Advice — expert series

"Whether he likes it or not (and as a rule he does not like it much), the man who wants to express himself on celluloid is part of a group. If individual and personal self-expression is what he wants, he is in the wrong business." -Alexander Mackendrick The Auteur Theory - proposed by French New Wave directors of the late 1950s - notwithstanding, Mackendrick's reflection is sensible, egalitarian and true. It should come as no surprise that the politique des auteurs (author's policy), which became known as the auteur theory in the United States, is the fancy of film critics...

This year I began a mentorship program through my website. After a few years of building up students who knew my methods and can speak my language, there's finally a tiny community of like-minded souls that believe in the way I learned to do things at USC and want to follow in my and my fellow graduates footsteps. Ever since I started a website, I've received the odd email from writers asking me to help and give guidance in the script they're writing this year, or to read their work, and this year, with the WGA strike the time had...

What is it that lures people over to the Dark Side? Your audience wants to find out how people and things go bad, so in your story, be sure to reveal some of how the characters become the way they are -- not to excuse their behavior but to get us engaged with them. In this excerpt from my book, The Power of the Dark Side, we'll explore triggers and processes that turn people bad and some of the ways things all go to heck in a hand basket. Sleeping with the enemy Since Adam took a bite from the...

If you saw the season-ending episode of Monk, do you remember the clue that helped catch the killer?Me, neither.In the recent thriller Fractured, what was the mistake Anthony Hopkins made that proved he killed his wife?You got me.My point, and I do have one, is that often writers think the most important aspect of a good mystery is the ingenuity of the crime, the unraveling of the clues. Which is why many writers are scared to death of even trying to write a mystery or thriller.Fear no more.Yes, viewers of mysteries and thrillers like tightly-plotted narratives, clever red herrings, and...

In my previous articles - The Essence of Story, Beyond Theme: Story's New Unified Field, The Metaphor Is King, and The Tragedy, Mystery, and Romance of Genre, I pointed out that all great stories have the same underlying, universal structure - namely, there is a threat, either agent or perpetrator, that creates a problem that brings about a change to a state of misfortune and is the main source of resistance that opposes the action when someone tries to solve the problem and restore a state of good fortune. In stories that end tragically it's the reverse - the story...