It's About The Skeleton

Once again, I am going to contradict the post I just made. The flesh of a story is important for all the reasons I mentioned yesterday, but it is not something to rely on. When you rely on the same skeleton over and over again, only changing the specifics of the story for each iteration, you become tired and pigeonholed.

Stories that blow you away have remarkable actions. They are surprising things that were unexpected. They are decisions that are difficult to come do and have repercussions that are felt throughout people's lives.

When you watch a body-swap story like Freaky Friday, it isn't interesting; it's just another iteration. You can make one very child-friendly or another one very "adult" or one very violent and gory. But no matter what, it's the same story, and that makes it not terribly interesting.

A story like Inception, on the other hand, is brilliant. Of course it borrows concepts and ideas from predecessors, but the skeleton of the story was original. It was not terribly predictable. It had twists and turns and it was exciting because of that. The characterization was certainly part of the whole experience, but it was the actions and the layers that made the story.

The flesh of a story is important, but not if it comes at the expense of an interesting concept.