Story Structure

Showing 1221 - 1230 of 1516 results

The Crucial Element of Storytelling — Conflict

June 22, 2013

The crucial ingredient that every story must have in every scene and every Act is conflict. If there’s no conflict, there’s no reason to want...

Mirroring — Everything is One

June 19, 2013

Every story has a single voice, and your characters must reflect different aspects of that one voice. If you hear a single voice, it’s easy to...

The Inciting Incident — Opening Your Movie with a Bang

June 16, 2013

The beginning of every movie starts off with an inciting incident that either gets the movie going or summarizes what the movie is about (or...

Full Circle — Beginnings and Endings

June 10, 2013

The beginning of a screenplay must be related to the ending somehow. This can be showing the main character in a similar situation but a...

The Purpose of the Exposition

June 7, 2013

The five questions that the Exposition has to answer for every movie. Act I, the Exposition, sets the stage for the rest of the movie....

The Importance of Titles

June 4, 2013

Titles are your audience’s first impression of what your screenplay is about. Every movie needs a title. The title you pick can set the tone...

The Hallmark of Bad Movies

June 1, 2013

What makes a bad movie is a combination of characters we don’t care about and the lack of primeval goals that we can understand The...

Foreshadowing and the Tripping Lady in the Woods

May 28, 2013

Nothing should ever come easy to anyone, but obstacles need to be foreshadowed ahead of time or else they’ll seem fake and unreal. In most...

The Two Halves of Act I

May 25, 2013

Act I is the most important part of your screenplay because it introduces the hero, states the hero’s problem, opens with an Inciting Incident that...

The Two Parts of Act II

May 22, 2013

Act II is typically the hardest part of a screenplay to write. You have 60 minutes of time, so to make writing easier, divide Act...

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.