![]() – Ayun Halliday was not raised to question authority.Here, guest writer Olivia Poglianich explores a few of Pixar’s tried-and-true storytelling techniques. #22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there. #21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like? #Pixar storywriting tips movie##20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. #19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. #18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against. #16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. #15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations. #14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. #12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone. #11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. What you like in them is a part of you you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up. #9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. #8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. Endings are hard, get yours working up front. #7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. #6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free. #3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. #2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. Instead, I invite you to share your filled out Number Fours in the comments section…or tell us which of the other twenty-one seem most suited to its intended purpose. I could keep go on forever, but I don’t want to come off as a toy hog. Until finally there’s a bloodbath from which no one emerges unscathed. Because of that, the cowboy and the spaceman each swore vengeance upon the other’s house. Because of that, his interest in the cowboy took a serious nosedive. Every day, he played with his cowboy doll. There’s no denying that it fits this one like a glove: Until finally, he gets shot to death in his pool. Because of that, he hooked back up with Daisy. Because of that, he bought a mansion where he threw enormous parties. ![]() One day he met a beautiful rich girl named Daisy. Every day, he dreamed of rising above his station. Once upon a time there was a poor young soldier. Until finally their oldest daughter ends up breastfeeding a starving stranger. Because of that, every able bodied young male left the family. Because of that, they decided to seek a better life in California. One day their last speck of top soil blew away. Every day, they tried to make it work on their hardscrabble farm. Once upon a time there was a poor family in Oklahoma. ![]() ![]() Now that that’s out of the way, let the guessing begin! Warning: there are some major spoilers below. (It works pretty well with established religions too, but I’m not here to tread on the faithful’s toes.) While it’s entirely possible to fill in those blanks with the fruits of your own imagination, it’s a true joy to subject one’s most cherished literary, cinematic, and dramatic works to this retroactive Mad Lib. ![]() They’ve got formulas of their own.Īs for myself, I am repurposing #4 – the only rule that doesn’t contain an implied order or some derivative of “you” – as an extremely jolly parlor game. Apply any and all that work for you, though don’t get your hopes up if your ultimate goal is to sell a story to Dreamworks or Disney. Twenty two? That’s twenty more than Tolstoy. I know some people enjoy a lot of direction, but those of us who relish bushwhacking start to chafe when the road is that heavily signposted.īy all means, sample Coates’ Pixar 22 (see them all below). Her list of the 22 Rules of Good Storytelling gleaned on the job has been gaining Internet traction since it was published last June. One of the most recent sages to join the canon is Emma Coates, Pixar’s former story artist. Everyone from Kurt Vonnegut to Ernest Hemingway has shared his ideas on crafting solid narrative writing. ![]()
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