Advice — advice

To read Part I of this Series, click here. To read Part II of this Series, click here. In the first two parts of this series I began an examination of the true source of unity in a great story and how that unity can be achieved. I introduced you to eight of the elements that can influence that unity and add significantly to the clarity, meaning, and power of your work. The unifying forces we examined so far are: (1) The Value Being Pursued, which are the cherished values like justice, health, wealth and freedom that we pursue in...

"Only connect the prose and the passion,and both will be exalted." - E. M. Forster Emotions are the lifeblood of characters and of stories. Without emotional characters, you are just writing events, but you're not drawing your audience into your story. To be a successful writer, you want to create emotional characters so your audience will become emotionally involved with them. It's important for readers and viewers to become completely engrossed in the emotional world of your characters. As a script consultant and writers' psychotherapist, I've analyzed thousands of scripts during the past 20 years where so much attention has...

Warning: If you haven't seen these movies, the following article contains spoilers which may impair your viewing pleasure. Mystic River Mystic River is a classic example of what is referred to as an "actor's movie." Big monologues, gnashing of teeth, tearing of scenery. Being an actor's movie is not necessarily a bad thing. Big stars want to be in them. And actor's movies often win Oscars in the actor-heavy Academy. But that doesn't make them great movies. Mystic River is a hybrid script, combining drama with the detective/crime forms, where the seams show. And the closer you look at the...

In Part I of this series, I began an examination of the true source of unity in a great story and how that unity can be achieved. I introduced you to four of the elements that can influence that unity and add significantly to the clarity, meaning and power of your work. The unifying forces we examined so far are: The Value Being Pursued, which are the cherished values like life, health, wealth and freedom that we pursue in life as goals; the Problem, which is the central event of the story; the Threat, which is the cause of the...

Part Three: Hero and Villian Mix It Up We've seen how both Hero and Villain are actually composed of several different qualities. And, we've seen that for every quality the Hero possesses, the Villain has a counterpart. When these qualities are combined in this classic manner, Hero and Villain become stereotypes. When these traits are expressed to the extreme, they become melodramatic. We have also indicated that the elements of Hero and Villain might be distributed among other characters to break out of the stereotypical mold. One of the most powerful examples of this is to simply swap traits between...