Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters: Storytelling Secrets from the Greatest Mind in Western Civilization

The KIND of story a story is does not always have anything to do with genre. Let me use a couple of recent movie examples to illustrate this. - What genre would you call Inception? Something like a sci-fi thriller, right? It’s futuristic; it uses dream technology; it has thriller elements and action. But what really drives Inception is that it’s a

ACT II, PART 1 · Crossing the Threshold/ Into the Special World (may occur in Act I) · Threshold Guardian/Guardian at the Gate (possibly) · Hero/ine’s Plan (may be introduced in Act I) · Antagonist’s Plan (may be introduced in Act I) · Picking up new Allies · Assembling the Team (also may be in Act I) · Training Sequence (in some stories. Also may

you’re confused about which scenes belong in your story, start by asking the elemental question: What work is this scene doing? Is there Recognition? Is there Reversal? Are you introducing or escalating conflict? Instigating subsequent action? That

THAT’S HOW IT WORKS with strong characterization: the character’s actions register as the inevitable outgrowth of their core identity. It’s important to emphasize the word actions here, because (as Aristotle reminds us) it is action that determines fate.