I was working with one of my private students this morning and her story just wasn’t ‘popping’ the way I thought it could.
I suggested she consider looking at the structures of other stories, including Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense to see if maybe part (or all) of her story needed to be moved.
As an exercise, watch a movie that’s structured the same way as your own script and then watch a movie that’s structured differently. You might be surprised to see that if you just move one sequence (or even one scene), you can find the dramatic intensity your story was lacking.
Various structures to consider:
Chronological
The Straight Story
About Schmidt
Divided
Pulp Fiction
Memento
The Sixth Sense
Flashback
Fried Green Tomatoes
English Patient
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