Category Archives: Book

There’s an excellent story writing book called “27 Essential Principles of Story” by Daniel Joshua Rubin. One useful principle for developing characters is to identify the way they think, what they believe, and who they are at the core.

The standard way to develop characters is to write a biography about them such as where they went to school, what major traumatic incident may have shaped their lives, what career they might have, and so on. While creating a biography on each character can help you get a better idea who they are, it can also waste time creating irrelevant information that serves no purpose to your story.

After all, knowing that your character played volleyball in high school probably won’t help your story much unless your story has some relation to volleyball or sports in general.

Instead of wasting time making up details that may largely be irrelevant, “27 Essential Principles of Story” suggests starting with four ideas:

• What does the character look like
• How does the character think
• What does the character value and believe
• Who is the character under pressure

Describing a character by appearance is easy, but crucial because a character’s appearance helps define who they are. For example, having a blond woman in a bikini as a nuclear scientist might not make sense at first, but this physical appearance means the woman is not only attractive, but smart as well, which likely made her tough to put up with people only attracted to her looks. Thus a character’s appearance, whatever it may be, can go a long way towards shaping who they are.

That goes into how the character thinks. When characters face a problem, how do they try to solve it? By cheating? By analyzing it like a puzzle or riddle? By smashing into it using brute force? The way characters react to problems and try to solve them can shape who they are.

Digging deeper, what do characters value and believe? Someone who tries to cheat when faced with a problem might think that they’re not good enough to succeed otherwise, or they might think that everyone cheats so they should too. What characters believe goes much further in defining how they react to anything.

Finally, what type of person is your character under pressure? Are they as tough as they appear? Are they stronger? Weaker? Cowardly?

So instead of burying yourself with mounds of trivial about each character, focus more on how they think, what they believe, and who they really are on the inside. Once you know this, then you’ll have a far better idea how to write a scene with this character.

What’s more important in defining a character in a screenplay? The fact that they played volleyball at the University of Minnesota or the fact that they believe everyone cheats so they can too?

When you wean yourself away from irrelevant and overwhelming details by writing biographies for each character, but focus on the driving forces of each character, you’ll find it’s far easier to write great scenes for your screenplay with characters who feel real, consistent, and alive.

In every story, there are three problems the story can solve:

• External problems
• Internal problems
• Philosophical problems

Bad stories simply focus on external problems such as showing the hero mowing down an army of bad guys with a machine gun. There’s little more to care about than gunfire, explosions, and special effects, but the action itself means little. That’s why solving an external problem alone can never tell a complete story.

Internal problems involve inner conflict within the hero, often based on problems from the hero’s past. Watching a hero solve an internal problem makes the story more interesting because instead of just seeing the hero overcome physical obstacles (external problems), we can see the hero also overcoming internal problems that allow the hero to become a better and stronger person.

However, great stories also solve a philosophical problem that gives the story meaning. Because of this additional meaning that explains some aspect of life, the story resonates far more strongly in our minds.

Let’s start with a story that only solves external problems such as “Jaws: The Revenge.” The external problem is simply to kill a great white shark. Once this great white shark is killed, that’s the end of the story and that’s all audiences will remember. Boring.

Now consider a story that solves all three problems such as “The Shawshank Redemption.” The external problem is the hero trying to regain his freedom. The internal problem is that the hero must constantly hold on to hope while struggling with despair being locked in a prison with no way out. What makes the hero’s plight even worse is that he’s innocent.

Finally, “The Shawshank Redemption” provides us a clue for how to live life by telling us never to give up hope. When we see the hero embrace his friend on the beach at the end of the story, we finally understand the importance of never giving up hope.

Another movie that embraces all three problems is “Rocky.” The external problem is that Rocky gets a chance to fight the heavyweight champion of the world. The internal problem is that Rocky wants to prove to the world that he’s not a bum, but he’s also afraid that he might be. The philosophical problem that the story tells us is to never give up on our dreams.

Eliminate the internal and philosophical problems and your story is weak. Add in an internal problem and your story is stronger. Add in a philosophical message and your story will be memorable.

This idea of defining a story using external, internal, and philosophical problems came from Donald Miller’s book “Building a Story Brand,” which uses storytelling techniques to market a business. Although the book focuses on marketing, it’s actually an excellent book about storytelling techniques in general.

So define the three types of problems your story will present: an external problem, an internal problem, and a philosophical problem. By defining what these will be in your story, you can create a fully fleshed out story that will resonate with audiences and make your story stand out.

When athletes train, they off cross-train. That means they perform exercises that may not be directly related to their sport but can improve their performance anyway. For example, boxers may jog to build stamina, football players may study wrestling to learn how to take someone down, and cyclists may swim to strengthen their arm and leg muscles.

Writing is no different. Besides studying screenplay writing books, screenwriters should also study non-writing books to get ideas. One interesting book is “Made to Stick,” which focuses on studying why certain ideas are more memorable than others.

The examples given in “Made to Stick” focus mostly on business situations such as the popular “Where’s the beef?” commercial by Wendy’s or Subway’s former spokesman, Jared, who lost a huge amount of weight just by eating Subway sandwiches (and later got arrested for child pornography).

One idea that “Made to Stick” makes is that if you want people to remember your ideas, tell a story. The book describes three types of stories:

• Challenge plots
• Connection plots
• Creativity plots

The main idea of a challenge plot is to pit an underdog against a heavily-favored champion. This is the plot of nearly all sports stories such as “Rocky” or “Seabiscuit.” When the hero is an underdog, we can’t help but want to root for the hero to win.

Connection plots are different because they focus on bringing people together from different groups. This can be racial groups such as in “Green Book” where a white man drives a black musician around the Deep South and learns to become more understanding about blacks, or it can be the gap between rich and poor such as in “Crazy Rich Asians” where a middle class woman wins over the rich mother of her boyfriend. Connection plots are usually inspiring and emotionally moving because the hero is still an underdog partly because a social gap blocks the hero’s path to success.

Creativity plots are stories about people doing clever, unusual actions to achieve a goal. Think of “The Sting,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” or “Ocean’s 11.” The more interesting and unique the hero’s actions, the more likely that story will stick in people’s minds.

So when writing your own screenplay, make sure your story follows at least one of these plots. If your hero is not an underdog (the most basic story plot of all), then your story will be much harder to get people to root for the hero.

Connecting a social gap isn’t always necessary but can further strengthen your story. “Aladdin” is not only about an underdog peasant boy, but an underdog peasant boy trying to win the hand of a princess (major social barrier). Adding a social gap of some kind makes the hero’s success much more rewarding.

Creativity is necessary to keep your story from being predictable and boring. In “Rocky,” we know he’s either going to win or lose. However, the outcome is more surprising. Rocky loses, but wins the hearts of the world for his persistence and determination, and that’s something unexpected that makes “Rocky” more enjoyable.

So if your story can include a challenge, connection, and creativity plot all together, you’ll likely write a better screenplay than if your story only includes one (or none) of those plots.

When “The Hunger Games” became a hit movie, Hollywood rushed multiple young adult (YA) movies into production based on best-selling YA novels. Unfortunately, “The Hunger Games” is an exception to the YA genre, which is why it succeeded so well as a movie.

Read “The Hunger Games” and you’ll notice the following:

• The novel tells a complete story where all the villains lose in the end and the hero returns triumphantly home.
• The novel introduces characters and situations early and the rest of the story shows us what happens to those characters by the end of the story.

Now read “Divergent,” which was a YA novel turned into a movie series that tried to mimic the success of “The Hunger Games.” In “Divergent,” you’ll notice the following:

• The novel does not tell a complete story because the villain is never fully defeated in the end and the story ends with no sense of finality or conclusion for the hero.
• The novel keeps introducing new characters and situations and by the end of the story, we have no idea what happens to most minor characters.

There’s a reason why “The Hunger Games” worked as a movie and “Divergent” did not. It’s hard to tell an incomplete story as a movie. Imagine “Rocky” where “Rocky” never fights or “Star Wars” where we never see if Luke destroys the Death Star. Stories must be complete to be satisfying, but YA novels favor incomplete stories to encourage readers to buy and read the next book in the series.

Novels also tend to be loosely structured compared to screenplays. In a screenplay, Act I sets up the story and the remaining Acts show what happens. So in “The Hunger Games”, Act I introduces the characters and the idea of a battle to the death. Then the rest of the story is about the characters we’ve met fighting in a battle to the death.

In most YA novels (with the exception of “The Hunger Games”), the entire story keeps introducing new information, making the entire story one long exposition that suddenly ends without any sense of resolution.

In “Divergent”, Act I introduces characters and the idea of factions that rule society. Then the remaining Acts keep introducing new characters and situations for the hero to face.

By the end of “The Hunger Games,” the hero has survived and returned home, which creates a sense of completion. By the end of “Divergent,” the hero is still on the run because the villain has not been defeated.

“The Hunger Games” sequels are far weaker than the original book, but the original book could stand alone without its sequels. “Divergent” cannot stand alone without its sequels, which means it’s a far weaker story as a result.

So the lesson is clear. Hollywood only tells incomplete stories when they closely follow the incomplete stories of a YA novel. If you’re trying to write an original screenplay, do not mimic the structure of a YA novel.

You cannot tell an incomplete story and you cannot keep introducing new characters and situations as the story progresses. You must tell a complete story and by the end of Act I, we should know what the story is about so we can constantly see the hero struggling to achieve a clearly defined goal introduced in Act I.

Why YA novels tell incomplete stories (and get published) while constantly introducing new characters with no clearly defined goal by the end of Act I is a mystery. YA novels offers unique situations such as dystopian futures, but that alone can never sustain an entire story. Just watch the “Divergent” movie series to see movies that steady lose focus and direction as each succeeding sequel fails to tell a compelling, complete story in the process.