Problem, Opportunity, Conflict, Part 3: Test Run

So now we’ve dumped that hopelessly vague term “inciting incident” for a more complex version: old problem, scary opportunity, unforeseen conflict. Let’s examine some movies in different genres through this prism:

Comedies:

Dramas:

Adventure:

Thrillers:

So far so good. It usually applies, but not always, which is my definition of a good rule. But if we’ve split our beginning up into three parts, then where does that leave our endings? We’ll check that out tomorrow, when we conclude this little mini-unit...