I’m going to try to blog regularly, if for no other reason than to learn how to blog regularly. So here’s today’s thought on story-telling:

The most important part of a story isn’t character or setting. It’s peril. Where is the peril in your story? What is the danger? It could be big and physical like a super-villain or an asteroid heading to Earth. Or it could be small like a child nervous about giving a book report in front of the whole class, or a man nervous about asking a woman out on a date. Screenwriting books often advise writers to make sure every scene has some form of conflict, but what this really is about is making sure every scene has some form of peril. The peril typically leads to the conflict. The peril is ideally being experienced by a sympathetic character, someone the audience cares about. And we instinctively care about characters who are…you guessed it…in peril.