They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery. That may be true, but it is also the greatest impediment to progress.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s a certain business sense to imitation – and I don’t mean outright theft of intellectual property. I’m referring to the “variation on a theme” that has become a successful marketing trope since well before Beethoven, Bach, and The Beatles.
Companies use the goodwill (and good publicity) generated by a top selling product, give it a tweak here and there, then come out with a “new” product that borrows heavily from the theme of the original. Rarely, however, does this sequel product ever reach the heights of its predecessor.
Here’s an example. Following the tremendous success of Continue Reading “We’ll Always Have Paris… How The Business of Sequels Destroyed America’s Youth”
The Terrible Reality of Story Arcs
Bob Denver Gilligan’s Island, 1966, CBS Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Think back to all the great stories you’ve heard, read while relaxing on a sunny beach, or watched in front of the big screen. What do they all have in common? Your first answer might be, “They kept me on the edge of my seat and their ending nailed it.”
OK, that might be true. But if you dig deeper, you’ll find they all stayed true to the narrative structure of the traditional story arc—Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. In good stories, you don’t see this structure. The transition from one element to the next flows seamlessly.
The 1942 film Casablanca, often cited as one of the greatest movies ever made, offers a good example of this. You don’t even notice as the Exposition rolls through a series of Continue Reading “The Terrible Reality of Story Arcs”