Story Structure

Showing 1451 - 1460 of 1516 results

Exceptions to the Rule

September 13, 2009

There are always exceptions to every rule. While it’s possible to tell a great story without consciously following any rules, chances are good that you’ll...

Ensemble Pictures

September 2, 2009

The simplest story focuses on a single character, such as Luke in “Star Wars.” A more complicated movie focuses on multiple characters, which is also...

Trick Endings

August 7, 2009

In the literary world, O. Henry specialized in writing short stories that had a trick ending. While effective, these trick endings soon became predictable and...

The Mentor

July 30, 2009

The mentor is the character who helps your hero learn how to defeat the villain. Typically the mentor has a painful history that he or...

The Goals of the Villain, Hero, and Mentor

July 24, 2009

The three most important characters are your villain, hero, and mentor. All three of these characters need to have goals of their own and the...

The Non-Changing Hero

July 18, 2009

In a typical story, the hero starts off with a character flaw, learns to overcome it, and then lives happily ever after. However in rare...

The Wisdom of Roald Dahl

July 12, 2009

One of the best ways to study story structure is to read children’s stories. Not only are they entertaining in themselves, but they let you...

More is Less

July 5, 2009

In many bad movies, there’s a tendency to throw everything at the viewer and hope that by some miracle something will work. It won’t and...

It’s All a Fantasy

June 28, 2009

The main reason people go to movies is to lose themselves in another world. So the obvious question to ask is does your story give...

Moving Forward

June 22, 2009

Watch a bad movie and what happens? Nothing important seems to happen and your mind starts to wander. One reason why nothing important seems to...

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.