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marthacarroll · 5 years ago

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Franchise Story Formula

Objective

“What makes a good story?” A Question asked by most aspiring writers. The question no one is ashamed to ask. The majority of writers however, both amateur and professional, often contemplate another question. “What makes a story popular?” Something most anyone would be ashamed to ask out loud.

What I’ve done, is study popular story-driven franchises and catalogue any visible similarities. My main objective being to understand what kind of development goes into these plots before they’re pitched to a publisher or studio.

Discovery

I may have discovered the pattern for an adventure story worthy of becoming a franchise. In the process, I was able to map a formula for writing it down.

While carefully analyzing the narrative of well known novels, movies, comic books and TV series, I kept track of most similarities between two or more. Most evidently, I noticed a certain, vital detail which seems to be consistent with nearly all of them. The best loved stories don’t start at the beginning, but in the middle.The pattern

It’s a story almost all of us have heard more than once. The audience is introduced to the hero; a wide-eyed, ambitious everyman/woman enduring a relatively peaceful existence. Whether this character is living the life of a peasant or a royal, or anything in between, he/she is somehow unsatisfied with the status quo. Suddenly, a disastrous turn of events occurs, completely altering our hero’s overall situation. It becomes clear to this protagonist and therefore the audience, that life can not go back to whatever it was before.

What’s truly interesting, is that what the hero doesn’t know yet is often more important to the plot than what he/she already knows.

After the life changing event, the hero is usually eager for an explanation. Clues start to appear, leading our hero to learn more about why the status-quo suddenly changed. Soon enough into the story, a greater mystery gains the attention of both the hero and the audience. As more is uncovered, it becomes evident that the catastrophe which began the story was just one small link in a long, sequential chain of events influencing most of the characters. As the story progresses, more information is revealed on what happened in the past which is currently effecting the present. Characters older than our hero share their experiences. Documents and recordings add to the evidence. Often the audience doesn’t know anything the hero hasn’t learned yet. As the climax approaches, these various memories begin to form a much clearer timeline of events dating back years before the opening of the story. Most crucially, it is by learning from the past that our hero is able to learn everything necessary to set things right.

Examples:

(01)Star Wars (02)The Hobbit (03)Harry Potter(04)A Game Of Thrones (05)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (06)DC universe (07)Marvel universe (08)Sailor Moon (09)Adventure Time (10)Steven Universe

Series Writing Formula

This can apply to any method of storytelling

Stage One

Start by writing a rough timeline of what happened before the official beginning of the series. Establish motive for older characters. The adults of the story. Most importantly, the Villain.

Stage two

Start plotting out the main events of the series. Establish goals and plan character-arc for the protagonists and antagonists. Plan how the protagonists are going to solve the mystery of how things got to where they are now.

Stage three

Create a new goal for the protagonists. Fulfilling the first challenge gave way to a new one.

Stage four

The ultimatum story-arc which will culminate in the climax. The final leg of the Heroes Journey to emotional maturity.

#creativewriting #creativity #adventure #storytelling #sharing skills #sharingskills #sharingknowledge #writing #writing fiction #franchise potential #franchisepotential

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marthacarroll · 7 years ago

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Early Adulthood Summarized

A new year begins after one that was unusually eventful. Perfect time to start a new blog. Also a great time to jump on the Tumblr wagon ‘cause, better late than never. I guess.

It took me a few years to dig up the character to join Tumblr and now that I’m blogging here, I’m not gonna lie about the kind of person I am. I’m not gonna pretend to be sweet and perfect. I had myself convinced I was extraordinary for most of my childhood and I was just setting myself up for disappointment.

So here’s the truth. I have a lot of negative feelings that I need to flush out of my system. In the past three years, there have been days when I felt like saying...I hate what my life is right now!

I hate having nothing planned. I hate living without somewhere to go five days a week. Having no responsibilities is actually boring. I live with my parents by the way.

Of course I’m ashamed. I keep depending on other people to make it all better. Every time I try to make myself happy I fail disappointingly, because I can’t commit!

That last sentence doesn’t mean what you probably think it means.

A lot of you might think I’m stupid because I won’t let go of my dream. A dream that’s been there since before puberty. Drawing. Writing. I still want to be someone who greatly contributes to pop-culture. I might even settle for just being someone who’s creative for a living. Any way you look at it, that’s a dream that takes serious commitment.

I want it so bad it makes me cry. I should be able to make it happen on my own. For some reason I can’t do it. Not when there’s nothing else going on in my life. Without school or a job, I don’t have the urge to draw or write every day. It comes and goes, especially in the spring. But it doesn’t come often enough. That’s not even my worst problem.

Every so often I start a project. I plan for something big, but I can’t finish it. I can’t complete anything impressive because I can’t commit.

Someone else gives me a deadline and I scramble to make it. I give myself a deadline and I just let it slide.

What’s worse is I keep lying to myself about what I can accomplish. I’m good at something for a few weeks and then I suddenly drop it.

Most of all, I hate being an adult.

I think back to middle school and realize that I was so much more interesting back then. I know I wasn’t popular, but I had the potential to be impressive.

When I was thirteen, I would start drawing as soon as I had an idea. I had fun with writing assignments including book reports. Of course, in those days I could start reading a book and finish it in a month. All of that happened when I was looking forward to the future.

In high school, I still had hidden character. But I started getting a lot less out of life. I took art class every year I was there. Tenth grade art class. That was when I first realized I wasn’t as good at drawing as I thought. Still, art and english were about the only classes I was good at. Not surprisingly, I had to go through an extra year of high school.

This far into my twenties, nothing has gone as I expected.

I was planning to go to an art college for years. I fantasized about getting accepted. What I didn’t see coming is that I didn’t get in on the first try.

When I got in after the third interview I learned that college, even for artists, wasn’t what I was expecting. It was hard. It was unfamiliar. Possibly the worst part was that I was surrounded by people who were more creative than me. After the first month, it got really hard to be confident.

I needed support from my family to keep going. Someone had to push me every weekend to do my homework.

Gradually, I learned the courses. I even had fun with some of the work. I eventually felt like a real artist.

True, I wasn’t the best student there, but at the very least I was trying. Then I started taking a course where I just couldn’t bring myself to make an effort.

Anatomy. It was about drawing bones and muscle groups while learning their scientific names. There was very little creativity involved. Maybe Anatomy is an art form but to me, it didn’t feel like art. It felt like science. As soon as I encountered a subject that wasn’t as much fun as all the others. That’s when I stopped trying.

That was it for me and higher education. When Mom explained to me why I wasn’t going back in September, a switch was flipped in my mind.

My carefully planned world collapsed under me.

Life became depressing. Since then I’ve grown to hate the woman I am now.

It runs in a cycle. For two or three weeks I’m happy and inspired, followed by months of depression.

Day after day sitting alone in my room watching internet videos. Binge watching TV shows from when I was a teenager. Or younger.

Usually when I’m happy I make a plan to do something creative and bold. Something that could change my outlook. But of course, I never follow through.

I keep telling myself that this is the week things are going to get better. Then they stay the same and I beat myself up.

.....

I feel better now. I was crying earlier. Something about writing it all down helped me get it out of my head. Wouldn’t be the first time. Journaling can work as a personal excorsism.

Something that might be worth mentioning is that I don’t speak the way I write. I can get my point across a lot better if I write it down than if I say it out loud. That’s probably true of many people with autism.

Yeah that’s right I’m autistic. That doesn’t automatically make me helpless. However, it might be the reason I’m pretty good at using the right half of my brain. Not so much the left half. That also might be why I don’t have a lot of marketable skills. But I do have a few.

So now I’m at the point in the cycle where I feel okay. I feel like making an effort. Any kind of effort. The real challenge becomes, making it stick.

To anyone who took the time to read this whole thing, I got something to say to you.

If I’m worth it, you’re worth it.

You Are Worth It.

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