The Curse of the Inactive Hero: Lessons from “Ant-Man and the Wasp”

A hero is who your story is about. A mute woman rescuing a monster she loves, a lawyer facing down the bigotry of his 1930s community to save a man’s life, a woman of color who wants to do math for NASA to save a mission– all great heroes. They each take big risks and strong actions. Seeing how that action turns out for them is what pulls us through the story.

Generally speaking, the stronger the hero and the tougher the odds they face, the better the story. Which is why superheroes, who are larger than life by … Read the rest

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Story Structure and “Arrival”

The Story Structure of "Arrival" (2016)

William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Princess Bride) wrote in his classic book Adventures in the Screen Trade that “screenplays are structure.” Because Goldman is a writing god, people listened.

They listened, but they may not have heard well. Goldman was saying that structure was necessary to a screenplay, but he wasn’t saying it was sufficient.  Yet many took Goldman’s point, misunderstood, and ran with it, pitching structure-first as the key to writing film.  Luckily, it mostly worked anyway, because most film beginners– and many professionals– fail to focus on a hero and a … Read the rest

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