Excellent point. When I started taking classes on screenwriting, EVERY book detailed the format and structure ABOVE all else. Day in, day out.

Then when it was time to review a great screenplay - the teachers would ALWAYS use the ones that were different, and unique and broke many of the rules.

It's like they knew what they were teaching was off, but they couldn't help themselves.

Humans like to reverse engineer things - it's how many of us learn. But a toaster is not a novel. Dismantled, you can see generally how a toaster works. Torn into little pieces, the novel does not reveal its secrets. It was always the way the author looked at the world and any given situation within it, then molds her words around that.

Simple! (I wish 😁)

Good article.