Take Off Your Pants!

The ally is the one who has the power to force the main character onto his correct path.

Who wants the same external goal, but can reveal an opposite or cautionary aspect to the protagonist and to the reader? Whose different approach to attaining the same goal will serve as an “alternate reality” to your main character and to the reader?

The inciting event is almost always closely tied to your character’s external goal.

In the case of setting deeply personal external goals for my characters, I always let the stakes be my guide.

is—if I don’t feel invested in your central character, the plot just won’t excite me.

Story itself is a particular thing—a very specific something that we recognize by instinct.

The antagonist is the person who is most heavily invested in achieving the same external goal.

The kind of theme I’m talking about is simply a unifying concept. What outlook on the world, or on human behavior, are you trying to explore?

The Three-Legged Outline consists