Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters: Storytelling Secrets From the Greatest Mind in Western Civilization

I received the book very quickly and in very good condition. The book itself is insanely repetitive, but that says more about the author than the seller

I've read a lot of these screen writing books now and this is one that is worth reading. I wouldn't put it up there with Story or The Art of Dramatic Writing but there's some useful information in it and it clarifies what I've already learned from other books by explaining it from a different angle.

The only downside to it is the very confusing chapter - The Perfect Hollywood Sad/Happy Plot Versus the Perfect Poetics Sad Plot. It seems to contradict itself and despite reading it over and over again, it's still not making any sense.

It seems to say that good guys mustn't have sad endings; bad guys mustn't have happy endings; really bad guys mustn't have happy endings. It then goes on to say that the best plots are when good guys have sad endings. How is this not contradicting itself. It then goes on to give an example that seems irrelevant to the point and then the chapter just ends hanging in the middle of nowhere.

If anyone can explain this to me I'd be grateful. But on all in all the book is one of the better books of this type.

Having taught Aristotle's Poetics for many years at the college and university level, it is refreshing to read an "improvised" commentary on this foundational lecture on structural and dramatic theory. It can be a flawed interpretation of the Poetics to dismiss the importance of the sacred 1-2-3 structural patterns in sonnets, dramatic poems, dramatic vignettes, epic poetry, stage plays, screenplays, short-short stories, short stories, novellas, and novels. Aristotle used examples of playwrights and poets, who adhered to these precise breaks. It is almost impossible to find an exception to the rule among the literary classics.

For the record, the Prologue has three parts; Act I, three scenes; Act II, three scenes; Act III, three scenes; and the Epilogue has three parts. There are three dominate parallelisms for professional writers throughout the world: the 1-2, the 1-2-3, and the 1-2-3 & 4. Of these three, the 1-2-3 parallelism or pattern is dominant. To be honest, I never used a commentary on the Poetics when teaching theory and application (from this text); we read directly from the textbook, compared Aristotle's structural theory to the classics in front of us, and pinpointed the breaks; this was done in order to study the ascendancy of the crescendo through the two minor climaxes, right up to the major climax; thus, creating the "moment in time" for the unravelling of the plot into the denouement, followed by the decrescendo (structured within the Epilogue). Artists labor long and hard on that fine-tuned crescendo.

Reference the works of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles; and the works of Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare. Reference the artistic works by poets and writers throughout the Latin-based languages throughout the world (that's 20 languages right there); and that's just for starters. That includes virtually every professional screenplay from 1925 to 1960; their treatments indicated the breaks in the Prologue, Act I, Act II, Act II, and Epilogue with storyboard precision, script delineation, and "blocking" efficiency for the director, the production team, the script supervisor, the producer (who studied the structural breaks in terms of financing the production), so on.

This book was very informative. It provided detailed examples for each point the author made. If you are interested in the craft of screenplays, I would recommend this book for you.

I'm not a screenwriter and have no interest in being one. However, I was hopeful that Tierno's book really WOULD offer "storytelling secrets" that would help me as I work on a project of rewriting the manuscript of my most recent chronological, scholarly, nonfiction book to better incorporate "story arc," "character arc," and/or "ACTION-IDEA" models.

Unfortunately, my need and the aims of Tierno's book just didn't mesh well. The "secrets" conveyed seemed a bit too theoretical to be of practical help. Thus, my manuscript on the collision at sea and sinking of a troopship during World War I that took the lives of more than 400 men is still left "dead in the water."

Instead of an easy read, I found that the only way I could get through Tierno's book was to have the book and my laptop in front of me and, then -- after reading a few paragraphs of his discussion of an excerpt from Aristotles's book -- to then rewrite the concept in my own words. It's slow going and very distracting; so, if you're trying to focus on practical applications for a current project, this isn't the book for you.

Instead, this book is probably best used as a supplemental text for an advanced screenwriting class. A class that can incorporate an exploration of the genius of Aristotle's dramatic philosophy to present-day screenwriting and filmmaking.

It's a narrow niche book, but full of gems for advanced screenwriters with time on their hands to apply Aristotle's ideas to develop their own philosophy of filmmaking. Discussions focus on how to best use the theories to: plot a screenplay; develop the action; lay out the destiny of the main character through reversal of fortune and discovery; and to add a dose of pity and fear to move the audience emotionally through the plot and character arcs to to bring moviegoers to a psychological catharsis.

For film buffs, an additional value of the book is to see Aristotle's theories applied to: "The Godfather"; "Dead Poets Society"; "Rocky"; "American Beauty"; "The Breakfast Club"; "The Terminator"; "Rosemary's Baby"; "Gladiator"; and, "The Blair Witch Project."

R. Neil Scott
Middle Tennessee State University