Want and Need ·
Why your protagonist's longing should lead to their fear
What your protagonist longs for is what they'd have if their deepest fear didn't run them, so chasing it should walk them into that fear, or the longing is decoration.
Storytelling insights
Short, practical lessons for screenwriters and novelists on building characters, theme and story worlds. Each one takes a single idea and shows it working in a film you probably know.
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Latest insights
Your Protagonist's Lie ·
Why fixing your character's worldview isn't enough
Under your protagonist's rule for how to live sits a low opinion of themselves, and an ending that fixes only the rule lands early.
Your Supporting Cast ·
Why theme lives between characters, not inside one
What a reader experiences is not a character but the space between two of them, so the same claim carried by three different pairs is what stops a theme sounding like one note.
Your Moral Foundation ·
The price your antagonist pays without seeing it
Your antagonist's path costs them a specific human ability, and the difference between the two sides is not the size of the loss but whether anybody lets themselves look at it.
Your Story World ·
Why an early win can hurt your protagonist
An early win on the thing that measures the war reads to your protagonist as proof their false belief about themselves was right.
Want and Need ·
The selfish version of the goal your protagonist gives up
Nearly every goal carries a selfish version, how your protagonist would get it if nobody else counted, and that version is what the turn asks them to give up.
Your Moral Foundation ·
Why cruelty can run a whole world and decency can't
A destructive quality can be built into an institution, then into manners, then into the atmosphere of a place, while a decent one has to be performed by a named person every time.
Weakness and Strength ·
Who your protagonist's ability is for after they change
The Truth doesn't give your protagonist a new ability; it changes the old one from protecting them to serving other people.
Your Moral Foundation ·
Why the sacrifice in your ending falls flat
A sacrifice only lands when the story has already named what happens if nobody makes it.
Want and Need ·
How a character's need surfaces over the story
What your protagonist needs moves from something they'd deny, to flickers they push back down, to something undeniable once their false belief breaks, and that movement is the arc.
Your Protagonist's Lie ·
Why your character keeps believing the lie
Your protagonist keeps their false belief because it is paying them something real, and the payout should be good enough that someone in the story admires it.
Your Supporting Cast ·
Why one right choice at the end doesn't prove your theme
A protagonist's climactic choice on its own is consistent with your story's position without ever establishing it, because a second position would explain the same choice equally well.
Your Protagonist's Lie ·
When your character's best quality looks like a danger
The Lie makes your protagonist's best quality look like a danger, so the change doesn't add a strength, it points the one they already had somewhere new.
Your Moral Foundation ·
Why your protagonist and antagonist share the same flaw
Your protagonist and your antagonist begin inside the same destructive habit, and what separates them is that one keeps paying for the decent thing while the other found a way to stop.
Your Protagonist on Page One ·
How to describe your protagonist in a few words
Two to four words should be enough to say who your protagonist is, and a label that fits anyone makes the story's demands on them vague.
Your Protagonist's Trauma ·
Is a passive protagonist at the start a problem?
A protagonist who will not act at the start is the defense working correctly, and what they have surrendered is their say rather than their energy.
Weakness and Strength ·
Your protagonist's hardest sacrifice: a defense that works
What your protagonist gives up to earn their Strength is a defense that still works, which is why it's frightening and why it comes back as the last temptation.
Your Story World ·
How to aim your story's conflict at your protagonist
The opposition has to reward the specific false belief your protagonist carries and punish the truth that would free them, or it is generic pressure.
Weakness and Strength ·
Three ways a flaw keeps your protagonist's strength hidden
Your protagonist's Weakness keeps their Strength out of use in one of three ways, and the release has to undo that same way.
Your Supporting Cast ·
How to show your theme without characters preaching
A position can be stated, embodied, or carried by what happens to somebody, and a cast can be fully staffed on the first and starved on the other two.
Want and Need ·
When your protagonist wins without changing
If your protagonist wins the goal without changing and the story treats it as a triumph, the story has adopted their false belief.
Your Story World ·
A quick test for whether your setting is doing any work
If you can move your two sides somewhere else entirely and get roughly the same story, your setting is scenery rather than the conflict in physical form.
Your Protagonist on Page One ·
Why your protagonist stays stuck at the start
Your protagonist stays stuck because The Lie has actually paid them, and their excuse for staying is a trade a fair listener would half accept.
Your Moral Foundation ·
How to write an antagonist who feels justified
The sentence that lets your antagonist wield cruelty without guilt has a fixed form, one sentence in the first person with no irony in it, and writing it out is a task rather than a note.