There’s a big difference between showing an audience something and getting them intellectually and emotionally involved. Bad movies just show an audience different scenes like car crashes and explosions, and hope lots of action will make up for the lack of a coherent story line. Good movies get an audience involved and one way to […]
A well constructed story works because all the pieces fit together. When studios throw additional writers on a project, each writer tends to pick and choose what to keep and toss out, resulting in a jumbled mess that makes no sense and provides no coherent structure. To create a well crafted story, you need to […]
The hero of any movie never succeeds based on his or her own desires. Instead, there’s always an outside motivation to push forward and succeed. Every hero begins with a character flaw or some kind. Throughout the movie, the hero succeeds to the midpoint where he or she achieves a False Victory. In “Star Wars,” […]
Most screenwriting books have it wrong. The story isn’t about your hero pursuing a goal and overcoming obstacles. Your story is really about your villain. The standard screenwriting book says that you should pick a hero and give him or her a goal to pursue, overcoming obstacles in the way. The problem with this approach […]
Every story is a learning process for the hero. The point of every story is for the hero (and the audience) to learn something important about life. Without this ah-ha moment, your story risks feeling flat. At the simplest level, every story is a lesson in disguise. People tell stories to illustrate a point and […]
Nothing keeps an audience glued to their seats than a deadline. If the villain ties a lady to the railroad tracks, there’s no suspense until we see a train approaching. Now we want to know what will happen and we know we’ll be rewarded soon. Every story needs a deadline. Without a deadline, your story […]