Give Every Scene A Goal
Goals, goals, goals. They’re what makes a screenplay tick. Without goals, a script feels aimless, lifeless and ultimately not worth reading. And that goes not just for the protagonist’s overall goal that they have to accomplish by the screenplay’s end, but for every individual scene.
It is important not to forget that every scene in your script (except maybe transitional or denouement scenes) should have a strong goal.
Just like the overall goal, act goal, or sequence goal, scene goals are important because they are the foundation of conflict. Once your protagonist has a goal in a scene, it’s only natural to give him an antagonist who wants the exact opposite. And there you have your conflict and exciting “page turner” scenes that will drive your screenplay forward.
Over the next couple of posts we’re going to take a look at some actual scenes from popular films and analyze their goals. You’ll see that even when characters appear to be just randomly chatting, there is a goal, a protagonist and an antagonist at work beneath the surface.
So, let’s get started with the master of goal driven ordinary conversations—Quentin Tarantino.
Reservoir Dogs — The Tipping Scene
Right at the start of the film, the eight Dogs are sat in a café. Meal over, they all throw down a tip, except for Mr. Pink…
Protagonist—NICE GUY EDDIE
Goal—to get MR. PINK to tip
Antagonist—MR. PINK
Goal—not to tip
NICE GUY EDDIE: Okay, everybody cough up green for the little lady.
Everybody whips out a buck, and throws it on the table. Everybody, that is, except Mr. Pink.
NICE GUY EDDIE: C’mon, throw in a buck.
MR. PINK: Uh, uh. I don’t tip.
NICE GUY EDDIE: You don’t tip?
MR. PINK: I don’t believe in it.
NICE GUY EDDIE: You don’t believe in tipping?
MR. BLUE: Do you have any idea what these chicks make? They make shit.
MR. PINK: Don’t give me that. She don’t make enough money, she can quit.
Everybody laughs.
NICE GUY EDDIE: I don’t even know a Jew who’d have the balls to say that. So let’s get this straight. You never ever tip?
MR. PINK: I don’t tip because society says I gotta. I tip when somebody deserves a tip. When somebody really puts forth an effort, they deserve a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, that shit’s for the birds. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just doin their job.
MR. BLUE: Our girl was nice.
MR. PINK: She was okay. She didn’t do anything special.
MR. BLUE: What’s something special, take ya in the back and suck your dick?
They all laugh.
NICE GUY EDDIE: I’d go over twelve percent for that.
And so on, until Joe returns to the table and forces Mr. Pink to throw in a buck. Go back and read the scene in full and you’ll see that it follows the exact conventions of three act structure based on the goal of getting Mr. Pink to tip. Then, go back and look at every scene in your script. Is there a protagonist? (not necessarily the hero of the film) Do they have a goal? Is there an antagonist who wants the exact opposite to that goal?
In our next post on scene goals we’ll break down a scene from There’s Something About Mary.
