Why the "Now" is Key: Lesson 7

How we make STORY

You have your camera, writer-director, what do you do next? Stories happen in the middle of things—in real-life present action or what I call the Now.

Here’s what I mean: At this moment, now, you and I are meeting.

Table of Contents for all 19 lessons

We’re here together now. When we finish, we will have reached the conclusion of our meeting.

In a story, what happens in-between becomes story when something happens to me or you that changes either or both of us in the present action, the NOW of the story—or for our purposes to explain this another way, while you and I are together.

All stories are about someone struggling with something.

We’re struggling to be good writers, to tell stories our readers will care about, love, remember. Let’s discuss in more detail with an example from my process and a movie we’ll watch together. We can learn bunches from well-written screenplays and maybe you want to write one.