Game thinking from Adam Clare

Tag: story

One Way Pixar Tells Stories

Pixar, that ever lovable, movie company tells some pretty great stories. One person has collected a great list of how Pixar writes a great story.

From the list of 22(!) story points here’s numbers 4 through to 7:

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

If you’re interested in how to generally get a grasp on how to make your story engaging and worthwhile you ought to check out the list.

Kurt Vonnegut and Some Story Graphs

Kurt Vonnegut is my favourite author and in one of his story collections he writes a tale about how we tried to formalize analysis of stories using graphs. He was curtly rejected by the powers that be and his graphs were called bunk.

Well, I still like the graphs and perhaps you will too after watching this short clip of him discussing three common stories:

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