Screenplays

So I'm writing a screenplay. I know. I never thought I'd see the day. And I'm pretty sure there are other other people who are more surprised than I am. And then there are some people who are grateful that I'm finally venturing into an area of writing that could possibly offer a large paycheck. Although I'm convinced that a steady stream of royalties from plays is in the long run more lucrative that lump sum movie script sales. But that's just me being the turle, trying to win the race at my own pace. Well at least it's not the rat race and I'm not a race (for a key to this reference, google search Lily Tomlin rat race). Anyway, screenplays. So I bought the screenplay writing book. You know the one about saving the cat. And he says that pages 12 through 25 (I would amend this be pages 13-14, because specific things happen on 12 and 25). He says that pages 12-25 are "The Debate", where the Hero (or anti-hero) tries to decide whether or not to pursue the call to duty. In any case, the way he quickly writes about it sounds like the writer is supposed to vamp for 12 pages so that the end of act 1 happens on page 25. But that the contents of 12-25 don't really matter that much. I'd like to argue this. 13 pages is a lot of pages of screenplay. If the screenplay is only 110 pages long that's 12% of the screenplay. You can't waste that much time! The story will die. Now what do I propose these 13 pages contain? Well I think the hero needs to find the real reason to fight the fight. Not just the reason he should fight, but the reason he personally wants to fight for. Like in my case, the main character he should solve the case against his supervisor's instructions because the bad guys need to be brought down. Yeah, well what does that mean to him? Bubkis! That's right. It don't mean shit. But he should solve the case because this beautiful woman needs his help to find her daughter and the only way to find her is to bring down the evil do-ers. I think that sounds good. Much better than this so called expert. Anyway, that's my 4 cents (inflation you know)!