The Irish don't need anyone to tell them how to write; we all have the gift of the gab, and for everything else there's the weekend script seminar, right? A working script editor begs to differ.

What is drama?

Is it a character's self-realisation leading to action and redemption?

Is it achieved by looking into what is in your character's head and what's in her heart? Is it looking for surprises in your characters – complexity? Finding each main character's problem, the issue they have to deal with during the story. Making sure that your characters – especially your female characters – are not just a collection of traits which, demonstrated in the first ten minutes, simply repeat themselves. Is it plotting out each character's story – their journey? Is it any of these – or all of them?

There's the 'Find your Theme' school, then looking for the character/s who evoke sympathy for the other side of that theme or themes. Seeing if there's a well developed dialectic in your story. Or is it getting the audience always to ask – to care – to want to know – what happens next? Suspense through your creating of hopes and fears within the audience.

How is drama made? Do you find the main points in your story and make sure each Act has dramatic structure? That structure is often: The inception of the conflict – The Crisis – The Climax and Resolution/Twist. And within that structure you should have rising action – crescendo – the feeling that the Sequence (SQ) or Act is building towards a point of greater tension/importance. Otherwise, you risk anti-climax, which is rarely dramatic.

The Crisis in Act 1 often leads to the protagonist's decision to take up the challenge – the Act's Climax – which locks the character into what the story will be for the rest of the film, posing the dramatic question – the unifying tension for Act 2. 'Will Joe Buck make it as a stud in the big city?' (Midnight Cowboy); 'will Sidney Falco be able to split up the relationship between Susan Hunsecker and the musician Steve?' (The Sweet Smell of Success).

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 107.