If you read part 1 of this article, then you should understand the four phases of transformation that your protagonist goes through:  the orphan, the wanderer, the warrior, and the martyr.  Those four phases correspond directly with the acts of your story.  Act I is the orphan phase, the first half of Act II is the wanderer phase, the second half of Act II is the warrior phase, and Act III is the martyr phase.  

Please keep in mind that this article is meant to be an introduction to the concepts developed by Jeffery Alan Schechter and his program, Totally Write, which is now Contour and can be found in our recommended software section.  The software will take these concepts into far deeper depth but our goal here is to give you an introduction and hopefully help you understand some of the fundamental concepts on developing a solid structure for your screenplay.  

Once you have an idea for a general story, you need to come up with a central question that the film will use as a path.  Will Marty be able to get back to the future?  Will Frodo be able to throw the ring into mount doom and save Middle Earth?  Will John McClane be able to stop the terrorists and save the hostages?  These are all central questions, and as soon as the question is definitively answered with a “yes” or a “no” then the movie is over.

Once you have the central question and understand the general phases that your character goes through…how do you start?  This is a daunting task that has baffled many screenwriters.  Staring at the blank page can be intimidating but there is a simple procedure you can utilize to give you a running start.

The first step is to ask a series of four questions:

1. Who is your main character?
2. What is he trying to accomplish?
3. Who/what is trying to stop him?
4. What happens if he fails?

If you cannot answer each of these questions with a solid answer, then you are not ready to proceed.  Go back to your idea and refine it until you can answer each one of those questions.  Totally Write and Contour include some examples of successful films that utilized this structure, and we’re going at the example of Liar Liar as a reference.

• 1.    Who is the main character?
• a.    Fletcher
  
• 2.    What is he trying to accomplish?
• a.    Win the case while keeping his wife from taking his son away from him.
• 3.    Who is trying to stop him?
• a.    His wife
• 4.    What happens if he fails?
• a.    His son will be moved away across the country.
  

Now, once you have those questions answered you will be in good shape and can proceed to the next step.  In part 1, we briefly explored the 4 phases that the protagonist goes through during the course of your tale.  Now it is time to apply those phases to your character and ask yourself four more questions:

1. How is your main character an Orphan in Act I?
2. How is your main character a Wanderer in the first half of Act II?
3. How is your main character a Warrior in the second half of Act II?
4. How is your main character a Martyr in Act III?

This set of questions is extremely important in mapping out your film and you’ll see why in a minute.  Analyze the story you want to tell and see how you can apply these questions to your character.  Let’s take a look at the Liar Liar example again.  

• 1.    How is your main character an Orphan in Act I?
• a.    He is divorced and cut off from his wife and son, both of whom he still loves.  And when he is cursed to tell the truth, he finds that he can't be with people without causing great trouble.  He is cursed with having to tell the truth and tries to figure out how to break the curse.  Additionally, he tries to figure out what he needs to do to prove to Audrey that he is a good father to Max
  
• 2.    How is your main character a Wanderer in the first half of Act II?
• a.    He is cursed with having to tell the truth and tries to figure out how to break the curse.  Additionally, he tries to figure out what he needs to do to prove to Audrey that he is a good father to Max. He fights to finish the case so he can get to Max before Audrey takes him away.
  
• 3.    How is your main character a Warrior in the second half of Act II?
• a.    He fights to finish the case so he can get to Max before Audrey takes him away. He gives up the partnership at the firm in order to chase after his son.
• 4.    How is your main character a Martyr in Act III?
• a.    He gives up the partnership at the firm in order to chase after his son.  
  

Now here is where it all comes together.  Once you have the answers to the Phase questions, you put them together in a paragraph that becomes your stories “tagline”.  This will be your one paragraph synopsis that will describe your film.  It is structured like this:
    When a type of person has/does/wants/gets A (ORPHAN), he or she gets/does/tries/learns B (WANDERER), only to discover that C now happens (WARRIOR) and he or she must respond by doing D (MARTYR).  
Using Liar Liar as an example one more time, here is the writeup:

“When a selfish, dishonest lawyer misses his son's birthday because of getting a big case, his son makes a birthday wish that his dad must tell the truth for 24 hours.   The wish comes true and the lawyer tries to figure out what's happening to him while he continues to figure out how to win the case, only to discover that his lies have caught up with him and his wife is now going to move his son cross country.  The lawyer must now fight to win the case (without being able to lie!) while proving to his wife that he's really a good father.  He wins the case, gives up being partner and must race to the airport and risk his life to stop the plane from leaving with his wife and son on it.”

Now if you have made it this far with your story, then congratulations!  What you have is a well written synopsis of your film and you now have a road map for the rest of your story.  That paragraph now blocks out each of the four phases and the four act sections of your film.

Of course this isn’t the end all and your work is far from done.  You still have all of those minor details such as supporting characters, settings, and dialogue.  Hopefully this has helped you as a stepping stone to getting started.  For a more fleshed out study on this, please check out Contour screen writing software here.