It's the Story, Stupid.

• Author: Kurtz, Steve
• Position: Review

Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman, New York: Pantheon Books, 485 pages, $26.95

Hollywood spends a lot of time trying to figure out The Formula--the way to tell a story guaranteed to entertain an audience. I don't know what the big deal is: The French playwright Eugene Scribe discovered it over 150 years ago. During an amazingly successful 50year career, Scribe churned out 374 theatrical pieces, almost all of which followed the same storytelling rules. Basically, the hero should find himself in more and more difficult situations as the story unfolds. Near the end, there should be peripeteia (a reversal of fortune during which the hero hits his lowest point) followed by a sc[grave{e}]ne [grave{a}] faire (the moment all the action has been leading up to, where the hero's luck changes and he triumphs over his enemy).

Unfortunately, this sort of formula fell into disrepute in the 20th century and these secrets were left to decay, with a few writers stumbling on them in each new generation. Top screenwriter William Goldman has discovered-and rediscovered-some of the rules of storytelling, and he spreads the gospel in his latest work, Which Lie Did I Tell? The book is wide-ranging but always returns to the main message, repeated on the last page: "After writing movies for thirty-five years I am more convinced than ever it's only about story." It's only about story: That slogan summarizes both the book's virtues and its one sizable flaw. While many of the best and most popular American films follow Goldman's precepts, he writes as if his narrow, big-budget Hollywood aesthetic is universal. This can cut out the high-a pause in the story for a moment of beauty, or a deeper look into a character-and the low-pure silliness, or an outrageous gag put in not because it fits but because it's fun. But the high-pressure, multimillion- dollar movie business is Goldman's milieu, and these hard-earned lessons have served him well there. They should probably serve others, too.

Of course, Goldman notes, there are two parts to getting a story on the screen. Writing well is only half the game. One must also get around the obstacles-fearful producers, power-mad directors, egotistical stars-who will either reject your script or change it beyond recognition. (Producers, directors, and stars, needless to say, have a different take on just who drags down quality, but this is a writer's book.) Therefore, Goldman spends as much time detailing phone calls and meetings and shoots as he does analyzing screenplays: If you want to succeed, you have to know about both.

But I'm getting...