There is arguably no greater love humanity shares than the love of a great story. From tales told around the campfire, to the latest multi-million dollar blockbuster in the cinema, we love stories of every kind. But there’s one problem: Most stories are flawed. Even the most polished story is bound to have a mistake or two slip past their creators. Some are minor, some major, and some stories just turn out poorly.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t read or watch them.

My name is Ian, and I’m a writer who’s pursuing the dream of telling stories on both the big screen and between the covers of a book. To that end, this site is essentially my repository of notes from my attempts to study, analyze, and learn from all mediums of storytelling, from films to video games, to even internet fan videos, updated every Tuesday with an analysis of books, movies, video games, or other media, and Thursdays with various story related topics, including my favorite moments, theories, deeper musings on certain topics or story tropes, and anything else that tickles my fancy (more frequent updates can occur if a special event is in progress, or if my muse jumps into overdrive).

I should note that I’m not an expert in the craft of writing, nor is this site meant to be a scholarly site that analyzes works in-depth, looking at character relationships, arcs, stories, how various subplots interconnect, and so on. It’s meant to be a casual, quick look at what works and what doesn’t work in the story being studied, and what we can learn from them. If other sites are college courses that go over stories in-depth over a semester, this site is two friends meeting at a lounge and saying, “Wow! That was so cool!” or, “Man, that didn’t work at all!”

There are already many excellent movie and storytelling learning sites on the internet, many of them greater than I ever hope to be. But unlike so many sites, Youtube stars, or movie critics, I’m not looking to slam faults or call something terrible. Criticizing is easy, but critiquing is more useful. If we can learn from failure as much as we can from success, then every story, no matter how poorly told, can help us learn about the art of storytelling. Nothing is perfect, but there is beauty to be found in imperfection.

Even if a well-crafted plane of glass has a flaw, that doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful.

I hope my own journey of learning is as helpful to you as it is to me.

Failure, the greatest teacher is. — Yoda