How about: "And that’s why change is fundamental in story. If things go static, stories die because life is never static." Amen, Stants--AMEN. That's what jumped out at me the most from this chunk. "If things go static, stories die." As a reader, one of the quickest ways to make me start wondering if I should be checking Facebook to see if it's my move in Words with Friends is when both the plot and the character stop moving. Sometimes you can get away with one of those being the case (I won't rule it out completely), but if both of those things suddenly stop going forward, it's a tough wrong turn to correct. One scene like that and a reader can check out. Or worse, one scene like that and an audience can start to check out.

I'd highly recommend the two books by Judith Weston, the acting teacher referenced here. It's for directors, called Directing Actors (which I'm in the middle of) and The Film Director's Intuition (which I haven't started yet). If you're a screenwriter interested in directing/acting, it's quite worthwhile. The second book might be helpful for screenwriters in general, to see how directors (are supposed to) do script analysis, but I haven't gotten there yet, so who knows :) http://www.amazon.com/Directing-Actors-Memorable-Performances-Television/dp/0941188248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332399628&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Film-Directors-Intuition-Techniques/dp/0941188787/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1332399628&sr=8-2