Situation Challenges Resources Intelligence Plot Theme
NB: hir is intentional
I created the SCRIPT model as a framework for analysing the structure and the progress of a story (plot) and its relation to the transformational arc of the protagonist i.e. the story's main Character/s, the antagonist(s), key supporting characters and lesser characters who do more than merely make up the crowd.
SCRIPT can be useful for mapping out a story's structure or for exploring - and amending - any weaknesses during and after the actual writing, always with reference to the character/s development and transformation as the story unfolds.
The three act structure, like the Script model, provides another underlying framework, even if it invisible, that is not restricted to drama on stage or screen but useful for any of the venerable and ancient art of story-telling, ranging from sagas to short stories.
Both the three act structure and the SCRIPT model are intended to help the flow of your creativity. They can also work well as skeletons, frameworks or templates for giving and getting feedback on the material we offer up for other people's kind or cutting comments!
OK, let's expand on each item of the acronym:
Situation
The basic story outline; the environment - the time and the place - in which your Character/s act and interact. The external forces that impact on the Character/s and influence their decisions, which could be anything from the weather, the sea, the living room, the workplace, the bedroom, the mean streets of the naked city, or some fantasy future scape.
Do your Characters create or stumble across situations? Does everyone except the Protagonist know what's going on? Is the Protagonist the only one - as far s/he knows - in the know?
Is s/he losing hir way, or hir mind? Is s/he hoping to find her True Self, or merely waiting for Godot?
Is this the Last Action Hero or the End of Days? Much Ado about Nothing or Everything you ever Wanted to Know about Sax but were too Winded to Ask?
Challenges
What demons or devils will your Characters meet? Do angels or anxieties, temptresses or terrors visit in the wee small hours? Does seduction or sedition compel them to change the situation they are in? What secrets or lies will be disclosed, and what demands or deficits await to be discovered? And, of course, we will thrill as we join our key characters, rising to meet the challenges on their journeys of self discovery and personal evolution!
Resources
What can the Character/s call upon in an hour of need? Who will be on their side, offering support or sympathy? Who will proffer, or withhold, clues, connections or contact?
What skills, experiences or expertise, does your Protagonist already have or will need to call upon? What resources must s/he demand or develop? Is hir partner, hir bank manager, hir former best friend, hir worst enemy the one with just precisely what s/he needs?
Are there more inner resources than s/he realises or admits?
Intelligence
Smart Alec? Beautiful Bimbo? Cold and calculating or intuitively sympathetic? Intellectual? Emotionally authentic? Does s/he know how to deal with people, or is s/he out of touch with humanity?
Intelligence may be intellectual or emotional, spontaneous or calculating. Is your character depriving a village somewhere of an Idiot? Is Mensa keeping a space warm just in case? Is s/he one ball short of a tennis match, or is s/he a match for anyone s/he meets?
Plot
The story itself as it unfolds. This may conform to the 3-act structure, and can be related to the development of the (main) characters i.e the transformational arc of the protagonist.
Act 1 Let's call this the set-up stage. We know the situation, and we may have some idea of the challenges s/he (the protagonist - and the other characters, of courses) will face - clues and hints can be given. We may also know something of the way hir limited resources or intellect will impact on how s/he will or will not handle the challenges ahead.
Act 2, when s/he'd rather retreat to the relative comfort of ignorance or indifference portrayed in the set-up, our Character begins to discover, painfully, reluctantly, intriguingly - if we create interesting enough challenges - that s/he is more (or perhaps less) than s/he imagined. If we skilfully plot hir progress both in story terms and in personal evolution terms, and if the 3 Acts harmonise with the stages of hir personal development, our stories will have greater subtlety and substance, and our Characters will be more real and more rounded.
Act 3 we start to tie up loose ends. Cliffhangers from Acts 1 & 2 are resolved, although there will still be doubts, obstacles, threats, uncertainties. The Character/s discover that they are wiser, warmer, wittier than they imagined. One or other of them saves the world, or hir marriage, or hir dignity.
Our audience will, by this time, either like or dislike our creations. Whether they celebrate because s/he got hir due reward, or seethe because s/he didn't get her just desserts, they are more likely to remember them if we have given them substance as well as surface.
Such is life - and, after all, whose plot is it anyway?
Theme
Every story, real or created, can be made more compelling and convincing with a central theme. In real life, this theme can recognised as a form of 'currency.''
In some families, for example, the currency may be academic success, in others athletic prowess. Physical attraction, public acclaim, notoriety are themes / currencies than can be recognised in real life, as well as in fiction.
Some say there are only 7 basic plots, e.g. boy meets girl, loses girl, gets girl. Or, girl loses her way, finds her way, gets in the way, and so on.
Clarity about the your theme, will enable you to enrich and embellish the story by weaving the theme through various scenes and chapters.
Theme can also echo in snatches of dialogue, be reflected in vibrant images, hidden in subtle metaphors, emphasised by the dynamic tension between characters, and be reinforced in the connecting links between the '3 Acts.'
Remember, the 3-act structure is simply a scaffolding to support the elegant detail of your wonderful creations. It can also help in deciding where to put cliff-hanging moments (e.g. just before the commercial breaks?)
go well MM
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