Sublime

The point is that amping up a great logline with the hero who makes the idea work best is how the idea comes to life. And let’s be clear, the trick is to create heroes who: > Offer the most conflict in that situation > Have the longest way to go emotionally and… > Are the most demographically pleasing!

The place to stick that question is up front, loud and clear. It is frequently spoken by a minor character to the hero in the form of a question early on, like on page 5,

he creates interesting characters, he gives them goals and there’s always urgency.

If it’s a comeuppance tale version of Out of the Bottle, then the opposite set-up is applied.

Minatour

all good stories show growth and track change in all its characters.

The first 10 pages and the rest of Act One is the movie’s thesis; it’s where we see the world as it is before the adventure starts.

Institutionalized – Just like it sounds, this is about groups: Animal House, M A S*H, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and “family” sagas such as American Beauty and The Godfather.

The movie producer and all-around mensch Stuart Cornfeld once told me that in a good screenplay, every structural unit needs to do two things: (1) be entertaining in its own right and (2) advance the story in a non-trivial way. We will henceforth refer to this as “the Cornfeld Principle.”