How (Not) to Alienate an Audience: The Archive

Some of these made it into the book in a transformed form, but others didn’t. And hey, it’s an excuse to link to my favorite video again!  I get this stuck in my head all the time:
 

• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 1: The Hero Isn’t Curious
• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 2: The Hero Just Says No
• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 3: The Hero Isn’t Misunderstood
• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 4: The Hero Agrees with Everybody
• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 5: The Hero Is Too Powerful
• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 6: We Hate The Love Interest
• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 7: The Hero is Earnestly Sappy
• How to Alienate An Audience, Finale: The Hero is Callous

Hero Personality Profiles: The Archive

This is another section that only got cut from the book at the last moment.  Really valuable stuff. 

• Hero Personality Profiles, Part 1: The Defiant Ones
• Hero Personality Profiles, Part 2: The Underappreciated
• Hero Personality Profiles, Part 3: The Deserving Winners
• Hero Personality Profiles, Part 4: Sensitive Types
• Hero Personality Profiles, Part 5: Fun Lovers
• Hero Personality Profiles, Conclusion: Match The Hero to the Vacuum

Special Guest Picks: The Archive

Hey guys, remember when this used to be an underrated movies blog? Most of you probably don’t, but if you journey all the way back to January 1st, 2010, you’ll find that I blogged about a new movie every damn day for a long time. Eventually, just to save my mind, I started blogging about story in order to give myself some days off from the three-hour grind. Another way I would take a break sometimes would be to invite guests around to share their own picks. I still have all 148 Underrated Movies in their own sidebar, so I won’t archive those, but I never put the Special Guest Picks in the sidebar, so let’s archive those, shall we?

• Geoff Betts, part 1: The Comedian, Melvin and Howard, The Last American Hero and Payday
• Monica Edinger: The Young Visiters, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Dreamchild and The Gold Rush
• Dan McCoy, part 1: Bunny Lake is Missing, The Return of the Living Dead, The Wrong Guy and Animal Crackers
• Elliot Kalan, part 1: The Sea Wolf, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Prestige, and Hollow Triumph
• Elliot Kalan, part 2: Save the Green Planet, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Zodiac and The Fall
• Roberto Lovenheim, part 1: Priceless, Elsa and Fred, Sleep Dealer and Lemon Tree
• Luke O’Brien, part 1: Dead Reckoning, Truly Madly Deeply, Italian for Beginners and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
• Michael Stark: Midnight, Expresso Bongo and Hear My Song
• Elliot Kalan, part 3: Dames, The Mad Miss Manton, Five Star Final, God’s Country and The Driver
• Matt Carman: Streets of Fire, Timer, Billy the Kid, Stevie and Step Up 3D
• Dan McCoy, part 2: California Split, Road Games, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Doomsday
• Geoff Betts, part 2: It Always Rains on Sunday, On the Bowery, Sounder and Fat City
• Roberto Lovenheim, part 2: En La Cama, Partes Usadas, Nina's Tragedies and Box 507
• Jonathan Auxier: Little Otik, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada
• Luke O’Brien, part 2: Unleashed, I’m Not Scared, Mr. Brooks, Apres Vous and Lars and the Real Girl
• Kseniya Yarosh: Hour of the Star, Heartburn, Make-Out with Violence and Shopgirl (I later checked out Heartburn at Kseniya’s recommendation and absolutely loved it.)
• Jay Stern: Comfort and Joy, Scoop and Sweet Land

Losing My Religion (aka Writing Misconceptions): The Archive

 Did you know that books take a long time to write, and even longer to make it into the hands of readers?  This series is from late 2012, and it came about because I had gotten serious about writing the book (after spending two years generating the material).  The book finally came out almost exactly four years later, and now six months after that, I’m proud to say that it’s a success.  (I forgot to tell you guys that the audiobook was the Deal of the Day on Audible a few days ago, sorry!)

• Losing My Religion, Prologue: General Misconceptions About Writing
• Losing My Religion, Part 1: Misconceptions About Concept
• Losing My Religion, Part 2: Misconceptions About Character
• Losing My Religion, Part 3: Misconceptions About Structure
• Losing My Religion, Part 4: Misconceptions About Scenework
• Losing My Religion, Part 5: Misconceptions About Dialogue
• Losing My Religion, Part 6: Misconceptions About Theme
• Losing My Religion, Part 7: Misconceptions About Tone
• Losing My Religion, Part 8: Misconceptions About Rewriting
• Losing My Religion, Part 9: Misconceptions About Writing Careers

The Narrative Breakdown Podcast: The Archive

Here's another one that never made it into the sidebar for some reason, so it’ll be new to a lot of you. Hey guys, did you know that before I had my own podcast, I was a semi-regular guest on the Narrative Breakdown podcast with James Monohan and Cheryl Klein? We covered a lot of good stuff over the years, and here I am archiving it for the first time. Enjoy! (And once you’re done listening to these, go back and listen to all the others!)

Unfortunately, these links aren’t working anymore, but you can still subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and find each of these episodes there:

• Episode 7: Scene Construction 1: Character Expectations and Tactics
• Episode 10: Generating Characters for an Ensemble Cast
• Episode 15: The Power of Irony
• Episode 18: Subtext
• Episode 24: Thriller Types and Tropes
• Episode 31: Flip-Side Strengths
• Episode 39: Character Goals and Philosophies
• Episode 46: When Stories Lie
• Episode 50: Screenplays of 2014
• Episode 58: Strong Episodic Concepts
• Episode 65: Misunderstood Characters

Head-Heart-Gut (aka How to Create a Polarized Ensemble): The Archive

Here you can follow the development and maturation of this idea over several years.  A lot of this made it into the book, but I regretfully couldn’t include my obsessive diagrams, such as the one above.  I used to put so much time into these things!

• Storyteller’s Rulebook #28: Let It All Hang Out
• Storyteller’s Rulebook Follow-Up: A Hero Split In Two
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #97: Polarize Your Protagonists...
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #98: ...But Don’t Play Favorites
• How to Create a TV Show, Part 12: Polarize Your Ensemble
• Rulebook Casefile: The Downside of Polarized Protagonists on “Girls”
• Rulebook Casefile: Reversible Behavior and Polarized Ensemble in Ghostbusters
• Another Podcast, The Wire and Dickens, and More Head Heart Gut to Come
• Real life Head, Heart and Gut in Humans of New York
• Head Heart Gut in The 40 Year Old Virgin

And here’s where I actually define it if you just want to skip to here:

• Creating a Polarized Ensemble, Part 1: The Pros and Cons of Polarization
• How to Create a Polarized Ensemble, Part 2: Two-Way and Four-Way Polarization
• How to Create a Polarized Ensemble, Part 3: Maintaining The Ensemble
• How to Create a Polarized Ensemble, Conclusion: Partial Polarization
• Rulebook Casefile: Polarization Meets Reality in “Deliverance”
• Rulebook Casefile: Head-Heart-Gut in “The Good Place”

Oh why not, here’s one more diagram- I loved making these things:

Specific Genre Structures: The Archive

This is another series that only got cut from the book at the last minute.

• Specific Genre Structures, Part 1: Comedy
• Specific Genre Structures, Part 2: Thriller, Conspiracy and Action
• Specific Genre Structures, Part 3: Horror
• Specific Genre Structures, Part 4: Drama and Tragedy

The Hero Project: The Archive

This is where it all began.  I decided to branch out from my Storyteller’s Rulebook pieces and start thinking seriously about story, and charted my thought process in real time.  A lot of this ended up in the book, in a very rewritten form, but a lot of it didn’t.  My favorite one that didn’t: Hitchcock In The Shadowlands

• The Hero Project #1: Are All Heroes On the Same Journey?
• The Hero Project #2: Are Hero Stories Actually Empowering?
• The Hero Project #3: Can Heroes Really Start At Zero?
• The Hero Project #4: Do Heroes Need Special Skills?
• The Hero Project #5: So What Is A Hero Anyway?
• The Hero Project #6: Nine Types of Heroes
• The Hero Project #7: Two More Rare Categories
• The Hero Project #8: Skills Are Where You Find Them
• The Hero Project #9: Freud and Jung and Tony and Don
• The Hero Project #10: First, You Have to Not Want to Change
• The Hero Project #11: But What About Hitchcock?
• The Hero Project #12: Hitchcock's Ill-Equipped Heroes
• The Hero Project #13: Hitchcock In The Shadowlands
• The Hero Project #14: So Why Categorize?
• The Hero Project #15: Hit The Ground Running Uphill
• The Hero Project #16: Now Meet the Villains
• The Hero Project #17: Beware of Default Mode
• The Hero Project #18: The Cockeyed Character Creation Checklist
• The Hero Project #19: The Ultimate Question
• The Hero Project #20: Weakness Strikes Back
• The Hero Project #21: Cheers Vs. Fears
• The Hero Project #22: The Wrong Person to Pick On
• The Hero Project #23: Why Do They Fail?
• The Hero Project #24: He Knew You Were Going To Do That!
• The Hero Project #25: Two Villains, Two Heroines, One Good Movie
• The Hero Project #26: Been Up So Long It Looks Like Down To Me
• The Hero Project #27: Inconvenient Revelations
• The Hero Project #28: The Monster At The End Of This Book
• The Hero Project #29: Is Every Hero A Luke Or A Han?
• The Hero Project #30: Putting It All Together!

How to Generate a Story Idea: The Archive

I love this section. It was one of the last things I cut from the book.

• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 1: Imagine the Worst Case Scenario
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 2: Start with a Unique Relationship
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 3: Tap Into Your Irrational Fears
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 4: Do the Craziest Thing You’ve Ever Wanted to Do
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 5: Search For Empathy
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 6: Start with an Image
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 7: Pull a Genre Element Out Of Its Genre
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 8: Flip Another Movie’s Genre
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 9: Show Us the Other Side
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 10: Raid the Public Domain
• How to Generate a Story Idea, Option 11: Raid the Public Imagination
• How To Generate An Idea, Addendum: Regrow It From A Seed
• How to Generate an Idea, Addendum: Tweak the Right and Left Simultaneously 
• How to Generate an Idea, Addendum: Ask “What If It’s All True?”

Always Be Closing (aka How to Meet with a Buyer): The Archive

This is all really solid advice that I still stand by. Good for all writers, but especially for screenwriters. Please share this with anyone you know meeting with a producer, so they don’t make my same early mistakes.

• Always Be Closing, Part 1: A Meeting is a Consolation Prize
• Always Be Closing, Part 2: Prepare Yourself
• Always Be Closing, Part 3: Sell Them What They Came to Buy
• Always Be Closing, Part 4: The Pitch Pyramid
• Always Be Closing, Part 5: Seller Beware
• Always Be Closing, Part 6: They Don’t Want To Be The Money
• Always Be Closing, Addendum: Three Final Warnings

What I Wish I'd Heard at Graduation (aka How to Get Ahead): The Archive

This is another one that’s somewhat painful to archive. I wrote this when I was a cocky 30-something in the first blush of career success. There’s a lot of stuff here that I’m no longer sure I really believe, now that I'm a more grizzled 40-something. Nevertheless a lot of this is pretty good, so I’ll let you pick through it and evaluate it with your own bullshit-meter.

• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Part 1: Don’t Confuse Your Goals With Your Strategies
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Part 2: Stockpile Your Work Until Everyone Is Telling You That You’re Ready
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Part 3: They Can’t Buy You, They Can Only Buy Your Material
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Part 4: Favors Are Serious Business
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Part 5: Be Necessary
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Part 6: Only Worry About the Quality of Your Own Work
• What I Wish I’d Heard At Graduation, Part 7: Be Ridiculously Professional
• What I Wish I’d Heard At Graduation, Part 8: Your Best Connections Are Outside Your Profession
• What I Wish I’d Heard At Graduation, Part 9: You Can't Pay Your Dues Until After You’ve “Made It”
• What I Wish I’d Heard At Graduation, Part 10: Stay Out of Fantasy Camp
• What I Wish I’d Heard At Graduation, Part 11: The Better You Get, the Less Intuitive the Work Is
• What I Wish I’d Heard At Graduation, Finale: Knowledge Shrinks, Experience Grows
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Addendum: Would You Hire You?
• What I Wish I'd Heard at Graduation, Addendum: Underpromise and Overdeliver
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Addendum: Be Amazed By Success
• What I Wish I'd Heard At Graduation, Addendum: Every Celebrity Has the Same Personality
• What I Wish I’d Heard at Graduation, Two Final Caveats
• What I Wish I’d Heard at Graduation, Addendum: You Sometime Have to Work on Projects You Hate (And it Might Be “Your” Project)
• What I Wish I'd Heard at Graduation, Addendum: Don't Blow It

How to Write Every Day: The Archive

This is a painful series to re-read. To a certain extent, it was a diary of my struggles as much as it was advice for you guys. Nevertheless, there’s some good stuff, here, so it’s worth archiving.

• How to Write Every Day (In Theory)
• How To Write Every Day, Prologue: It’s Been a Hell of a Month
• How To Write Every Day, Part 1: Pitches Are Fantasy, Pages Are Reality
• How To Write Every Day, Part 2: Write it Badly Today So You Can Write It Better Tomorrow
• How To Write Every Day, Part 3: Turn on a Dime
• How To Write Every Day, Part 4: Work on Multiple Projects
• How To Write Every Day, Conclusion: Is Your Goal to Keep Writing or Stop Writing?
• How to Write Every Day, Epilogue: Be Like Miles

How to Give and Receive Notes: The Archive

This series, for whatever reason, is not in the sidebar, so I completely forgot it existed until I had to link to it yesterday. It’s full of good stuff!  I laid the groundwork here for my current sideline giving notes professionally.

• Part 1: Be Calm
• Part 2: Be Charitable
• Part 3: Be Persuasive
• Part 4: Create Buy-In
• Part 5: Be Systematic
• Finale: Be Strategic

All the Charts Mentioned in the Book (and Some That Aren’t)

I just got an email from a book reader who pointed out that I promise readers that they’ll find some charts on my blog, but those charts aren’t actually easy to find here. So here’s the afterword of the book, annotated with where you can find these things on the blog:

Thanks for reading! For more advice, examples, and bonus material, please visit SecretsOfStory.com. You’ll find:

• Career advice, including sections on how to write every day, give and receive notes, launch your career, find representation, meet with buyers, and sell challenging material
• Two dozen examples of films analyzed according to the Ultimate Story Checklist. You can find all of these in the sidebar. You can also download a template copy of the checklist at the above link)  Meanwhile, I created a massive spreadsheet of all the answers for every movie.  
• A massive chart that helps clarify the difference between the goals, long-standing social problems, flaws, and the dramatic question.
• A chart that compares my proposed structure to those of other gurus.
• An in-depth series of articles on the fundamental differences between different media, especially books vs. movies.
• A series of instructional articles that address how to write a pilot episode of an ongoing series.
• A supplemental version of the Ultimate Story Checklist specifically tailored to pilot stories.(You can download that, too)
• A dozen examples of popular TV pilots analyzed according to the pilot checklist. (Check the sidebar)

Bonus, I’ve finally started using Google Docs not SendSpace for the downloads, so hopefully the links won’t constantly die.

And hey, good news: The book seems to be doing well!  I’m happy to report that I’m up to 25 reviews on Amazon: 24 five-stars and one four-star. And remember, you can also get the book on audio on Amazon or at this link!