Once you’ve defined the basic plot of your story, the next step is to dig deeper and define the emotional story behind the plot. When people come up with a story idea, they often create a vague, abstract concept that hints of a conflict and unusual situation, but lacks an actual emotional goal. Every story […]
Everyone has a great idea for a story. Often that great idea is a vague, abstract concept such as “What if one man had to fight against an army of terrorists while trapped in a skyscraper?” (“Die Hard”) “What if the world had been wiped out by blind creatures that hunt you by sound?” (“A […]
Watch bad movies and you’ll notice that they always have a potentially interesting premise. In “The Layover,” a movie that’s gotten a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the story is about two women competing for the attention of a single man that they meet when their flight is delayed and they’re stuck at a hotel […]
Every story consists of two parts. First, there’s the visual, physical story that captures everyone’s attention such as “a man must fight against an army of terrorists alone while trapped in a skyscraper” (“Die Hard”) or “a woman must survive the sinking of the Titanic” (“Titanic”). Unfortunately, if you limit your screenplay to just this […]
Every story is about the past and fixing the problems of that past, even if we don’t see that past. In “Rocky,” Rocky has a lifetime of being a second-rate boxer, but we only get a glimpse of this when we see him fighting in a dingy gym and see him working for a mob […]
The whole purpose of a story is to see who wins in the end, the hero or the villain. That’s why it’s crucial for the hero and villain to have mutually conflicting goals. if one wins, the other loses. That forces them to fight to the death for their goals. In “Die Hard,” the hero […]
Every story needs its information set up ahead of time before being used. This set up prepares the audience for what’s about to come. For example, in “Crazy Rich Asians,” the hero (an Asian economics professor) teaches her class how to win at poker by bluffing the other player. Later this skill of the hero’s […]
There are typically three ways to start a story: Show the hero Show the villain Show an earlier scene that somehow starts the story that may not involve the hero or villain When a story starts with the hero, we need to know what the hero wants. Once we know what the hero wants, we […]