“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” - Alfred Hitchcock Story moves as the result of complications that arise, not out of plot, but out of character and theme. As our protagonist attempts …
Dilemma
Everything You Need to Know is Within
"If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act." - Billy Wilder The purpose of story is to reveal a transformation. This shift in perception means a sort of death …
Shedding the Idea for Truth in Writing
It’s not just first-time novelists or screenwriters that struggle with getting their story from the imagination to the page. Every writer struggles with this. Here’s the thing: Our idea of our …
The Lens Through Which You See Your Story
“I find that when I am working I become like an antenna, and suddenly everything relates to my screenplay: a mentioned recipe, a joke somebody tells, a billboard that I see. It all becomes grist for …
Exploring the Dilemma
At the heart of every story lies a dilemma. It is not a question of whether or not your protagonist has a dilemma, but rather, how effectively you've explored it. By exploring your protagonist’s …
Character Transformation
A fundamental understanding of transformation is crucial to having anything more than an intellectual relationship to structure. You've probably read books on three-act-structure. But it is important …
No Dilemma, No Story
One thing that has been coming up a lot in my classes is the tendency for writers to “figure out” their plot. This is due, at least in part, to story structure being taught by story analysts as a …
What is My Screenplay About?
When we think of our favorite movies, there is invariably an element that is so novel, so surprising, that it ignites our imagination. Think of the character Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the …
Setting Up the Argument
Story is an argument. The theme (or dramatic question) is the thesis statement, and the story is the argument played out. Any argument requires opposing forces. These forces manifest as our …
Dilemma: The Source of Our Story
At the heart of every story lies a dilemma. It is not a question of whether or not our protagonist has a dilemma, but rather, how effectively it has been explored. By exploring our protagonist’s …