The most common mistake novices make when writing a screenplay is trying to tell a story. That usually means characters speaking dialogue that explains what’s going on and scenes that exist solely to show some background information. When screenwriters try to tell a story, they’re more apt to dump exposition on the reader. Exposition by […]
In every movie, the hero is initially stuck in a dead end life but clings to a dream. Then the hero enters a new world where his or her dream finally seems to be coming true. Unfortunately, there’s always a huge catch. In “Tootsie,” the hero is determined to show the world that he’s such […]
Every story is about conflict. However, there’s a huge difference between meaningless conflict and conflict that supports the core theme of a story. Watch any bad movie and you’ll either find a story empty of conflict or a story loaded with meaningless conflict that comes out of nowhere. Watch a bad James Bond movie and […]
In the old days, live action stories focused on real people while animation focused on things not easily done convincingly such as talking cats or trips to fantastic worlds. However as special effects have gotten better, this distinction has blurred. Nowadays comic book heroes are appearing on the big screen while in the past, creating […]
Almost every story has been told before in one form or another. If you’ve ever heard of a story about a spaceship that accidentally lets an alien on board that proceeds to kill the crew members one by one and seems impossible to stop, you might think of “Alien,” but that same plot came decades […]
In the old days, Hollywood wanted to know what the story was about to make a movie. Then Hollywood wanted to know who the characters are so a movie can support sequels. Today, Hollywood wants to know what the world of your story is so they can create a movie, TV series, comic books, web […]
Mike Nichols defined a scene as either a fight, a negotiation, or a seduction. In other words, every scene needs a goal and every scene needs characters struggling to achieve those goals. What far too many novices do is they write scenes that serve no purpose other than provide exposition. Those scenes are not only […]