Give your hero strong—and deepening—goals

by | Nov 29, 2011 | Review

Sometimes writers get lost in poetic descriptions or associative tangents. Sometimes there’s a lot of action in a story, but it’s sequential rather than cumulative. The cure for all of these ills? Clear goals. The three-act structure works on the principle...

Check into M/Hotel

by | Nov 29, 2011 | Review

  This week, my pick is definitely battery opera’s M/Hotel, which runs until December 10 at the Holiday Inn on Howe Street. The maximum audience is five and the piece unfolds in a hotel room, so it’s a given that you’ll be dealing with issues of...

Pull up “The 13th Chair”

by | Nov 21, 2011 | Review

                      This week, the best show I’ve seen is The 13th Chair at Studio 58. In this production, director Sarah Rodgers takes a creaky old thriller and turns it into a hilarious and stylin’...

Stuck in the Ordinary World

by | Nov 21, 2011 | Review

At the beginning of the three-act structure, which I outlined in my previous post, your hero is STUCK in the Ordinary World. Things might look perfectly cosy from the outside; Frodo’s life in the Shire looks okay, right? But deep in his or her heart, your hero...

Plunge into my blog!

by | Nov 16, 2011 | Review

                  Welcome to my blog! Use this space to soak up writing tips or to get the skinny on Vancouver’s theatre scene. Just click the links on the right. (Bet you  knew that...