Story Stripdown

Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, is one of the most tragic characters in StarCraft lore. How did Blizzard construct her to be so tragic, and why does that make her more interesting and compelling? And why is Dehaka so annoying?

Join me as I try to evolve my understanding of tragic heroes using Kerrigan (and a puppy) as case studies.

If the characters in your story are in situations that aren't that relatable for most people, you can always find another way to help your audience find that emotional connection to them. In The Last Castle, the characters of a disgraced army general and a cruel prison warden are made more understandable by positioning them as a good boss and a bad boss.

Join me as I figure out why this movie does these two characters so well that audiences can overlook its predictable plot!

Coming-of-age tales resonate with most people because almost everyone has experienced the joys and pains of growing up. Most, but not all. Kiki's Delivery Service is a wonderful example of such a movie, and it tells its story in a fantasy setting with a young witch's initiation, so I look at how fantasy can be used to tell a down-to-earth story about a 13 year-old overcoming adolescent issues.

Sequels sequels sequels! How do you put together a fitting sequel that continues a story well? This week, I look at two different types of sequels: Blade II and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. One takes the original premise and expands it, while the other evolves the story into another chapter. Let's stake out two very different sequels and see how they were put together.

Back in the days of MS-DOS, Wing Commander II was the gold standard for immersive video games, with advanced graphics, digitized speech and sound effects, and an emphasis on storytelling that was ahead of its time. Let's take off and see how adopting a space opera approach made this game's story so memorable.