The simplest way to understand story structure is to study children’s stories, since this makes it easy to see how a story works. To see how to keep an audience’s attention, study “The Hardy Boys” series of books, aimed at 10-14 year old boys. Young boys are easily distracted, so to grab their attention, you […]

What gets a movie going and keeps it going are goals. Your hero needs a big goal that drives your story forward, but he (or she) also needs smaller goals to keep the story moving. Think of the last bad movie you saw recently (“Jonah Hex” and The Last Airbender” come to mind). One characteristic […]

It’s easy to see why bad movies flop. It’s usually because the story is dull, confusing, or so unrealistic that nobody can take it seriously, even in a spirit of fun. However, it’s harder to understand why well-written movies flop. The Coen Brothers tend to write excellent screenplays, but the success of their movies has […]

What’s the difference between a great movie and a good one? With a good movie, you remain detached and unemotionally involved. With a great movie, you’re living the adventure along with the characters. The recent World Cup tournament highlights how important it is to care about the hero of any story. For most Americans, the […]

Trying to write an entire two hour, 120-page screenplay is a daunting task, so the secret is to break it into more manageable parts. A typical two hour movie runs 120 pages in a screenplay.The first step is to divide those 120 pages into four Acts: Act I: Exposition (30 pages) Act IIa: Positive Rising […]