I think I was 7 or 8-years-old when I first read Harris & Me by Gary Paulson. Well, in truth, my mom likely read it to me but strangely enough, that’s not what I remember. It is the first time that I ...

This is the structure of a lot of stories we hear on the radio. It's a series of quotes from people (the vertical lines) commenting on one topic (horizontal line). He said. She said. Critics disagree.

If you hear the words “once upon a time,” you might guess that you’re hearing the beginning of a child’s fairy tale. And if you hear the words “and they all lived happily ever after,” you know you’ve ...

This is an excerpt of a piece written by former NPR editor Jonathan Kern. It has been lightly edited. One of the under-appreciated challenges in putting a radio report together is ensuring that the ...

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was considering the possibility that there might be more to screen drama than external conflict-driven plotting when, as if hit by a thunderbolt, a new paradigm of ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Rhea Wessel is the founder of The Institute for Thought Leadership. A quiet shift is underway in the world of thought-leadership ...

When you watch a lot of film and television, you begin to sense a pattern. In the beginning, you meet characters. In the middle, you see them struggle. At the end, you watch as they succeed or fail.

Rising action is the piece of a story that leads up to the most exciting part—the climax. It consists of: Rising action in a plot follows the exposition and is instigated by the inciting incident.