The Difference Between Mostly Dead and All Dead
The First Draft: Steps 16-18
The Princess Bride is beloved for a million reasons, and deservedly so. Just for the quotability alone, it deserves to be in your Top 50. And, although it sings on all levels, its the script, written by William Goldman (Oscar winner for Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men) that provides the foundation for such satisfying cinema.
Since I’ve been talking about the 8 sequence method in The First Draft series, I. thought I’d grab an example of a movie that follows it perfectly. Each sequence in The Princess Bride correlates to what we’re doing right now in the outlining process.
Today we’re going to get into sequences 5 and 6 aka the back half of Act 2, so I thought I’d show you part of sequence 6 for The Princess Bride - Westley’s resurrection.
The back half of Act 2 is hard to write but when done well, it will bring you such amazing story beats as this from Princess Bride:
And, so, let us continue on in our outlining journey…
