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Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them
‘Once upon a time …’ Immediately you read that opening phrase, you know you’re going to encounter a setting, and in that place a series of events will occur – almost certainly to an individual.
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
‘First learn to be a craftsman; it won’t keep you from being a genius.’
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
What an archetypal story does is introduce you to a central character – the protagonist – and invite you to identify with them;
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
you have a central character, you empathize with them, and something then happens to them, and that something is the genesis of the story.
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
You live the experience of the story vicariously through them:
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
the person the audience care about most.
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
sympathy-skank.
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
if there is nothing wrong with them, nothing to offend us, then there’s almost certainly nothing to attract our attention either.
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
Christopher Booker’s The Seven Basic Plots
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke
the underlying pattern of these plots – the ways in which an audience demands certain things – has an extraordinary uniformity.
from Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke