Story Structure

Showing 1081 - 1090 of 1516 results

Keep Putting on the Pressure

August 18, 2014

There’s an old saying about story telling where you put your hero in a tree and then throw rocks at him (or her). The basic...

The Traumatic vs. Unresolved Past

August 16, 2014

The past always causes problems for the hero. Every story is about the hero trying to fix his or her life due to a problem...

The Two P’s: The Past and the Parallel

August 15, 2014

Study the best movies and you’ll notice they include two P’s: the past and a parallel story. The past has created a problem that the...

Show Us Something New

August 14, 2014

No matter what type of story you’re creating, the key is to show us something new. You can be outrageous and show us something fantastic...

The Tortured Past

August 12, 2014

One crucial element of any story is that the hero often needs to overcome a problem from the past. This past problem haunts the hero...

Make the Goal Clear Immediately

August 11, 2014

Watch a mediocre movie and the beginning is often murky and confusing because you don’t know what’s going on or why. That’s because the hero...

Pressure the Hero

August 3, 2014

If you divide a movie into four acts, you get a basic structure like this: Act I — Exposition Act IIa — Positive rising action...

Learning the Mentor’s Lesson

July 29, 2014

Your story’s theme represents the lesson your hero needs to learn. To teach that lesson to your hero, you need to demonstrate that lesson (your...

Turning Ideas Into Stories

July 25, 2014

Everyone can get a great idea for a movie. The hard part is turning that great idea into a polished screenplay. To go from a...

Cause and Effect

July 24, 2014

It’s a law of physics that every time there’s a cause, there’s an effect. Unfortunately in bad and mediocre movies, this law gets ignored all...

About Wallace Wang

First place winner in Scriptapalooza’s 2023 screenwriting competition for the supernatural horror screenplay titled “Nightmares From a Past Life”. Author of “The 15 Minute Movie Method”, “Story Starter”, and “Writing Scenes for Screenplays” in addition to over 50 computer books. Writer of “Three of a Kind”, a situation comedy produced by San Diego State University’s film class that won a student Emmy award. Designer of the board game “Orbit War”, published by Steve Jackson Games, that simulates satellite warfare in the near future.