14 BEATS MADE SIMPLE

14 Beats Made Simple is a Narrative Story Arc process that is my own construct of using 14 to beats over 3-Acts to make up a storyline that works!

There are other ways of determining 'story': Shakespeare used a 5-Act structure, there are nine Acts ... but my experience is that it all actually fits into a 3-Act structure in the end. There are also 24 Beat structures, ten even or 18. This one works for me.  

It stems from a time when I was trying to find answers to my own personal writing journey. These four things influenced this 14-Beat Structure:

1. I bumped into an old thespian colleague of mine Gavin Hood around 2002 (two years before he won his Oscar!). He told me about this amazing online screenwriting course with one of his mentors. He swore by it, so I did the course. And yes! It was brilliant! A lot of my foundation stems from this.
2. Next I worked at one of the leading film colleges in South Africa, which seriously influenced my writing world. I drew a lot of courage, confidence, and expertise working with multiple students from multiple different cultures. 
3. Various different government departments shaped my history in screenwriting over time ... including being a classifier for a lengthy period. An ideal job! Watching films for a living, analyzing them, then writing reports about them. Sadly, the term of office was only three years which rolled over for another three, then I left but with stored knowledge.
4. Finally, many years later when I had already written my book: Strike Up! Structure Your First Film, I found myself teaching Screenwriting inside one of the most lethal prisons in our country. I used my 14 Beat system to assist my offender students to understand the progression of film language and it worked like a dream! Incarcerated students were not only from multiple cultures but multiple levels of engagement and education. My 14 beat system worked so well I decided to compile the information into these courses! 

Recently we have shot several of those students (now released) works; and people are commenting 'how did you manage to do this'. Well this course is what shaped much of their journeys into film which was a new language to all of them at the time. 

So unravel your puzzle! If they can do it - so can you!

Writing blessings