The Inner Game of Screenwriting: 20 Winning Story Forms by Sandy Frank (review)

The title of Sandy Frank's The Inner Game of Screenwriting evokes W. Timothy Gallwey's classic sports volume The Inner Game of Tennis and its subsequent variations, which coach the reader to elicit peak athletic performance. But if the reader of Frank's book expects a similar coaching experience for the screenwriter, he or she will be disappointed.

The "inner game" Frank discusses in his volume is basically what others refer to as a "character arc." A more accurate title might be "The Inner Workings of Screenplay Characters." Frank's basic premise is that a screenplay has an "outer game"—the plot—and an "inner game," which is "what the main character goes through internally and how he changes" (10). If this insight seems rather slight to occupy 155 pages, be assured that Frank takes us through many variations of the inner game that he calls "morph archetypes." The most common is the "evolution"—a character with a flaw at the beginning of the screenplay overcomes it by the end. Next is "devolution"—a character succumbs to his or her flaw. Then there is "staying the course"—a flawless character resists the temptation to succumb to a flaw. Beyond these are "unsuccessful evolution," "fall & revival," "evolve & maintain," "staying the course with a pop," "apparent evolution," and "apparent devolution." (In the book, Frank capitalizes these terms.)

In addition, Frank details the "myth archetypes"—"monster," "nice monster," "run away," "wrong monster," "killed by the monster," "Cinderella," "Sherlock Holmes," "Oz," "Sleeping Beauty," and "quest." The difference between the morphs and the myths is that in the myths, there is only an outer game, not an inner one—the characters do not change. However, in order for a screenplay to qualify as a myth, "the Outer Game must symbolize the Inner Game" (53). For example, the monster represents egocentrism, and in killing the monster, the screenwriter is killing the human flaw of egocentrism. If this is not complicated enough, Frank notes that "a clever screenwriter can create something unique" if he or she uses the various archetypes in combination (37).

In order to help the writer come up with good characters, Frank introduces the use of the "enneagram"—the nine types of characters by which all human beings can be classified. Along the way, Frank cites various films to bolster his argument, often resorting to box office receipts to identify successful films (those that followed his scheme) and unsuccessful ones (those that did not). Frank thus constructs very complicated machinery, and it grinds and sputters readily under the weight of self-contradiction and inconsistency.

On page 10, the inner game is defined as change within the main character, except for when it is a character "other than the main character" who changes (28), or unless the screenplay is of the "stay the course" type (30), or unless it is a "myth archetype" (53-75), except for the "Oz" myth archetype, in which a character can undergo a realization (68) (although the "realization" is a morph we should "stay away from" [83]), or unless the myth archetype or archetypes are combined with morphs (140-41).

The morph archetypes are the "psychological/ emotional issues" within the character (26), in contrast to myth archetypes, which are defined as "stories" (53). On pages 67 and 73, they are both referred to as "stories." The book frequently refers to character flaws, but in some places change is discussed in terms of "unhealthy" and "healthy" states, and none of these terms are defined. After discussing the way the inner game is played out symbolically in myth archetypes (53), the phrase "symbolic message" is introduced (59) without explanation.

Five times during the course of the book, Frank reminds us, in bold face, "A relentless focus on the Inner Game is the key to writing a successful screenplay." He concedes, though, in chapters 16 ("Subverting the Model") and 15 ("Sometimes the Outer Game Is Enough") that this is not always true. He sees...