[spb_text_block pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] Everybody Wants Some: Structure Without Structure - Part 2 By Jacob Krueger [/spb_text_block] [divider type="standard" text="Go to top" full_width="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] [spb_text_block title="Everybody Wants Some: Structure Without Structure - Part 2" pb_margin_bottom="no" pb_border_bottom="no" width="1/1" el_position="first last"] In Part 1 of this podcast, we discussed the structural elements that allow Everybody Wants Some to overcome the challenges of its meandering plot and nearly total subversion of every rule of screenwriting. But there are other reasons, beyond structure, Everybody Wants Some succeeds, in spite of its complete disregard for the rules. And whether you’re a traditional Hollywood writer, or a rule defying auteur like Richard Linklater, they’re concepts you can use to great effect in your own writing.   As we discussed, the first thing that makes Everybody Wants Some succeed is that the characters all want something: everybody wants some.   The second thing that makes Everybody Wants Some work is the specificity of the approach Linklater takes to every moment we spend with each of these characters. From the first moment we meet these characters, there is no detail unobserved in this film. There is no detail unobserved in who these characters are. Linklater locks in each character from the very first moment, using a powerful screenwriting technique called Vignettes. If you’ve taken my screenwriting classes, you know how vital Vignettes are when introducing characters, and how they can become the organic building blocks of structure as you discover your character’s journey. So as you watch Everybody Wants Some or reflect on it if you’ve already seen it, notice how each of these characters is introduced with a Vignette: an action, a choice, a decision, something they do that is so specifically them, that it locks them in our minds forever. And this is why Linklater is able to get away with this cast of dozens, and let us feel like we know each and every one of them.   If you listened to my podcast on Inside Out, you probably remember me talking about how a team of therapists had been consulted on the development of the script, and were upset that all the many, many, many different core emotions they had identified for the writers had been boiled down to only five. And this brilliant guy at Pixar pointed out that there is no way we can serve 21 or 17 or 30 different emotions. We’ve got to’ boil it down to five. We can serve about five characters well. And that is the rule; that's what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to boil it down to five main characters, one main character at the center of all that, because that's all we’re supposed to be able to do. And yet, here's a movie with at least a dozen major characters and we feel like we know every single one of them. In fact we could never confuse one for another, not even the little ones who barely have a role. And that all begins with Vignettes. That begins by letting your character do something in a way that demonstrates a unique “how,” something about them that is just different from everybody else. Once you create that first Vignette, it becomes so easy to write the character, because all you have to do the next time we meet them is ask yourself a very simple question:   Are they doing something similar, or something very different from what they did the last time we met them?   In this way, we start to reveal the patterns about the characters. We start to reveal the dominant trait of the characters, who they really are. And, we start to appreciate if and how the characters start to change.   And this is the next rule that Everybody Wants Some breaks. None of these characters seem to change at all. These characters are who they are from beginning to end. So why does it work?   Well,