Pixar’s Rules of Storytelling | Hacker News Reader

Pixar’s Rules of Storytelling

aerogrammestudio.com

250 pointsfidgross30 comments

Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

Also a good way to write a product definition.

It really underscores the basic way to write a plot.

You should avoid trying to start pun threads, though your profile suggests you do this in protest, which is even less useful.

I don't do it in protest, and if you look in my history, my attempts at humour are rare. I'm also not trying to start a thread.

Look at my profile again, and you should see that I'm far more passionate about the inane, arse-backwards moderation system.

Wow... I've just sat here for a few minutes plugging random words into that. It really does get the brain working :)

This is great! Although I'm confused about the two Because of Thats... can someone provide an example of how to complete this in a way that this part makes sense?

Act II of your story is a chain of not just one cause and effect events.

Once upon a time there was a single father and his son. Every day, the father was overprotective and worried about his boy. One day the boy went out on his own, and got kidnapped. Because of that, the father went on a quest to find him. Because of that, the father had a lot of new experiences, met lots of new and different people, and realized what was important in life. Until finally he rescued his son, and they lived happily ever after.

I'm sure you could write it up other ways, and do a better job with more time, but basically, that's Finding Nemo.

Here's a great clip of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone explaining this point to a group of film students:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2011/09/07/arts/television/1000...

Emma Coates originally shared this on her blog: http://storyshots.tumblr.com/post/25032057278/22-storybasics...

Thank you grumble grumble blogs that don't link back to original content

To be fair, I don't think they realized that it was on her blog. Both her blog entry, and the linked article were aggregated from her Twitter.

Thanks for pointing this out. Unfortunately, it seems to be too late to edit my original post. Interesting, though, as it seems someone (a mod?) edited my post's title. Perhaps they can change the link, also (I wouldn't mind).

The article had a link to a "related post" which had Neil Gaiman's 8 rules for writing: http://aerogrammestudio.com/2013/02/28/neil-gaimns-eight-rul...

I found those far more useful than the Pixar ones. (Although I admit that "when stuck, list everything that would NOT happen next" is a pretty good one.)

"Perfection is like chasing the horizon." - Neil Gaiman

Great quote, applicable to nearly everything.

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4086805

As suggestions to tape on your wall, these seem excellent, something to look at when you are stuck. As rules, maybe not.

"What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?"

Interesting notion, but then I think of War and Peace. Pierre Bezuhov is good at nothing much at all. He is challenged, and transformed. But what is the polar opposite of being a prisoner of the French in Moscow and during the retreat? Prince Andrei is good at a hell of a lot of things; what seems to transform him is being shot up to one degree or another...

First you think you're above the rules, then you know enough to follow them, then you know enough to break them.

"Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front." Mass Effect 3... 17 suck endings. That got to be a record somewhere.

Even further on this tangent -- Mass Effect's problems began right at the setup. It starts too big. You begin as a hero, chosen by Earth to be, in essence, the representative for all humanity. (Recall your choice of back stories each points to your character having a past more interesting than anything that happens in the actual story -- always a bad sign and indicative of lazy writing.) It's a terrible way to start a story, it's a cheap trick (raising the stakes by giving them really big important labels). It's a testament to the game's execution that it is as good as it is despite this quite awful setup.

Given the scale of the problem (reapers), starting at a Spectre scale is pretty logical. Else you'd have character progression that is too fast

They picked the scale of the problem too.

This is great. It also makes me think that, for whatever reasons, Cars 2 was not written by Pixar.

It's a horrible sequel. The original story had fully rounded characters, personal discovery, redemption, recognition of working with others, a whole pile of admirable qualities.

Cars 2 has a bunch of animated effects, celebrity cameos, and lots of guns, shooting and rockets. There may have been a story with a message but I'm not sure what it was.

Would it have been that hard to come up with a better story for the follow up?

Cars was quite profitable post-box office, I can't help but think Disney pushed for a sequel before the buzz ran off.

To my cynical eye, Cars 2 was written solely from a merchandise expansion point of view.

I just don't understand why someone didn't stand up and say 'can't we write a good sequel and make lots of money?'

In short : why not Empire Strikes Back? Lots of cool merch in that one, but a good story as well. It can be done.

Agree. Cars was fantastic. I have watched it a hundred times with my kids. Cars 2 with the guns, torturing of cars, was to me a horrible movie. Saw it once in the theater, and I have no interest in buying the movie or watching it again.

Bujold's method of plotting is to start with characters that her readers care for, and then ask: What's the worst thing that can happen to them?

And then do that.

I like the old Disney cartoons better, and they obviously weren't written using those rules. I feel that nowadays movie get more and more similar. Could we still get something as atypical as the Robin Hood cartoon or Snow White by following those rules?

It's not bad but it feels too formal and restrictive. 23rd rule is that there are no rules for an author to create something really great.

It is interesting how replacing character with object makes it a decent guide to figuring out problems or refactoring in programming.

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