Imagine watching a movie where two rocks are fighting each other, but because they’re actual rocks and not animated rocks, the two rocks just sit there expressing no emotion whatsoever. Would you want to watch two rocks fighting if neither shows any human type emotions? Stories work best when they end with a conclusive, exciting […]
The ending of any movie must be the finale that provides a satisfying conclusion. If the movie is great but the ending is disappointing, the entire movie will be disappointing. To make an ending satisfying, you must keep raising the stakes. Imagine watching someone walk across a tightrope that’s on the ground. If he falls, […]
The biggest mistake many movies make is that they focus solely on the action, yet that’s the least satisfying part of any story. Every story is really about a hero achieving an emotional goal, not a physical goal. The purpose of the physical goal is to give the hero a path to achieving the emotional […]
The best way to create suspense is to give a character a huge problem. Instead of solving this problem right away, the character tries to avoid dealing with the problem. Now the question is when will this problem become too big to avoid any longer and what will happen when others find out? That’s the […]
When most people get an idea for a story, they often rush into writing it, which typically creates a sloppy, poorly structured story that requires massive rewriting to fix. Other times people may take their time to create an outline, but that’s often too slow. Even worse, your outline will likely be incomplete, which can […]
What’s most fascinating about meeting someone new is that you gradually learn who they are, how they think, and what events may have shaped their lives. On the flip side, the most boring way to introduce a character in a story is to let us learn everything about that character right up front. For minor […]
What makes any story more interesting is conflict. There’s always conflict between the hero and the villain but you can’t have the hero and the villain constantly battle because that fight needs to occur at the end. One common technique is to have henchmen of the villain constantly attack the hero, but another technique is […]
Every story is about a promise, and that promise must be delivered at least once in each Act. In “Star Wars,” the finale is about a big battle in space (blowing up the Death Star) while the beginning foreshadows that ending by showing a smaller version of a space battle where Darth Vader’s spaceship boards […]
What holds people’s interest is a mystery and the best way to create a mystery is to hide a character’s motivation. Instead, show the character’s actions and make it a mystery as to why the character behaves that way. Then as the story gradually progresses, you reveal hints of the character’s motivation until the real […]
MSN lists 28 of the biggest box office bombs of 2016. If you browse through this list, you’ll see that most of these bombs tried substituting A-list stars and special effects in lieu of an actually interesting story, which is a guaranteed recipe for constant and consistent failure. One of the more consistent bombs is “Allegiant,” […]