Story Structure

Showing 1111 - 1120 of 1516 results

Something Happens

May 17, 2014

Stories are never direct. In a romantic comedy, boy meets girl, but it never ends that way. Instead the basic formula is boy meets girl,...

The Three I’s of Comedy

May 16, 2014

The book “Writing the Comedy Blockbuster” lists three I’s that are important in a comedy. The first I is Inappropriate Goals. When your hero starts...

The Seriousness of Comedy

May 10, 2014

Even the Academy Awards dismiss comedies as frivolous entertainment, yet the best comedies often have an important point to make. In “American Pie,” the story...

Every Scene is Conflict

May 9, 2014

What makes any story interesting is conflict. Put a bunch of characters in a room and have them agree makes for a boring story. If...

Lessons From Soap Operas

May 6, 2014

If you’ve ever gotten hooked on a soap opera, you know how they can hold your attention for weeks, months, or even years. There are...

Analyzing “Argo”

May 2, 2014

“Argo” is a fictionalized version of real events that took place when the Canadian embassy helped six Americans escape during the Iranian revolution. The actual events...

Fast vs. Slow

April 29, 2014

The pace of some movies just seems to drag to a crawl while the pace of a great three hour long movie can rush by...

The Elements of a Great Script

April 28, 2014

Technically a scene is anything that defines a location and some type of action. You don’t want to focus on writing scenes. What you really...

The How and Why of the Mystery

April 27, 2014

Every story has a mystery that drops hints along the way until we finally understand what’s going on. If we know too much too soon,...

Analyzing Mini-Stories

April 20, 2014

In every movie, there are mini-stories that follow the four-part structure of stories like this: An attention-grabber highlights some problem that the characters face The...

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.