Story Structure

Showing 1441 - 1450 of 1516 results

More Than One Reason to Take Action

November 18, 2009

Here’s a one-dimensional story. A villain is doing something bad for the sake of being evil, and the hero defeats the villain just because the...

Truth is Not Fiction

November 13, 2009

Take a true story and it’s rarely interesting when told factually. Most true stories have long periods of time when nothing exciting happens and that...

Linking Your Hero to Your Villain

November 7, 2009

Your villain has a goal that has nothing to do with your hero. Your hero also has a goal that has nothing to do with...

Defining a Theme

October 31, 2009

A plot tells what happens. A story tells how it happens. A theme defines the purpose of the story in the first place. At the simplest...

The Villain’s Henchmen

October 25, 2009

Even though your main battle involves your hero fighting your villain, neither one are battling alone. The hero has allies and your villain has his...

Change and Growth

October 18, 2009

In too many bad movies, the hero is the only person who changes during the course of a story. In really bad movies, even the...

Godzilla as a Story Guideline

October 12, 2009

Watch a great movie like “Casablanca” or “The Shawshank Redemption” and it’s easy to be awed by story and not be able to dissect how...

Bad Dialogue

September 30, 2009

One of my favorite bad movies of the past year is “The Last Airbender,” and one of the reasons why I love to hate this...

Revealing Exposition

September 24, 2009

In the old days, stage plays used to open with an obligatory scene where a maid and a butler are setting a dining room and...

Unity of Subplots in “Ghostbusters”

September 19, 2009

The original “Ghostbusters” film is considered one of the funniest movies ever made. By watching this comedy classic, you can recognize how it unifies its...

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.