Screenwriting Advice From The Past: The Kinds Of Stories That Sell [Part 5]

“The amateur must always remember that people go to the motion picture theater to forget their troubles and become young again in a world of heroes and heroines, where everything is as it should be in the end.”

If you are a screenwriter, you should know about Anita Loos. Loos was one of the most influential writers in the early stages of American cinema, associated with 136 film projects per IMDb.

Married to writer John Emerson, the pair wrote one of the first books on screenwriting in 1920: “How to Write Photoplays”. I have been running a weekly series based on the book.

Today: The Kinds Of Stories That Sell [P. 75]:

The amateur must always remember that people go to the motion picture theater to forget their troubles and become young again in a world of heroes and heroines, where everything is as it should be in the end.

Check out this post in which I discussed the work of Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman and the five essential elements of well-being:

P(ositive) emotion
E(ngagement)
R(elationships)
M(eaning)
A(chievement)

Some stories can have enigmatic endings. Some stories can have uncertain endings. Some stories can have downer endings. But most mainstream commercial movies will have happy endings, “where everything is as it should be,” the same today as it was back in 1920.

Tomorrow: More screenwriting advice from the past.

You can read “How to Write Photoplays” via Google books online here.

For the rest of the series articles:

Introduction
Getting Ideas
Conflict and Crisis
Situation
Theme
Star Sympathy
Action: Part 1
Action: Part 2
Action: Part 3
Action: Part 4
Action: Part 5
Story Synopsis
Continuity: Part 1
Continuity: Part 2
The Title
Marketing the Script
Writing for the Camera
Scenery for Scenarios
The Actor’s Angle: Part 1
The Actor’s Angle: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 1
Character On The Screen: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 3
Character On The Screen: Part 4
The “Interest”: Part 1
The “Interest”: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 1
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 3
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 4

Note: I ran this series originally in 2012. Unfortunately, the individual articles got bungled up on the site in some sort of technical snafu. So, I am recovering them one by one in this reprise of the series.