Jeff Kitchen - 7/21/07
July 21, 2007
Jeff Kitchen on “Using Reverse Cause and Effect to Create a Tight Plot”
by Sylvia Cary*
On Saturday July 21, 2007, the Scriptwriters Network was proud to present screenwriter/consultant, Jeff Kitchen, who taught a two-hour class on the "Using Reverse Cause and Effect," a remarkable way of creating a tight plot by working backwards from the ending to the beginning. According to the press release publicizing the event, “This class will help you to construct a script from the general to the specific, stitching everything together with cause and effect as you apply it first to the overall script, then to each act, to each sequence, and to each scene.” Kitchen illustrated the process with a structural analysis of the popular movie, TRAINING DAY.
Jeff Kitchen: “You want good cause and effect in a story. Plot point A causes B causes C. One way to do this is to work backwards. How do you actually do this? Start out by asking, ‘What is the object of the script?’ In other words, where do you want the story to end? The object on the horizon is where to you want to end up. Ask yourself, ‘What’s the point’? You need clarity about the object of the story. In THE GODFATHER, the object is for Michael to obtain power and lose his soul. That’s the writer’s objective, not the actor’s objective. So what you want to know is, ‘What’s the final effect that generates that on screen?’ You have to stage a scene that demonstrates that Michael obtains total power and loses his soul in the process. The scene that so beautifully illustrates this is the one in which Michael deliberately, and literally, shuts the door in Kay’s face”.
“Reverse engineering is a tool that helps separates necessary from unnecessary. It’s the first step of a three-step process that I teach. You can’t really apply this until you have your story figured out. You start with the ending. You’ve got to have some kind of handle on your story first. You are asking, ‘What is the cause of that effect, not just what came before it.’ Things that come before may not have caused it. Picking up your dry cleaning may be a scene that comes before a murder scene, but it doesn’t cause the murder. Separating the unnecessary from the necessary is a challenge for the writer. The work of the amateur is often characterized by the unnecessary scenes and dialogue: In fact your whole screenplay may be unnecessary! Aristotle said: ‘If you can take something out and it doesn’t change anything, it wasn’t necessary.’ ”
“This tool is used a number of different times in a script in different ways. First, use it on the script as a whole on the big picture. As you start to stitch your story in terms of cause and effect, you may realize ‘Gee, I don’t have a cause for that,’ so you start inventing what could cause X to happen and think about the details of the act. If the big picture doesn’t work, the details don’t work. You’ve got to get the macro. Again, quoting Aristotle: ‘In constructing the plot, the writer should first sketch in the general outline, then fill in the details.’ It’s like building a skyscraper: beams first; then worry about the wallpaper in the bathroom on the 10th floor. This tool gives you the ability to get the big picture right; see the forest for the trees; see the spine of the story. It gives you a sense of whether your story is working or not. It’s easy to bark up the wrong tree when you’re writing your screenplay, until you hit the brick wall on page 50 when you figure out that it doesn’t work and can’t work, and you’ve painted yourself into a corner.
So, first get the big picture, then sketch in the acts, and then, starting at the end, work your way back through the acts. You may not have everything figured out when you start to use this tool. Once you do it for an act, then you can divide the act into sequences for more detail; and then the sequences can be divided into segments with more detail. This is a lot of work. When you break the script down into acts, first you reverse engineer Act 1, then 2, then 3. Strip your script down to its basic elements, even if it’s a complex script. Again, we’re not talking about ‘what came before,’ but about what caused each action to happen. This tool helps you get to the spine of your material. It’s easier to be hypnotized by your own material and all the ‘great stuff’ you’ve got in your script.
“The way you work this tool is you look at it and say, ‘Where are the Act Breaks?’ Separate out an act, and go back and deal with details. The object is: ‘Where do you want it to end up? (as in THE GODFATHER example). Then, ‘What do you want to achieve by the end of Act II? How do you actually stage it? And how do you demonstrate it on stage with real actors?’”
Kitchen went on to illustrate the “reverse cause and effect” process with a fascinating structural analysis of the movie TRAINING DAY, followed by an interactive exercise with the audience aimed at developing a story on the spot to show them how to use this tool on their own screenplays. He ended with an important reminder that when it comes to screenwriting, no one technique fits all. “This is just one structural tool to add to your quiver as a screenwriter,” he said.
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Jeff Kitchen is a working screenwriter who was classically trained as a playwright and worked as a dramaturg in New York theater. He’s a top screenwriting teacher, a sought-after script consultant, and the author of Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting. Development. Executives consistently say that he teaches the most advanced development tools in the film industry. His website is www.DevelopmentHeaven.com
Sylvia Cary, MFT, licensed psychotherapist and writer, is Director of Marketing for the Scriptwriters Network and a long-time member. She has published four books; has a script under option, and has a “book-doctor” called Therapists Who Write Editorial which focuses on helping healing professionals get published. Contact at: SCary@scriptwritersnetwork.org or go to www.TherapistsWhoWrite.com.