Rules of storytelling, according to Pixar
- Emphasize trying more than success.
- Having an initial theme while writing is important but don’t get too attached to it.
- Cutting things out is important part of the writing process.
- Challenge your characters with their polar opposite.
- Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle.
- Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
- Audiences don’t like passive/malleable characters, so give yours opinions.
- Imagining what you would do in the place of your character helps you lend credibility to unbelievable situations.
- Give the consumers reason to root for the character. Stack the odds against them and make the stakes clear.
- Story is testing, not refining.
- Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
- Trying to rewrite a movie you dislike into one you like without messing too much with the structure is a good exercise.
- Summarize the essence of your story. If you know that, you can build out from there.
347
722 reads
CURATED FROM
IDEAS CURATED BY
The idea is part of this collection:
Learn more about communication with this collection
Effective communication
Persuasion techniques
Closing a sale
Related collections
Similar ideas to Rules of storytelling, according to Pixar
Tips for Fixing Plot Holes
- Rewrite an inconsistency to fit the story. For example, give the suspect who went for a walk in the storm muddy shoes and/or a damp jacket.
- Make the implausible plausible. If a character is acting out of character, rewrite the scene to fit the character actions and speech with th...
Dave Lieber’s V Storytelling Formula
- Introduce the character;
- Bring the story to its lowest point;
- Turn it around and finish with a happy ending.
Once you introduce the character of the story, describe how things went awful for him/her, using emotion...
Planning: Map Out Everything You Need to Do
Break down everything you need to do to enable you to move forward on a project. Success requires a plan way more granular than most people make it.
For example, if your project is writing a novel, ask yourself what you're trying to do. Are you trying to reach out to a publisher, self-...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
—
100+ Learning Journeys
—
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates