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How To Structure Any (Western-style) Story
Combining my study of film, novels, children’s literature and lyrical short stories, I’ve come up with a nine part story structure. Other cultures historically carve up stories differently. For instance, East Asian audiences expect different things from story, and also differ in the amount of work they expect to put in. Not all stories are […]
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Problems With The Redemption Story
According to Hayden White (American historian), The Redemption Story is one of the Four Grand Narratives of the West. (The others are Greek fatalism, bourgeois progressivism and Marxist utopianism.)
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Million Dollar Baby Film Study
Today is Curmudgeon’s Day, according to Twitter. (Un)happy Curmudgeon’s Day! In that spirit I will take a close look at a film in which a curmudgeonly old man learns to soften up with the help of an earnest and humble young woman. I first saw this film around the time Million Dollar Baby come out and […]
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The Problem With The ‘One Big Lie Per Story’ Advice
There’s a rule of writing fantasy which all professional writers are familiar with. (No, I’m not talking about the dangling preposition.) Fantasy writers are allowed one big lie per story. As Michael Hauge writes at his Story Mastery website: The quality that gives every movie its emotional appeal: It isn’t the fantasy element of a […]
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Little Miss Sunshine Film Study
Little Miss Sunshine is a good example of a ‘comic journey’ story structure. For fans of another well-known drama set in Albuquerque, fans of Breaking Bad may be interested to know that both Bryan Cranston and Dean Norris have small roles in Little Miss Sunshine. There’s a ticking clock in this film because the pageant […]
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The Female Maturity Formula Of Modern Storytelling
When it comes to modern storytelling in Hollywood animated films for children, Pixar is at the top of the field. In fact, The Good Dinosaur, released late 2015, might have been their very first lemon, depending on what you’re looking for in a film for children.
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Our Ability To Create Narrative Arcs Improves With Age
Fran: So Manny, tell us all about yourself.Manny: Well, I was born in London…Bernard: Stop right there, David Copperfield. If we’re going back that far we’ll need popcorn or something. Black Books, Manny’s First Day The ability to create a life narrative takes a little while to come online—the development process gives priority to things […]
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Romantic Comedies
Notes on the genre of romantic comedy.
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Rare Interview With Author Janet Frame
This is a radio interview, transcribed and published in Landfall 178 (Volume forty-five, June 1991) between Janet Frame and Elizabeth Alley.
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Planes Trains and Automobiles
Planes, Trains & Automobiles is a thanksgiving comedy from 1987. The film has been given an R rating — not, as I expected, because of the pillow scene, but because of the cussy airport scene. [Hughes] is not often cited for greatness, although some of his titles, like “The Breakfast Club,” “Weird Science,” “Ferris Bueller’s […]
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Muriel’s Wedding (1994) Film Study
Muriel’s Wedding is an iconic 1994 film. If you’re ever in Australia and hear, “You’re terrible, Muriel,” this movie is where it comes from. Mix of Genres Comedy, drama, romance. There’s a romance subgenre called ‘fake relationship’. These are romantic stories in which two people are forced into emotional closeness via proximity or circumstance. Muriel’s […]
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Waitress Film Study (2007)
Waitress is a 2007 film with a tragic real life story behind the movie. It is also a good storytelling case study, as it changes mood part way through. Though I don’t like Waitress nearly as much as I like Juno, it’s worth a brief compare and contrast as a way of understanding the way […]
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Black Books Pilot (2000) TV Study
The pilot episode of Black Books is called “Cooking The Books”. One thing Cooking The Books does really well is introducing the audience very quickly to the three main characters (all of them transcending stock characters, though based on stock), and weaving them together for gags at the climax. When broken down, we can see that each […]
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The Story Of The Little Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business by Holzwarth and Erlbruch Analysis
Whoever said ‘it’s impossible to rub a mole the wrong way’ had never met this little mole, who gets very salty and vengeful. Mind you, can’t say I’d be happy if someone pooped on my head, either. The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business is a very popular picture […]
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Dreaming In Storytelling
You may not remember dreaming after you sleep, but you’ll encounter many dream sequences in books. Isn’t it cheesy to rely on dreams? Don’t rational readers know that dreams cannot predict the future — that dreams are the scrabbled outworkings of a brain tidying itself up? Dreams, daydreams, visions, prophecies, processes of memory… all of […]
