There’s a debate between character-drive stories and plot-driven stories. Generally, character-driven stories create classics while plot-driven stories just create a lot of action that’s completely forgettable five seconds after you leave the theater. Which type of movie do you want to create? I’m reading an interesting book called “Emotional Structure” by Peter Dunne. What makes […]
The right hero can make your story great. However, the wrong hero can weaken your story dramatically. This is how you pick the right hero. Your goal defines your hero. Pick the goal of your story and that will determine the type of her you need to create. In “Rocky,” the goal is to take […]
Every story is about your hero’s emotional growth. Divide every story into four parts and you get the following plot portions of your story: Part 1 — Introduce the hero and the hero’s problem Part 2 — The hero enters a new world and achieves initial success Part 3 — The hero runs into problems […]
Why do some stories seem to drag while others seem to end without you even realizing how much time has passed? It’s all based on the ticking time bomb theory of story telling. Imagine a man locked in a room. That by itself might be a problem, but if he’s just locked in an office […]
Back in 1986, I got to work as an extra in the film “The Hanoi Hilton.” Spending an entire day on a movie set is a great way to see how Hollywood filmmaking really works. I played an extra (a Vietnamese prison guard) but amazingly, every scene that I saw filmed that day was cut from […]