Advice

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...

As a screenwriter, you may use other script consultants to critique your material, but inevitably you'll need to master the ability to analyze your own work. This can be a difficult task, somewhat akin to trying to look at your own face (without a mirror). If you are going to write at a level that sells, however, you will need to rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite. But do not despair, you're in good company. Many screenwriters struggle over evaluating their own work. I still have bloodstains on my office walls where I pounded my head as I rewrote one script...

A story that made a big impression on me was "Little Red Riding Hood." I was ten and my mother said to me, "Who's the main character in the story?" I thought for a moment, and said, "Red Riding Hood." "How so?" "The story is called that," I said. "Little Red Riding Hood." "You think so, do you?" my mother said. "I think it's misleading. She's not in the story very much. What about the Wolf? Why don't you take a look at the story from the Wolf's point of view? Ask yourself how the Wolf feels about all this?"...