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Spotlight & The Big Short: The Difference Between Plot & Structure

By Jacob Krueger

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This week we’re going to be looking at two Oscar Winners, Spotlight and The Big Short. And we’re going to be looking at them not only as good screenplays, but as examples of very different kinds of screenplays. We’re going to be looking at them in terms of the difference between plot and structure.

The concepts of plot and structure are ideas that get mixed up all the time.  They are words that are often used interchangeably, but that in my opinion actually mean very different things.

I like to think of plot as the crap that happens in your movie, or for that matter in your life.  And I like to think of structure as the choices a character makes in relation to that plot.  The choices that change their lives forever.  Plot is the stuff that happens, but structure is your character’s change.

And if you think about your own life, you’ll probably realize that the difference between plot and structure matters to you as well.  You’ve probably met the person who gets a hangnail and it destroys their whole day.  And you’ve probably also met the person who gets cancer and gets a whole new lease on life.

You have probably met the person who finds beauty in the most horrible situations and the person who creates horror into the most beautiful ones.

And this is the exciting thing about the difference between plot and structure.  Plot, as much as we obsess about it, is pretty much interchangeable.  We spend so much time as writers, and in our daily lives, thinking about plot, worrying about what happens next, what happens next, what happens next, that we forget to think about what it all really means.  We forget that what really matters is not just what happens, but what the we do in relationship to what happens.  And how we allow that to bring meaning and change to our lives.

Having said that, I want to start with a script that flies right in the face of all that.  A script that focuses mainly on plot rather than structure. And that script is Spotlight.  

The fact that Spotlight won best picture is kind of amazing, because in many ways Spotlight is just a procedural script.

It’s a very good script, but essentially it’s built like an episode of Law & Order.  It’s built like a procedural.  And what do I mean when I say procedural?  

I mean you’re essentially just watching a bunch of newspaper people do what they do to try to achieve their goal. The truth is the characterization is not very deep in the script. The actors are all such wonderful actors, that they make you feel like they are fully fledged, fully alive people that you care about. But that’s the actors. There is very little character development in the script itself.  

It’s primarily a procedural script: this happened, then this happened, then this happened…. Just like Law & Order: We interrogated this person and they lead us to this person and then we caught this person and then he was tried…

If you think about the emotional issues that any of these characters in Spotlight are dealing with, you’ll realize pretty quickly, we don’t really know. How does Michael Keaton’s character, or any of these characters, for that matter, change? We don’t really know.

So how does a procedural script win best-picture? Part of it is because Academy members have some very interesting nominating and judging preferences. But the other part is because the film is really compelling. The subject matter is interesting and engaging, and extraordinarily well crafted.

So what made it so engaging when it didn’t do 90% of what a movie is supposed to do?

As you know well if you’ve ever taken one of my screenwriting classes, what a movie is supposed to do, what structure is supposed to do, is not what Spotlight did. Similarly for another recent Academy Award winning film, Argo. What a successful film is supposed to do is not what Argo did.

Which shows you how good the craft of these writers is. In other words, these writers are using mostly craft, mostly smoke and mirrors to make nothing seem like something. To make a bunch of plot, procedural stuff, seem engaging.

And how do they do it?

Goals. Just plain old simple goals. And if you think of the plot of Spotlight, most of the goals don’t even end up mattering. “We have to get this document attached to this other document.” Which ends up not mattering because the judge ends up giving them the documents anyway. “We have to prove that there are 13 priests. No we have to prove that there are 90 priests.” Which also ends up not really mattering, because the judge ends up giving them the documents anyway.  

But what happens is there is such clear goals at every point, all these little goals give the feeling of structure. And each of those goals is hard to achieve. The characters are given wonderful moments to rail against the goals, to fight with each other about how to achieve the goals “we have to go public now” “we have to go public later!”

When really what’s happening is the characters are mostly being bandied about by plot.

So, as a screenwriter, you can use this to your advantage.

The first thing you can do to use this to your advantage is to realize everybody is full of shit. When it comes to what’s supposed to happen in art, everyone is full of shit, including me. Because I spend four weeks of every class, and countless podcasts telling my students that a movie is supposed to be a story of a character who changes. That you’re supposed to build your movie around your character and what they want and how they try to get it. That your character is supposed to go through a huge profound change that’s emotional and not just plot based.

I just finished telling you all that stuff and now I will tell you that I loved Spotlight. I didn’t think it was the best film of the year, but I loved Spotlight. I thought it was extremely successful.

So the first thing to recognize is that when it comes down to it, there are no rules for what we’re doing. That screenwriting is both a craft and an art.  And that a screenplay can be successful even if it doesn’t reach the platonic ideal of what a screenplay is supposed to be.

It’s just that if you don’t give yourself the underpinning of character based structure, you have to be so frickin’ good. You have to be so skillful.

The Harlem Globetrotters aren’t actually playing basketball, but they’re just so skillful that it just doesn’t matter.

It just takes a really long time to develop that kind of craft.

So the first thing I want you to remember is that when you listen to this podcast, or when you study with me or one of my faculty in a screenwriting class, we’re dealing with the things that are most valuable. We’re dealing with the things, that if you learn these things, they can take you almost anywhere.

But it’s also important to realize that everybody is full of shit.

The real question we want to be asking is not “what’s the best way to tell a story in movie form” but “what’s the best way to tell this story in movie form.”

Now if they had found an organic, character based structure for Spotlight, to undergird the procedural elements, I think it would have been an even better movie. Because you do have the raw materials to do it.

If I wanted to build that kind of structure, I would have started by looking at that Michael Keaton character. And they almost do it, at the very end when you find out what his secret is. They almost get there, but they don’t quite nail it. I’m trying not to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it that’s why I’m trying to be vague, but if you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about.

The reveal of his secret doesn’t land emotionally, it only lands intellectually. You’re like “Oh wow, that wasn’t what I expected.” But it doesn’t land in your heart. And the reason you don’t feel it in your heart is because of the focus on the procedural, rather than the emotional story.  Because it isn’t built into the character’s journey, it isn’t built into the structure. He isn’t making decisions based on that secret. He isn’t making bad decisions based on that secret.

I want to contrast this approach with that of another movie I really love; the winner of this year’s Best Screenplay: The Big Short. And what’s brilliant about The Big Short is that it is also a movie that is primarily based on plot. And the plot is the most boring plot you could write about. We are literally writing a plot about trading. What the characters do in this film is trade.

The only thing more more boring than that (in the wrong hands) is the story of a bunch of characters gathering information (which is essentially the plot of Spotlight if you take away the brilliant craft that makes it successful).

Which proves that, in the right hands, absolutely anything could be a movie.  A good lesson to learn if you’re wondering if your idea is good enough.

To make it even harder, every character in The Big Short is a total, raging narcissist. There is not a single character in that movie who you would want to have lunch with.

Remember the first introduction to Steve Carell’s character? He shows up late for his support group, talking on his phone, interrupts someone in the middle of pouring out their soul, takes over the conversation, talks only about himself and then just leaves. Isn’t that a great vignette!

Even if you haven’t seen the movie you get him.

But the difference between The Big Short and Spotlight is not just these great vignettes that are used to introduce each character. The big difference is the way that this screenplay builds its structure not just around the procedural elements, not just around the plot, but also around these character’s emotional journeys.

If you put a bad actor, or even just an average actor, in Spotlight, that movie doesn’t win best picture, that movie doesn’t even get nominated. Because in that film, the actors had to provide the emotional structure themselves, finding the arc of their characters through their performances.

Why does The Big Short work? Not just because of the compelling and disturbing subject matter. Not just because of the craft of the writers and the actors.  But also because of the art.

Because you are watching Steve Carell’s character’s journey. You are watching a guy who may be a total narcissist, but who is also the victim of his job. You’re watching a guy who to survive in his industry, has learned to think of people like they are numbers.

And do you see the difference between that and Spotlight?

Spotlight is about a bunch of really good reporters who are good at getting information. And they get good information.

Do you see the difference? One is based on structure, and one is based on plot.

Steve Carell’s journey is not to short the American economy, that’s the plot. His journey is to actually talk to his wife, to actually become vulnerable, to actually deal with the death of his brother, and to actually recognize that he thought about his brother like a number, not like a person, just like he’s done with everyone else in his life.

Do you see how that whole structure grows organically from that very first vignette, which has nothing to do with the plot?  Which grows exclusively out of character.  Do you see how that one carefully observed moment, and the way the structure grows from it,  gives meaning to everything that happens in the movie.

The reason that The Big Short doesn’t just hit you intellectually, but also hits you in the gut, is because the plot is built around Steve Carell’s change. The plot is built around this extraordinary journey that Steve Carell’s character takes.

Do you see how that journey mirrors the problem of the stock market? How that journey mirrors the problem of corporations in America? Do you see how that journey mirrors the problem and the answer to ‘how did we get here?’

And do you see how that ties in thematically with the journeys of all the other characters as well?

Everyone remembers that killer line from Brad Pitt’s character, when he tells the young traders how for every 1 percent unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die.  

In the theatre where I was watching, the audience literally gasped at that moment. Because like the young traders he’s scolding, we’ve gotten caught up in the goal of shorting the economy, and forgotten what that goal actually means for America.  We’ve gotten caught up in the plot, and forgotten about the structure.  

And that’s why that moment stops us in our tracks, and stops them in their tracks, making both characters, and audience, question what they really value.  

Do you see the difference between a movie that’s built around character and a movie that’s built around plot?

If you build a movie around a character, you can screw up almost everything else and we will still care. We will still care because we are all characters. We are all people who want to change. We all want to go on a journey. That is something that is built into our lives and gives us structure on a primal level.

If you’re building only around plot, first, your plot better be as disturbing as the Catholic Church hiding a huge pedophillia epidemic. But also your craft has to be so perfect. Because if your craft isn’t that good, that professional, nobody is going to care. Because though they’ll understand your movie, they’re not going to feel it.  They’re not going to connect to it. If you’re working only with plot, you’re only working with the intellectual part of the mind. You’re ignoring everything underneath.  

Now, if your craft is good enough, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you base your screenplay around character or plot, because both of them come back to the same thing: this simple idea of goals.

The Big Short works because we understand the character’s goals. Each of these characters, in their own unique and very specific way, is trying to short the US economy, and that is a hard thing to do. Spotlight works because every character, in their own unique way, is trying to expose this church scandal, and that is a very hard thing to do. And when we set those clear specific goals, everything becomes easier.

Which means the real question of how to proceed as a writer comes down to your goals.  Who do you want to be as a writer. Do you want to be the craftsperson, who tells the story of what happened, and like a fine carpenter, hones each piece of the plot together till the seams don’t show. Or do you want to be the artist, who builds from the organic, emotional and primal material of character, taking your audience, your characters, and yourself on a journey that changes them forever.

I believe the best writers manage to do a mixture of the two, weaving plot and structure effortlessly together, learning to access their primal connections to their characters at the same time they build their craft, their skills, and their knowledge of structure.

As those of you who have studied with me know, I like to think of this as a three-pronged approach to writing: art, craft and structure, the fusion of the three skill sets that every writer must build.

In our classes, we’ve broken this down into three approaches. And I’d encourage you to break this down in the same way for yourself, so that you know where to put your focus as you build upon your strengths, and also as you address your weaknesses as a writer.

At one pole, we teach the art of writing in our Meditative Writing classes, focusing not on product, but exclusively on artistic process, the ways in which you can connect to your characters, your instincts, and your best writing on the primal, visceral level.  

At the other pole, in our Craft Intensives, we put our artistic goals aside, and instead focus exclusively on craft: developing the muscles we need to get our very best writing on the page. We learn new tools, and practice using them, building dexterity until they become integrated in our process.

And finally, in my Write Your Screenplay class, we have the fusion of the two, the melding of art, and craft into 7 Act Structure, building organically from character to fuse plot and instinct, the what happens to the character journey.

But regardless of what approach you take, the important thing to remember is that while craft takes years to develop, art is something you can do right now, simply by setting goals, not only for characters, but also for yourself, that allow you to follow your instincts, and take yourself on a journey that changes you forever.

Do that, and you’ll start to realize that your writing, and your life, start to be about a lot more than plot. That they also start to develop meaning.

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