change is at the root of all drama,

stories are about change. And the measuring stick that tells us who succeeds and who doesn’t is seen in the ability to change.

Every single character in your movie must change in the course of your story.

In order to show how everyone grows and changes in the course of your story, you must take them all back to the starting point.

If your script feels flat, if you are getting the sense that something’s not happening in the story, do a quick Covenant of the Arc check and see if you need to do more work on making everybody change and grow and transform. Everyone, that is, except the bad guy.