STRUCTURE (MACRO TOOLS)
- DZ-46: Structure & Point of View
What questions do you want your audience asking at any given time? - DZ-43: Driving Sequences – Character and Plot Intensity
What gives your sequences their intensity? - DZ-54: Thematic Sequences
How does removing character and plot question force your audience to engage with theme? - DZ-10: Midpoint Reversals and The Ride
How can the middle of your film pivot so much that it pulls the rug out of your audience? - DZ-32: High-Tension Sequences
How can you recreate the feeling of cinematic high-tension on the page?
PROTOGANISTS/ANTAGONISTS
- DZ-49: Antagonists! (Part 1) – vs Humans
What makes a strong human antagonist? - DZ-50: Antagonists! (Part 2) – vs Self
How can characters be their own antagonist? - DZ-51: Antagonists! (Part 3) – vs Nature
What changes in your story if your antagonistic forces can’t be bargained with? - DZ-52: Antagonists! (Part 4) – vs Systems
How do systems pressure your characters to change? - DZ-53: Antagonists! (Part 5) – vs Audience
What if there is no antagonist? - DZ-33: Protagonist vs Hero – Dawn of Character Function
How does splitting ‘character functions’ enhance theme? - DZ-67: Writing “Passive” Protagonists & Melodrama
How do I tell a powerful story where the protagonist cannot drive the plot?
CHARACTER
- DZ-09: Characterising Introductions
Can the introduction of a character be so good that the character doesn’t need describing? - DZ-03: Making unlikeable protagonists compelling
How do you make obnoxious a-holes compelling? - DZ-55: Character Motivations (Part 1)
What to do when a reader says “I don’t buy that he/she would do that”? - DZ-56: Character Motivations (Part 2)
Workshopping ways to fix character motivations - DZ-19: Car-Crash Characters
How do you make unlikeable characters compelling to watch… in drama?
FIRST ACT PROBLEMS
- DZ-44: Marvel, First Acts and Establishing Characters
How can your first act effectively establish your character journey? - DZ-15: World Building Rules, Okay?
How does setting up rules help you build a world?
THIRD ACTS
SCENE WORK (MICRO TOOLS)
- DZ-05: Shifting audience point of view and heightened emotions
Can forcing your audience to ask questions – and then answering them – trigger an emotional response? - DZ-40: Tactics and Scenes
How do tactics make your characters and scenes more dynamic? - DZ-29: Showdowns & Scene Structure
What can fight scenes – whether physical or verbal – teach us about structuring any scene? - DZ-08: Status Transactions
How does a shift in status or power reveal character?
DIALOGUE
- DZ-31: Tools for Better Dialogue
How does dialogue serve to reveal character? - DZ-63: Tools for Better Dialogue (Part 2) – Hook and Eye
How can you create flow and contrast in your dialogue?
THEME
- DZ-54: Thematic Sequences
How does removing character and plot question force your audience to engage with theme? - DZ-41: Theme and Worldview
How can your characters’ worldview dramatise your theme? - DZ-45: Arguments of the Scene
How can you dramatise your theme on a scene level?
WORDS ON THE PAGE
- DZ-16: Masters of Time and Whitespace
How does manipulating time on the page make your script feel more cinematic? - DZ-60: Unfilmables and Unscriptables (Part 1) – Engaging imagination
How can unfilmables enhance the experience of your script? - DZ-61: Unfilmables and Unscriptables (Part 2) – Moments of Awe
How can unfilmables help you create those cinematic moments of awe? - DZ-62: Unfilmables and Unscriptables (Part 3) – As Ifs & Emotional context
How do you know if your unfilmable is good… or if you’re just being a wanker? - DZ-21: Scene Transitions and the Hook
How can scene transitions do more than just move from one location to another?