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Another obstacle to mastering storytelling has to do with the writing process.
How do we know which direction and velocity to take our writing if we haven't a plot in place beforehand?
In simplest terms, I’m going to lay out a practical poetics for storytellers that works whether you’re writing a screenplay, a novel, a play, a teleplay, or a short story.
• Treat storytelling as an exacting craft with precise techniques that will help you be successful,
Work through a writing process that is also organic, meaning that we will develop characters and plot that grow naturally out of your original story idea
It gives them the experience of that life.
Stories are really giving the audience a form of knowledge—emotional knowledge—or what used to be known as wisdom, but they do it in a playful, entertaining way.
The dramatic code, embedded deep in the human psyche, is an artistic description of how a person can grow or evolve.
A story tracks what a person wants, what he’ll do to get it, and what costs he’ll have to pay along the way.
A character pursuing a desire takes actions to get what he wants, and he learns new information about better ways to get it. Whenever he learns new information, he makes a decision and changes his course of action.
individually and in combination,
Linear Story
Meandering Story
Spiral Story
Branching Story
Explosive Story
crosscut.
internal, organic, interconnected, and original.
this process isn’t easy.
And it can be ...
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inside out.
making the story personal and unique to you
finding and developing what is original within ...
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KEY POINT: Nine out of ten writers fail at the premise.
The first technique for finding the gold in an idea is time.
this. First,
The second exercise is to write a premise list.
Look for What’s Possible
see if anything is promised by the idea.
The more often you ask “What if … ?” the more fully you can inhabit this landscape, flesh out its details, and make it compelling for an audience.
Identify the Story Challenges and Problems
These are particular problems that are deeply embedded in the idea, and you cannot escape them.
spot inherent problems right at the premise line.
the best writers can’t spot all the problems this soon in the process.
Step 4: Find the Designing Principle
Your overall story strategy, stated in one line, is the designing principle of your story.
That’s the difference between a premise, which all stories have, and a designing principle—which only good stories have.
What’s
1. FORCE A CHAOTIC ABDUCTION ON A IRRESONSIBLE FARM BOY AND SEE IF WILL CHOOSE FREEEDOM BY BREAKING AWAY FROM HIS CAPTORS AND ACROSS THE UNIVERSE BACK HOME.
2. PLACE AN IRRESPONSIBLE FARM BOY IN A SITUATION WHERE HE LEARNS WHAT HE TRULY LOVES AND IS FACED WITH MAKING THE CHOICES THAT REALLY MATTER TO HIM.
3.
“synthesizing idea,”
“shaping ...
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How do you find the designing principle in your premise?
You find the designing principle by teasing it out of the simple one-line premise you have before you.
Get a Sense of the Central Conflict
Get a Sense of the Single Cause-and-Effect Pathway
Determine Your Hero’s Possible Character Change
designing principle,
The basic action should be the one action best able to force the character to deal with his weaknesses and change.
start with the basic action and then go to the opposites of that action.
Write your simple premise line.
Determine the basic action of your hero over the course of the story.
opposites of A
