The Trouble with Prequels
Amazon’s Rings of Power demonstrates the trouble with prequels like no other. When the outcomes and consequences don’t matter, how do you make the audience care?
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Amazon’s Rings of Power demonstrates the trouble with prequels like no other. When the outcomes and consequences don’t matter, how do you make the audience care?
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The ‘all-is-lost’ story beat is obligatory in just about every story structure from the Hero’s Journey to Save the Cat.
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I don’t generally review film and TV here, but I have a problem with Amazon’s Rings of Power: Three Hours of Setup. Three hours in, and I haven’t seen a single Ring of Power. Just four entirely disconnected plot strands going nowhere. Slowly.
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Posting a short story to my writers’ group this week, I’m exploring the art of the Long Con in Selling the King’s Bridge.
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“Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.” So said British playwright William Archer back in the Edwardian era. A definition that gets to the core of fiction so succinctly, Disney/Pixar’s Andrew Stanton featured it in his TED Talk on story telling.
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Emmy-winning screenwriter, script doctor, and writing coach Glen Gers sums up twenty-five years experience with his six essential questions for writing. Don’t look away; Gers’ rules apply to any writing of fiction, documentary and even non-fiction not just to screenwriting.
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Worry not, no personal woes here; we’re plotting troubles, decisions and consequences in fiction. Another guest lecturer on Sanderson’s BYU Creative Writing course, author Brandon Mull sets out his approach to character and plot.
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My writers group over on DDW’s Discourse served up a Random Nouns Writers’ Prompt entitled The Jar of Nouns. …
Attention spans are getting shorter, reading choice is getting bigger; which is why writers have to include five items on page one
After the book’s cover, page one is where most readers start. Anyone who says you have the first chapter to set out your stall is peddling old advice. Page one has a lot to do if you’re to get the reader to turn over to page two and keep going.
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Writing across a series, rearranging the jigsaw pieces often reveals some missing; that means plugging a plot hole. Or several.
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