At Crisis the protagonist's willpower is most severely tested. As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to tak… - Robert McKee

Most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.

As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to take.

The weakest possible excuse to include anything in a story is: “But it actually happened.” Everything happens; everything imaginable happens. Indeed, the unimaginable happens. But story is not life in actuality. Mere occurrence brings us nowhere near the truth. What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.

"The famous axiom "Show, don't tell" is the key. Never force words into a character's mouth to tell the audience about world, history, or person. Rather, show us honest, natural scenes in which human beings talk and behave in honest, natural ways...yet at the same time indirectly pass along the necessary facts. In other words, dramatize exposition. Dramatized exposition serves two ends: Its primary purpose is to further the immediate conflict. Its secondary purpose is to convey information. The anxious novice reverses that order, putting expositional duty ahead of dramatic necessity."

For most writers, the knowledge they gain from reading and study equals or outweighs experience, especially if that experience goes unexamined.