Journal of Screenwriting - Volume 14, Issue 2, 2023

A frequent assumption made in Anglo-American screenwriting manuals asserts that in most, if not all, ‘successful’ screen stories, the protagonist goes through a significant emotional transformation, sometimes referred to as a ‘character arc’. However, many classic, highly profitable and critically acclaimed feature films centre on protagonists who are emotionally ‘constant’, in that they do not appear to emotionally transform. As a result, these otherwise successful narratives have either been omitted from analysis or their analysis has been distorted to fit the orthodox yet vaguely defined understanding of a character arc. In this article, I will outline a new model of character arcs called ‘Arc Analysis’ that, by taking account of both the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ worlds of the protagonist, has the capacity to accurately describe the arcs of emotionally ‘constant’ characters. I will demonstrate the Arc Analysis model using an analysis of Jaws (1975), a highly successful film that, I will argue, features a protagonist who does not emotionally transform and, as a result, is frequently misinterpreted. Furthermore, I will, using the key components of Arc Analysis, propose a new and more precise definition of a character arc.

From an industry and craft perspective, despite the many manuals and ‘how to’ guides, feature film paradigms (notably three- to five-act structures) and character arc frameworks (e.g., the hero’s journey) dominate the discussions of character development in serial TV drama. The work of structure-based industry writers, notably Christopher Booker, Christopher Vogler, Linda Aronson and Craig Batty, focuses on feature films and this article will connect their influential frameworks and analyses with the practice of serial TV drama screenwriting. While there are several key screenwriting manuals specifically for writing television, particularly Pamela Douglas’s Writing the TV Drama Series (2018) and John Yorke’s Into the Woods (2014), these texts only briefly investigate long-form character development, instead focusing on single episodes. Therefore, expanding these ideas and examining the practice of long-form serial drama screenwriting across multiple episodes and seasons is necessary. What this article will arrive at is a new framework for criticism and creative practice: character composition.

This article examines the question, ‘Does increased representation of women in screenplays and film lead to greater box office revenue?’ Employing a data set of 2343 films released between 1960 and 2018, we estimate fixed-effects regression models on North American and ‘international’ box office revenue, using two indicators of female representation: the percentage of female dialogue in a film’s screenplay and the Bechdel test. We account for other variables: inflation, film budget, genre and film runtimes. Our results indicate that including just one conversation between two female characters is associated with approximately 23 per cent higher box office revenue in the North American domestic market and 27 per cent higher box office revenue outside of North America. Not all representation is created equal: quality representation (in contrast to a ‘quantity’ measure of representation) has a more significant relationship with the box office. Contrary to often-stated beliefs that increased representation of women in film results in lower economic returns, our findings indicate that there is a significant economic benefit to increasing female on-screen portrayals.

This research seeks to contribute to knowledge of the structural characteristics and narrative complexity that define the web series format. To do so, we look at the case of Colombia’s prolific web series production, undertaken by professional and amateur producers and promoted by institutional and educational programmes. This research analyses the structure of 26 productions (thirteen professional, thirteen amateur) using a mixed-methods approach and an exploratory-descriptive scope. It uses analytical tools created inspired by narratology. Specifically, it offers data that allow us to develop the definition of web series: characteristics of their plots, characters, aspects of narration (time, mood, voice) and forms of endings. The results indicate that Colombian web series mostly present traditional serialized narrative structures and plot simplicity. They have linear, chronological and elliptical narratives developed in the present tense. They also tend to tell a single narrative, albeit through different stories, and leave open endings. Finally, there are only slight differences in these aspects between the two types of producers. These results, based on a specific geographical and industrial context, contribute to knowledge of web series form and its relationship to conventional serialized fiction.

Review of: Ernest Lehman: The Sweet Smell of Success, Jon Krampner (2022)

Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 396 pp.,

ISBN 978-0-81319-595-7, h/bk, $27.73