Mystery Man on Melodrama

What is melodrama and how do we avoid it? I’ve noticed that people have differing interpretations of melodrama, ranging from “sad movie” to “soap operas” to “anything that’s on Lifetime” or, as one guy told me, “it’s anything written by Anton Chekhov.” Indeed, variations abound in its definition: “A genre with an opposition between good and … Read more

How to Write a Story? (Video)

All my successful writer friends and clients are writing every day.

Moreover, they are constantly coming up with new stories.

But how do you do this? How can you come up with new material? How to discipline yourself?

This very short but powerful video is not about screenwriting. It is about storytelling. About how to get your creative juices flowing.

Once you have your story nuggets, you can start thinking of adapting them to the screen.

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Un-quirkify

When I try and list the Australian movies I loved just before moving here, the ones that spring to mind are Priscilla, Love Serenade, Strictly Ballroom, The Dish and Muriel. The one thing they all have in common: they’re quirky. They’re all nineties’ comedies. Some of them worked, others didn’t. I loved them nonetheless. It … Read more

Video: Truby on Sci-Fi

The other day I stumbled upon this really bad quality video with John Truby talking about writing SciFi. But I liked his simple lesson so much that I decided to start a weekly post on The Story Department with a selection of short screenwriting videos. Enjoy!

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