Climb a stairway of scenes to your novel!
What is the single most important practice of high-volume fiction writers? They ensure that they have a coherent progression of scenes before they start writing. This means shaping the raw events of your story into a compelling scene list, a stairway of scenes. Let “Story Crisis, Story Climax 2†show you how!
In this book we will look at thirty new movies, entirely different from the movies considered in “Story Crisis, Story Climax 1â€. We will dig deep into what the plot pressure points in each film, from the Inciting Incident to the Crisis, all have in common – each throws a problem in the path of the hero, who then responds with a decision. In a very real sense it is these five problems and decisions that generate the scenes of your novel.
And yet each plot pressure point, coming at a different point in your story, serves a different purpose. By seeing the problem/decision dynamic in the Inciting Incident, TP1, Midpoint, TP2, and Crisis at work in movie after movie, you will come to see how this works, and how to use it in your own writing!
You’ll learn:
* How to initiate story conflict in the hero’s world with the Inciting Incident (1st problem).
* How to have the protagonist commit in Turning Point 1 (2nd problem) to the course of action he chose earlier.
* How to guide the hero to a Midpoint decision (3rd problem) where the rules of the game, what is at stake, his attitude and approach, and the story’s theme – all shift profoundly.
* How to ramp up the action in Act 2B leading to Turning Point 2 (4th problem), followed by a reversal.
* How to catapult story action into the Act 3 Crisis (5th problem), where the protagonist commits to the endgame, making a life-changing decision that leads into the story Climax.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE
Why Movies?
The Best Tool
The Problem/Decision Arc
Movie Analytics
PART TWO
1 / DRAMA
All Is Lost (2013)
Fury (2014)
Transcendence (2014)
The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)
Captain Phillips (2013)
Drama: Problem/Decision
2 / HISTORICAL
12 Years A Slave (2013)
47 Ronin (2013)
300: Rise of an Empire (2014)
Noah (2014)
Pompeii (2014)
Historical: Problem/Decision
3 / HORROR
As Above, So Below (2014)
Warm Bodies (2013)
Oculus (2013)
World War Z (203)
Insidious (2010)
Horror: Problem/Decision
4 / SCIENCE FICTION
The Giver (2014)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
The Maze Runner (2014)
Star Trek: Into Darkness (2014)
Ender’s Game (2013)
SF: Problem/Decision
5 / SUPERHERO
Man of Steel (2013)
Iron Man 3 (2013)
6 / ACTION
John Wick (2014)
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)
Escape Plan (2013)
Fast and Furious 6 (2013)
Shooter (2007)
7 / FANTASY
The Hobbit 1: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
The Hobbit 3: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Your Stairway of Scenes