Skip to content

Storytelling is about patterns

David Gane
David Gane

They could be:
Raising the stakes.
Raising questions
Tension and release.
Want, obstacle, action, response, outcome.
“No, and,” “yes, but.” Or “no, but,” “yes, and.”
Treating it like an essay and developing an argument.
Treating it like a song and playing with tone and mood.
Resisting a pattern as best as you can.

Or a dozen other ones.

There are plenty of ways you can experiment. None of them is the singular, correct path.

The goal is to choose one for your story and have fun.

Blog
David Gane

David Gane Twitter

Co-writer of the Shepherd and Wolfe young adult mysteries, the internationally award-winning series, and teacher of storytelling and screenwriting.

Comments

Related Posts

Happiness and pain

When asked what they want, people often say they want happiness or pleasure. However, in Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman argues that people are loss-averse, meaning they are more likely to act to avert a loss than to achieve a gain. This finding means we are more likely to

Fast Fiction

Before writing the daily blog, I had been experimenting with fast fiction—fiction that was written and shared quickly. The first time was during the summer of 2021 when I wrote a new story every day for 31 days. I then tried to do it once a week for a

Mistakes happen

Yesterday's newsletter didn't go to the right group, so I had to resend it tonight. It may even come out after I'm finished with this blog post. I finished it early yesterday, did several edits, then had my wife read it before I sent it. Yet, it still failed—but