Tim Aucoin Screenwriter

Story Structure Breakdown: Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino, a non-linear, darkly comic, noire masterpiece that officially made QT a household name and a legend. This breakdown is going to be tricky, as the standard structure is there, it’s just in a different order. It’s three character journey’s: Jules, Vincent and Butch. Jules’s bookends the film, with Vincent and Butch’s in the middle, each with their own structure and told in linear order. The last act is Jules’s journey, even though chronologically the story ended when Butch drove off on Zed’s chopper. It seems confusing at first, but when you really break it down, as I’m about to, it’s not. I’m going to use WORLD STRUCTURE for the overall story, indicated below in bold titles, and CHARACTER STRUCTURE for each journey, indicated in brackets. And keep in mind this is just MY INTERPRETATION of the structure of Pulp Fiction using my own method that's a simpler version of Save The Cat. But maybe I’m totally wrong and you may have a completely different viewpoint. I’ll be using my Simple Screenplay Structure method to breaking it down, which I use for all my structure breakdowns. But enough rambling, let’s get this twisty-ass structure broken down, so get some Scooby snacks and settle in this is gonna be a long one!