The Best Tip Ever on How to Reveal the Evolution of Important Character Relationships in Story

S2 E38. Today in our series of Aha Moments, Zena dives into TIP #6. In essence, the audience needs to see three encounters between characters before they will believe that the relationship has changed or evolved for better or worse. It goes something like this:

Scene 1: We establish the standard. What is their relationship like right now?
Scene 2: Something happens that shakes things up, or causes one or both of the characters to question their presuppositions regarding the other.
Scene 3: Solidifies the change. They end up in a new place, and now they stay there.

The bottomline is that the rule of threes is essential in terms of making the audience believe the change in the relationship. Make sure your characters have at least three encounters with each other if you need to show a radical shift in their connection. 

DOWNLOAD FULL TRANSCRIPTS FOR FREE on the podcast page of our website.

HELPFUL LINKS AND RESOURCES - The Storyteller’s Mission online platform offers one-on-one COACHING, SCRIPT and MANUSCRIPT CRITIQUES, and ADVANCED CLASSES ON WRITING. Send us an email at [email protected], or if you have a question or a specific writing related topic that you would like Zena to consider addressing on a future episode, LEAVE US A VOICEMAIL!