Literary technique A literary technique (also known as literary device) is any method an author uses to convey his or her message.[1] This distinguishes them from literary elements, which exist inherently in literature. Literary techniques pertaining to setting[edit] Literary techniques pertaining to plots[edit] Literary techniques pertaining to narrative perspective[edit] Literary techniques pertaining to style[edit] Literary techniques pertaining to theme[edit] Literary techniques pertaining to character[edit] Literary techniques pertaining to genre[edit] Notes[edit] Jump up ^ Orehovec, Barbara (2003). References[edit] Heath, Peter (May 1994), "Reviewed work(s): Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights by David Pinault", International Journal of Middle East Studies (Cambridge University Press) 26 (2): 358–360
Learn to Become a Phenomenal Storyteller with Pixar's 22 Writing Rules How Elon Musk Thinks: The First Principles Method Designed by Dmitry Baranovskiy for the Noun Project The creative routines of famous creatives has been popular internet fodder this year. The Pacific Standard thinks this obsession and trend of emulating famous artist’s habits is problematic, to say the least. The larger picture, says Casey N. The idea that any one of these habits can be isolated from the entirety of the writer’s life and made into a template for the rest of us is nonsense. We often talk about process at 99U, so we think this is a great debate. Read the rest of the article here.
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations is a descriptive list which was created by Georges Polti to categorize every dramatic situation that might occur in a story or performance. To do this Polti analyzed classical Greek texts, plus classical and contemporaneous French works. He also analyzed a handful of non-French authors. In his introduction, Polti claims to be continuing the work of Carlo Gozzi, who also identified 36 situations. Publication history[edit] “Gozzi maintained that there can be but thirty-six tragic situations. This list was published in a book of the same name, which contains extended explanations and examples. The list is popularized as an aid for writers, but it is also used by dramatists, storytellers and many others. The 36 situations[edit] Each situation is stated, then followed by the necessary elements for each situation and a brief description. See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]
What anime can teach you about ending a story I have several issues with this article. Firstly, the conception that the recent framing of popular series in the context of God or an afterlife being a resurgence of conservative thought. For one thing, God is seldom recognized as the motive force as it is in Supernatural. In Lost, we never understood who or what was the force at play. Simply that the story ended in an afterlife scenario. A vague one. For another thing, these stories are coming from some of the most unrepentant liberals writing in television. The other issue I have is the characterization that conservative stories appoint a conservator of the status quoe and the stories involve triumph over self. If their stories told us anything it was exactly that one must give up fighting outside events and concentrate on coming to terms with events within. One of the things I will grant anime is that it is not afraid to let the chips fall where they will. Now please, flame gently.
The Crucial Storytelling Mistake that Many Beginning Writers Make I'm not sure I know what a "situation" means - a scene? Or just a conflict/obstacle with no arc or backstory? I've started short stories with a "scene" before, and if you're good enough to develop themes efficiently, you might be able to create an entire short story with just one. I'd say a big mistake I see is when writers try to write a novel/novella/very big short story and create too many "situations" without threading them together in a meaningful way. It's like seeing one crisis after the next without a sense of flow, escalation or purpose. I took it to mean a situation is static — I can't get these vampires to leave my house! Basically, a situation means "the location/surroundings of a place" or "a set of circumstances in which one finds oneself; aka state of affairs". I think a lot of people, myself included, have stories that start "Wouldn't it be cool if...?". At least that's how I take it. She means concept. What happens when you do the vampire protection spell backwards?
Dan Harmon's Story Circle vs. Cosine Wave More on Dan Harmon’s “Story Circle” and my theory it is a cosine wave I’ve discussed before how Dan Harmon (creator of Community, co-writer for Monster House) has distilled the Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth into a very basic tool for describing the arcs of a story. Harmon prefers to see his story structure as a circle, whereas I believe that it is in fact a Cosine Wave. While the story circle on its own is sufficiently impressive on its own, Harmon has further extrapolated on the theory. Top-Bottom Duality The top-bottom duality is best discussed by Harmon in “Story Structure 102.” Left-Right Duality While the left-right duality is not as fully explored as the top-bottom duality on the Channel 101 tutorials, Harmon does discuss it in one of his blog posts breaking down the storyline of a Community episode. Compare that with my cosine wave below: Here because the x-axis operates as a measure of time, the left-right distinction operates consistently. Story Structure and the Hegelian Dialectic
Infographic shows the most common problems in screenplays I'd love to see a breakdown of manuscript rejections done this way. Having watched a few movies in the last ten years, I can tell you from authority that these are not the reasons manuscripts get rejected. It depends on what studio you're pitching, what sort of movie they're in the market for, what sort of other movies they've greenlit, what sort of mood the scriptreader is in that day, whether they're looking for a good role for some actor they just signed a deal with, what movie made the most money last year, and even more importantly, what movie LOST the most money last year (ooooh, you wrote a western? So basically, it's 95% dumb luck. But writing a good script certainly can't hurt (it's also nice because then if your movie actually gets made, it has less of a chance of being savaged by critics and ultimately forgotten.) But on the other hand, they've made six Fast and the Furious movies, and Michael Bay is richer than God, so perhaps disregard the above paragraph. It sickens me.