Story Needs a Center of Gravity

It should make you excited and want to sink your teeth into the material. You feel the danger, because you’re on a collision course with destiny.

Excitement doesn’t come from shouting, but rather it comes from the energy that you put into it. You turn the material inside and out, over and again, attack it from all sides until it’s done properly. If you cruise along and turn clever tricks, you take no risks, even if you kill off a slew of people. Danger comes when you face your own fears.

Of many things in life, fear cannot be faked. You feel fear when you fall in love (otherwise it’s only infatuation). You feel fear when you lose your loved ones. You feel fear when your fundamental values are challenged. You feel fear when you need to survive but don’t know how you can go on for another day. These things may not matter to other people, but they are earth-shattering to you. You cannot turn away but have to face them head on.

Emotional danger outweighs physical danger. Constant physical danger becomes contrived, repetitive, and boring, like action films, 007. It’s called: one damn thing after another. Maybe that’s life, but art is more refined, moving, and beautiful than life, because art is not real.