Story Structure

Showing 261 - 270 of 1516 results

Every Physical Battle Tears the Hero Apart Between Two Emotional Extremes

April 20, 2022

Stories are like roller coasters. They must move forward at all times. Sometimes they pause before a burst of frenetic action that goes up and...

Every Story Should Be an Internal Struggle That Drives Physical Action

April 12, 2022

Watch a bad movie and it will focus on action at the expense of emotional character development. That’s because watching cars blow up or guns...

Make the Setting a Character in Your Story

April 8, 2022

If two characters have dialogue that sounds too similar, you’ll likely have a dull story because there’s nothing distinct about either character. Just as you...

Maximizing Internal Conflict Within a Hero to Create an Interesting Character

April 4, 2022

Watch any bad movie (“The 355”) and you’ll notice that it’s all action and far less character development. What makes any hero feel real and...

Create the Same Thing – Only Different

March 31, 2022

Become a student of movies and you’ll find that there’s rarely a completely original idea that hasn’t already been done before. “Alien” is about a...

Shape the Ending to Maximize Emotional Impact with an Emotional Dream

March 27, 2022

All stories are about a hero pursuing a physical goal. In weak stories, that’s all the hero does. In better stories, the physical goal is...

Shape the Middle of Your Story to Maintain Momentum and Tension

March 19, 2022

It’s often easy for screenwriters to create the beginning and end of their story. What’s often the hardest part is creating the middle that connects...

Storyboard Your Scenes Before Writing

March 15, 2022

Here’s another mistake and bad habit that novice screenwriters often embrace. They try to write their screenplay and make up their story as they go...

Identify the Motivation of Every Character in a Scene

March 11, 2022

Here’s what too many novice screenwriters do wrong. They rite a scene filled with characters who have no purpose, goal, or direction in that particular...

Avoid the Number One Mistake of Novice Screenwriters

March 7, 2022

If you learn nothing else from this blog, avoid the number one mistake screenwriters make all the time. Don’t tell a story. It’s that simple....

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.