"There are many ways to write a good villain: whether they're relatable, they had a good motive, or they're just goddamn terrifying."
"The game does a really good job of breaking the fourth wall in ways that you don't expect."
"This is the rare type of series that has plots but also has plot."
"A good antagonist needs to be a threat but also needs to have an intriguing motivation, a prior relationship with the protagonist, or a personality that lets them stand out."
"We are completely at Paul's mercy as viewers just as much as the family is. It's such a clever spin on the fourth wall break."
"Oda writes One Piece according to the principle two-sides-of-the-same-coin, mirroring, twisting and inverting many elements in the story."
"Hopefully, that's tugging on your empathy bone a little."
"Characters go to sleep and wake up several hours later, travel time is handled with a montage instead of a fourteen-hour play-by-play of the entire trip, and the number one unspoken rule of story pacing is no one ever poops."
"If you're careful, [timeline resets] can work really well."
"What even defines good storytelling? Is it about pacing, character development, and thematic continuity, or just that it keeps the audience engaged and entertained?"
"Flaws are essential not just because they give a character depth, making them both realistic and relatable, but also because character arcs are an essential part of good characterization."
"In Japanese Cinema, one can find some of the most rule-breaking, mind-bending narratives."
"What do we talk about when we talk about Christopher Nolan movies? His obsession with time and non-linear storytelling structures."
"Villains don't need to operate on the same morals as your everyday person. In fact, most of the time, villains that go against the moral standards often stand out more in our minds because they break from the norm."
"Darth Vader wasn't outright forgiven for his actions, but he sacrificed himself to stop the Emperor's plan, and that's how you do redemption for a monstrous villain."
"It's daring to change your storytelling formula."
"If you're telling your audience exactly what's going on all of the time, they're never going to get invested."
"Metal Gear Solid 2 did a far better job in justifying and executing the protagonist switcheroo."
"Reveal the protagonist switch early enough so that the rest of the game can be shaped around it."
"Some tropes have nice, chill, nonjudgmental names that communicate their general vibe in intriguing and fun ways. And then there’s this."
"I find it funny how adept Dragon Age Origins is at beginning a fat chunk of its quest with really mundane stuff... and using it as a platform to come up with something cooler."
"What they couldn't say explicitly, they said in the form of a narrative."
"Don't be afraid to dirty up their characters."
"The sneak attack of the story is we're traveling forward in time and backward in time to get back to the first sentence."
"A Mcguffin for those in the back is a term made famous by Alfred Hitchcock but coined originally by screenwriter Angus MacPhail... generally a MacGuffin doesn't melt Nazis."
"Time travel for George R Martin is less like the terminator and back to the future and more like groundhog's day."
"You get a sense of ascension. Rising action. It makes you feel heroic."
"People being kind to one another is an underrated narrative technique."
"There's several cutscenes that do a great job of showing character relationships and performances that make them feel like real people."
"It's a blank space on the page where only the audience can fill in, and while there's nothing wrong with leaving some questions for the audience to answer, I think it's worth observing how the text is leading them to fill it in."
"Bioshock 2's opening says surprisingly little and yet communicates so much."
"Both are serialized multi-protagonist stories told on a sweeping scale."
"I really respect when there's a sort of artistic vision for telling a story of character growth and development."
"Every piece of information we're presented with here is immediately built on or juxtaposed in the very next scene which is actually really refreshing not even for a Disney movie but for the adventure genre in general."
"That's where a story can really get me, if they can do that."
"Wait till you see the next one... everybody dies."
"Tournament arcs let you show off your heroes, and they're good framing sequences for fun character reveals."
"Max Payne succeeded in jumping back and forth seamlessly between self-seriousness and self-awareness, keeping players on their toes until the end."
"Continuity is not necessarily a hindrance to telling a good story."
"Telling is often necessary to bridge different scenes, and the amount of telling you use can depend on the genre."
"Begin in medias res: grab your reader from word one."
"Environmental storytelling is the most effective way to tell a story."
"The plot of the movie is nothing more than a device it's a vehicle and its main purpose is to enable the exploration of the real core of the story."
"If there is a good in-world reason for this to happen, readers accept it and even like it a lot more."
"A lot of really interesting kind of tidbits, throwbacks to the story, as well as new details and some great twists and turns."
"The narrative relies heavily on surprise rather than suspense."
"It comes out of absolutely nowhere and tweaks the 'It was all a dream' concept just enough to be original."
"By letting one character fill the role of peak goodness you can let other members of the group express less heroic attitudes."
"Rape is not a tool to make a character stronger."
"Stories are all about making us feel something."
"It's not attacking the Disney characters but showing that all the qualities of self-reliance plus vulnerability coexisted already within all of them."
"Storytelling to me is very similar to music in that it's all about setting up expectations and then either meeting them or subverting them."
"The best reveals in a story are either incredibly surprising while also making complete sense."
"These narrative callbacks have a lot to do with echoing emotion."
"Flashbacks are a neat narrative tool that should only be used to benefit the story that happens in the present day. In other words, there needs to be a good reason for interrupting the story."
"Breath of the Wild fixes pacing problems with minimal cutscenes that never feel dragged on."
"Immersion comes from relevant tasks and no fourth wall breaks for tutorials."
"Let's staple a story on top of our mechanics as a kind of skin graft."
"MMO Junkie's use of game mechanics to metaphorically further its narrative purpose is skillful and deft."
"Stories need a constant ebb and flow of emotion and power. When scenes can consistently turn the story and change the characters, you keep the audience engaged."
"Scenes without conflict and obstacles usually end up being straight exposition. This is boring, lazy, and definitely something we want to avoid."
"Always accuse your opponent of what it is you're doing."
"So when it comes to design, this is definitely one of the most interesting products that I've checked out recently, both in terms of design and functionality."
"What makes the Eminence in Shadow so brilliant is how it turns this problem on its head."
"It's immensely clever writing and it gets even cleverer when Neto, the closest thing this world has to a Goku, finally faces off with the King."
"A beautifully organic way of raising the tension."
"Good exposition is disguised by making it dramatic."
"Nobody that important dies off screen unless they're Tank in The Matrix."
"A good twist doesn't live or die on whether or not it's guessable."
"Jiraiya's backstory brings together the hopes of himself, Minato, and Nagato."
"Being able to tell the story through action because lesser writers will rely on info dumps or they'll have like the dialogue boxes where the author's putting in clarification comments."
"This show is so good at giving people tragic backstories..."
"It's more about what you don't see when it comes to characters like that leave it to the imagination of the viewers will always be more powerful."
"Simon is a really well-thought-out character, he has inner monologues that appear as text but is usually very vocal during cutscenes."
"Your Name takes the often used trope of body-switching not as a comedic tool for goofs and gags but as a way for the two characters to develop a relationship and experience each other's lives in a way that only body-switching can do."
"Retconning is another tool in our toolbox. It's a pretty powerful one. It can solve almost any problem, but it's also very dangerous. It attacks suspension of disbelief, which is maybe the most valuable thing we have."
"Jumping subgenres like Until Dawn does isn't easy...but it works thanks to clever writing tricks like this."
"It's obviously the first time to tell well not even first time is the first time."
"Stories like these do the exact opposite of the end solution."
"Environmental storytelling is about static objects - but it can also stretch to things like overheard conversations, animations happening in the level, and of course… text."
"In both Saving Private Ryan and in The Last of Us, sharing elements of the past connect you with people in the present."
"Psycho begins in pitiless sunlight, with titles informing us of the exact place, date, and time."
"If you can somehow build a sense of intrigue around the information before you give it out to the audience like you're most of the way there to making that exposition fun."
"Ambiguity is not bad in and of itself, it's okay to end a story ambiguously if the ambiguity somehow settles the story."
"Exaggerating details is definitely different from changing details... for an experience to be immersive, they take preference to certain elements being accurate over others."
"Incorporating near misses and failures in descriptions keeps players engaged."
"Incredible stories have been told using psychological storytelling."
"I will say another great moment I think is her handing him the lights again. A force power that was established solely so that they could then pay it off, which I guess you know that's set up to pay off, that's fine."
"Monsters serve as a plot device to progress a character throughout the story."
"What is interesting however is that tracker taking ideas and themes from chaos that were never rarely fleshed out and reusing them for the dark ether Saga."
"I'm a huge fan of subtle storytelling, so this animation already gets a plus from me."
"Procedural narrative generation can help move story games from progression to emergence."
"Part of the tension of a good cliffhanger is wondering how the characters are going to get out of a terrible situation that they're in."
"It brilliantly sets up the demon as capable of switching between physical and psychological violence to get what it wants."
"Todd Phillips was trying to be subversive. What's more subversive than making the good guys the bad guys and the bad guys the good guys?"
"It makes it a lot easier to empathize with a character or at least kind of have a semblance of an idea of where their head is when they're doing things like this."
"He begins and says, 'Well, let me tell you a story.'"
"If it’s got to be a little cheesy and contrived to get to that point, I can live with that."
"starts happy there's some foreshadowing with her happiness apparently overflowing like a cup running over and she needs reassurance for that this is smart and good writing by the way"
"Stray's story could have, and should have, been told with zero dialogue whatsoever."
"Every single moving piece if we want to explore siblings we can do sisters or brothers."
"It's this attitude, this approach, extra layers of storytelling that don't take up any extra space, that don't directly ask questions, just show us where the questions lie so we can have whatever discussions we want."
"The audio logs and emails are a key way to slowly guide a player, absorbing every hint and snippet of a world gone wrong."
"When fanservice is done brilliantly, it's called payoff."
"It's not lore, man, that's writing. That's good writing."
"Emotional Dynamic change goes beyond the delivery of dialogue."
"The contrast in emotional tones makes high-intensity moments stand out."
"Genesis 1 does a lot of showing rather than telling."
"Good storytelling is driven by strong conflict."
"The three act story structure is a tried and true, wildly popular, psychologically proven storytelling method."
"This show is a master class in setup and payoff. You can thank me later, dude."
"There's almost an extraordinary amount of organic storytelling in the game, delivered through vocals."
"Deeply woven storytelling and attention to detail."
"Like I always, always talk about on this channel, a satisfying story is a story where the characters transform as a result of their journey."
"A fairly strong thematic throughline defined by these phantoms."
"This movie actually tries to imbue a little bit of irony and pathos into its narrative."
"Memory corridors in Assassin's Creed Origins truly stand out for me."
"The subversion of expectations, the multiple points of view, and the payoffs."
"The subversions in Knives Out always elevate and escalate the narrative."
"If they had just told the story in real time instead of having a montage with the music."
"Jack reminds you that you don't need much if any dialogue to tell a story."
"The flashback sequences are some of my favorite moments in the film."
"Oda has to revamp how he tells the story now. He can't do the same thing he always does... We're moving around the world a lot here." - Reviewer
"Time skips usually suck, but this one's different."
"It was a film that rejected plot armor and convenience."
"This game was the precursor to non-linear storytelling."
"Story is the thing that I'm most fascinated by, it's the thing that I most admire."
"Perhaps including more short stories like this in the manga for the beginnings of future sagas is a good way of easing us into a brand new story."
"Being well-written and being overpowered Done Right are two completely different things."
"You don't need to contrive a drastic surprise out of nowhere just to shock your audience."
"The mix of comedy and horror is the perfect setup for a story that crosses genre and prepares us for a complicated and multi-layered message."
"I don't mean to leave you guys on a cliffhanger but it's literally how the story ends."
"For me, action is a way to tell a story in a dynamic way, and if you're not able to see what's happening, if you're not able to experience it as the characters do, then you're missing a lot of the impact of the moment." - Sam Hargrave
"All stories have a simple situation complication question answer framework."
"Every cut has to give me another good reason to stay - it has to escalate something."
"Character arcs should center around the lie that the character believes."
"Show don't tell. What this phrase means is that it is much more interesting and engaging for an audience to see the actions and events take place rather than to hear about them through narration or character explanation."
"Attack with exposition. A great method to give the audience important information without slowing down the story is to use information as a weapon rather than telling the audience the facts about the world."
"To have the end buried in the beginning is the utmost accomplishment of drama."
"When Chekhov puts an emerald dream portal on the mentalpiece in act one you better believe some motherfucker's gonna go through it in act two."
"A well-chosen setting adds to the story in some way."
"Setting is often considered to be a character, metaphor, or symbol in its own right."
"Friends is a masterclass in the art of keeping a couple apart."
"Films communicate ideas through well more than just plot."
"It's called visual subtext, you know, in filmmaking terms."
"Plot armor is used in some way or fashion in every single game that we play."
"Now you know that tired old trope that bad stories used to get the main characters out of difficult situations by having them wake up and realize it was all just a bad dream? Well in Klonoa, you are the dream."
"Self-concept: 'I like the fact that they tease this and they don't really just explain at the beginning because we want to see more depth in a character.'"
"Some scenes in the game are meant to be emotionally affecting."
"Puss in Boots, Noah's Ark, and other tales show how death or ambiguity can pave the way for new beginnings, a recurring motif in storytelling."
"It's a lot, but as games like Metal Gear Solid have shown us, your story doesn’t have to be super dour..."
"Mostly there was a lot of tell and not show."
"sometimes I want bashing of a sunshine character in Canon cuz it makes for an interesting new story."
"Excessive angst for the sake of angst is good actually."
"All important movies start with a black screen."
"Character motivations need to be established in the context of the movie, and the justifications behind them need to be guided by past experiences to make them airtight."
"Speeches and dialogues are conversations, while stories are indirect experiences."
"It’s almost like they know they are the bad guys, when everyone knows the best bad guys think they are the good guys."
"The dialogue between characters like the Cargile Twins helps build characterization."
"Did this game just acknowledge that it's also a cartoon? Interesting..."
"I'm really glad they're not overusing those fourth wall breaks because I think they're delightful."
"The canons of narrative in any medium cannot be wholly different, and the failure of poor films is often precisely an exaggeration and the intrusion of unwarranted matter." — J.R.R. Tolkien
"Interwoven plot lines are the key to a fully realized tale, but this complex style of storytelling is typically confined to books, TV, and film. Kingdom Hearts is one of the rare exceptions."
"It's a perfect example of how you can write a story about happiness."
"Honestly, any game with cutscenes is gonna have changes."
"Twists in the name of the game, and it plays the game exceptionally."
"You can switch him without actually doing an angle."
"An 'emergent story' is when a narrative becomes clear to the player, but it wasn’t written or planned that way."
"After completing the trial, Yuri meets Cardinal Albert Simon, the game retroactively tries to make him a sympathetic character."
"Not everything needs to be defensive, not everything has to be a twist."
"Stories have a knack for coming in the side door and getting through the level of the heart and the emotions."
"Character is a tool with which an emotional journey, story, or sequence of events is told to an audience."
"That moment where I knew this movie was great? You mentioned the patricide, the moment of the betrayal, right? I think a lot of lesser filmmakers, what they would have done..."
"It's a nice subtle way of setting up that plot point."
"It's a clever way to turn the gap into a narrative tool."
"A dark tale laid out in a comic book format."
"You only need to let the audience know something once. You don't need to reinforce it two or three times." - Jim Cameron
"A completely genius way to place Xehanort in stark opposition to our protagonists." - Xehanort's goal and contrast to Sora.
"She is trained to be a sex spy so that's a very very different thing which isn't to say that black widow doesn't use her Wiles um as sort of like a distraction technique but that is 100% what the sparrows are."
"Show don't tell. If you do tell, it has to be subtle."
"This film desperately goes out of its way to convince you of its tangibly horrifying idea."
"That story beats affect you even if they're undone a second later."
"The Historical Society is a masterclass in violation of expectation, the strength of tonal contrast, and the importance of subtlety."
"Oda really, really likes getting double meanings out of a lot of his chapters."
"You can't write a better transition than what he just had."
"It's a sense of knowing again, because there really is nothing to know at this point in this story."
"The book is a unique blend of fantasy, horror, and humor."
"I think this is probably one of the funnier moments of the film, just with the whole idea of the requel and going over everything and the characters accusing one another."
"It didn't need to rely off of any flashy plot twists or revelations like the previous games to be successful, as there's something really special about the art of storytelling through the world and characters that can make a game truly unique."
"You could make the case that making her more of a victim at first actually makes her a stronger character in the long run."
"Hack number 14: Remember to think about how your character speaks and their mannerisms."
"The twist at the end is a good way to allow the movie to cheat some of the world's rules and still keep true to its legacy."
"A trope becomes a cliche when it's overused."
"The amount of storytelling they did in form of promos."
"A good twist lays out all the information you need, but still guides you in a way you'd never see it coming."
"It would have been more interesting to not have a reveal, to have the big twist be the fact that there is no twist."
"Certain moments where Goku demonstrates his power are narrated in accordance with the plot."
"Great stories have their messaging baked into them. They sneak up on you in a really fun way." - John Campia
"I think Dark Souls and Bloodborne have proven that engaging narratives can be achieved through obscure lore and details."
"What makes a good story for me? I'm always saying it's action plus emotion."