Reading Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work –
Emma Coats, a former storyboard artist at Pixar, outline the basic structure of a fairy tale as a kind of Mad Lib that you can fill in with your own elements:
“Once upon a time, there was ______. Every day, ______. One day, ______. Because of that, ______. Because of that, ______. Until finally, ______.”
Pick your favorite story and try to fill in the blanks. It’s striking how often it works.
BTW, Emma Coats has a Tumblr, and describes herself as “freelance director of films, boarder of story, and sometime public speaker.”