Nicholas Andriani Rankin

Tag: story

  • The Five Commandments of Storytelling

    The Five Commandments of Storytelling

    1. Inciting Incident The inciting incident destabilizes the protagonist by upsetting the balance of their life for good or for ill. Every inciting incident is either causal (the result of an active choice by an AVATAR) or coincidental (something unexpected or random or accidental). In response, the protagonist forms a goal, which they begin to pursue. Read…

  • The Pixar Storytelling Process

    Pixar films tell great stories. Toy Story. Finding Nemo. WALL-E. Up. These and other films have together grossed $ billions and won many awards. For example, WALL-E, one of my favorites, earned $533 million at the box office and several awards, including an Academy Award for best animated feature. How do they do it? Pixar story artist, Emma Coats, says…

  • Prologue to a Memoir: A Rough Draft, a Novel, a Working Confesson.

    Prologue to a Memoir: A Rough Draft, a Novel, a Working Confesson.

    A strange thing happens when you begin to contemplate the end. It’s as if setting such a definitive goal opens the world to endless possibilities: a phone is buzzing,