In the world of fiction, writers are always urged to “show,” not “tell.” Showing lets the reader experience action through the thoughts and feelings of a character. Telling simply has the narrator explain what’s going on, completely empty of any emotion. This is how to “tell” a story: Bob knew the area well. He once […]
Every story has a hero, but no hero can survive without a mentor and an ally. The mentor helps the hero grow into a better person while the ally helps the hero survive in a new world. Then the hero turns around and helps the ally. If you want to create a weak story, have […]
The easiest way to write a bad screenplay is to start writing with no advance planning. This will guarantee you’ll write about 50 pages before running out of ideas. The simplest way to write a good screenplay is to plan your story in advance and one feature of story planning involves creating something from the […]
In every great story, you’re really telling one story using multiple characters. In every bad story, you wind up telling different stories with multiple characters. The end result in a bad story is that by telling so many unrelated stories, no single story stands out and the overall story becomes a mess. In “Wonder Woman,” […]
One of the biggest problems with Hollywood is that they try to play it “safe.” Unfortunately, Hollywood’s idea of playing it “safe” is to do one or more of the following: Use existing stories or characters from other entertainment fields (books, video games, cartoons, etc.) Reboot old movies (“Superman,” Terminator Genisys”) Recycle old TV shows […]
Watch a good superhero movie and you’ll notice that despite having all these super powers, the hero is always the underdogs. That’s the way stories work. In ordinary stories like “Rocky” or “Die Hard,” the hero may have special skills, but the villain is always more powerful. In superhero movies, that’s no different. In “Iron […]
The end of your story must be the final climactic battle between the hero and villain. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a massive action sequence with explosions and special effects. Instead, the climactic battle must be a do-or-die moment for the hero. If the hero fails, his or her life will be wrecked forever. […]
The hero must always face a threat and the best way to alert the audience to this threat is to show this threat early in this tory. In “Platoon,” the hero is a new soldier arriving in Vietnam along with another new recruit. They immediately get caught in a firefight where the hero dies but […]