Selling a complex structure. By Simon Beaufoy

As you will all know I'm a big fan of using unusual and intriguing structures for more stories. This can cause concern in some readers / producers / agents / experts. And I can understand that concern. The question that is raised is; 'will the audience follow this'.

So I was very interested in what Slumdog Millionaire scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy said, that he had the same concern. Particularly around the flashback structure.

His overall message was; "Don't underestimate the audience. They can follow complex structured better than you think." There was in fact some test screenings that specifically tested whether people could follow the plot. They could, of course.
However he did need to take a step back from his original structure of the questions being a different order that caused us to jump back and forward in time.

So what do we take from that? Be bold. But not stupid maybe.