Storytelling Elements in Star Wars: A New Hope

Here are the storytelling ele­ments in Star Wars: A New Hope.

A while back, I out­lined the storytelling ele­ments found in almost all great stor­ies in an infographic:

I wanted to apply these clas­sic­al ele­ments to a well-known story to see how well they would work. 

The choice of a great story was a no-brainer:

I was born in 1979, two years after Star Wars was released, so Star Wars: A New Hope was essen­tial to my upbringing.

What bet­ter story could I’ve used? The Star Wars char­ac­ters immerse them­selves in astro­nom­ic­al dra­mas quite lit­er­ally. The storytelling les­sons from star wars are epic.

Here goes:

Storytelling Elements in Star Wars

Here’s how I struc­tured the storytelling ele­ments in Star Wars: A New Hope to make them usable:

1. The Contract

Right at the begin­ning of Star Wars: A New Hope, you get to see Star Destroyers in space shoot­ing lasers and Darth Vader tak­ing Princess Leia Organa host­age while they nego­ti­ate the whole dra­mat­ic setup before Leia’s taken to her cell.

2. The Pull

The Empire uses a tract­or beam, but we’re drawn into the story by two droids, R2-D2 and C3PO. R2-D2 knows some­thing but can only beep and blip, so C3PO has to ask lots of ques­tions and repeat the answers to pull the view­er into the story.

3. The Incident

After fight­ing with his foster par­ents, Luke Skywalker runs away from home and gets attacked by Sand People. However, he is then saved by his mys­ter­i­ous pro­tect­or, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

4. The Reveal

R2-D2 shows his mes­sage from Princess Leia, thus open­ing up a whole new world for Luke Skywalker, and then Obi-Wan Kenobi explains about the Jedi.

5. Point of No Return

Luke Skywalker real­izes his life will nev­er be the same as he rushes home to find his fam­ily butchered. He decides to fol­low Obi-Wan Kenobi and the droids to save Princess Leia. ¹The Incident, The Reveal, and the Point of No Return are often quite close to each oth­er in most nar­rat­ives, and they might even be bundled togeth­er in the same scene or sequence. Together, they lead … Continue read­ing

6. Anti-Climax

Together with new com­pan­ions Han Solo and Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker man­ages to save Princess Leia, but at the same time, Obi-Wan Kenobi is struck down by Darth Vader.

7. All is Lost

As the rebels mobil­ize to strike against the Death Star, they suf­fer heavy losses against a super­i­or mil­it­ary force. But the rebels are picked off one by one, and Luke Skywalker is left with the almost impossible task of blow­ing up the Death Star without a func­tion­ing aim­ing system.

8. News of Hope

Luke Skywalker gets sur­pris­ing help from Han Solo, who returns with the might of the Millennium Falcon — and the rest of the rebel fleet.

9. The Climax

Luke Skywalker com­pletes his char­ac­ter arc for this movie by sum­mon­ing the spir­it of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Using the Force, Luke suc­ceeded in blow­ing up the Death Star and, more import­antly, took an import­ant step towards ful­filling his des­tiny to become a true Jedi Knight.

10. The Pay-Off

Team Skywalker get medals, but more import­antly — their com­pan­ion­ship is forever forged, and they’re now ready to face the Empire yet again. ²Since the audi­ence has act­ively taken part in the story, shared decisions and exper­i­enced struggles emo­tion­ally, they want to be rewar­ded through the main char­ac­ters. They also want to feel that they … Continue read­ing

Additional Storytelling Resources

For cor­por­ate pur­poses, I prefer to use this sim­pli­fied script:

Promise. Why should any­one read your post? A sig­ni­fic­ant com­mit­ment ensures your read­ers know what to expect from this story. Of course, you also need to deliv­er on your contract.

Conflict. You need to explain that you under­stand the frus­tra­tion. I’ve been there your­self. Why should any­one trust your story oth­er­wise? Most writers rush this to get to the solu­tion, but all good stor­ies focus more on hard­ships than any­thing else.

Discovery. When, how and why did you decide to find a solu­tion to your prob­lem? A “point-of-no-return” is needed to engage the read­ers in your story. Tell them when, how and why.

Solution. As for the solu­tion, keep it brief and to the point.

Call-to-action. And finally, since you’re cre­at­ing a blog post, you should leave the read­er with a clear notion of what to do next!

For hon­ing your writ­ing skills, these are my go-to books on per­suas­ive writing:

… and last but not least, my favour­ite soft­ware for dra­mat­ic writing:

One more thing. As I’m writ­ing this, we’re expect­ing a baby boy, and my wife is cur­rently five days past her due date. If all goes well (and I think it will!) — I hope to have many years of storytelling in front of me.

May the Force be with all of us!