jimbow8 Wrote:I was interested in his statement that "H.G. Wells had said that a good story should involve only one major change." I have never heard such a thing (I am more of a Fantasy/Horror reader), so I was wondering what others think of this claim.
The same idea hollywood has that if you can summarize the plot and excite a potential viewer in one sentence then it is a winner. "Dinosaurs brought to life in modern times through DNA". "A machine from the future comes back in time to kill the mother of a resistance leader before he is born". "Half way through having memories of an ex scrubbed from your mind you change your mind, but can't stop it!". And that last one was one of the most complex scripts of last year.
And for the most part I agree. Some of the best stories, the ones most often repeated, have a simple but clever factor, going back to the article, HGW's stories have often been imitated and regurgitated for modern times.
Not to say you can't do more, but almost all successful stories can be boiled down to one sentence.
Dave