Preface -- Introduction: American Screenwriting Today -- Section One: Principles of Movie Storytelling -- The Origins of Story, Part One: Evolution, Storytelling, and Selective Advantage -- The Origins of Story, Part Two: Written Culture, Ring Compositions, and the Principle of Parallelism -- The Skeleton of a Story: Internal Story Logic -- Putting Flesh on a Story's Bones: Narration and Pleasure in the Telling of the Tale -- Keeping the Story Flowing: Narrative Economy and Screenplay Format -- Modeling Movie Structure: The 'W' Model of Story Structure -- Alternative Approaches to Scripting -- Revision: What Have We Learned in this Chapter? -- Section Two: Case Studies -- Act One: First Down Angle (Recognition) -- Act Two: From Avoidance to Commitment -- Act Two: First Up Angle (Avoidance) -- Act Two: Second Down Angle (Commitment) -- Act Three: Second Up Angle (Resolution) -- How to Train Your Dragon as a Ring -- Let the Right One In as a Ring -- Winter's Bone as a Ring -- Section Three: Screenwriting, A Critical Glossary -- Part One: Screenplay -- Part Two: Development -- Part Three: The Screenwriting Industry -- Part Four: Story Structure -- Part Five: Character Development -- Conclusion -- Index |