Screenwriting 101: Michael Arndt

“When I was working as a script reader, I read a gazillion scripts that had rote, uninspired endings. It started to really bother me. And even when the ending was unexpected or surprising, there was still often a residual ‘so what?’ factor to the story. Your hero achieved her goal — so what? It made me realize that it’s really how your hero achieves her goal (and / or defeats the antagonist) that is crucial. And the way around the ‘so what?’ factor is to make the hero’s triumph (or her failure) be as meaningful as possible. That led me to see that stories are often a drama about two competing value systems — one represented by the hero or the hero’s mentor; the other by the antagonist.”

— Michael Arndt

Via Go Into The Story interview, July 2018

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