Cockeyed Caravan

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

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:

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Hero Personality Profiles: The Archive

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

Monday, May 29, 2017

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?

Sunday, May 28, 2017

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!)

Thursday, May 25, 2017

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:

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

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!

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

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

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Specific Genre Structures: The Archive

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

Monday, May 22, 2017

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

Sunday, May 21, 2017

How to Generate a Story Idea: The Archive

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

Thursday, May 18, 2017

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.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

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.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

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.

Monday, May 15, 2017

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.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

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!

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Moving Days

Hey guys, we bought a house! (Directly across the street from the house we’ve been renting, so it’s a short move, distance wise, but I’m sure it’ll be a long move.) I’ll be back soon.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Chinatown: The Archive

This was an interesting case where I closely examined the movie only to discover that it kind of fell apart under the scrutiny. Ultimately I conclude that it makes no damn sense, but that’s okay because it has just enough of a semblance of sense to be a masterpiece.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The Many Ironies of Casablanca

As I update the old checklists, I thought it would also be good to take some time along the way to look deeper into irony. As we did with Blazing Saddles, let’s run through fourteen ironies you can find in Casablanca:

Your story will be more meaningful if you present a fundamentally ironic concept (which will sometimes be encapsulated by an ironic title).

The least patriotic American has to save the Allied cause. (The title is not ironic.)

There are three big ways to have ironic characterization: Your heroes will be more compelling if they have an ironic backstory…

Rick the cynic used to be an idealist

…an ironic contrast between their exterior and interior…

Rick the cynic is filled with tender heartache

…and a great flaw that’s the ironic flip side of a great strength.

He’s too cold-blooded, but the flip side is that he’s very cool.

Structure centers around another great irony: Though your heroes might initially perceive this challenge as an unwelcome crisis, it will often prove to be a crisis that ironically provides just the opportunity your heroes need, directly or indirectly, to address their longstanding social problems and/or internal flaws.

Rick finds heroic fulfillment by being placed in a deadly situation and having his heart ripped up again.

Each scene will be more meaningful if the hero encounters a turn of events that upsets some pre-established ironic presumptions about what would happen.

Rick has made it clear he doesn’t care if Victor makes it out of Casablanca.

Likewise, the conclusion of each scene will be more meaningful if the character’s actions result in an ironic scene outcome, in which the events of the scene ironically flip the original intention, even if things turn out well for the hero.

When Rick discovers that Victor is with Ilsa, he suddenly has to care.

There are several types of ironic dialogue: On the one hand, there’s intentionally ironic dialogue, such as sarcasm.

Rick is insulted, but says, “I stay up late at night crying about it.”

On the other hand, there’s unintentionally ironic dialogue, such as when there’s an ironic contrast between word and deed…

Strasser thinks he’s very much in control, but we can see otherwise.

…or an ironic contrast between what the character says and what the audience knows.

Ilsa says she’ll meet Rick at the train station, but we know that she won’t have the chance.

There are the pros and (potentially big) cons of having an ironic tone, which is the one type of irony that most stories shouldn’t have, although it can be a useful tool for certain very specific types of stories.

It’s tempting to say this movie has an ironic tone, because it’s full of cool, jaded sarcasm, but that’s not the way I use the term. This movie does not take a sarcastic attitude towards storytelling itself (as Blazing Saddles does, for instance) so I would say that it doesn’t have an ironic tone.

Finally, there are the thematic ironies that every story should have: The story’s ironic thematic dilemma, in which the story’s overall dilemma comes down to a choice of good vs. good (or bad vs. bad)…

Romantic love vs. love of country

…as well as several smaller ironic dilemmas along the way, in which your characters must consistently choose between goods, or between evils throughout your story.

It’s important to fight for freedom, but do you have any right to endanger someone’s life by asking them to come to a resistance meeting?

This will culminate in an ironic final outcome, separate from the ironic concept and the thematic dilemma.

Rick finds fulfillment by sending away the woman he loves.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Casablanca: The Archive (and Updated Checklist)

Another early one. We’ll spend some more time on this movie tomorrow...

Monday, April 17, 2017

Bridesmaids: The Archive (and Updated Checklist)

This was the very first movie I ever did, so there’s a lot fewer posts:

Sunday, April 16, 2017

The Bourne Identity: The Archive (and Updated Checklist)

A wonderful movie:

Here’s another example of one I had to cut because it’s no longer on the checklist, but which got an interesting answer:
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Are set-up and pay-off used to dazzle the audience (and maybe distract attention from plot contrivances)?

We’re shown very early on that the Americans are so frustrated that they’re looking up everywhere Marie has ever lived. When this pays off for them an hour later, it doesn’t seem dubious.