getting worse, despite the main character actively trying to solve it in virtually every scene.”
how come in life and even in in top tiktok/youtube videos for example what holds attention is positive fun happy content where people can learn something like a cooking video etc. There is no high stakes in real life learning videos there is no hard to solve thing. In fact people want to learn easier. Can you explain the difference?
I would say because audiences for those are looking for instruction, inspiration, information, or quick amusement perhaps that isn’t a “story.”
But when we consume “stories,” we get drawn into the conflicts, the difficulties, the problems – and characters we relate to trying to deal with those.
I think my script has all eight!