How To Write A Great Story (Decades Of Wisdom Distilled Down To 17 Minutes)
A 17 minute masterclass on how to write a great story for authors, writers, screenwriters, filmmakers and storytellers.
Our gratitude to these guests for making this video possible! (In order of appearance)
Jason Satterlund - • How To Write A Great S...
Jack Grapes - • Method Writing: The Fi...
Mark W. Travis - • Write Your Life And Be...
Victoria Fratz - • You're Probably Not Go...
Stanley M. Brooks - • What Filmmakers Get Wr...
Shannan E. Johnson - • Beginners Guide To Scr...
Erik Bork - • The Idea: The Seven El...
Glenn Gers - • If You Can't Answer Th...
Naomi Beaty - • The Screenplay Outline...
Pat Verducci - • Solve Your Story Struc...
Alan Watt - • The 90 Day Screenplay:...
Andrew Warren - • One Tip That Is Guaran...
Charla Lauriston - • 4 Books Every Screenwr...
Scott Myers - • Go Into The Story: Scr...
Jim Agnew - • What Beginning Screenw...
William C. Martell - • Script Secrets - Willi...
Karl Iglesias - • Writing For Emotional ...
Patricia Vidal Delgado - • Writing Authentic Char...
Zach Zerries - • Best Way To Start A Sc...
Houston Howard - • You're Gonna Need A Bi...
Courtney Miller - • 5 Basic Elements Every...
Tony DuShane - • Beginner's Guide To Be...
Gordy Hoffman - • Advice To Screenwriter...
Phil Hawkins - • 3 Most Important Steps...
Van Ditthavong - • How A Daydreamer Start...
Rachel K. Ofori - • From Writing Screenpla...
Michael Hauge - • Screenwriting Plot Str...
MORE FILM COURAGE COMPILATIONS
• How To Write A Great S...
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0:01 - Intro 0:31 - Every story must have a Problem/Obstacle/Goal 1:03 - The Problem, the Dramatic Question, the Transformation 2:02 - Transformation/Growth through a personal inner struggle 2:39 - Measuring progress by the story yardstick 3:27 - Character flaws 4:05 - The story idea 5:47 - The logline 6:14 - The craft of writing and your personal process 7:14 - The theme and story concept 8:06 - Writing the first scene 8:30 - (& plotting vs pantsing) 9:03 - Knowing the 5 Pillar Beats: the 1.) Ending/Resolution, 9:37 - the 2.) Beginning, the 3.) Inciting Incident, 10:22 - the 4.) Midpoint, the 5.) All is Lost 10:46 - Writing a script through a series of questions: 11:39 - Ask: Who, What do they want, Why, What do they do about it, How? 12:39 - How to make a scene work? clarity of Goals and Stakes 12:55 - Moving the story forward through: Stakes, Conflict and Tension 13:42 - Only include beats/scenes that serve the story and the character’s Goal 15:19 - The importance of Conflict 15:34 - Building the emotional bedrock of the story 16:12 - Outro: the story you need to tell
Wow! Looks like you have spent some good time with this one! Good stuff!
@@filmcourage call me a compulsive notetaker ☺
Thank you for sharing some of your notes here!
Ty
Great information
Shoutout to whoever edited this, I'm sure these clips are pulled from hours of footage, you killed it!
Thanks Jules! Appreciate it. This one took a little bit and definitely used hours of footage!
Facts💯 killer work 🔥🔥🔥
For real. The way Film Courage strung this together is very effective and virtually seamless. Bravo!
Was thinking the same thing. As someone who edits (editing rn) the complexity of this video to stay on theme, feed off tips from other videos. Bravo!
Editors and runners are definitely unsung heroes in the film industry.
"There's something in there thats scaring you. And that's good. You need to go there" Love that.
There is something about the way this was put together that made me feel like every person in each interview clip was talking directly to me. "Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid!" I have dealt with enough situations in my life to know that statement has a lot of truth in it. Thank you for that reminder!
Love this comment! Thanks Tyrone! Our best to you and your work!
I also felt this way.
Different people have different ideas about what's a great story. In my view, a story which stays for a long time in memory of a viewer or reader after coming out of it makes it great.
I agree. But what make some stories to stay in your head and some just pass by? Even if that stories have technically correct script in all respects..
@@yegorshpirko8548 Technical correctness of a script cannot be considered as a guaranteed parameter for the longevity of it's content in the minds of audience or readers. Still lot of other parameters are also there to be added for attaining that quality in a script.
@@yegorshpirko8548think it stems from the emotional truth like the one guy said in the video. If you are being real and honest about your characters and how they’d navigate whatever situation you’ve put them in, then it’ll resonate on some level with people. You have to give your all to the story, don’t keep scenes you feel will be cool or scenes you had in mind if they don’t fit, you gotta be really honest and willing for the story to change and evolve as you get to know it more.
@@NolanCinemaTeam your answer just compliments my message, and does not answer it. Let's say both scenarios are made according to all the rules correctly, but the story of one sits in the soul, and the other is forgotten the next day. There is something third in some films, a certain soul that touches you. And I'm trying to figure out what it is.
@@yegorshpirko8548 I didn't compliment your message. That's your imagination. You need to read my previous message again for a clear understanding.
Whoever assembled this montage from the imponderable amount of original interview footage is an editing savant.
🙏
Please find a better Thesaurus.
@@decorumless6432 - you make the dull noises of the confidently undereducated.
@@BooksForever What are you trying to do with that en dash? Scare me?
@@filmcourage isnt most of this just from "save the cat"?
This edit is the result of a mad genius.
Hope it helps you create something genius!
Absolutely incredible! How you managed to encapsulate thousands of years of the innate, existential human experience, (need to tell stories), in 17 minutes, is simply astounding. Thank you so much to all that shared their wisdom, and to all of those who created this.
This is a rare moment that pushed me again to take notes. I'm not forced, but I have a feeling that there is a lot of learning here that I don't want to forget in my journey in creating my first story.
This is gold! I've seen at least half of those writers in your videos and this edit is just awesome! Hope to see more like these in the future
Thanks Alejandro! We hope to deliver more like this!
this reads like a classroom of 6th graders answering the teacher on a test about narrative structure. character vs conflict, character development, literally copy pasting that 5 step plot structure all of which i learned before middleschool." make sure to write down all your ideas" "there's no right or wrong way"
And yet they are all more successful than all of us
This is priceless Thank you immensely for taking the time to put this together, and share with us. 👊🏾
It's fun being able to put these kind of videos together. We hope it helps some viewers. Thanks for watching!
I would like to thank the people and the editors for making this channel be possible. I have this story idea that I have been planning since the early days of high school and plan to share this for the next 5 years or so. This channels has always a point of reference to hone in my storytelling/writing techniques and I cannot express my gratitude enough. Thank you :)
Masterfully edited!!! Seeing talented Writers speak on the entire process of Story, pulled from clips years apart, with all in agreement encouraging us to write Story, got me choked up!
Thank you Randy! We worked on this one for a little while. Great to see you find this one and to see you connect with it!
This taught me so much about what’s different about how to write a screenplay because I study novel writing, and this wild. Of course being on KZhead I’ve seen my share of screen writing tips and advice and have always known its differences but this truly showed me. Thank you
Karen, to you and your team, this video is truly glorious! I have spent many hours watching Film Courage. I wish to thank you very much. I have learned so much from you and your brilliant guests. All the best to you and your team. Cheers!
Thank you so much! Great to hear the videos and our channel have been helpful. We appreciate the feedback!
The bit about "if something scares you, you need to go after it" resonated big time. I'm trying to write my first story. I've tried many time only for it to crash during take off. Sometimes my ideas wouldn't even make it past the gate. Something is different with this one though. I've actually finished whole scenes. It's actually taken off and ascending to 10k feet! In my very core this story burns with the sun's intensity. But i get these feeling of being scared and anxious. I'm not sure why. I only know that this plane cannot be allowed to crash.
I'm happy for you. Keep writing! I think you should consider writing about a plane crash next 🤔
@@i4gvme interesting take. I will consider it. Though there is a train crash in the current story.
Thank you! Very informative. I have a story that crying to get out of my soul and onto paper. It’s personal and will be misunderstood so I have to do it right. I’ve never been published before so intimidating but I’ve carried this around for 10 years. I feel like it’s my life purpose in a way! I’ll get there 😅
For those of us scribes creating serial, dramatic narrative/episodic storytelling, it's not simply a fixed storyline, rather it's a dynamic one as our characters evolve, so do do the motives/reasons for them to take actions/strive to achieve/resolve their issues. This is however a great compendium of inspiring advice. Advice most of us seasoned writers know, but do not always stay focused upon. It's a "Refresher" for me, and a nice introduction for newer, rookie writers.
Thousand hours of learning in minutes. Hats off to you! 🙌🏻
13:00 about the characters having a good time in the middle, works amazingly if they keep the feeling that something isn’t right. And then do the twist. these are the biggest punch to the heart (for me). So much so, I somehow developed a spidy-sense to detec them 😅 “you can’t trick me anymore 😭”
Great advice on the craft of storytelling and writing. Well done. Everyone who wants to write or is already a writer should watch this video.
One of the greatest pieces of writing advice I’ve ever been given is that the story doesn’t start at the beginning of your book, there should have already been some stuff happen before your book even starts, and you’re just throwing the reader into the world. In an absolutely underrated book called Thief, it doesn’t even introduce characters to you, the characters just start talking to each other like they’re familiar (coz why wouldn’t they be?)👍🏽❤️
Before reading this, I thought all stories start with the Big Bang
Who is the author of Thief?
@@pjoazure Matthew Colville👍🏼 He's also a DM, sorta
Thank you for posting this video, I appreciate it. This is a wonderful video, informative and entertaining. Stay safe and stay healthy. God bless you.
Thank you Manny! This is one of our new favorites!
Loved this. Writing is hard for me. But I got a story I just have to tell! Thanks for helping me find a way. Thanks to ALL of you .
This is so beautiful..
Thanks for these. I like this new format. It's always inspirational to listen to, and I always watch your channel to get creative juices flowing.
Great to hear! Thanks Alex! Have fun creating!
Thanks for this treasure !! In India, we call writing as sutras - it means wisdom of 1000's of years brought to together in five plus words..!! Live & Respects !!
Thank you so much! I sure needed to hear these amazing people speak. 🙏🏽
This one needed to find you! : )
3 minutes in and already overwhelmed by all the imnofrmation😂. It really has tons of important advice, great video
Like a shot of story-craft espresso! Great insights, well stitched together. For someone new to these ideas, there's a lot to unpack here, and after watching this (and saving it), it's worth going down the rabbit hole by looking up e.g. Michael Hauge (he appears in the video) and Blake Snyder's Save the Cat! and its beat sheet. For writers familiar with these concepts, this video is great reminder of the elements you need to consider. Saved for future rewatching. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Thank you so much for this!
Once again, in awe, I can only say, How Wonderful is this.
This is very inspiring! One of your best videos ever. Thank you.
Cheers Elliott!
You are my hero. What a perfect collection of ideas.
The value in this video is astronomical. Will revisit again to take notes as a refresher. Thank you so much.
Great to hear!
A gem for the Internet Archive.
thank you so much for compiling such a gem !
We appreciate you watching!
Hats off to film courage for posting this wonderfully semi edited documentary
As always Film Courage nailed it. ❤ I find stories actually show me I’m not alone in going through a problem, in dealing with anger or sadness and when the story ends I then feel I may have what I need to solve my own issues, whether internal or external.
This is a great edit! I've watched all of those interviews separately. Awesome summary communicating what's important.
Thank you Jolly Spark Cinema! Great to have your long lasting support!
Thank you for this!!!
Brilliant! Best lessons from the best of the best! Thanks! ❤I'm saving this
Awesome! Thank you!
Amazing montage. Thank you
this video is SO so helpful, i realized so many things, got a direction to what and how to do things!! also love the real, not generated subtitles. english is my second language and sometimes it's hard to understand or process the video. thank you so much (bookmark for later 10:15 ignore this pls)
Love this compilation - thank you for sharing it! 🙌
One of our new favorites!
So good that this one popped into my feed, again. Worth watching again.
Welcome back!
This is very helpful. Thanks very much.
Thanks, I needed that!
This is really good... thanks for editing this into this one video. I run roleplaying games and use a few ideas from these videos to make a premise and run games. Good fun :)
Wow! so many nuggets of knowledge!
Love this! Thanks for putting this together!
Thanks Timothy!
This is a phenomenal compilation. Though really, this is decades upon decades of experience distilled down to 17 minutes.
Maybe we will try your suggestion : )
Thank you for your effort
There is a lot of wisdom here that can be and should be applied to other creative branches and even the way of life itself.
Very clear
I loved this one. This channel continually delivers. I'm adding this one to revisit regularly.
Nice! We hope this one gets better with multiple viewings!
Omg! This is awesome! Really we’ll edited. Brilliant info.
Thanks Paul! We appreciate you taking a moment to share your thoughts!
Love watching this channel
Really appreciate this video! Incredible job. You seemed these together expertly.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed this one!
Nice video and a great summary! Makes me feel encouraged ("pun" intended) to see I'm thinking in a similar way, despite being a relative newcomer.
Thanks for this❤️❤️❤️
Cheers!
how in the hell did you pull this edit together, good heavens i cant even imagine the work that went into this. this is insane.
We appreciate it. Just takes a little time. We hope to add onto this one in time.
This was a wonderful video, thank you
Thank you very much!
Thank you again. Inspiring, motivational, and helps me keep whatever sanity I have left.
Our best to you Mike!
This was so helpfull! Thanks 💕
This was helpful. Thanks.
Wonderful.
Thank you! Cheers!
Good editing for this subject headline.
Amazing!
This is incredible. Thank you
Cheers! Thanks for watching!
The video is great but one quote made me laugh. My favorite quote: “If your character doesn’t have a flaw that they need to overcome, it’s going to be difficult, I think, as a story teller, to figure out the journey that they need to go on to overcome that flaw.“ I understand the intention. Watching a character overcome a flaw is why we read the story. The wording just sounded humorous to me.
She is a comedian. She can be funny when not even trying.
Now we are working on the second episode of the series, and this video gave us a lot of information that will help us write the story better and more clearly, thank you. 🤗
You are the best! Thank you so much!
Cheers Bruno!
Great video. Thank you for sharing!
Cheers!
Deeply grateful 🙏🏻 thank u
Wonderful!
This was incredibly helpful! Thanks so much!
Glad it was helpful!
Amazing summary
Thank you kindly!
ok, I think I'll watch that a couple of times!!
Thanks!
Thank you so much! Great to see you find value here!
Wow incredible compilation work😮Thanks😊
Our pleasure!
Phenomenonal video!! Amazing, thank you
Amazing editing, huge amount of work, well done!
We appreciate your kind words! Thanks for watching!
Thank you
Cheers!
awesome video, thank you.
It can be the otherway around: Story creates the Problems/Obsticles and then the Characters that is needed.... I think it can be either way!
This is insanely helpful mates
One of our favorites!
This was great! What an excellent channel ❤
Thanks for visiting!
This make me throw away my 1st draw and rewrite. Thanks alot!
That means the first draft was effective!
Wow! Thanks a lot!
Cheers!
Thankyou film courage ❤
The most basic thing to turn something into an actual goal is what is the protagonist trying to achieve and what’s preventing/stopping them, then how do they achieve or fail,
This is awesome.
Thanks so much!
from what i understand a story should pose a question of whether or not a character can obtain a goal by overcoming a conflict while undergoing a significant process of change, i think that's the core of what makes a compelling story. as far as what makes a good story depends on the context of what you mean by "good" i think there our three types of good, theirs artistic preference (what aligns with the interests of your target audience), technical execution (how well can you convey the themes and ideas you have), and moral philosophy (why you want to share those themes and ideas), you will probably have a good story when you know what you want out of those three types.
Thank You 💯
You got it! Thanks for visiting!
I watch this daily now before i write ❤
Love to hear that!
Right now I’m attempting a project in writing my first fictional book. This was helpful, thank you.
Love to hear that! Best of luck!
Great video. Very helpful. Will probably revisit this several times. But the 6 key questions writers need to ask themselves (at about 11:40) are the keys to developing a strong story. Jotted them onto a 4"x6" file card that is never going to be out of my sight!
Indeed! That is a essential part of this video!
I hope some of these nice people come across some of my stories which I put up on Amazon. Stay curious and thanks for the video :D
This was awesome!! Notes were duly taken
Nice!
I think modern hollywood writers should take some of these tips onboard