Story Structure

Showing 981 - 990 of 1516 results

Unification vs. Disjointedness

July 6, 2015

Take a great movie like “Inside Out” or “Star Wars.” Every scene, every character, and every bit of dialogue supports the main story. There’s never...

Variations on a Formula

June 30, 2015

Most movies follow the same formula. An underdog hero meets a mentor who leads the hero into a new world where the hero meets an...

The Sins of Bad Movies

June 20, 2015

Every movie can teach you something, whether it’s how to properly structure a story (“The Incredibles,” “Wild,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”) or how to avoid...

Make It Fun, Then Make It Logical

June 16, 2015

Ideally, you want to make your story as logical as possible. Unfortunately, completely logical stories can often get extremely boring. Hollywood once made a movie...

Make The Hero Vulnerable

June 14, 2015

The first time you meet someone, you know nothing about them. By talking and watching them, you can get a rough idea who they are,...

Good vs. Bad Movies

June 10, 2015

You can learn from both good and bad movies. One classic good movie to study is “Star Wars.” Despite its relatively simple special effects, it’s...

Three Ways to Make Act III Exciting

June 9, 2015

Act III of any story should be the biggest, most exciting part of the whole movie. That’s when the hero risks everything against impossible odds...

Flip-Flop Halves

June 8, 2015

Think of every story as two halves where the first half is the opposite of the second half. In the first half of any good...

Story Layers

June 7, 2015

Here’s the formula for creating a flat, one-dimensional screenplay. Focus on your hero. Here\’s the formula for creating a multi-dimensional screenplay. Create multiple goals for...

The Big Bang

May 31, 2015

Watch older movies and they tend to be slower and often close with a whimper instead of a bang. Then you watch newer, good movies...

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.