What is the premise?
First Revelation and Decision Changed Desire and Motive
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| 9. First Revelation and Decision Changed Desire and Motive At this point in the story, the hero gets a revelation—or reveal—which is a surprising piece of new information. This information forces him to make a decision and move in anew direction. It also causes him to adjust his desire and his motive. Motive is why the hero wants the goal. All four of these events— revelation, decision, changed desire, and changed motive—should occur at the same time. The reveals are the keys to the plot, and they are usually missing in average stories. In many ways, the quality of your plot comes down to the quality of your revelations. Keep these techniques in mind you have started anew story. You want to adjust, intensity, and build the original desire line. 3. Each revelation must be explosive and progressively stronger than the one that preceded it. The information should be important, or it won't pop the story. And each reveal should build on the one before it. When we talk about the plot "thickening" this is what is actually happening. Think of the revelations as the gears in a car. With each reveal the car (story) picks up speed until at the final one the vehicle is zooming. The audience has no idea how they ended up moving so fast, but they sure are having a good time. If your revelations don't build in intensity, the plot will stall or even decline. This is deadly. Avoid it at all costs. Note that Hollywood has become more plot-conscious in recent years, and that makes many screenwriters' reliance on three-act structure even more dangerous. Three-act structure, you will recall, requires that your story have two 25 or three plot points (reveals. Aside from the fact that this advice is just plain wrong, it will give you a lousy plot with no chance of competing in the real world of professional screenwriting. The average hit film in Hollywood today has seven to ten major reveals. Some kinds of stories, including detective stories and thrillers, have even more. The sooner you abandon three-act structure and learn the techniques of advanced plotting, the better off you will be. Download 0.98 Mb. Share with your friends:
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