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Pixar's Rules of Storytelling (2013)
- laufj 9y agoStories are more interesting to me when it feels like the characters are consistent and real, and their motivations are driving their actions, not the invisible hand of the storyteller that already has an ending and theme in mind. Because in this case I have something to learn from it.
- ChrisSD 9y agoUndoubtedly. However old sci-fi authors did do well out of making the concept the focus. They were often much much weaker at characterisation and characters really only existed to explore the high concept. In some ways they were like an essay but in story form. As someone who grew up reading these, I would have liked better characterisation but concept focused stories still appeal to me.
- joe_the_user 9y agoSure but that sort of approach of making the concept the focus depended on giving the concept depth and richness. The Pixar approach allows nothing to have depth but everything to still work emotionally. Any variety of original, well-craft fiction will have "meat" whereas this sort of thing is more or less just "sugar" instead.
- aclissold 9y agoFor me, concocted stories (if done right) are an exercise in human creativity & ingenuity. The characters are an amplification of our own character traits, and the situations are metaphors for our own lives. If done masterfully—this overrealization captivates me, and the emotions I feel at the end are real. And I can learn something new about myself for it.
- mrec 9y agoThe Mote in God's Eye and its sequel are perennial faves of mine in this regard. Individual characterization is nothing special, probably par for the course for SF of that era, but nobody is stupid and nobody is evil and watching everything play out organically is just fascinating.
- Erlangolem 9y agoI violently disagree with 19. The overuse of contrived means of creating tension is lazy, predictable, and frustrating. More unpleasant is the tendency of characters to become inexplicably stupid, inexperienced, and illogical under those circumstances. I’m not asking for purely rationalist fiction, but if the tension is utterly contrived, I check out. Contrived tension is no more useful than contrived resolution of tension. When the characters suddenly act like idiots born yesterday, they lose any sense of depth or agency. If you want a prime example of what I’m talking about, watch The Walking Dead.
- teawrecks 9y agoI think you read the word "contrived" into a place where it was not. I think it's more like, "the characters heard legend that A could happen, but despite this they need to accomplish B. And of course, at the worst possible moment A happens and now they have to overcome it." It's like nature's chekhov's gun.
- colordrops 9y agoYou must have loved The Last Jedi.
- BeetleB 9y agoI don't see item 19 as saying characters suddenly act like idiots or change their behavior. Stephen King uses this in a lot of his novels - where separate independent events occur to create a really bad situation. You, the reader, can see these things occurring and are converging to that situation, which creates tension. 19 has nothing to do with character.
- dahart 9y agoThis rule seems like a pretty obvious reference to Deus ex Machina. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina
- jjoonathan 9y ago19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. Are we looking at the same #19?
- dahart 9y ago> 4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. This one reminds me of writing advice from South Park's Trey Parker: write better stories by figuring out how to replace all your "ands" and "buts" with "therefore". http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2015/05/the-key-to-story-structure-in-two-words-therefore-but.html http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2015/05/the-k... > 20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like? This one strikes me as an especially great idea! Rewrite something bad to make it good. There are certainly some shows I've bitched about (like a lot of people) but I would have a hard time dissecting it to find what's wrong with it, and even harder time fixing it. Having to do it would certainly be educational.
- BeetleB 9y agoItem 4 is one I've seen elsewhere: https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Ink-Practical-Building-Resonate/dp/0998534471 https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Ink-Practical-Building-Reso... In fact, I recall a Pixar writer said it was one of his favorite books. Actually, I found it (same blog): https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/22/the-story-spine-pixars-4th-rule-of-storytelling/ https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/22/the-story-spine-... Apparently the author claims neither he nor Pixar came up with it.
- bennesvig 9y agoI've read dozens of books on storytelling and Invisible Ink is one of my favorites.
- arethuza 9y ago"How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?" Are you allowed to combine multiple movies? If so them I'm off to combine "Howards End" and "The Hurt Locker" into something more to my taste....
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- draw_down 9y agoThe result is that the stories of their kovies feel telegraphed in advance. Coco definitely felt that way to me. It was still worth watching for other reasons but there is very little in the way of real suspense or surprise. On the other hand that doesn’t seem to be a problem for kids movies.
- mrspeaker 9y ago"Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way." I make this my personal rule when replying to something on the internet: if it's the first thing you thought of, there are already 20 other replies saying exactly the same thing!
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- kleiba 9y agoYou gotta be careful though: often times, first intuitions aren't so bad, and further iterations can get more and more complicated until there's no freshness left at all.
- denzil_correa 9y agoI think the point is to build on the first intuition rather than consider it "well done". It is to actively accept that may be you are missing something that can help convert the first intuition into an even better idea. Therefore, I wouldn't say you need to discard the first idea/intuition but rather to not think of it as the final product.
- runevault 9y agoNot necessarily. For example: I need a chase scene in my story here. If you're telling a modern story, your first inclination is either a car chase or a foot chase. You certainly CAN just spice these up (put them in a surprising location being the easiest) but there is value in trying to find a different way (chase on Segways, or maybe on animals stolen from the zoo, etc).
- stordoff 9y agoIMO you need to be careful about going too far the other way though - if you start going with the non-conventional choice too often, or where there isn't justification for doing so, it can start to feel forced/different just for the sake of being different.
- xs 9y agoThere's a full Khan Academy course specifically on Pixar storytelling techniques. https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar
- supermdguy 9y agoWow, that's awesome. I love Khan Academy.
- joe_the_user 9y agoI have been running a Pathfinder (table top rpg) campaign for the last several years. A lot of these rules are great hints for a dungeon master as well as for a writer. However, I think these rules can easily be "how to write a shallow but emotionally compelling story" (surprise, surprise). That said, having these rules on the table (so to speak) is useful for when you as story teller want to have something other than the obvious happen (ie, know the rules to break them). Try occasionally having extra, useless characters just to confuse people. Have detours and details that turn into their own story. Slow down or speed-up pace just for the heck of it. Let the players find ways to short-circuit all the apparent barriers and then have something different happen.
- woodandsteel 9y agoIt's interesting the focus on the beginning and the end. It seems that would mean you should think a lot about how things at the end are similar or different from the start, like circumstances and character, and how you feel about all that.
- monk_e_boy 9y agoThe Harmon circle story method, the beginning and end are pretty much the same place, the character changes and learns. http://www.ghostlittle.com/blog/testing-the-dan-harmon-story-circle http://www.ghostlittle.com/blog/testing-the-dan-harmon-story...
- runevault 9y agoYup, if you know the beginning and the end, theoretically there are only so many ways to get there. The trick is picking the most interesting route that also creates the emotional journey you want the audience to go through.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoJK Rowling has said she wrote something like 20 versions of the first chapter of the first (Harry Potter) book and if you read them all, you would have known all the major plot points for the first several books. Storytelling is about more than just deciding the plot. It is very much about staging the reveal of details.
- luord 9y agoSomeone already critiqued 19 so I'll speak against 16: Sure, stack the odds against the characters' success... But don't go overboard unless you're writing a tragedy. If the odds are too against the characters, the resolution is going to feel contrived, even if it makes sense and it's not really a Deus ex Machina.
- ozim 9y agoYou still have to have 'all is lost' moment to make win much bigger for the audience.
- HedgeSparrow 9y agoI think you can just escape contrivance if you make the success come at great personal cost. Of course, if the cost is too great it becomes a tragedy.
- philwelch 9y agoStacking the odds against a character can also tie into justifying the character and the story to begin with. Jackie Chan always has the odds stacked against him because if he just used his immense skills to beat people up for two hours, he wouldn’t be sympathetic or likeable and the movies wouldn’t be very much fun at all. You have to justify your hero or else your hero is just a bully.
- ssttoo 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots ... not that Pixar is likely to have a plot of the "Tragedy" kind
- mercer 9y agoTrue, although it's the one thing that made 'Up' more than just okay. The prologue(?) is heartbreaking and quite the tragedy, and could be a satisfying (if sad) story all by itself.
- brwsr 9y agoI'm glad Harry Potter was not written by these rules.
- ktbjn 9y ago> 22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there. I find it interesting that "your story" can be interpreted ambiguously in the last rule. But I guess it's a coincidence.