Audiences empathize with the hero, so whatever experiences the hero goes through, the audience can go through those same emotional ups and downs. One way to keep your audience and your hero going through an emotional roller coaster is to teach your hero a lesson. In the beginning of your story, the hero represents the […]

Once you know your theme, you automatically know the beginning condition of your hero and the ending condition of your hero. Then all you need to do is define what happens in between like this: Act I — hero represents the opposite of your theme Act IIa — hero learns the Mentor’s Lesson that explains […]

What makes parts of your story more memorable is when you make it ironic. Irony occurs when one or more events occur and they relate to each other in a way that further highlights that particular activity. For example, suppose your story has a character who seems fearless and courageous no matter what happens around […]

In 2005, LEGO almost went bankrupt. What saved the company was a line of toys known as Bionicles. One of the Bionicle creators said that the success of the toy series began with the setting of a tropical island topped by a massive volcano. “For me, every fantasy story starts not with the characters but […]

When a movie runs out of surprises, it runs outs of interest. To keep audiences interested in your story, you need to keep them surprised. Now surprises don’t mean random events occurring for no apparent reason. Instead, surprises need to be carefully set up ahead of time and then unleashed at the proper time so […]

Watch many music videos and they typically tell a story of some kind. Some music videos can be vague but many others tell a simple story of a hero pining for a goal, facing obstacles, overcoming those obstacles, and finally achieving the goal. What’s most interesting about such music videos is that they can tell […]

“The Lego Movie” is a huge hit that has a theme about how anyone can be special. When a movie has a strong theme and supports that theme with a compelling story, it usually creates a great movie. When a movie lacks a strong theme and/or creates a faulty story, it usually creates a mediocre […]

There’s a tendency to tell the truth rather than tell a story, and that makes the story suffer as a result. Hollywood makes this mistake in two ways. First, they’ll make a movie based on a book, but follow the book too closely. Second and more common, is that they’ll make a movie based on […]