Review Checklist pt 3 – Story

The second area with the sliding scale (1-10) on Talentville is Story. There’s definitely a lot here:

• Did you just read a story or a collection of scenes? Big difference. While I don’t want to get into what constitutes a story (that’s a pretty hefty exploration in and of itself), did you just read 120 pages of a character’s journey? Or was it just a bunch of things happening to them?
• Are there subplots? Do the subplots work? Do they build the larger story or distract from it?
• Did the script have an A-Story, B-Story and C-Story?
  • A-Story – the physical action of the story – the quest
  • B-Story – the central relationship of the story – the hero and the mentor, the hero and the buddy, the hero and the villain, the hero and the romantic interest
  • C-Story – the hero’s inner growth
  • Do the A-, B- and C-Stories feed into one another?
• Leaps of Logic – any particular developments in the story that push the suspension of disbelief? Any thoughts on how to help bolster it?
• Suspension of Disbelief – Has the writer established a world that supports events that wouldn’t credibly happen in the real world, but feel right for the story?
• GSU (special thanks to Scriptshadow for this one)
  Goals – they drive stories forward. Were there concrete goals in the story? Did the protagonist have one? The antagonist? Were they in conflict?
  Stakes – were there stakes? Were there consequences to all parties if the goals were not attained?
  Urgency – were there ticking clocks? Deadlines that goals had to be attained (urgently)?
• Genre
  Did the story fit comfortably in a specific genre?
  Did it straddle more than one?
  How well did it fulfill the genre requirements of each? (was the horror truly scary? was the comedy funny?)
  Were there genre elements that could have been in the story that would have strengthened it?

Next Up: CHARACTER