Turn Any Story into a Screenplay: 12 Stages of Linear Storytelling

Once you have developed a solid story idea, the next crucial step is translating it into a screenplay. Before worrying about formatting or scriptwriting software, you need to decide how your narrative will unfold.

Generally, storytelling falls into two primary structures:

• Linear Structure: The story progresses chronologically from start to finish—beginning, middle, and end. Examples include The Shawshank Redemption and Gladiator. This approach is clear, engaging, and easy for an audience to follow emotionally.
• Non-Linear Structure: The timeline is fractured or shuffled, using out-of-order sequences, flashbacks, or framing devices. Examples include Pulp Fiction, Memento, and Inception. While this offers immense creative freedom, it requires careful execution so the viewer doesn’t get lost.

If you choose a traditional linear narrative, the classic 12-element Hero’s Journey (popularized by Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler) serves as the ultimate blueprint to pace your plot.

The 12 Key Elements of a Linear Screenplay

1. Ordinary World

Introduce your protagonist in their daily routine. Establish who they are, what they care about, and the baseline normal life they inhabit before conflict strikes.

Example: In The Matrix, Thomas Anderson lives a mundane, weary life as a software programmer by day and an illicit computer hacker by night.

2. Call to Adventure

An inciting incident disrupts the protagonist’s status quo, presenting a challenge, danger, or quest that shatters their comfort zone.

Example: Neo receives a cryptic message on his computer telling him to “Follow the white rabbit,” leading him to meet Trinity.

3. Refusal of the Call

Hesitation sets in. Out of fear, doubt, or perceived inadequacy, the protagonist hesitates or attempts to retreat back into the safety of their old life.

Example: In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker initially turns down Obi-Wan Kenobi’s offer to accompany him to Alderaan, claiming he has obligations on his uncle’s moisture farm.

4. Meeting the Mentor

The protagonist meets an experienced figure—or finds a key lesson or tool—that provides guidance, training, or the wisdom required to face the journey ahead.

Example: Morpheus trains Neo in the simulation, opening his eyes to the truth of the simulated world and helping him realize his latent power.

5. Crossing the First Threshold

The point of no return. The protagonist takes a deliberate action to leave their old world behind and step into an unfamiliar, challenging landscape.

Example: Neo chooses to swallow the red pill rather than the blue pill, permanently disconnecting from the Matrix.

6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies

Now inside this high-stakes environment, the protagonist learns the rules of engagement. They encounter new allies, face emerging adversaries, and have their skills tested repeatedly.

Example: In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo teams up with Aragorn and the Fellowship while navigating constant ambushes from the Nazgûl and Orcs.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave

Preparation for the story’s central confrontation. The protagonist and their allies reach the threshold of the primary source of danger, where stakes reach their highest point yet.

Example: In The Matrix, Neo and Trinity heavily arm themselves and storm the heavily guarded government building to rescue a captive Morpheus.

8. The Ordeal

The central life-or-death crisis. The hero faces an existential threat, suffers an immense blow, and must undergo a major transformation or sacrifice to survive.

Example: Neo is cornered in the hallway and gunned down by Agent Smith, facing literal death before his belief and powers fully awaken to resurrect him as “The One.”

Note on Tragic Endings vs. Triumphant Endings:

In stories centered on ultimate sacrifice or tragedy (such as Gladiator, where Maximus succumbs to his wounds after slaying Commodus), the narrative effectively reaches its climax and wraps up around Stage 8. However, if your protagonist survives to continue living in the world, the journey progresses through the remaining four steps:

9. Reward (Seizing the Sword)

Having survived the ordeal, the protagonist claims the ultimate prize—whether that means acquiring a vital weapon, reclaiming their freedom, or mastering an inner power.

Example: Neo sees the Matrix for what it truly is—pure green cascading code—and gains total control over its reality, easily dispatching Agent Smith.

10. The Road Back

The protagonist begins the process of returning to normal existence, but lingering complications and remaining threats chase them as they try to exit the conflict.

Example: In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, with Sauron destroyed, the Hobbits must make the long, reflective journey back across Middle-earth toward the Shire.

11. Resurrection

The ultimate trial that tests whether the hero’s internal change is permanent. The stakes are raised one final time to prove they have shed their old self once and for all.

Example: In Spider-Man (2002), Peter Parker faces the Green Goblin’s cruel dilemma of saving either Mary Jane or the tram car full of children, proving he can shoulder the ultimate burden of responsibility.

12. Return with the Elixir

The protagonist returns home or steps into a new baseline reality, forever transformed. They bring back knowledge, hope, or safety to share with the wider world.

Example: At the end of The Matrix, Neo places a phone call to the machines warning them that he is going to show humanity a world free of their control, before soaring into the sky.

What to Do Next

Map your story idea against these 12 beats. Identify when your character is pushed out of their normal reality, how their challenges escalate, and what final choice delivers the emotional payoff. Once that framework is locked in, you have a solid foundation to begin writing individual scenes and dialogue.