Story Nerd

What Lies Beneath: play the "let me guess" game

Episode Summary

Sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than our successes - that’s my story and I’m sticking to it this week! Narrative drive is an important storytelling principle to learn and this week’s movie is an example of poor story structure resulting in terrible narrative drive. A mystery writer should have control of the information. Valerie’s study of conflict triangles was more fruitful than my area of study this week. The conflict triangle is present and clear to see. -M

Episode Notes

Sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than our successes - that’s my story and I’m sticking to it this week! Narrative drive is an important storytelling principle to learn and this week’s movie is an example of poor story structure resulting in terrible narrative drive. A mystery writer should have control of the information. Valerie’s study of conflict triangles was more fruitful than my area of study this week. The conflict triangle is present and clear to see. -M

"Narrative drive is all about information and the emotions it creates in the readers. It’s also about understanding your role as the writer to control that information." - Melanie Hill

Related Story Nerd Episodes

Late Night (Season 1, Episode 101)

Doubt (Season 11, Episode 1101)