Geoffrey Thurgood says, “few people recognize or understand the most important moment of their lives while it is happening to them”, while reminiscing about the first encounter with his wife, Tixiannalol. The meeting was love at first sight for the orphaned, bookish apprentice of Professor Scroggins, who admired Tixi’s ...

There is a poem by one of the most interationally famous Greek poets, Konstantinos Kavafis, called Waiting for the Barbarians. I invite you to give it a read (I've linked its translation) but here's the gist in a nutshell: It's about the Romans waiting for the Barbarians ...

Last Week we looked at the “Break Into 2”, the transition between the beginning of a story: The “Before” picture of the Protagonist and their world, and the “Upside Down World” of Act 2.

So, a little later in your average story will come the “Break Into 3”. This leaves ...

always someone breakinnn' into twooooo…

AN important part of a story is the good old “Break into Act 2”.

It's not the easiest story structure moment to recognize, but it's one of the early ones I thought about and tried to notice in movies I watched.

Many people ...

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A standard thing in stories is to have multiple plot lines. In short stories or when you're just starting out as a writer you tend to have a single line, the A plot, but as soon ...

It’s that time of year again. It’s become a bit of an annual tradition. I started setting goals for myself a few years ago. And whilst I have not hit all of them, I have achieved more than I feel I would have had I not set any ...

Why do we fall down, Master Bruce?

So we can get up again.

That was a line from Batman Begins, back in the day, that the movie made sure to put out there multiple times. It was an important theme they wanted to hit in that story. It's an ...

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Non-linear stories are a different way of telling a tale. There are many famous examples (Pulp fiction, Mulholland Drive etc), where the sequence of events isn't in strict chronological order. This style has gained a false ...

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Is it important to Identify with characters? This question occurred to me as I was watching a rather banal sitcom, Rules of Engagement. I love two of the stars, David Spade and Patrick Warburton, but it's ...

How do you make a clever character stupid?

You give them an infatuation. A fixation. Something that completely overrides their critical thinking and better judgment. Something that drives them nuts like a switch is thrown.

And when that happens, they're dumber than a bag of rocks. (And they're ...