From Bogart and Bacall to Batman Begins, from Pride and Prejudice to The Princess Bride, and from Ben-Hur to Ben Kenobi, our lives are filled with personalities and narratives that grip our very souls. What connects us with these tales so naturally and powerfully? What provides the magic of a great character or plot twist? What is it about a good story that makes us want to triumph like Batman and fall in love like the Princess Bride? And why is it so difficult to achieve those happy endings ourselves?

The 90-Minute Effect explores the subtle manner in which all good stories are molded and shows how we as audience members shape our own lives according to what we see on screen and read in books. In a comprehensive survey covering Hollywood movies, novels, television shows, plays, and video games, both modern and classic, Eric Robert Morse examines the patterns in plot structure and character development that arise in all good stories, showing how each example offers its own unique approach to the universal formula.

This fascinating and inventive study fuses a detailed look at the inner-workings of stories with astute social analysis that will rivet lovers of storytelling as well as those interested in current sociological trends. The 90-Minute Effect stands as a mesmerizing window into the human psyche and provides an entirely new theory of poetics that will change the way you watch movies and read novels forever.