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Since yesterday's writing marathon that netted me 10,000 words in one day, I've come up with three new novel ideas, as well as what will certainly be the topic for my 2010 ScriptFrenzy screenplay.
I'm just taking a moment, like I did once before, to write down the idea before it's forgotten or stored somewhere I can never find again.
Title: Facebook Thanksgiving
Genre: Comedy
Premise: Recently divorced ALAINA, fearing a holiday alone, impulsively posts an open invitation for Thanksgiving dinner to her Facebook friends. Unexpected arrivals: her fake-suicidal ex-husband, a woman she kissed at an office party, three coworkers who are unaware she has dated them all, and her manic-obsessive mother.
Or some other such ensemble. I love the idea of all your past loves converging in one moment. Plus, I've noticed lately that quite a lot of my FB friends are getting divorced in their late 30s, early 40s, making the plot fairly plausible, at least in the manner that movie-comedies can ever be plausible.
Back to my NaNo novel!
"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs."
John Osborne
That warm feeling I got when my romantic comedy Heteroflexible advanced to quarterfinals in its first screenwriting competition at Blue Cat, became a warm, wet feeling when I read the script analysis.
Now, I do love my criticism. And it being emphatic is, to me, all the better. I'm known for rather acerbic critiques in my novel and screenplay groups. So I'm not really whining, just relating that odd sensation of having read both this: "When you're insulting, you're just insulting."
And then advancing with the top 20 percent.
While the analysis samples on the Blue Cat site were all fairly even handed with good points/bad points in the 600 words they promise you, my reader gave up precisely 23 words with a tepid line about "a story that hasn't been seen before," then waylaid me for 1017 more. (I got bonus words!)
Other great moments in my feedback were, "so incredibly stereotypical," "I don't buy it," and "clearly a first draft." At the end I was encouraged to "go back to the outline and really work on it" with a reminder that "with most scripts, your goal is to make it into a film."
It's hard to imagine this is also the judge who advanced it. I did some digging around to see if BlueCat had separate critics from judges, but wasn't able to find out for certain. It seems expensive for them to have two people read it, but who knows, maybe I was early in the pile and this critic liked the others even less.
I know humor is hard to write. And the subject matter for this story is easily the most controversial I've ever endeavored. I run the risk of alienating everybody, even the demographic the tale holds in the highest esteem.
But I do believe in this story. And I'm finishing up the novel version, which I recently cut down to 43,000 words to get rid of distracting story elements and slow scenes, gradually building it back up to the 80K minimum for a novel. I've incorporated some of the more specific feedback from this analysis into the novel, but I'm not really sure how to address the generalities of being insulting and stereotypical and not believable.
The story has a long way to go yet. The screenplay has only been through two drafts, and I'm on the second draft of the book.
But before I put either version before any more critics, I'll make sure I'm dressed in something that won't show the wet spots.
I admit it, I'm an infidel.
Earlier this year, I was passionately in love with my middle grade novel. We were together every day, often long into the night, mutually basking in the glow of each other's fond attention.
Then, some agents loved it. And I released her into the world where she still sits on a desk or two, one who seems fairly enamored. She is not in need of rescue, the best possible separation until we meet again.
But I was lonely. I had options -- the sequel to the middle grade, or maybe, just maybe, this sexy new manuscript I had started during NaNoWriMo.
It called to me in the night, edgy and full of appeal, rife with longing and promising of secrets. So I slipped into a new relationship and even started a screenplay version of the story.
But then, trouble. Characters behaved erratically, refusing to be reasonable. I admit -- I got controlling -- trying to force them into who I thought they should be. The story rebelled; I offered a fresh start. But we began to grow apart.
And today, I opened a file, something I'd written a few years ago but recently freshened up the opening for a fellowship application. I read the first 18 pages and didn't change a word. It was perfect! Beautiful! Tantalizing.
And so I began to plan our time together, makeovers, meaningful conversations, pillow talk.
But the old story nipped at me. Not fair, it called. You can't leave me like this, unfinished, in disarray.
I'm torn. Old love or new. Manage my problems or fly a new direction. Without a deadline, an expectation by anyone, I flit from work to work, writing only what feels good at the time, like a literary gigolo.
Maybe if one of them manages to snag me for real, binds me with a contract, I'll settle down. But until then, sweet works-in-progress, take it from Rod, it's a heartache, nothing but a heartache, hits you when it's too late, hits when you're down...
An amazing talk about how to not burn out as a creative genius by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. Watching it at 4 a.m. after some really difficult writing days has done some major damage control. Many writer friends have felt saved by it.
So I’m reading Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham. I’ve set aside my multi-protagonist novel (thank you readers for your suggested books) and am back to my romantic comedy, which I’m taking through Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook.
This last year, I’ve also read Robert McKee’s Story and John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story.
As you might have guessed, I’m getting serious about examining the structure of my novels.
My current book has more promise than all the others I have written combined. It’s funny, it’s timely, and it involves everything I hold dear--photography, the civil rights of my friends, and recognizing that perfect love when it comes along (and, of course, stalking it on the internet to see if it is already “in a relationship,” Facebook or otherwise.)
McKee and Truby had a lot to stay about plot. Maass has really helped me with character and story arc development.
But Bickham’s book, I hope, will help with the individual building blocks that carry all those things off.
What I’ve already learned: You should be able to write your main character’s self concept in fifteen words.
So, let’s try it: Zest believes she can have it all--a small independent business and a happy marriage.
Then, Bickham says your novel begins at the moment your character’s self concept is threatened.
I think I got that right: She comes home from a wedding job to hear a message from a lawyer that her husband has filed for divorce.
This threat should create a story goal, a way to get back into equilibrium. I think I have that:
Initially, Zest’s story goal is very pragmatic: figure out what went so wrong that her husband would secretly file for divorce, and then to fix it, even if draws her attention away from her new business.
This creates story questions: Why did her husband do this? How can she fix it? And further more, should it be fixed?
You have some hints before you even get to the dramatic moment. Zest is snarky, biting, and probably not so easy to live with. She’s plunged into this business without enough forethought, on the assumption that her husband is behind her all the way. Because we’re in first person, and we find Zest amusing and entertaining, we go along with her in the first chapter, but when trouble hits, we find ourselves wondering--did she deserve it? So, separate from Zest’s own story question--how could he do this to me? We the readers have a separate one, one we keep from her--should we hope her husband runs for the hills?
What I hope Bickham can really help me with is the sagging middle. I have a great start and a killer end. But I find myself standing below the arch, arms above my head, propping up the noodling bridges and praying for some structure before my muscles give out.
First and foremost, if you know of a great book with multiple protagonists, PLEASE LIST IT!
I'm revising a manuscript for a fellowship application. I love the book, but it's a challenge, because for what I wanted to accomplish, I ended up with
I'm reading like mad. When I first outlined the novel, I read The Joy Luck Club, The First Wives' Club, and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
They did not help.
Recently, Donald Maas, in his book Writing the Breakout Novel, insisted that the only way to make a multiple-protagonist novel work is to ensure that the group is paramount. It must become a character of its own, with hopes, goals, obstacles, and a story arc.
Well, okay. I think I mostly did that, but early reviews of the opening chapters from the critique buddies were overwhelming with -- you can't switch characters NOW! I just got into the story!
So I've been a Google-Maniac, looking for other multi-protag books. I have found:
How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto
Babyville by Jane Green
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Stand by Stephen King
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
I have the last three on my shelves. I'm going to start outlining them tonight, and try to find the other two tomorrow. In my Google-mania, I found an AWESOME and lengthy set of blog posts on pitfalls of writing this type of book at Anne Mini's site.
But I'd love to have more to look at. I don't think the thriller/action books are going to help me. Mine is more women's fiction.
If you know some--bring it on!
The fourth grader stared me down, her nose twitching, red hair statically charged and floating off her shoulders.
I shifted beside her desk, where a laptop displayed her personal-essay-in-progress.
"Was I supposed to bring lunch?" I asked.
She rolled her eyes and thrust her chin into her palm. She might be nine, but she definitely had the teen angst down. "No. The compliment sandwich."
"Yes, oh, sorry." As a parent editor, I was supposed to first give a compliment to the student, then make a single constructive suggestion, then finish with one additional compliment.
"Um, this part where the coach screams at you--very vivid."
The eyes rolled again.
The students were all at the point of their essay revision that turned them apathetic. I totally understood their impatience. How many times had I written something quickly, loved it, and wanted to proclaim it done? Oh, so there's a plot hole or two, and that one character just sort of disappears. And yeah, seventeen pages of backstory exposition is a lot...but it's good stuff! If we mess with it, we might lose the voice! Disrupt the flow! Or have to work!
I'm also an impatient critique buddy. I know we're supposed to compliment each other, support each other, keep each other going in the face of near crushing rejection from the industry. But I want to get to the problem, the slow part, the confusion, the part where I might fail.
I'll take the girl's warning, though, and remember to always build the sandwich. The middle parts don't hold together well anyway, tomato and lettuce sliding everywhere. And where would the honey mustard go? Showing another writer what they're doing right, and more importantly, what not to mess with, is just as important as listing their writing ails. I'll keep this in mind as I spend tonight critiquing some pieces of my own, trying to put together an application for a writing fellowship.
I can pat myself on the back. It's not a waste of time. Sometimes we're the only one who ever really "gets" what we're going for. So bring on the compliment sandwich, inner editor. Just don't let the bread get all soggy.
I had won a "Decision Maker" as a prize at the official party earlier in the evening. It's a modern version of the "Magic Eight Ball," a bright little object with a spinning light and six answers to your questions, such as "Abort Mission" or "Engage!" I had covered up redundant or annoying answers with more bar-appropriate suggestions, including, "Drink!" and "Kiss Someone."
As we sat around a long table, I heard a word that was new to me, and like a streak of light in the dark, I knew it was the title to my new novel.
Heteroflexible.
Reading up on the word was surprising. It was coined in 1996 but saw more common use only in 2004. Writers on both sides of the conservative/liberal fence dislike the term either because it disrupts the natural order of girls flirting with guys or because it mixes giggling hetero girls with lesbians, setting gay rights back. (Some links: http://www.startribune.com/local/2730035
I found it both comforting and inspiring to know that a pop culture term that is woefully underused, wildly controversial, and rife with conflict and stirred passion, serving as a flashpoint between generations and their view of sex, is exactly the sort of word that describes my book.
In a thread on Verla Kay's boards, we talked about "origin stories," or what gave us the idea for our current books.
In my response to the thread, since many of the writers felt the story just "came to them," I wrote out a surprising thing that happened to me a few days ago.
I know that all of us can only really write what we know. As we apply words to the page, we stay within themes, landscapes, dreams, and horrors that are familiar, whether we experienced them ourselves, heard about them, or observed or absorbed them through culture.
I did an exercise Donald Maass recommends the other day and while it was really hard, and I probably spent two hours thinking about it, I learned something about myself and my books by doing it.
He says to list your three favorite books with this rule: it has to be a book you've read more than once. You should not share this list with anyone, and put your dirty little secret pleasure book on it if you have one.
Then figure out what all of them have in common.
When I did it, I couldn't imagine what John Updike, Betsy Byars, and Douglas Adams would have in common.
I wrote summaries of each book. Found nothing.
I described the main characters of each book. Still nothing.
So then I decided to write what moments from the story made an emotional or sensory impression.
And I got it:
Marry Me: The man is following his lover up some steps, noticing how broad she is but he loves her anyway and will not be bullied into leaving her.
Summer of the Swans: The girl realizes she has been wrong for months, blaming a boy for stealing her brother's watch out of blind devotion for him and wanting someone to hold accountable.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Arthur Dent is troubled by "Harmless" being the only descriptive entry for Earth and tries, in vain, to champion it.
See the connection? All the stories had an element of someone defending something even if it was a losing battle, a futile cause, against society's approval, or if they were dead wrong.
And that is EXACTLY what my story is about.
And so, I looked to my own history, and what about me brought me to connect with books with these themes, and suddenly I had yet another story behind the origin of my book--not anything I ever even expected would have been the reason.
Then came election night, and the passage of Prop 8 in California as well as similar measures in Arizona and Florida, all showing intolerance in the face of love, banning same-sex marriages as if we heteros had the lock on what constitutes commitment.
The story turned more serious, and finally I gave into it. While the situations retain their comic lilt, as I have continued to follow my humor-driven outline, I find I am not the same person who began this journey, and the novel shows it. What I thought would be light and fun has instead forced me to examine what makes love work, and wonder why any person, religion, or group thinks they could or should be the legal or moral arbiter of affairs of the heart.
In this excerpt, Zest, our main character and a professional photographer going through a divorce herself, and the four couples whose wedding she is documenting, have just left a confrontation with their minister, unable to get married. The man they hired to perform the ceremony has instead greeted them with 30 Prop 8 supporters, all hell-bent on saving them from their sinning ways.
After an argument on how to interpret the Bible where one of the women shoves the minister off his ladder and another throws her flowers in his face, the women have escaped into their limo, only to be followed by members of the minister's flock. Here they have excited their limo driver into racing across San Diego to lose the zealots.
_____________________
Chapter 15: Road Rally
Bella let out a scream as we crunched over a median, did an ungraceful 180, and sped down the road in the other direction. We all slid into each other, flowers flying, limbs askew in white silk and taffeta. I gripped my camera.
“Oh my God, this is nuts,” Jenna said. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or hit something.”
“Hit Mary,” Nikki said. “She got us into this.”
Mary brushed petals from her lap. “How was I supposed to know this was a set up? What kind of person says they will perform a wedding but organizes a hate rally?”
“How did you find this guy anyway?” Aud asked. “1-800-Bash-a-Queer?”
“I called the Episcopalian Diocese.”
“Never trust an Episcopalian!” Nikki said.
“I’m an Episcopalian!” Mary shouted.
“And look what happened when we trusted you!” Nikki shot back.
“I didn’t think the California Episcopalians would be wingnuts!”
“Ladies,” Bradford said. “Divided, they conquer. Let’s figure out what to do next.”
Audrey turned in her seat to peer out the back window. “Bogies at six o’clock,” she said. “They’re limo-magnets.”
“We’re not exactly hard to spot,” Nikki said.
Blitz pounded her hand on the glass. “Stupid pink limo.”
“I don’t think any limo would exactly disappear in traffic,” Jenna said.
The driver rapped on the partition. “Should I get on freeway? I can lose them.”
“Whatever works,” Bradford muttered. “I don’t want them figuring out where we’re staying.”
“You got it,” the man said. He gunned it, rapidly changing lanes to fly up the on ramp. This time we all hung on to our seats, trying to avoid smashing into each other.
“Did they make it on?” Mary asked.
“Not sure,” Audrey said. “I don’t think the black Honda did, but there was another one, something blue.”
We weaved through traffic, more than one of us probably remembering footage of a white Bronco. We gripped the cushions and door handles grimly, as if starring in our own movie, and handling our own stunts.
We passed signs for Mission Bay, the water appearing and disappearing as we raced down the highway. We were driving away from our hotel, without a destination, and I certainly had no suggestions about what to do next. I could barely process what all had just happened.
I flipped backward through the images on the LCD. The protesters chanting. The limo exit. The minister shaking his fist. The flowers smashing into his face. Mary crying. The ladder tipping. Blitz, red and angry. A blood red sign reading, “Marriage is sacred.”
Then into the past, last night—ocean water, fire rings, and a line of silhouettes, figures stretching out across the dark. Only as the scenes flashed by could I begin to process them, as though they hadn’t really happened until I lived through them this second time. I set the camera in my lap, remembering the pictures in the house of me and Cade, of my parents, and realized, suddenly, for the first time, far too late, that there weren’t any pictures of me and my husband from this last year, just sample shots in the studio, set designs, all photographs designed to help my business grow.
How much of my life did I live in the moment? How much did I only assess after the fact? I thumbed through the images, faster this time, and saw how quickly something wonderful can turn tragic, how fleeting hope can be, and that only the stalwart can muscle through difficulty without drowning in loss.
The blank page stared at me like a great ghostly eye.
I might have punched it in the eye, had it not been a $600 Apple Cinema monitor. The apparition element was all my own.
But there was a reason for the empty screen. I had begun my fourth venture into National Novel Writing Month, pledging to write 50,000 words in 30 days.
And I had nuthin’.
All the novels from the previous years lined up inside my head. All were good books, a literary piece, a women’s fiction, and a middle grade low fantasy. I’d finished them all in the late winter after each NaNoWriMo, gone through peer critiques and rewrites, and felt pleased with the end results. One had won a contest. The latest was still being considered for representation by an agent.
But still, a lot of hours, a lot of my life, and a huge chunk of my energy and emotion had gone into them. And for what exactly? A file lying resident on a hard drive.
The cursor blinked quietly, ever patient. I started at the malevolent screen, empty, mocking.
Had I neglected my kids to do this? My business? Was the tradeoff worth the end result?
I leaned back in my chair, thinking maybe I wouldn’t participate this year. Or, sign up, hang out with the friends I’d made through NaNoWriMo and type gaily here and there, but not push to finish.
Then, somewhere, far back in my reptilian brain, I remembered a moment, a gesture, a bit of conversation, a big laugh, and then a character came full blown, and I placed her in a scene. Then her motivations came tumbling out, what she’d do under pressure, mixed in with a setting, a chance opportunity, and suddenly, I had an idea for a novel.
For any of us who create art in all its forms, what we do is not a choice, time wasted, or moments lost. It’s who we are, what makes us get up in the morning, and hopefully, if we’re really really good, really really perserverant, AND really really lucky, one day we will break out, get our art before others, and someone else will understand and connect with what we’ve done.
We’re 20 days into the race for 50,000 words. I hit 30K last night. I’m slightly off pace, but in good shape to finish on the 30th. During the same 20 days, I’ve done 30 photo shoots, created seven new holiday card designs, printed a heck of a lot of pictures, and written an article for About.com.
AND cleaned my daughter’s bedroom, helped with homework, had kids over for playdates, and baked at least six dozen cookies.
I think I’m going to get it all done.
As long as I don’t sleep.
I am so happy with how Girl Crush is going.
I've been so strung out about the passing of Prop 8 in California (thankfully it looks like marriages on the books will not be annulled for now) and worrying that my novel simply wasn't appropriate for a comedy in any fashion.
Today I got stuck getting my oil changed and took the time to read some David Sedaris I had left in my car.
And I realized something critical--the humor actually sets up the not-funny. If you start with snark, or clever bits, or over-the-top absurdity, when you do bring us down, get us to the point, it really resonates. It's not overdone, or melodramatic, but a punch in the gut.
I have been writing about a lesbian softball team who goes to California to elope only to discover the minister lured them there to save their souls. I really thought it would be a romp, with a few serious undertones, but something along the lines of "But I'm a Cheerleader."
But when Prop 8 passed in California, the book became serious, and troubling, and I've spent these two days since the election trying to reshape the material, and that's when Sedaris saved me.
Every chapter now starts on a lark, and I hone those first pages to have sharp humor, then I let the threads loosen and loosen until at the end of each one, we're realizing that underneath all that comedy are serious issues, a pattern that will expand in the book itself, until the lowest ebb, when the women are trapped in their hotel by protesters calling them perverted and wrong, when all they wanted is to find a place where it was safe to express their commitment to each other.
So I"m letting myself not be as funny as I intended. And I think it's going to work even better. Sometimes letting the material shape the level and extent of humor is, I'm guessing, the best way to go.
I met Douglas Adams in 1992 at the Book and Author Dinner in Houston. I had just graduated with a degree in journalism, coinciding with the collapse of the Dallas Times-Herald, leaving journalists with decades of experience scrambling for internships. We new grads hadn't a chance.
I got a ticket when a friend from Austin was unable to come up for the dinner. I don't know how she got a ticket either, as they were crazy expensive (minimum $350 this year) and we were exceedingly poor. She had planned to meet a friend there, and I sat with the girl instead.
At the time I was snobbishly literary, having just applied to take post baccalaureate classes at the University of Houston with an eye toward their Masters in Creative Writing. At the dinner, I paid close attention to Gloria Naylor, whose work I admired.
I had never read Douglas Adams or even heard of him, which seems ridiculous now, and probably was then. I distinctly remember, however, during his part of the speeches, saying, "I never thought I'd be writing books for 12-year-old boys." Poor sap, I thought. Doesn't even know what he's doing.
Some six years later, a coworker at Harcourt handed me The HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I hadn't planned on reading it, and stuck it down beside the passenger seat of my car. On a later road trip, however, I found myself bereft of reading material and tugged it out.
And did I laugh. The digital watch. The predilection for little fur hats.
It wasn't literary, but it had something else. Humor, yes, but still, another thing. Cadence. Pacing. Rhythm.
I've been struggling as I plan my NaNoWriMo novel, my first book-length work of humor. Is the funny part in the voice? The situation? The tone? I've vacillated as I read other humor novel writers: Sophie Kinsella, Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, Christopher Moore.
I opened my six-novel compilation of Hitchhiker's Guide. I skimmed the introduction by Adams, remembering his tall, bent frame, standing awkwardly as if permanently leaning down to hear someone from far, far below. I stumbled upon a line I didn't understand when I read it back then, as I had never written a novel, never queried it out, never dealt with the torrent of rejection and self-doubt and cranial wall-banging.
And I DO know what he means. But the introduction gave me more than just a writerly comaraderie. The shift from the first person self-deprecating essay, which is what I write, to a humorous novel, is exactly the gateway I needed to pass to understand what I was trying to do. Yes, it helps if the situation is funny. Sure, a comic character can aid the laughs. But it really is about the voice. The way the words are put together, the melody, the stacatto and legato. That's what makes something funny without being stupid. Both the nonfiction introduction and the fiction story had it.
I fear I am writing where popular humorous novelists fear to tread, at least much. It's not any particular genre, not fantasy like Moore and Pratchett, not Sci Fi like Adams, not chick-lit like Kinsella and Helen Fielding. Not mystery like Fford. It's mainstream, right down the line, with no special form, too many possibilties and enough rope for Japanese bondage.
But I see now that the story isn't the critical element. I can play it pretty straight, eliminating the ridiculous (and its counterpart, ridicule). And I don't have to create a smart-mouth protagonist, which seems wrong for Zest.
I just have to find the rhythm of the piece, the cutting interplay of words and concepts. I know how this works, the interspersing of long and short sentences, big ideas and small details. When it flows for me, it's as natural as buttering toast. (And when it doesn't, like swallowing nine-grain rye.)
I think I've got it now. I'm ready to move on with my outline and stop worrying that the story isn't heightened, the characters not over-the-top.
And the man who I thought was so beneath me 16 years ago has shown me the way.
So yesterday was very very bad. I foolishly silenced my inner alarm system and wound up in a bad situation with work.
But the good part is that it gave me a great idea for an article and yesterday I stopped by Barnes and Noble and found the perfect magazine to send it to.
Like my article coming out in The Writer, it's a humorous self-deprecating piece. You'd think by age 38 I'd know how to spot trouble not just before it came through the door, but prior to its parking its muddy boots on my coffee table and eating all my chocolate, but alas, I still have a lot of faith in people. Even when I shouldn't.
But the article is great fun and a solid cautionary tale. So I'm sippin' my lemonade and feelin' fine.
This is admittedly the topic I had thought about the least, and the chapter I skimmed the most.
Up until now, I had found Truby’s ability to layer each element of the story — the designing principle (the skeletal structure of the plot), the moral argument (theme), the character web, and the hero’s desire line — to be brilliant and fairly smooth to follow.
Then came the story world. Suddenly page after page seemed trite and forced to me. Truby carried on about the ocean as a metaphor, the mountain as pinnacle, jungles, deserts, and islands, and I had to start skipping. We all KNOW what these settings evoke. And most likely the designing principle has already dictated the story world to a great extent. Star Wars is obviously a space epic. No use pondering Roman baths. We couldn’t exactly place Hogwarts under the sea. I skipped past sections on the use of “the warm house,” and cellar versus attic.
None of this made any useful sense to me, even how the world and the hero should grow and change together, until we got to the examples. And so, to remember the best cases of matching scene to story, I’ll leave you with an excellent example from the book in how the opponents, theme, desire match up in a movie where there were lots of options about where and how to set scenes:
It’s a Wonderful Life
- Weakness and Need: A man ready to jump from a bridge, night sky, the city from above.
- Desire: This man’s warm house growing up, explaining how he wants to build things.
- Opponent: The man’s nemesis, Potter, set at the bank where the city is controlled.
- Apparent Defeat: The man crosses the bridge in heavy snow after Potter’s money goes missing.
- Visit to death: The dystopian version of the man’s town if he had never lived, shown to him by the angel.
- Freedom: Return to his utopian home town, running down the street to a warm house full of friends.
This year I'm planning to write a romantic comedy called Girl Crush. Here's the premise:
I got the idea for Girl Crush when one of my friends, while planning an elopement to California, asked another couple, also friends of ours, to elope with them. I was asked to be their photographer.
Both couples will marry in the spring, separately, and I am breaking my no-wedding rule to document both their ceremonies. They are both going to Canada, however, since the situation in California is a little tenuous with the constitutional amendment coming to a vote in November.
The story will be told from the point of view of the photographer, who is going through a divorce and learns more about love and commitment from these women in three days than in her own heterosexual marriage.
This November will be my fourth National Novel Writing Month. I blogged my first two Nanos (I started late last year so I could not stop to blog) and will do so again this year. Here's 2005 and 2006 for the curious.
I'm very involved in the Austin group (known affectionately as the Penguins.) We've ranked as high as third in the world for our output. We have an extremely active group, with write ins more than once a day, and each year has been an amazing experience. Many of my best friends were discovered during the mad scrabble mayhem of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. This year we'll be pairing with the Writers' League of Texas to get even more publicity.
I've completed 50K all three years, and finished all of my NaNo books by April.
So, to plan for Nano, I will start posting the diary of Zest, my main character. Many of the softball team members will be mirrored after my friends, who all play for the Gay and Lesbian softball league here in town.
I'm very excited!
Citizen Kane: “A man who tries to force everyone to love him ends up alone.”
- State hero’s values.
- Reveal moral weakness and need, what he has to learn.
- Commit the first immoral action as an outgrowth of the weakness.
- Hero develops a goal that leads him into conflict with an opponent.
- The hero and opponent act against each other to reach the goal.
- Hero begins to lose, taking increasingly immoral actions in his desperation.
- Other characters criticize the hero and he tries to justify his actions
- Hero becomes obsessed to win and his immoral actions intensify.
- The final battle decides the goal.
- Hero takes one last action (moral or immoral) just before or during battle.
- Hero has a self-revelation about how to act properly and drives the theme home.
- The hero chooses between two courses of action to prove moral self-revelation.
- The thematic revelation expands the message beyond the hero to the world in general.
I'm not sure I'd take this approach to the letter, but if you do feel you are smacking your reader with your theme and you're not sure why it stands out so much, I'd just use this as a checklist. You may have started hammering it too soon.
Conversely, if you feel your theme is lost, double check that you have integrated it into the story as a whole, and not just as an "ah ha!" moment at the very end.
WOW (Women on Writing) published a list of the major writing magazines. It's a great list, including all my faves, The Writer, Writer's Digest, Poets and Writers, and Writers' Journal.
http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/2008/0
I wanted to add, for the screenwriters out there, Script Magazine.
http://www.scriptmag.com/
Everything past the blockbuster blurb lies solely in the work the author has put into a well-rounded story. It's a point that lit up the bulb for me on one of my own high-concepts. I really DID only have two or three good scenes, the rest either "showing character" or "leading up to the big moment." Every scene must stand on its own with a beginning, middle, and end.
In Chapter 3, Truby gives us the seven key steps of story structure. They are:
1. Weakness and need
2. Desire
3. Opponent
4. Plan
5. Battle
6. Self revelation
7. New equilibrium
Mostly they are self-evident, but Truby made a few points I paused to consider:
The hero should not be aware of his need at the beginning of the story (the need, of course, being what is required to overcome his weakness and grow as a character.)
Another point I had never considered is the difference between moral needs and psychological needs. Truby is adamant that you need both.
A psychological need is something internal, a flaw that affects only the character.
A moral need means a character is harming at least one other person.
This is completely separate from the external desire, which is the plot device--the journey that moves the story forward. The desire is usually the plot line, the high concept, the one-sentence summary. Both the needs and the desire must be there.
The desire is on the surface (saving the galaxy, finding the murderer, having a baby despite the risks.)
The need below the surface (to find his place in the world, to prove himself worthy of the detective job, to believe in life when your own has been miserable and painful.)
Most of us have a pretty good handle on plan and battle, as these are easy to glean from movies and good books, but the self-revelation is the point where the hero sees himself honestly in light of his own moral and psychological need. The most obvious self-revelations come in movies like Big, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Dances with Wolves.
I won't go into chapter four, characterization just yet. It's a big chunk of the book and probably worthy of more than one post. Overall, though, I'm finding Truby's book way too big and too full of information to handle easily. I'm summarizing to motivate myself beyond a surface read and tiny lessons. The big picture is really not simply too much to handle in one read, but too much to handle in a year a study. Truby should probably go the way of workbooks for anyone to get real use of his book, but The Anatomy of Story is probably a good supplement to his workshops.
Trying to read and absorb this book in one sitting is like trying to defend yourself in a lawsuit after reading a single book on tort. Even if you know your case intimately, and even if you are passionate about learning enough to do the job right, you simply can't get the whole context.
Your Title.
With someone else's byline.
This book did it for me today. I had been reading book reviews of my latest literary flame, and saw it in an Amazon box: "Letters for Emily."
The story is about a grandfather, estranged from his children, who writes a series of letters linked to computer files for his granddaughter Emily, so she would understand that the confused, old man with Alzheimer's was once a vibrant person. The novel was originally self-published, then picked up by Pocket Books.
In 2001, my daughter Emily was two years old and I was pregnant with her sister. Despite the terror of Sept. 11 that year, my husband and I left for Europe in early October. The airlines were barely up and running again, security was excruciating, and naturally, fear ruled.
While I'm rather pragmatic, finding it unlikely that anyone would strike another airplane again so soon, I knew traveling was riskier than it had been when we bought the tickets. During the days following the tragedy, as we decided to go forward with the trip, I began rapidly writing a set of letters to Emily, should something happen to us while we were away. Each envelope was sealed, with the approximate age or life event specifying when she should open it.
The structure of the novel wound around Emily's opening the letters, which were parceled out over the years, age appropriately. Unlike the book with my title that has been published, in my version, the girl is the main character, and how she responds to learning more about her parents as she grows.
I wrote all the letters before I left, and when we safely returned (not all of us, unfortunately, as I miscarried one of the twins during the flight home--a whole other story) I began the novel, but abandoned it when the pregnancy grew complicated and I could barely get through each day with a toddler, much less write.
Even as I think about this title and the direction another writer took this story, I wonder if I should take up my version of Emily's story again (with another title of course, having raised Emily to nine years now, I realize I could not saddle a story with her name--something she'd feel awkward trying to either live up to or differentiate herself from).
The story is what I've advocated lately to myself--writing strictly from what I know, with the most beautiful language possible. I'll have to track down the file sometime today, as my daughters are off for the weekend with their grandparents and the days stretch ahead in luxurious free time.
