Choosing a topic for this month's blog was a difficult choice. During the month I finally managed to see the Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker and commenting on the unbelievable bizarre ending could easily fill at least one blog post on story design. But I don't like to give negative reviews and there are …
Tag: Movies
Conflict, Tension and Audience Participation
Novel writers can learn a lot about story development from the screenwriting industry. In my previous blog, I dealt with how screenwriters use Story, Plot, Arc and Theme to develop a story. This month I want to look at how screenwriters use Conflict, Tension and Audience Participation to grip an audience. The essential elements of …
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Character Arc
As a writer, if you want to study story telling there is no better source than world of screenwriting where Hollywood has turned the art of story telling into a science. Of course, writing a novel and writing a screenplay are very different mediums: movies are visual and novels are written. But they both share …
Connecting your story’s hero/heroine
Have you ever read a story or watched a movie that brought a lump to your throat and tears to your eyes? Yes, of course you have. Good stories create an emotional experience for their readers or audience. It's the reason why we like them so much. But how do their writers do it? It's …
Story structure — the big moments of Act One
Story telling, whether you are a novelist or screenwriter, requires an understanding of story dynamics and structure. For some writers, this is ingrained into their DNA: they don't need fancy ideas and concepts for something that comes natural to them. All they need is a story, which starts with a problem that comes into a …
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Book versus movie
Holidays are a great time to get away from the day-to-day pressures of living and simply unwind and enjoy yourself with family or friends. For me it’s also a time to catch up on some sci-fi reading. One of my favourite movies of all time is Riddley Scott’s Blade Runner, which is loosley based on …
JMJ Williamson 