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| Preface | |
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| Introduction: The Action-Idea | |
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| Let's Start at the Very Beginning, Middle, and End | |
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| Why You Want Your Movie to Be a Bomb! | |
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| The Subject Is an Action ... Not a Person | |
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| Forget Sub-plotting--the Best Plots Have One-Track Minds | |
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| Plot Is Soul | |
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| The Ends Are Always in the Means of the Plot | |
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| Why Is My Beautiful Plot Growing a Hand Out of Its Head? | |
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| The Four Species of Plot | |
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| What the Poetics Says About Epics Like Lord of the Rings | |
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| Destiny Is an Accident Waiting to Happen | |
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| Keep It in the Family ... The Tragic Deed | |
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| Oops! I Caused My Own Undeserved Misfortune Again | |
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| How a Little Moralizing Turned a Gladiator Gore Fest into a Best Picture | |
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| A Movie Is Long Enough, So It Ends Happy or Sad | |
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| If You're Happy and You Know It ... Time for a Reversal of Fortune and Discovery | |
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| "It Scared Me Because I Saw It Coming" ... The Rolls Royce of Complex Plots | |
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| The Devil Is in the Realistic Details of the Plot of Angel Heart | |
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| Whatever Causes the Action Better Be Up There on the Screen | |
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| A Movie Gave You a Bad Case of Pity and Fear? The Doctor Recommends a Catharsis | |
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| Action Speaks Louder Than Words, and Together They Can Speak Volumes! | |
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| The Perfect Hollywood Sad/Happy Plot versus the Perfect Poetics Sad Plot | |
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| Move Your Audience by Teaching Them What They Already Know | |
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| The Good, the Bad, and the Intermediate Hero | |
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| It's the Thought Behind the Action That Counts: Creating the Tone of Your Screenplay | |
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| How to Cheat If You Can't Hire a Whole Chorus | |
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| How to Create Characters That Are Really Really Really Alive | |
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| Dialog Is a Piece of the Action | |
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| If the Pitch Doesn't Fill Me with Horror and Pity, the Movie Won't Either | |
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| The Non-Linear Soul of Quentin Tarantino | |
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| If Your Story Were a Musical, Where Would the Numbers Be? | |
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| History Repeats Itself ... Real and Imagined | |
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| Aristotle's Take on the Importance of Drama | |
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| Aristotle Took Comedy Seriously | |
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| Closing Comments | |