The Wheel Works

Meike Groh
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

Sometimes I can’t believe how much the way we view content has changed. We have so many more opportunities, tools, and inspiration to create beautiful imagery with different ideas. Expressing a variety of views and concepts. Yet all of them are based off the same thing.

Western storytelling always follows a tried and recycled plot line. Or even simply reuse a famous work of literature or Graphic Novel/Comic Book. There is very little deviation from these methods.

That’s the secret, use someone else’s idea and make it your own. There is no shame in copying or using someone else’s ideas, because they got their ideas from someone else. These ideas generally originate from the Hero’s Story.

Which goes something like this:

Character living an ordinary happy life,

Something happens- the call to adventure, or they want something

They find themselves in an unfamiliar situation- they refuse it

Learn from it anyway

Get what they want,

Pay a price,

Return to their normal everyday life,

But they’ve changed.

There’s many iterations of this, you can break it down into as many steps and variations as you’d like. But I think simple is best, and 8 is more than enough steps, rather than 12 or 17.

Why reinvent the wheel when it works so well?

I do think simple is best, because I generally make things complicated for myself. But then if you use the wheel as a crutch or constantly then it’s just worn and laziness. I am bored of conventional storytelling and always looking for something more, that’s why I wrote that question because maybe someone will want to respond.

Source: Wikipedia

(Obligatory Wikipedia Source)

(Dan Harmon’s Universal Theory of Storytelling)

Script To Screen

“Script to Screen” (STS) is a monthly blog on the Art and Business of Animation, and general thoughts on the animation industry at large. Formerly the official blog of the animation studio, Echo Bridge, STS, is now its own independent platform.

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