This may be the most useful writing advice I've ever come across

(discovered via Elleth.)

The 22 rules of Storytelling, according to Pixar

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

( There's more, of course )

You know why I like these so much? Because they aren't about form, but about content. In the end, story is all about content. In this time and age, form is variable; presumably every rule about form has been broken by someone who was hugely succesful anyway. I'm sick of "Show, don't tell" (YES, but!), "Don't use adverbs" (YES, but!), "Don't use different words for 'say'" (YES, but!), "Eradicate cliche" (YES, but!) and "Use strong verbs" (YES, but!) and so on and so on. Besides, everyone knows the formal rules at some point - everyone's taking the same Creative Writing classes and reading the same specific advice...
Anyway. Yes. Content. Function over form, and all that.