PDunne & emotional structure
A guide for writers of film, fiction and non‑fiction, helping them move beyond merely writing what a person is doing, to writing how a person is changing while doing it.
FROM HOMER TO HITCHCOCK, FROM SHAKESPEARE TO SONDHEIM, THE WRITER’S PROBLEM HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE SAME...
Every hero is afraid to come out of their shell.
We are all familiar with books and films whose plots fall nicely into place like pieces of a puzzle... plots that are logical in every way... yet somehow the work remains unmoving. Why does this happen? The explanation is simple.
Though almost every film or book’s plot has a beginning, middle, and end, it’s more important and often ignored story structure is that which lies beneath. So, clearly, understanding plot is not the same as understanding writing.
Hidden yet hard at work, the Emotional Structure is the story’s internal landscape; its secret architecture that informs the plot with purpose, viscerally connects the internal and external themes, and directly manipulates the tensions and rhythms of the drama’s central ideas.
Without Emotional Structure, the beginning, the middle, and the end will almost certainly become the beginning, the muddle, and the end. This is because the story’s emotional fluency rules the most misunderstood, most feared, and most vital element of every plot: that of your idea’s underlying meaning.
It's your job to make them,
it's always an inside job
emotional structure
A GUIDE FOR WRITING FILM, FICTION, AND NON-FICTION