In the last post, Why Risk is Essential to Storytellers we talked about how much people hate to lose. So we work hard to avoid doing things that can hurt us in any way – physically, emotionally or spiritually. We would rather do things are certain to succeed than risk failure. Think about asking someone…
Author: Daniel
Why Risk is Essential to Storytellers
Weak stories lack gravitas. They lack substance. As one limp, dull page blathers into the next, the nothingness drags on exponentially, wasting the reader’s time and the whole miserable experience ends in disappointment and failure for all involved. To avoid this fate, you need to confront risk. Risk as in the possibility of loss. To…
How South Park Stories Build Momentum
In South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker use a simple technique that will radically improve your writing. They connect events in their stories using the word “Therefore” not “And.” This forces your characters to dig deeper and respond more authentically. It makes you as the storyteller have to operate at the top of your…
How Coppola Explored All Endings to Nail The Godfather II
The third of the 27 Essential Principles of Story is Explore All Endings. How you end your story determines what it means. Some writers begin with the end in mind because they have an idea to express. Others believe the writing process is about discovering their core, or main idea. Either way, your ending is…
How Dramatic Questions Fuel Breaking Bad
First we’ll talk about what dramatic questions are and how they work, then we’ll turn to Breaking Bad. In its most basic form, a dramatic question is, What will happen? That’s it. The simplest way to think about constructing a story is to ask a dramatic question then answer it. Will Hamlet kill the king? Will…
How Finding Nemo Drops the Hammer to Hook Audiences
Writer/director, Francis Ford Coppola (The Conversation, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) was a black belt storyteller if ever there was one. He knew the power of simplicity. In an interview with Charlie Rose he once described The Godfather II as the story of “a good man who becomes a bad man.” This from a writer who explored some…
How The Godfather Drops the Hammer
The beginning of your story is like the foundation of a building. It must be strong enough to support the rest of your structure or the whole thing will collapse. The first of the 27 Essential Principles of Story is DROP THE HAMMER. By this we mean that that you introduce your hero and then…
Eight Essential Principles of Setting, Dialogue and Theme
This is the first post in a three-post series to give you a feel for how the 27 Essential Principles of Story as a whole. The series includes 1) Ten Essential Principles of Plot; 2) Nine Essential Principles of Character and 3) Eight Essential Principles of Setting, Dialogue and Theme. In the first two posts…
Nine Essential Principles of Character
This is the second post in a three-post series to give you a feel for how the 27 Essential Principles of Story as a whole. The series includes 1) Ten Essential Principles of Plot; 2) Nine Essential Principles of Character and 3) Eight Essential Principles of Setting, Dialogue and Theme. In the first post of…
Ten Essential Principles of Plot
This is the first post in a three-post series to give you a feel for how the 27 Essential Principles of Story as a whole. The series includes 1) Ten Essential Principles of Plot; 2) Nine Essential Principles of Character and 3) Eight Essential Principles of Setting, Dialogue and Theme. In Aristotle’s classic, The Poetics, the…