If you’ve been around writing and writers for some time, you’ve probably heard the TV phrase: “Breaking a story.”
(Not the same as in journalism, where “breaking a story” is being the first to publish or broadcast a piece of news!)
On the most basic level breaking a story means outlining: brainstorming and writing down the whole story (the script, the episode, and/or the whole season or series) from beginning to end, pretty much scene by scene.
That’s not a hard concept to grasp— and yet there’s a lot of confusion about what “breaking a story” really means and why we call it that.
I think it’s a fantastically valuable term and concept for novelists to incorporate into their process.
Craig and I are breaking a new book right now, so this post is as much for me as for any of you, to remind me how illuminating and necessary this process is!
So let’s talk about how to break your book!
First, what exactly do TV writers mean by breaking a story?
If you ask twelve different showrunners (the writer/producer who is in charge of the writing and management of a TV show), or TV writers or film writers, to define breaking a story, you will get twelve different explanations, and twelve different ways that the writers of each showrunner’s room go about breaking a story. It’s a general and widely used process in the film and television business— but it’s also very personalized from writer to writer.
And I think it’s really useful to look at a range of those definitions—because each new one adds to your understanding of what creating a story looks like and feels like. Chances are at least one of them will inspire you and help get your own book or script cooking for spring!
When you’re stuck or uninspired, sometimes looking at your process through a different lens can be really freeing.
So let’s go over some of the terminology and analogies that writers use.
Besides outlining, breaking a story can mean creating a beat sheet, which is a version of a scene-by-scene outline, or writing a treatment—which is a much more detailed (often 40-60 pages) prose version of an outline (Screenwriters used to get paid quite well for those as a separate step of our contract! Those were the days….)
For me, outlining is not a very helpful guiding concept. It reminds me too much of high school essays. It’s useful, for sure—but what we’re doing is much more dynamic, right?
A treatment is an incredibly useful document to write if you’re working with an editor, writing coach, critique partner or beta readers, because while an outline is really quite hard for an outside person to read, much less offer up useful notes on, it’s much easier for an outside reader to read, grasp and provide notes on a treatment. So if you’re looking for early feedback on your story, a treatment is a really good way to go.
(A bit of an aside - I know some writers who outline their books on a spreadsheet. My one rule of writing is WHATEVER WORKS — but I have to say the very thought of working on a spreadsheet for any reason makes me want to sleep for a week!)
I’ve also heard a story breakdown called a story map or a story blueprint. It’s the structure of the story, the diagram of the story. I like those terms a lot better than outlining because at least they give the process a visual analogy. But it’s still not enough.
Some writers explain the term “breaking story” as coming from the construction industry: that it’s the equivalent of breaking ground on a building or other construction site.
I’ve heard one writer explain that breaking a story is like breaking a horse: taking a story and taming it, training it.
Another showrunner says it’s like breaking a story open, to see everything that’s inside.
Of those last three, I agree most with the last: breaking a story open. But that’s me! One of the others might click more for you.
Are you starting to get the picture? It’s a very malleable term! In fact it might be useful to just stop for a minute and write out what you think it means – what specific imagery it conjures for you. Could be illuminating!
For decades now, since I first started working as a screenwriter, breaking a script to me has meant plotting the whole story out with index cards and a story grid.
It’s that method that I use for my own writing and teach here for plotting a novel.
So first you’re breaking out the story into scenes - all those scenes you already have floating around in your head — by writing them on Index Cards. As you do that, other scenes will spark and start coalesce around each other. It’s a far faster process than you would ever think, and I need to remind you all every few months to at least try it!
And then you break those scenes up into Acts and Sequences, which I do and teach with a Story Structure Grid:
I’ve worked with a lot of OG screenwriters and TV writers, and I’ve never heard a definitive explanation of why it’s called breaking a story. But personally I’d bet a whole lot of money that it originally comes from the idea of writing cliffhangers for the end of sequences and acts (the blue scenes in the photo above)—to accommodate the interruption of commercial breaks. It’s a history that is extremely useful for you to understand and which I detail here:
Chapter 5 of Stealing Hollywood and Writing Love
In fact, Act Break is a common term for Act Climaxes or Plot Points, and sometimes you’ll hear TV writers and film writers say “Break Into 2” (meaning Act II) and “Break into 3” (meaning Act III) to describe those Act Climaxes.
No matter what else the definition of breaking a story is, in a professional writers’ room it will always include these Act Breaks or Climaxes. If you’re fairly new here, you’ll want to check out the extensive posts and videos I’ve made on those elements of structure, and the story breakdowns that show how those Climaxes work.
You may have noticed that a lot of the examples and analogies I’ve referenced in this post are very concrete images, and just that solidity may be useful to you. I think using analogies to describe your writing process helps you to define and develop a process that you can rely on to always end up as a finished book (or script). That kind of certainty and confidence in your process is gold!
And if you’re a pantser, and “plotting” is a trigger word for you, then thinking of the process as “breaking a story” or “breaking your book” could be a way of incorporating the faster writing and deeper meaning that plotting accomplishes— without freaking you out with that dreaded P word.
TV writers don’t just break the structure of a story. They’ll break out CHARACTER ARCS for every main character in the story. They’ll break THEMATIC ARCS. They’ll pay close attention to the overall WORLD of the story, thinking of the location as a character unto itself, and detailing look and feel the different worlds they want to portray. (I’ll talk again about the concept of writing in these layers, soon!).
You can brainstorm that on a piece of paper, or you can create a whole chart on your wall of these different arcs. For me, the bigger and more tactile the better. It’s way more fun!
Another thing that is useful to take from the TV writers’ room is that the writers of a show don’t just break individual scripts. First they break the entire season of a show – all the major plot points and character arcs of every episode. And very often they will break several seasons, even (or especially!) to the final scene of the final episodes. The creators of some of the very best television ever made - like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Succession — all knew their end games far in advance of filming. And those of us who write series very well might want to do our own version of that, too.
I hope that I’ve given you some ideas to play around with to expand your process of story brainstorming. It’s been a long winter, but that dark, dozy season always incubates tons of great ideas. Now it’s time for our creativity to wake up and put those deep dreams into action.
And I’m interested to hear. Do you have or have you heard a different explanation of what it means to break a story?
Let me know!
Alex
Why subscribe?
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors is a reader-supported publication. Please consider contributing to this work by becoming a free or paid subscriber!
Subscribe to the Screenwriting Tricks for Authors YouTube channel
for fifteen minute doses of craft to elevate your writing right now!
Likes, Comments and Shares are really helpful and much appreciated.
Get the workbooks:
Stealing Hollywood ebook, $3.99, also available as print workbook
Writing Love ebook, $2.99
Need more help? The Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop is available online, as a self-paced course with all the videos, assignments, movie breakdowns and personalized feedback you need to get that book written next year. In three parts, and you only pay for what you use.
One-on-one coaching also available in The Writers’ Room.
All material © Alexandra Sokoloff, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
I was going to bookmark this to go back to read later but I started reading and couldn't stop. All of your posts are extremely helpful and I, for one, am grateful to you for taking the time to share your knowledge with us.