What to Include in Your Screenplay’s Setup

by Naomi Write + Co. in screenwriting

Let’s talk about how much you’re trying to fit into that screenplay setup.

You may be trying to do too much and not even realize it. More isn’t necessarily better, and an overstuffed setup can hurt your screenplay just as much as one that’s too thin. In both cases the audience is left unprepared and unable to really “get” the story you’re about to tell them.

Fortunately, knowing what to include in the setup is easier than you think.

What exactly is the setup?

To clarify, by “setup” I’m talking about that section of script from page 1 to the Inciting Incident. (You might also call it Sequence 1.) It’s about 10-15 pages in total.

The Inciting Incident is the first major plot event and it kicks things into motion. After that happens, the cause-and-effect chain gives you some guidance as you’re trying to figure out what happens in the rest of the script.

But there isn’t much guidance out there about what actually needs to happen in the setup. “At home, at work, and at play” can be a helpful prompt, but it’s not always what a setup needs.

Without a clear target to hit, writers often err on the side of overpacking. They spend time (and pages) establishing as many different aspects of their protagonist and his normal world as they can, hoping that it’s enough.

Ironically, it ends up being both too much and not enough.

Because the setup isn’t as formless or wide open as it seems. It actually has some pretty specific points it needs to hit.

Two things to set up in the screenplay’s setup

The two specific things the setup needs to do are:

1. 1. 1. Provide context for the character arc
      2. Provide context for the Inciting Incident

As I mentioned in this post about clarity vs. confusion, the audience expects relevant information. Whatever you put in the screenplay, the audience will try to make sense of it. To understand how and why it’s relevant, what it means.

When you throw in everything and the kitchen sink, you obscure what’s relevant. It’s hard for the audience to grasp exactly what you’re trying to convey because there’s too much irrelevant stuff clouding the picture.

In the setup, the information provided to the audience (in the form of the scenes that you include) should focus on establishing those two specific areas. That’s your guide to crafting an effective set up.

1. Create context for the character arc

Instead of packing the setup with everything your audience could possibly know about your protagonist, choose with care. What we need to know is what’s important about the character as is relevant to this particular story.

A screenplay or movie is usually the story of one character’s transformation. So we need context to establish who they are before the transformative experience. The starting point you show us helps us understand what’s happening when we see the transformation occur.

What they want in the beginning of the story and how they go about getting it show us who they are before the transformational experience. This creates a yardstick for us to measure change. Either what they want or how they go about getting it (and possibly both) will likely change by the end of the story, as a result of the events of the story.

2. Create context for the Inciting Incident

The Inciting Incident kicks the story into motion. The way it does that is by creating a situation where the protagonist must take action. If they don’t have to take action, there’s no “why now” – it hasn’t really started the story.

So the relevant information we need in the setup is whatever will help us understand why the protagonist has to take action when that Inciting Incident drops into their life.

What does The Proposal set up?

In The Proposal, protagonist Margaret is a high-powered book editor. Her character arc is set up by showing us that when we meet her, before the transformative experience, she is concerned with only her own needs and desires.

Margaret is alone – no family, no friends, not even a friendly colleague. Because she’s only focused on herself, she’s demanding of those who work under her and all too happy to trample over anyone in her way. Work is the most important thing to her – and it’s the only thing she has in her life.

These traits are consistently and firmly established in the setup, which shows us the starting point of Margaret’s character arc and why the Inciting Incident will compel her to action.

At the Inciting Incident, Margaret learns she’s being deported (she’s Canadian), and that means she’ll lose her job. Since the setup shows us just how important Margaret’s job is to her (it’s the only thing she has), when the Inciting Incident threatens it we understand immediately that this is a situation she absolutely cannot ignore.

Is your setup trying to do too much?

If you watch The Proposal, take note of the set up and exactly how much of those first ten minutes are focused on establishing the two key areas:

1. 1. 1. Context for the character arc
      2. Context for the Inciting Incident

The Proposal has a second significant character to set up, too (the Ryan Reynolds assistant / love interest), but even with that you can see that our attention is overwhelmingly kept on Margaret and the context described above.

In most cases, we want to spend as little time as possible in the setup on anything that doesn’t contribute to the context we need to understand the two key areas. If you’re trying to figure out what your screenplay’s setup needs to include, let that be your starting point and guide.