Every story needs conflict and the best way to create conflict is to throw the hero in the worst possible situation. That automatically creates tension and action through conflict because the hero now can’t avoid it. In “Tootsie,” the hero treats women poorly. So when he dresses up as a woman and gets a job […]

One problem screenwriters have is developing character. In other words, what do people want and how do they want to go through life? In traditional screenplays, characters reveal themselves through action and dialogue. Unfortunately, most writers don’t let characters fully express and distinguish themselves through their actions and dialogue. Yet that’s the key to good […]

Stories are like roller coasters. They must move forward at all times. Sometimes they pause before a burst of frenetic action that goes up and down. The structure of your story determines what an audience feels. The two keys to a good story is a clear physical goal to pursue combined with an often hidden, […]

Watch a bad movie and it will focus on action at the expense of emotional character development. That’s because watching cars blow up or guns blasting away is easy to create compared to defining someone’s emotional turmoil. When you focus on action alone, you wind up with bad movies like “The 355,” which is about […]

If two characters have dialogue that sounds too similar, you’ll likely have a dull story because there’s nothing distinct about either character. Just as you must make your characters speak and look differently, you should also make your setting different as well. If you can put characters in a bowling alley, a castle, an airplane, […]

Watch any bad movie (“The 355”) and you’ll notice that it’s all action and far less character development. What makes any hero feel real and more interesting isn’t more special effects, gunfire, and car crashes. Instead, what makes a character fascinating is watching them deal with internal conflict as they change. Heroes typically begin with […]