Advice — james bonnet

What is the source of our creativity? How can we communicate with that source and use it to unlock the natural storyteller that resides in us all? Carl Jung called the source of our creativity the collective unconscious. Joseph Campbell, in his book 'Hero With a Thousand Faces,' called it the world naval. Religions call it God or the Holy Spirit. George Lucas called the positive aspect the Force. In my book, 'Stealing Fire from the Gods,' I call it the creative unconscious, the hidden truth, or the self. Here I will call it the inner creative self. You can...

The entertainment dimensions are the pleasant sensations the audience feels when they experience your story. The most important of these feelings are those associated with the actions of the genre structures. When you isolate the plots and subplots of your story, you isolate actions that are directly linked to specific feelings that are associated with romance, mystery, adventure or some other particular activity. Among the more desirable feelings associated with these genres are laughter and tears, love and hate, passion, excitement, suspense, fear and joy. Laughter and tears need no explanation. Love and hate means getting your audience deeply involved...

In this article, we will explore the lesser-known ANTI-hero's journey and the uncharted dark side of the passage—the place where the dark forces live and hatch their nefarious schemes. In real life, it's people like Hitler, Jack the Ripper and Saddam Hussein who personify these dark forces. In story, it's great villains like Voldemort, Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader and Satan that embody the dark side. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Jodie Foster in 'The Silence of the Lambs' and Sigourney Weaver in 'Alien' are heroes. Their actions are motivated and influenced by a higher nature. Macbeth, Scarlett O'Hara and Michael...

What is the essence, or heart and soul, of a great story? There are seven critical elements: the change of fortune, the problem of the story, the complications, crisis, climax and resolution of the classical structure, and the threat, which is by far the most important. In this article, we will examine the threat and its relationship to the other six critical elements that constitute the very essence of story -- that without which there would be no story. The first element is the change of fortune. There is an entity (i.e. an individual, a family, a town, a country,...

In Hollywood and New York, the concept is king. To succeed as a writer or filmmaker, you need more than a skillfully constructed novel or beautifully directed film. You need an idea that will be talked about, generates excitement and compels the right people to get involved. A great idea, as it turns out, has an anatomy and a structure and that which makes a subject fascinating, a title intriguing or an idea exciting can be described and learned. Understanding the High Concept is the key to accomplishing that. But what is a High Concept? Simply put, a high concept...