YOUR DAMN PASSIVE PROTAG
Your active protag needs three things: a goal, a plan and a flaw. The goal: win the prize, save the planet, find the killer. How will he get there? He will drive the bus there. The plan is the bus. His flaw is that he is the world’s worst bus driver. A passive protag gets on…
Read moreIDIOT PLOT
Idiot plot is a term that means your conflicts depend on your characters neglecting to ask each other simple, obvious questions that would clear everything up immediately. At the moment in your plot when it becomes statistically inevitable that someone would bring up this issue, make it work for you instead of sweeping it under…
Read moreOBSTACLES
This is one of the most wonderful meta moments in the history of film. A good obstacle has its own stake in the proceedings, a purpose to fulfill beyond frustrating the protag.
Read moreMore on Dan Harmon’s “Story Circle” and my theory it is a cosine wave
chrisdwoo: I’ve discussed before how Dan Harmon (creator of Community, co-writer for Monster House) has distilled the Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth into a very basic tool for describing the arcs of a story. Harmon prefers to see his story structure as a circle, whereas I believe that it is in fact a Cosine Wave. Since I’ve posted…
Read moreRESPONDING TO NOTES ON YOUR SCRIPT
PROPER: IMPROPER:
Read moreNew York Women in Film & Television: Notes from a Screenreader
New York Women in Film & Television: Notes from a Screenreader nywift: photo via Go Into the Story It’s an open secret that you only have a few pages to convince experienced readers that your script is worth reading. What you might not know is that you can make mistakes on the very first page…
Read moreWhen you get physically uncomfortable with what you’re writing, that’s like an X on the map. Dig there.
Read moreIT’S METICULOUSLY PROOFED
NOT FROM WHAT THEY SAY
We learn about a character from the decisions they make. #screenwriting — Namita Kabilas (@NamitaKabilas) September 25, 2013
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