Screenwriting 101: Christopher Hampton

“I’m not sure I’ve ever written a film with a traditional structure — I don’t believe in any of those rules for writing screenplays. What that gives you is a formula, and inevitably the result will be formulaic. I’ve always refused to do treatments, but I can do outlines: ‘This happens in this scene, then this happens, then this happens, then this happens.’ That way, you’re liberated within the scene, but you have your milestones along the way. If you do it right, the audience doesn’t feel the presence of a structure — if you’ve done it subtly enough, it won’t impose itself on them. But if you don’t have some kind of structure, they’ll feel there’s something lacking — I mean, I do as an audience. Whenever I think, ‘Well, why wasn’t that as good as I thought it was going to be?’, it generally turns out to be something to do with the structure and the fact that it isn’t properly organized. The foundation and the organization are something that should be invisible, but they’ve got to be there.”

— Christopher Hampton

FilmCraft | Screenwriting, PP. 102–103

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