Storyfix.com

Or… why you should be following “The Following” (the Fox Television series). Consider a workroom with twelve boxes and a desk.  Six of the boxes are labeled “Core Competency: …” and after that colon (one of those amazing double-edged words in the English language, this one with a smirk) there is a different name for [...]

These are my favorite posts — case studies from story evaluations that demonstrate how a great concept can easily turn into an underwhelming story… and how this process can spot it and turn it around. Yes, it’s okay to learn from the pain of others.  Actually, from the resurrection of the stories of others. This [...]

You’re heard me rail and wail about episodic storytelling.   I’ve called it toxic, referred to it as a dreaded story-killer. Still think that, by the way.  But what the heck IS it? The differentiation between what is episodic and what is not is thin and in constant motion.  It is made all the more complicated [...]

Since we’ve been all over this subject lately, I think this is timely.  A reader contacted me about going deeper into an exploration of the differences between IDEA… CONCEPT… and PREMISE.  The differences are huge, and critically important in context to story development.  And yet, in casual conversation – even among agents and editors – the lines [...]