Just the other day I had another “real world” experience dealing with Mental Sex that I wanted to share. For the new readers out there, the Mental Sex of a character describes the sort of base operating system from which that character engages the world. It’s a trait that is hardwired and, as I’ll point out, filters out the world around a character without them even knowing it.

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Constant readers of this site will know why I got such a kick out of this latest trailer. Besides the fact that I’m a sucker for any Western (my love for Deadwood and Unforgiven knows no bounds), this film actually looks like it could be pretty decent. For those just happening by, pay special close attention to the back and forth between Jesse (Brad Pitt) and Ford (Casey Affleck).

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Pretending to be a screenwriter is easy. Anyone can do it. Coming up with a good idea however, can be a bit harder. Even more difficult? Finding a way to put all the pieces of your story together to create a compelling narrative. But the most difficult task of all is convincing someone to give you that big break - to transform you into that honest-to-goodness professional screenwriter.

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Everyone agrees that the Main Character is the most important character in a film. Why? Because through this person, an audience experiences first-hand the emotions and consequences of the narrative surrounding them. But there is another, less understood character that is primarily responsible for influencing growth in the Main Character. This character is known as the Impact Character.

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Because the Dramatica theory of story goes into such finite detail, it can be hard sometimes to really visualize how all the pieces fit together. What does one appreciation have to do with another? Are all these appreciations really that disconnected and how can I use them to write a story? The Visual Storyform is here to help.

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Stranger Than Fiction joins the long line of films that begin with a great premise, yet fail to deliver the story goods. This failure comes not as a result of bad directing or poor acting choices, but rather as a result of an inconsistent and faulty story structure. When setting up the dramatics of a story it’s important to make sure that the audience understands exactly to whom the story belongs.

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The storyform is the skeletal backbone of a story. Within this structure the dynamic and static appreciations of a story coalesce into a greater singular meaning. And while there are several great reports available to the Dramatica user, wouldn’t it be great if there was a more visual way of looking at this most essential part of a story?

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There is nothing worse than a movie that tries to provide some meaningful moment at the last second. Often times it feels like these heavy-handed messages are just a panicked reaction to an empty story. If you do it right, the events in your story and the order in which they appear in should provide an audience all the meaning they’ll ever need.

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If there is one thing 300 gets right, it’s the awesome spectacle of blood spattering. Matching with uncanny accuracy the images provided by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, director Zack Snyder provides fanboys with the ultimate comic book adaptation.

If only a complete story had accompanied the crimson-soaked celluloid…

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