I think words like "arc" and "journey" were developed by studio people just so they wouldn't feel intimidated by dramatists. Sorta like the way various enthic groups periodically change what they want to be called just to unsettle the majority (It's always been baffling to me why the terms African-American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American...which let's face it, are mouthfuls...apply to people who were not born in any of these countries and may have never even seen them. I do not call myself a Scot-Irish-Dutch American. Does Panni call herself a Hungarian-American? Geography is not a racial description).
End of mini-rant. Back to main rant. I think a bunch of studio executives and writing gurus...who rarely, if ever, made a living actually writing...invented these terms because they had no actual literary or dramatic skills and found themselves getting lost in notes sessions with people who actually did have literary/dramatic skills...namely writers.
The one that grates on me is "backstory". Whenever I hear it, I like to say..."Oh, you mean all that stuff that happened to the characters before our story actually begins and all that information we need to know to understand what is about to unfold on the stage. Yes, in the theatre, we call that 'exposition.' It's a big word, I know, and a lot harder to remember and say than 'backstory'. But that's what it's called. "
What's worse is all these executives take their Syd Field course or some other guru and come back with a bunch of guidelines for amateurs that they fiercely embrace as the Word come down from the Mount.
I actually had an executive once tell me, "All our first acts end on page forty-two." "How odd," I replied, "Because my first acts end wherever they naturally need to end in the service of the piece of drama. Each piece is different. I've had first acts end on page thirty, or page fifty, occasionally even page sixty. As I usually like a long set-up and each following act to escalate so that by the time you get to the third act, you're going hell-bent-fer-leather and not stopping for anything...in a 120 page script, I say they usually go...fifty-forty-thirty. But nothing's hard and fast and each script is different. Sometimes I write a four-act script or a five-act script like Shakespeare. But the truth is, I don't write to acts at all...but I can show you where they all are when I'm through...so why page 42?"
As I further pressed him and he could find no adequate dramaturgical answer (I wouldn't accept: "They just do."), it came out that this number had been culled from some guru book. A guideline for amateurs.
The fact is I just don't even think of all those terms I learned as a drama student...exposition, inciting incident, rising and falling action, climax, denouement (terms you rarely hear in a Hollywood notes session). I learned all this stuff at the time, it's ingrained or forgotten or has been absorbed by omosis, and I just write with an instinctive dramatist's eye anymore. Is it too much? Is it too little? Does it accomplish what I need and want it to do? Does it cover all its bases? Does it play? The worst thing about dealing with these people is that they do not understand that everything must be geared toward performance. Does it play? When you put it up on it's feet, does it compell and entertain?
