The premise of your story becomes “high concept” when you employ a “conflagration of opposites” methodology. This means that an immediately unlikely situation occurs in the story. For example: What if a man decides to dress up as a nanny in order to get to see his children after a divorce decree prevents him from …
Do you have the Life Gets In the Way Syndrome (LGITWS)? The first sign is when all kinds of self-doubt appear: This will never work; nobody will read this; this is a lousy idea. But the story idea keeps you up at night and sometimes you dream about it and maybe a few characters …
There is generally a misunderstanding of what the Myth genre really embodies. As a writer, it will greatly help you if you can distinguish between the different kinds of Myth forms that you can utilize when crafting your story. Whereas ancient myth dealt with a pastoral world and contained gods and goddesses who ruled that …
Jason Bourne is a known entity – It is a highly successful franchise: The Bourne Identity, The The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Legacy, and now – Just plain Jason Bourne because that’s all we need. The name says it all. The genre that audiences love – Action/Thriller fully delivers, with a shaky-cam …
When doing a character bio the trickiest thing to do is to create a protagonist with a misguided belief and opponents (the characters who obstruct, impede, challenge, the protagonist). It means you have to know the difference between what they actually need, and what they believe they need. If a character is motivated to act …
You are at the VERY BEGINNING of the writing process for a great story idea you have been toying with for years. Do you buy screenwriting software and plug in your characters and start typing away? Answer: NO. THIS IS THE DEATH KNELL FOR A STORY. AFTER A FEW PAGES, YOU WILL BE LOST. TAKE …
Desire is what will help form the Spine of your story. From the get go, in Act 1, this Desire is what drives your Hero in his Ordinary World. The Desire of your Hero is then seized upon by the Inciting Incident of your story, which is the “match that lights the fire” of the …
Think about genres that really speak to you, that move you deeply. Is this an historical epic? Are your characters real or fictional? Is this a drama? A political thriller? An action/adventure? Is this a mix of romance and comedy? Drama and historical epic? Science fiction mixed with Drama and Mythology?Where did your story originate? …
Working within the 3-Act Structure, the writer has to be aware of many structural plot points that work cohesively to craft a great story. The Main Character/Hero/Protagonist will start off in most genres with “A Running Start,” as opposed to a “Community Start” (characters dancing at a wedding, etc.), or a “Slow Start” (a narrator …
