Mad Max and Pixar Storytelling: Six Easy Pieces
Dino posted this link in his worklog.
Thinking about some of the stories I've been working on lately, they don't really fit this structure. My justification is that most of them are Tales, which are intended to be brief episodes, and don't have time to establish a status quo before getting right to the inciding incident that gets the story going.
The kind of focus this puts on that scene-setting also seems to contract the advice I hear frequently to "get in (start the story) as late as possible". How much time should you spend on "once upon a time" and "every day"?
Some Mad Max spoilers here, but good post:I thought this was an interesting expansion on ye olde three-act structure:
According to Pixar, every story can be broken down, from beginning to end, as following this sequence of events:Mainly it expands on Act One, laying out in more detail about setting the scene, and establishing what the status quo is that's about it be upset, then introducing the inciting incident at step 3, and step 4 then becomes the first turning point. So Act Two follows, with Step 5 being the second turning point, followed by Act Three, which includes Step 6 as the climax and resolution.
- Once upon a time there was
- Every day
- One day
- Because of that
- Because of THAT
- Until finally
Thinking about some of the stories I've been working on lately, they don't really fit this structure. My justification is that most of them are Tales, which are intended to be brief episodes, and don't have time to establish a status quo before getting right to the inciding incident that gets the story going.
The kind of focus this puts on that scene-setting also seems to contract the advice I hear frequently to "get in (start the story) as late as possible". How much time should you spend on "once upon a time" and "every day"?
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