Good Stories

[ucbrigade]

What do you think makes a story "good"?

More importantly, what do movie studios think makes a story "good"?

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Watch Luke 11:17 and let us know what you think!

[caissiela]

There's a huge difference between "good" scripts and "commercial" scripts.  "American Beauty" was a good script but it wasn't commercial.  It only got made because Ball had already sold something and was asked "what else ya got". 

The idea isn't to write a good or great script but rather a great commercial script when you're fresh out of the gate.  I'm not telling anyone to sell out, but agents, managers, and producers have limited imagination and are looking to pay their bills like everyone else.  Start with the genres.  It's highly highly recommended to start writing comedy, thrillers, horrors, and action over say a drama.  Many of my favorite scripts are dramas, but unless you're charlie kaufman you want to stick with what sells.

My philosophy, and has served me well, is write commercial and then once you're in you'll have the leverage to write what you really want.  Save that tale about the great bond between you and your little brother and first write the story about two crazy brothers who can't seem to do anything write...sorry right!

Good luck everyone!!

[robgrant]

Wotcha

To quote William Goldman "Nobody knows anything" and he won two Oscars for best screenplay amongst many other awards.  No one can tell you what makes a story good but I can give you 10 reasons why a script might fail.

01) No defined hero with a clearly defined want or need
02) The story is not fully developed
03) Dialogue is over-written with no original voices
04) Scene descriptions are not visual
05) The story is not original
06) The story has no moral argument
07) The story has no larger theme
08) The characters are two dimensional
09) There is no empathy for the characters
10) There is no audience for the story

I keep this list pinned up in front of my mac and when things aren't working I look back at what I've written and check it against the list - the answer is usually one of these things.

Hope that helps.

Cheers!

Rob

[mk ultra]

the good story is story that touch the emotion of who read the sory, imagine what all people memory that remain, write it in ypour story and touch their heart, it can be love, anyone must fall in love in their live, or somehing peoplo never tought, suicide, psycho, so you can touch their heart with what they have done, or they never mention it, with dramatical story you write based on your life experience