Narrative Structure
-Longevity
basically, is the story just pop culture references? will your work survive on its own and create its own meaning without needing historical context?
-Connection to audience
what will make the audience care about this story? it should be easily relatable and reflect the audience's values and/or beliefs
-Sellable
self-explanatory, it has to be good enough to be worth time, effort, and money
-Universal/realism/relatability
self-explanatory, being too over the top and having things that the audience can't relate to isn't good.
-Style/manner in which it’s told
essentially format. for prose, first or third? limited or omniscient third person?
What makes a good story?
-Good subject
-Good storytelling
7 elements of drama
-mimetic (looks realistic, realizes it’s fiction though)
this doesn't mean you need to constantly break the fourth wall or hang lanterns everywhere. you can't try and force fiction to feel real, but you also can't just go "well it's fiction, so I don't need to try and make any of it realistic!"
-serious
maybe doesn't work for something that's supposed to feel like a comic book, but random access humor doesn't work very well. Basically, I'll quote Joss Whedon since he seems like your kind of person. “Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.” You can make it as dark as you want, but ease the tension now and then. You can make it as funny as you want, but you need to have moments of sobriety.
-full story of appropriate length
if your story is only good enough to be 10 pages, your story is 10 pages. don't stretch things that don't need stretching, don't compress things that don't need it.
-contain rhythm and harmony
pacing.
-rhythm and harmony occur in combinations and parts
basically, pacing needs to be consistent. again with the Whedon quote, too. work on properly balancing moods. nothing's worse than moving from something serious like a funeral into a slapstick routine.
-be performed
ignore, this is related to scripts.
-catharsis: arouse feelings of pity and fear, then purge them
good fiction moves people. you need to be able to make your audience feel emotions, and then give them a proper, solid resolution.
Classical story structure
-Beginning, middle, end (3 acts)
-Unified (all the same story)
-Hero (protagonist), and adversary (antagonist)
Classical narrative paradigm
Act I
Exposition (intro, here’s what you need to know)
MAJOR DRAMATIC QUESTION (page 19)
which would be on a 100-110 page Hollywood script. This is where we see the conflict that the protagonist will face.
Act II
Rising Action
Crisis/Point of no Return
Act III
Climax
Denouement (resolution)
This is the story of (main character) who wants to (Major Dramatic Question) and after (crisis) finally (climax), because (theme).
@Connor, don't just assume this is coming from only me. Someone who was in this same class is registered with the Writers Guild of America and has a few scripts submitted for approval at various studios. My teacher has pushed me to do the same. I have English Writing friends who are looking at job offerings for magazines and volunteer at creative writing summer programs, and this is the same stuff they use.
