Easiest Way To Avoid Writing A Boring Story by David Willis
Film Courage: What makes a story boring?
David Willis, writer/producer: What makes a story boring? Uggh….anything with superheroes. Sorry! I don’t like superhero movies.
Film Courage: Why?
David Willis: I sat down and watched like a dozen of them once. I might as well look at these. I’m not giving these a fair shot. A guy running around in tights…if you’re running around in tights you should either be sword fighting in the 16th century or in a ballet (ballet is great).
But I just never buy into it. They’re fun, I get why people like them. I figured out why they are popular even though I’m not the audience because it’s replacing religion.
The single largest religious demographic in the United States under the age of 30 are the non-religious and so religion is having less importance in life in America today and I think it’s being replaced with the mythology of the superheroes because you get to see the ancient Roman Gods, the ancient Greek Gods, they had a whole pantheon…and now this has taken its place…and you can dress up like them and you can go to Comic Con and you can engage in your “religion.” I don’t know…that’s my theory. That’s my crazy writer theory.
Film Courage: Interesting. So then a non-superhero movie. What makes a non-superhero movie boring? Take that out of the equation?
David Willis: What makes it boring?
Film Courage: Or a story in general? I know you talked earlier about it before, not enough conflict or passive characters?
David Willis: I think a story is boring if it doesn’t matter. If there are no stakes. If the people in the movie, if they don’t care a lot about what is happening (what they are doing), then the audience won’t care. That’s to me what makes a story boring.
If you are watching a character and they need…(Watch the video and read more here on FilmCourage.com)
