Advice

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...

In past articles, we've talked about the story elements found in most blockbuster films. But what about the obstacles that prevent us from writing a hit film? I'm referring to the misconceptions many writers carry with them that make it almost impossible for them to write a successful script. One especially egregious myth that kills writers is the idea that their script will succeed if only they get the right agent or make the right contact. We all know that thousands of scripts are written every year. So we think the answer to winning this intense competition is to get...

Mystery and detective fiction comprises a literature of questions. Who done it, of course, is the classic question. There's also what was done*? How was it done? Why was it done? An even more fundamental question, though, is this: what is a mystery? Like many seemingly simple questions, this one is remarkably difficult to answer. Every mystery reader would probably answer it differently. We can agree, however, that all mystery and detective stories involve a breach in the social order, followed by an attempt to repair that breach and restore order. The breach usually involves a crime, although it doesn't...

The television business has undergone a dramatic change in recent years. In the past, studios would lavishly spend millions of dollars on long-term development deals with TV writers referred to as 'overall deals' in the hope that during the two to four year term of such arrangements (during which the studio is paying the writer's overhead plus a salary), the writer will create a hit show for the studio. Those days are now gone -- unless of course you're Dick Wolf or David Kelley!Nowadays, a writer is typically engaged to perform the initial step of writing a pilot script, and...