Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Turning Points fail when we overprepare the obvious and underprepare the unusual.

A character is a work of art, a metaphor for human nature. We relate to characters as if they were real, but they’re superior to reality.

An audience has no patience for a protagonist who lacks all possibility of realizing his desire.

Are you in love with the art in yourself or yourself in the art?

Revelations, in fact, tend to have more impact, and so we often reserve them for the major Turning Points, act climaxes.

Stereotypical stories stay at home, archetypal stories travel.

by and large, personal conflicts evolve for better or worse through talk.

Shallow, nondimensional people exist… but they are boring.

Nothing moves forward in a story except through conflict.