When the Formula Shows Its Hand

A question that I’d parked in the back of my mind finally demanded my attention: why is the only script I’ve written that strictly follows a prescribed structure the only one that’s gone nowhere in screenwriting contests? Not even a quarterfinalist nod.

It’s a serial killer script called Misidentity. And it does exactly what serial killer scripts are meant to do. The structure is solid. The escalation works. Information lands where it’s supposed to. The story moves forward without friction toward an ending that feels inevitable, but surprising.

I wrote the script under the guidance of a screenwriting coach, working in ten-page sequences designed to make the three-act structure manageable. The method is sound: break the story into functional units, know what each section must accomplish, build accordingly.

I’ve been writing and analyzing film and television for nearly thirty years. Structure isn’t something I consciously wrestle with. It’s embedded. The real skill lies in making it invisible.

What made this script different was that the formula never disappeared.

Every week, I knew where I was supposed to be on the page. What the turn was. What the next ten pages were required to deliver. I wasn’t discovering the story so much as fulfilling its obligations.

That changed the writing experience.

Here’s what you might not expect. I wrote the script for Austin Butler after seeing Elvis, which is why I initially treated the serial killer as the protagonist. But the more serial killer films I studied, and there are fewer than you might think, the clearer it became that seeing him too early would collapse the tension. He had to arrive in an unsuspecting way. My focus shifted to the other side of the story: making my "Clarice" iconic. And because of the cause of the killer’s pathology, he also had to be sympathetic. That moral discomfort was the point. It’s why I didn’t kill him in the end.

Developing an intriguing premise, the possibility that the victim may also be a murderer, inside a framework that continually announced its own mechanics flattened something essential. Once I recognized that, my mindset shifted. I stopped thinking like a dramatist and started thinking like a strategist.

How do I sustain mystery? What obstacles realistically slow an investigation? How do I frame victims so they appear deserving through the killer’s eyes, without endorsing that logic?

All of it was smart. All of it worked. And all of it was plot-first rather than character-led.

Looking back, I see the script as shaped by formula before intuition, by execution before discovery. I also see how being perpetually aware of what was supposed to happen drained the process of surprise.

Not for the audience. For me.

That’s why I don’t let formula lead my best work anymore.

Structure is essential, but only once it’s been absorbed deeply enough to disappear. When the seams show, the work starts to feel executed rather than inevitable. And inevitability, not correctness, is what gives a story authority.

The job isn’t to reject structure. It’s to internalize it so completely that the story can breathe.