Well, I am an expert in neither and especially in writing scenarios. I read one or two books and took a couple of film-making courses back in my youth, but that’s about it.

I’m currently striving with the latter, for my all too precious phd. But now and then, when things get too tight – when I’m staring at the blank .doc and periodically fighting off the screensaver, and when the deadline is looking at me with the Eye of Sauron, I find myself drifting away and imagining the ways an academic paper could be similar to a movie script.

Well, you have to introduce your heroes first. Show who they are and what is their context and surroundings – and mind you, this context has to be relevant with the rest of the movie, because this will be the “before” picture and the end of the movie will be the “after” picture. Ok. So I have to introduce my hero, my core theme and main issue bothering me in this paper, and describe a little bit the meadows it resides in.

Then the challenge comes knocking the door. There’s trouble in paradise. The hero accepts or subjects to this challenge, if you want to have a movie. And the challenge has to be something critical, not something in the lines of “should I take a taxi or the bus?” (unless of course your audience knows that if the hero takes the taxi there will be a major car crash or something). And that’s the point where I’ll have to present THE PROBLEM. What is the problem or the big question that yearns for an answer?

And then the struggle begins. The hero incrementally goes through a series of dilemmas and ordeals, up until the final battle scene. Right. And you have to go through a series of sequences, tightly related to each other, one building upon the other, describing your theory, your concepts, your methodology and method. Up until the final battle with your data and the eventual data analysis.

And then of course, the resolution comes. The hero gloriously wins -or survives in the worst cases. And the world, or at least the hero’s life, will never be the same again -that’s the “after” picture. And you have your Discussion and Conclusions sections. And the world has been saved from the grim PROBLEM.

Right. Now enough with the ramblings. Got a couple of deadlines to catch and save the world :p

btw I must definitely find some time to read The Hero with a Thousand Faces I got some time back.