Any new writer might well be confused by some of the terms used in writing such as story, plot, arc and theme. Aren't they interchangeable terms? It's easy to see why the terms might be confused. The first person to distinguish story from plot was E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel (1927). Forster wrote …
Continue reading Story, Plot, Arc and Theme — how they work together
Recently I was looking through my blue-ray collection to find a movie to watch with my family. King Arthur: Legend of the sword (2017) caught my eye. The movie directed by Guy Richie, grossed $148m on a budget of $175m, which was pretty much a financial disaster for the producers, and the critics complained it ignored …
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 …
Recently I was going through some of my old books on screenwriting and story telling and I picked up the 'Save the Cat Goes to the Movies' by the late Blake Snyder. I found the book inspiring the first time I read it some years ago, and as I started to read it again I found …
Dan Wells is famous for his seven point system for structuring stories. The approach is set out in a series of five videos that are still available on you-tube. Just search for 'Dan Wells'. The Well's system is not vastly different from a number of other systems based around a three-act structure, with major plot …
So what type of stories do you write: character-driven or action-driven? When thinking about your story ideas, do you start by imagining an interesting character, or do you start with some interesting ‘what if’ events and then consider the character? It doesn’t really matter where you start, but you need both character and plot to …
JMJ Williamson 