Rick Duchalski

So, the last post was about raising the stakes, and one way we made things more exciting was by changing what was at stake for our hero if she fails in her mission to the store. And that can be super fun to write. But that was just to show what we could do. We’re…

One of the things that is going to dictate the excitement of a story is how much the hero stands to lose if they are not successful. Now remember, those stakes have to be appropriate for your audience. The stakes in the Hunger Games, or Jaws are life and death; in stories like Fish in…

Let’s hit the ground running and keep going on our story. Here’s where we left off: ——————————————— Lemon took the bill out of her pocket and looked at it while she walked. It gave her something to think about. Something other than going in there and talking to mean old Mr. Lamprey. She tried to…

Last week we finally started our story, using all of the tools we have talked about so far (you can find what we actually wrote here). So, let’s keep going. I will start us off with the last few lines of what we had already. ********************************** “Lemon,” her mother continued, “I just ran out of…

So, I think it’s time we put some of these ideas to work. What I want to do with you is take our very simple story from the beginning (the girl going to the store) and try to use what we’ve learned so far to make it better. You can do this, too, by making…

So, last week we talked about giving your protagonist problems, but we also talked about setting them up so they are willing—even eager—to take them on. Now, if you said to someone (or someone said to you), “here is a situation that will ultimately help you grow as a person, but send you through untold…

I have already talked a little bit about getting your character to grow (you can find that post here). In essence, having your protagonist be a different (hopefully better?) person by the end will make your story more enjoyable for the audience. Do they have to change? No. In Die Hard, John McClane isn’t really…

Okay, let’s break this one down a little more. In last week’s post, I said that the inciting incident involves putting the main character in a situation that they have never experienced before. That’s true. But there is another piece to it, too.  Actually, depending on who you ask, there are a number of things…

In the last post I suggested that a good way to help your young writer get more familiar with the structure of stories was to watch more movies with them. When you do that, though, it will also help to be able to pick out two structural things in each movie. Repeating this exercise over…

In moving between writing novels, children’s books, and movie scripts, there is something important I’ve learned over the years: Story is story. That is, the way a story is structured doesn’t really change. If you’re not sure about what I mean when I talk about story structure, I talked a little more about it here.…