The easiest mistake to make when writing any story is to tell too much too soon. As soon as the audience understands everything, there’s little to maintain interest. The only time the audience needs to know everything is near the end of the story so they can understand the consequences of failure if the hero […]
Watch your favorite movie and at its heart, it’s all about solving one problem. The beginning of the story sets up a single problem and by the end, the hero either solves that problem or fails to solve that problem. In “Die Hard,” the single problem is for John McClane to get back with his […]
Every story fits into a specific genre such as horror, mystery, or action. The genre of your story defines its unity. How you tell that story must be different than anything people have seen before so that defines the variety. That means your story must embrace both unity and variety. Unity means your story meets […]
A story shouldn’t take place anywhere but in a specific location. Even if a story takes place in an ordinary high school like “Edge of Seventeen,” that setting still plays a large role in the story because that same story cannot be told in a space station or tropical island. The setting must be unique […]
Watch your favorite movie and strip away the action, costumes, special effects, and A-list actors. Then study the actual story to see how it’s constructed. Where many novices go wrong is they focus on action but they forget that all the action in the world is meaningless if there isn’t a decent story to go […]
No hero can go through a story alone. At the very least, a hero needs a mentor who can teach the hero how to become a better person. In “The Karate Kid,” the hero learns karate and life lessons from his mentor, an apartment handyman who happens to be skilled in karate as well. In […]
Read most novice’s screenplays and their scenes often begin with a boring event. Two characters greet each other, sit down, and start talking. That’s a sure-fire recipe for boredom. A much better solution is to start a scene with action right away and to do that, you have to start after the story begins. Every […]
Unless you’re writing a tragedy, your hero never gets completely defeated. However, he or she must constantly be challenged and backed into a corner. To do that, you must keep making your hero’s life as miserable as possible. Because your hero always survives the worst possible situations, audiences know that your hero will survive. The […]
Initially, the villain seems to have one goal but the hero later finds out that the villain has a far more sinister, evil goal with horrifying consequences. In the beginning of “Star Wars,” Darth Vader just appears to want to capture Princess Leia. Later we learn that he wants to capture her because she had […]
Nobody watches a movie over and over again for the physical action. Nobody watches “Star Wars” to watch the dated special effects of X-wing fighters dogfighting with TIE fighters around the Death Star. Likewise, nobody watches “Titanic” to see an ocean liner sink or watches “Beauty and the Beast” to see a beast roam around […]