PLOT
Is how you tell your story.
For a story to achieve maximum catharsis, your protagonist must make choices that cause things to happen
and shift their fortunes, either from bad to good
or good to bad. This chain link of action & reaction in every story beat is what makes a screenplay, a screenplay.
Plot is cause and effect.
It’s the architecture that keeps us on the edge of our
seats wondering: what's going to happen next.
If you aren’t interested in plotting every beat of your story so that it produces a cause and effect chain link from beginning to end, you’re not interested in writing a screenplay.
Pacing ​​
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Pacing is everything in a screenplay. One of the biggest reasons to card your story beats in a clear cause and effect structure is because it keeps the momentum driving forward. A film has a very specific agreement with its audience: I’ll give you my attention for two hours, you must keep me engaged.
I always need to know
what I'm hoping for and what I'm dreading. If I’m not feeling either of those things, the story loses power. Plotting your beats in a chain of cause and effect from beginning to end, ensures your screenplay maintains tension, clarity, and unstoppable pacing.
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WHY
Cards & Cork Board​
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The best way to plot is to step away from the computer. Grab a cork board and a stack of 3×5 index cards. Write each story beat, the incident that pushes the story forward, on a card. One beat per card. Then build outward from what you know.
A story beat is not a scene. A beat is the action that pushes the story forward. If you’re unclear on the difference, book a story consult, we can talk it through in detail. Plotting
is tactile work. It’s not writing.
It’s architecture. It’s math.
It requires your full concentration and it’s absolutely worth it.
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HOW
Practice ​
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If you’ve never plotted this way before, you won’t master it on the first try, and that’s okay. This is difficult work. Remember: dialogue does not go on a card. Scene description does not go on a card. A card should only contain the incident, the thing that happens that changes your character's fortunes.
Learning to identify incidents takes practice. One of the best ways to train this muscle is to watch a film and write the cards you imagine were on that story’s plotting board. It helps you distill events from scenes. I share examples of this process on my Instagram page: amanda.moresco.wxs​​​
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TIPS
Choose Your Route for the Plotting Phase
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Download and print the Plotting worksheets from the Brainstorming PDF in your Starter Kit. Use pencil, scribble freely, and let yourself think on paper without pressure.​
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NOTEBOOK
Get the 16 Step Brainstorming Notebook
in a full-page, full-color, coil-bound format, designed for creative scribbling and unplugged exploration, on the go, anywhere. Purchase just the notebook, or the Starter Kit includes a discount code.
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FINAL DRAFT (coming soon)
Open the “Templates” tab inside Final Draft to find the Plot worksheets in plain text format. While digital brainstorming can work, I highly recommend carding on index cards first, then transferring your insights into Final Draft. This solidifies your decisions before you move deeper into the 16 Steps.
A Peek Inside Story
Inside the Notebook
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Notebook Exclusive: The Aristotle's Poetics Cheat Sheet. A breakdown of the 7 most important concepts screenwriters need to understand in Poetics.
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Inside Final Draft