What Is The Formula To A Good Story?
March 2021 Ink2Quill Editorial
www.ink2quill.com

So, what is the formula to a good story? Is there even one? Hollywood, Bollywood, Nigerwood and other big film industries of the world would have you believe so. The big film industries of the world put out so much formulaic content they must really believe they found the formula to a good movie. The secret sauce. All of the `blockbusters´ follow the same storylines over and over again as if we don´t notice it.

All of the big movie industries, and even a lot of the small ones, create mostly formulaic stories, especially when their movie is intended for the masses. Artistic, independent movies are, for the most part, the exception.

What is it with this seeking out of formulas and symmetry in movie scripts? Why can´t stories just progress or devolve organically more often. Why does the `good hero´ have to always win the prize or get the justice etc.?

Evil always has the familiar appearance, tell tale signs or some type of predictable foreshadowing. Very few movies play with our perceptions and show us a villain we still have a hard time recognizing at the end of the story. I can only think of a few, like “Basic Instinct”, where some people actually believed the murderer was innocent. Or how about “Manhattan Night” where Adrian Brody´s performance was so convincing we could not see that he was a damaged, unreliable witness who was in way over his head with the likes of the villain Caroline, brilliantly played by Yvonne Strahovsky.

Those are unconventional movies in that the viewer is not given a neat, cookie cutter ending where the villain is clearly shown and caught. Movies with more organic story developments are like magic tricks where our attention is diverted. Movies of this type let us know that we are not as smart as we think we are and we have not understood the situation as well as we thought we did. One classic example of this is the movie “Inception”. I have said it before and I will say it again. The character of Dom is basically an unreliable witness leading us, the viewer, down the garden path while he sorts out his life. (I don´t want to give away any spoilers.) He isn´t evil but he is headed in the wrong direction, running from some very serious issues.

So, I guess a good story can follow a formula or it can be organic. I love the surprise of an organic story though, even if it´s slow in some parts and things aren´t so choreographed and shiny. Even if the characters aren´t Hollywood beautiful they can still be just as interesting if not more.

John Ink2Quill

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