Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

How much does the audience need to know about the protagonist and his world to have a full response?

An audience may, if so moved, empathize with every character in your film, but it must empathize with your protagonist.

the premature writing of dialogue is the slowest way to work.

External Imagery takes a category that outside the film already has a symbolic meaning and brings it in to mean the same thing in the film it means outside the film:

The Open Mystery is the Columbo form in which the audience sees the murder committed and therefore knows who did it.

Knowledge of and insight into the world of your story is fundamental to the achievement of originality and excellence.

triangular design brings closure.

The second circle inscribes personal relationships, unions of intimacy deeper than the social role.

move progressively forward to a final action beyond which the audience cannot imagine another.

All stories are “character-driven.