
Pixar's Rules of Storytelling (2013) - evo_9
https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/07/pixars-22-rules-of-storytelling/
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dahart
> 4\. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of
> that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

This one reminds me of writing advice from South Park's Trey Parker: write
better stories by figuring out how to replace all your "ands" and "buts" with
"therefore".

[http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2015/05/the-k...](http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2015/05/the-
key-to-story-structure-in-two-words-therefore-but.html)

> 20\. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you
> rearrange them into what you DO like?

This one strikes me as an especially great idea! Rewrite something bad to make
it good. There are certainly some shows I've bitched about (like a lot of
people) but I would have a hard time dissecting it to find what's wrong with
it, and even harder time fixing it. Having to do it would certainly be
educational.

~~~
Animats
_Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that,
___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___._

That leads to a cliche - the nobody who becomes a hero. That's so Pixar.

Biography movies of real people aren't like that, because real life usually
isn't.

~~~
paulcole
If coincidences are just coincidences why do they feel so contrived?

~~~
TipVFL
A good rule of thumb in storytelling is that coincidences that help your
protagonists will feel like the writer just cheated to get out of a corner
they wrote themselves into, whereas coincidences that hurt your protagonist
are more easily accepted.

If you feel you really need this lucky coincidence to save your character, you
can fix that by going back earlier in the story and earning it. Your hero
getting shot, and the bullet being stopped by a lighter in his pocket we've
never seen before, will feel like a cheat. But if he helped a homeless guy
earlier, and the homeless guy insists he take his lucky Zippo, and then the
lighter saves his life, most people won't complain.

Just a little justification goes a long way, and helps make your world and
story feel real and complex.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Exactly. You can have pretty much anything happen, _if you put in the
antecedents so that it is reasonable for it to happen_.

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DoreenMichele
JK Rowling has said she wrote something like 20 versions of the first chapter
of the first (Harry Potter) book and if you read them all, you would have
known all the major plot points for the first several books.

Storytelling is about more than just deciding the plot. It is very much about
staging the reveal of details.

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xs
There's a full Khan Academy course specifically on Pixar storytelling
techniques.

[https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-
content/pixar](https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/pixar)

~~~
supermdguy
Wow, that's awesome. I love Khan Academy.

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joe_the_user
I have been running a Pathfinder (table top rpg) campaign for the last several
years. A lot of these rules are great hints for a dungeon master as well as
for a writer.

However, I think these rules can easily be "how to write a shallow but
emotionally compelling story" (surprise, surprise).

That said, having these rules on the table (so to speak) is useful for when
you as story teller want to have something other than the obvious happen (ie,
know the rules to break them). Try occasionally having extra, useless
characters just to confuse people. Have detours and details that turn into
their own story. Slow down or speed-up pace just for the heck of it. Let the
players find ways to short-circuit all the apparent barriers and then have
something different happen.

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mrspeaker
"Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get
the obvious out of the way." I make this my personal rule when replying to
something on the internet: if it's the first thing you thought of, there are
already 20 other replies saying exactly the same thing!

~~~
kleiba
You gotta be careful though: often times, first intuitions aren't so bad, and
further iterations can get more and more complicated until there's no
freshness left at all.

~~~
denzil_correa
I think the point is to build on the first intuition rather than consider it
"well done". It is to actively accept that may be you are missing something
that can help convert the first intuition into an even better idea. Therefore,
I wouldn't say you need to discard the first idea/intuition but rather to not
think of it as the final product.

~~~
runevault
Not necessarily. For example: I need a chase scene in my story here.

If you're telling a modern story, your first inclination is either a car chase
or a foot chase. You certainly CAN just spice these up (put them in a
surprising location being the easiest) but there is value in trying to find a
different way (chase on Segways, or maybe on animals stolen from the zoo,
etc).

~~~
amptorn
> For example: I need a chase scene in my story here.

This is not the greatest example because it's very rare that a story _needs_ a
chase scene to drive it forward. The end result will boil down to "they get
away" or "they get caught" and both of these can be accomplished instantly, no
full chase sequence required. Chase scenes are things you add to visual media
because they're exciting. You never get them in books!

A better example might be "I need to establish that this character is not very
smart" or "I need a reason for this character's parents to be dead" or, heh,
"I need a way to make it so that this chase scene also develops the plot
and/or characters".

And for good solutions to the last problem, you can look at e.g. The
Terminator or the entirety of Mad Max: Fury Road...

~~~
ascagnel_
> This is not the greatest example because it's very rare that a story needs a
> chase scene to drive it forward. The end result will boil down to "they get
> away" or "they get caught" and both of these can be accomplished instantly,
> no full chase sequence required. Chase scenes are things you add to visual
> media because they're exciting. You never get them in books!

I disagree. A chase scene is a great way to build tension or provide a test of
character, and maybe even a way to provide exposition. Using "The Hunt for Red
October" (since I just watched that over the weekend), the first half of the
film is essentially the main character chasing after a sub. It's not a fast-
paced foot chase, but it provides a character test (how far he's willing to go
to catch the sub), obstacles that are interesting when overcome, and provides
an urgency to some of the exposition that's delivered at the film's start.

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ssttoo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots)
... not that Pixar is likely to have a plot of the "Tragedy" kind

~~~
mercer
True, although it's the one thing that made 'Up' more than just okay. The
prologue(?) is heartbreaking and quite the tragedy, and could be a satisfying
(if sad) story all by itself.

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laufj
Stories are more interesting to me when it feels like the characters are
consistent and real, and their motivations are driving their actions, not the
invisible hand of the storyteller that already has an ending and theme in
mind. Because in this case I have something to learn from it.

~~~
ChrisSD
Undoubtedly. However old sci-fi authors did do well out of making the concept
the focus. They were often much much weaker at characterisation and characters
really only existed to explore the high concept. In some ways they were like
an essay but in story form.

As someone who grew up reading these, I would have liked better
characterisation but concept focused stories still appeal to me.

~~~
joe_the_user
Sure but that sort of approach of making the concept the focus depended on
giving the concept depth and richness.

The Pixar approach allows nothing to have depth but everything to still work
emotionally. Any variety of original, well-craft fiction will have "meat"
whereas this sort of thing is more or less just "sugar" instead.

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woodandsteel
It's interesting the focus on the beginning and the end. It seems that would
mean you should think a lot about how things at the end are similar or
different from the start, like circumstances and character, and how you feel
about all that.

~~~
monk_e_boy
The Harmon circle story method, the beginning and end are pretty much the same
place, the character changes and learns.

[http://www.ghostlittle.com/blog/testing-the-dan-harmon-
story...](http://www.ghostlittle.com/blog/testing-the-dan-harmon-story-circle)

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luord
Someone already critiqued 19 so I'll speak against 16: Sure, stack the odds
against the characters' success... But don't go overboard unless you're
writing a tragedy.

If the odds are too against the characters, the resolution is going to feel
contrived, even if it makes sense and it's not really a Deus ex Machina.

~~~
philwelch
Stacking the odds against a character can also tie into justifying the
character and the story to begin with. Jackie Chan always has the odds stacked
against him because if he just used his immense skills to beat people up for
two hours, he wouldn’t be sympathetic or likeable and the movies wouldn’t be
very much fun at all. You have to justify your hero or else your hero is just
a bully.

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ktbjn
> 22\. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you
> know that, you can build out from there.

I find it interesting that "your story" can be interpreted ambiguously in the
last rule. But I guess it's a coincidence.

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draw_down
The result is that the stories of their kovies feel telegraphed in advance.
Coco definitely felt that way to me. It was still worth watching for other
reasons but there is very little in the way of real suspense or surprise. On
the other hand that doesn’t seem to be a problem for kids movies.

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Erlangolem
I violently disagree with 19. The overuse of contrived means of creating
tension is lazy, predictable, and frustrating. More unpleasant is the tendency
of characters to become inexplicably stupid, inexperienced, and illogical
under those circumstances. I’m not asking for purely rationalist fiction, but
if the tension is utterly contrived, I check out.

Contrived tension is no more useful than contrived resolution of tension. When
the characters suddenly act like idiots born yesterday, they lose any sense of
depth or agency. If you want a prime example of what I’m talking about, watch
The Walking Dead.

~~~
kibwen
Speaking as someone who really likes #19, you may be reading subtext that
isn't there. Coincidences, in small doses, are the foundation of stories.
Every story gets one extraordinary coincidence, because extraordinary
coincidences happen all the time (just not usually multiple times to the same
actors within a short span of time, which is where Deus ex Machina starts
being levied). Star Wars is premised upon the coincidence that Luke should
stumble upon a droid sent by his sister to find his father's mentor. Dune is
premised upon the coincidence that the Kwisatz Haderach should be the son of
the Duke who is assigned to Arrakis. Both these stories happen to use
handwavey hoodoo to imply that maybe some ineffable higher power orchestrated
these events to keep them from being complete coincidences, but this isn't
strictly necessary.

People want to see the main characters overcome obstacles, and the above rule
is just giving authors permission to spend more time considering how they
overcome those obstacles (again, avoiding Deus ex Machina) than considering
how they get into such trouble in the first place. In fact, this is sort of
the opposite from what you're mad about: if the writers for the Walking Dead
were more willing to simply let bad things happen rather than contorting their
characters in stupid ways in ill-considered attempts to _justify_ those bad
things happening, it might have turned out better. :) (And of course, this
doesn't mean it's a _bad_ thing to avoid coincidences, it's just that
audiences won't care about coincidences that create drama rather than
resolving it.)

~~~
macintux
The number of coincidences in the first 40 minutes of The Force Awakens is
staggering.

~~~
jimmaswell
In Star Wars, that kind of thing is often considered to happen due to the will
of the Force, like finding Anakin on Tatooine. Some would call it lazy
writing, but I don't mind in Star Wars' case.

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brwsr
I'm glad Harry Potter was not written by these rules.

