That play you know by heart

There are certain movies or plays or TV shows that you end up knowing by heart. For any particular line of dialogue, you already know what they are going to say.

When that happens, you start to see a lot more of the inherent structure that went into the writing. You can see, for example, how a seemingly throwaway line in an earlier scene sets up an entire confrontation or transition in a later scene.

So in a sense there are two distinct ways of experiencing movies or plays or TV shows. One is to come to them with a spirit of surprise and discovery. The other is to approach them with a spirit of analysis.

In the latter case, you can actually learn quite a bit about the art of writing. And hopefully, one day you can take what you’ve learned and create new works that provide lessons for others.

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