NOTE: have a couple of quickie things for you (below) following another killer post from Art.

by Art Holcomb

I love a good mash up story . . .

You know the type, where the author has taken two or more genres or storylines and has crushed them together in a way that they, while still familiar, seem strangely unique. 

They are a blast to write, not only because the writer gets to go deep into different genres, but because this kind of writing always stretches the imagination to produce possibilities and directions that hadn’t thus far been considered.   While television and the movies have had a long love affair with mash-ups, there are a number of novels out in recent years that have sparked renewed interest in the approach.

Typically, mash-ups fall into one of a couple of categories:

CLASSIC MASH: This combines a pre-existing text, such as a classic work of fiction, with a certain popular genre.

Consider a few of the following recent efforts.

-          Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith)

-          Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Grahame-Smith)

-          Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Austen and Winters)

-          The Eerie Adventure of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (Defoe, Lovecraft and Peter Clines)

NEW MASH: Sometimes a mash-up uses a classic story, but it needn’t be that way.  It can be just two or more genres sent in counterpoint to each other. 

In my career I have created such stories as:

-          FINAL DOWN – an NFL / disaster film

-          4EVER – a religious afterlife / thriller set in a tech future

-          The AMBASSADOR – a Sci Fi / Mobster story 

-          FRANKI & JONNI – a Frankenstein myth / high school drama

-          Oliver and the Four-Piece Regency-Style Bedroom Set of Death  – a YA mystery/comedy

 . . . Although, I admit, that last one may have gone too far.

RE-IMAGININGS: Another fun approach to stretch your writing horizons is to reimagine an earlier story or set of characters in a completely new or updated way

-           The BBC recently did this with SHERLOCK, a re-telling of the classic Sherlock Holmes stories –but set in modern-day London.

-          In WICKED, it is the wholly recognizable story of THE WIZARD OF OZ, but told as a parallel novel from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West.  Old story – new viewpoint. 

New possibilities.

RETELLINGS: are all about drawing the inspiration and flavor of the source material and making it live again.

-          The movie, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU is a retelling of the Odyssey myth.

-          Certainly, many of the Disney stories are, in fact, retellings of classic fairy tales.

PREQUELS, SEQUELS and the CONTINUUM OF STORY: A subset of re-imaginings really, this is the most available of all mash-up possibilities, and perhaps the most freeing.  Here, a writer will take a piece of work, character or setting and imagine it years previous to or years after the time of the originally piece. What was Captain Ahab like as a boy? What was Phillip Marlowe like as an old man?  What was Tom Sawyer’s world like at the turn of the century?

A good example of this was the television show The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

This type of story allows you to just find a character you like and trace them back to their suspected beginning and their possible ends to see what excites you.

Now, it’s your turn . . .

Why not try to make up some mash-ups of your own?

Here are a list of genres, tropes and categories to choose from.  Mix and match to your heart’s content using some of the exercises below.

LITERARY GENRES:

Action/Adventure, Advice,  Adult, Animal, Arts, Biographical, Children’s, Circus, Comedy, Contest, Crime/Gangster, Cultural, Dark, Death, Detective, Drama, Educational, Emotional, Entertainment, Environmental, Erotica, Experiential, Family, Fan fiction, Fantasy, Fashion, Finance, Folklore, Food/Cooking, Foreign, Friendship,  Gay/Lesbian, Genealogy, Ghost, Gossip, Gothic, Health, History, Hobby/Craft, Holiday, Home/Garden, Horror/Scary, How-To/Advice, Inspirational, Internet/Web, Legal, Magic, Medical, Melodrama, Men’s, Military, Music, Mystery, Mythology, Nature, News, Nonsense, Occult, Parenting, Personal, Pets, Philosophy, Political, Psychology, Regional, Relationship, Religious, Research,  Romance/Love, Satire, Sci-fi, Scientific, Self Help, Spiritual, Sports, Suburbia,  Supernatural, Technology, Teen, Thriller/Suspense, Tragedy, Transportation, Travel, Tribute, War, Western, Women’s, Writing Skills, Young Adult.

CLASSIC STORIES:

Don Quixote, Pilgrim’s Progress, Allan Quartermane, Gulliver’s Travels, Frankenstein,  The Count of Monte Cristo, David Copperfield, The Man in the Iron Mask,  The Three Musketeers, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Captain Nemo,  The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Alice in Wonderland, Doctor Moreau, Fu Manchu, Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock Holmes,  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Great Gatsby, The Big Sleep,

TROPES (Genre Mainstays)

Horror

Vampires, Aliens, Werewolves, Ghosts, Monsters, Disaster, Psycho, Nightmare, Serial Killers, Torture, Satanism, Demons, Cannibals, Haunted Houses, Zombies.

Science Fictions

Alternate Universe, Aliens, ESP, Time travels, Spacecraft, Robots, Cyborgs, Space Travel, AI, Steampunk, Space Opera, Superheroes

Fantasy

Dark Lord, Magic, Quest, Medievalism, The Ancient World, Dragons, Witches, Other Races, Creatures, Barbarians, Damsels, Swords, Rings, Prophesy-

Oh .  . give it a try!

Exercises Number 1: “Name & Job”:    Pick a character and a genre / trope at random and see what this new combination stirs in your imagination. Possibilities could go something like:

-          “Ask Frankenstein, Advice columnist” (Frankenstein / Advice)

-          “Donkey Ote” Knight Burro (Don Quixote/ Medieval)

-          Captain Ahab, spokesman for PETA (Moby Dick / Animal)

-          “I was a Vampire for the FBI” (Vampire / Crime)

While such mash-ups often create comedic or farcical characters, I’m often surprised what people come up with.  There is a film columnist that I respect quite a lot who writes under the moniker FILM CRITIC HULK!

Exercise Number 2: “Fill in the Blanks”: This is a tool screenwriters use to create and pitch new ideas for shows.  Just take any two of the genres or tropes and plug them into the sentence below:

“________ meets __________”.

Television especially loves this one, as in:

-          Serial Killer meets Family = Dexter

-          Detective meets Magician = The Mentalist

-          Writing Skills meets Crime = Castle

-          Alternate Universe meets Scientific meets Detective = Fringe

-          Vampire meets Soap Opera = Dark Shadows

-          Vampires, werewolves and ghost meet Suburbia = BBC’s Being Human

-          Vampire Cop = Forever Knight

Just off the top of my head as I was writing this, the following possibilities came to mind:

(1)    Fantasy Detective

(2)    Alien Soap Opera

(3)    Gothic Time Travel

(4)    Haunted Circus

(5)    Zombie Fairy Tales

(6)    DIY Haunted House Repair

(7)    Questing Mobster

(8)    Lawyers for Aliens

Not all winners to be sure, but I took a shot at fleshing out a couple of them as illustrations of where you could go:

“Once Upon a Crime Spree” – Grendel Jones was born in the shadow of the great castle, rumored to be the son of a witch and an ensorcelled prince. He was raised on the hard streets of a fairy tale land content to help solve his neighbor’s little problems until the day he is asked to trade his magic and skills as a detective for a chance to learn the secrets of a past he never knew he had. (Fantasy Detective)

“Asta” – Harrison Quell, Esq.  is a bitter and disillusioned attorney who stumbles across the case of a thousand lifetimes: a chance to represent an alien who has been living among us for 100 years.  Can Quell keep the creature alive and safe – from the military, the press and a mysterious secret organization that has been hunting the visitor for generations –just  long enough for it to talk to the President of the United States before it’s too late? (Lawyers for Aliens)

“1-800-Got Creepy?” – Deke and “Big Tommy” Perez have a successful TV show built around their reputation as Haunted House Flippers – taking spooky wrecks and turning them into profitable rentals. The network has given them their biggest challenge yet for Sweeps Week: turn a two hundred year old terror around in a week.  But is this nightmare – with its eerie glow and forbidding past – more than they bargained for? (DIY Haunted House Repair)

Now it’s your turn!

Give it a shot yourself and share in the Comment section anything you find interesting (or feel free to keep it to yourself for future use). I’ll be monitoring the post for a couple of weeks to see what you come up with.

The more story notions you come up with, the more keepers you might find.  

I think you’ll find this to be a great way to keep your creativity and imagination in tune.

Art Holcomb is a successful screenwriter, comic book writer and frequent contributor to Storyfix.com.  A number of his recent posts appear in the Larry Brooks’ collection: Warm Hugs for Writers: Comfort and Commiseration of The Writing Life.  He appears at San Diego Comic-Con and other writing and media conventions and begins teaching screenwriting and graphic novel writing classes at the University of California in Fall 2012. His most recent screenplay is FINAL DOWN (a NFL team disaster film) and is completing a workbook for writers.

*****

PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE… for the second year in a row Storyfix.com has been named to the Writers Digest “101 Best Websites for Writers” list (May/June) issue, the Big Daddy of writing site lists.  Thanks to you all for making this happen!

Next Up… the beginning of a deconstruction series on The Hunger Games both the book and the film.  If you haven’t read it yet, or seen the movie, I recommend you do soon within the next few days, as this is a clinic in all Six Core Competencies and the skillful optimization of underlying story physics. 

RECOMMENDED: my agent, Andrea Hurst, is giving another Writers Digest tutorial, this time on “story structures that sell” (see why we get along?).  Check it out HERE.

Genre Mash-Up — a Guest Post by Art Holcomb is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl who always wore a red riding hood. . . .”

It’s a familiar story, and it’s been told a million ways. If you’ve got a group of writer friends, you could make a parlor game of it:

Tell it as a board book for a 3-year-old.

Now tell it as a spy thriller.

Now tell it as a historical romance.

Tell it as a deep-space science fiction.

You get the picture. Same story plus different audience equals different experience.

You probably already know about the importance of crafting your marketing materials to your novel’s target audience, but what I’m advocating here is that if you want to communicate your message — your story, theme, world — you need to start talking to your audience at “Once upon a time” and continue through “happily ever after.”

Which comes first, the target audience or the message? That’s a chicken-or-egg conundrum that I won’t attempt to answer for you. The important thing is to keep your audience in mind as you write and to understand that if your target audience changes — and it might — it means a root-level revision.

Here are some places where your target audience will influence your writing.

1. Genre

Most genres carry a target audience with them like a parade float. Children’s books? Kids and the adults who read to them. Literary fiction? College-educated, liberal arts degrees, mostly women. Romance? I don’t even need to tell you. Science fiction? This realm that was formerly a masculine domain has divided into more subgenres than I can count, but it’s also divided into “soft” SF and “hard” SF. Guess which has more women readers.

If you’re a reader, you know a lot about your genre’s readership just from what you’ve absorbed without thinking. It doesn’t mean that only women read romance or only men read hard science fiction. Nor does it mean that the same women read every subgenre of romance. What it does mean is that there’s an ambiance that readers expect when they enter that world. As a novelist, you violate that expectation at your own peril.

You like cross-genre? Me, too. The trick to cross-genre is to cross the genre but not the audience. You can blend hard SF and hardboiled detective or a cozy mystery and romance. But put a hard-boiled detective in a soft romance, and it had better be funny, because neither the hard-boiled nor soft romance fans will relate to it.

2. Theme

Chances are that you’ll choose the theme from deep within your own experience and worldview. If it’s not negotiable, that’s a credit to you. Still, you’ll be wise to recognize that a theme of “Life sucks and then you die” is going to resonate with one group of people and “Love conquers all” with another. Again, you cross your audience at your peril.

3. Knowledge of Milieu

If you’re writing in an arena with a specialized vocabulary — medicine, law, ancient Rome, the space program, a fantasy world — you can capture the flavor of the place with well-placed jargon. Part of the appeal for readers is what they can learn about the milieu you’re writing about, so everything you can do to convey a sense of what it’s really like is a plus. But remember that if your readers want to know about the milieu, it’s because they don’t already. Bolster the jargon by illustrating it with action — not infodumps — and make your reader feel like he or she has been there.

4. Reading Level

Be realistic about who is going to read your book.  If it’s a kids’ chapter book, it will be geared to a reading level a couple of years younger than your protagonist. If it’s literary fiction, you can use a more advanced vocabulary and more complex sentences, but I’ve known some smart people who couldn’t stand William Faulkner. I love Faulkner and his two-page sentences, so I’m not saying don’t ever do that. I am saying, be conscious of what you’re doing and how it’s going to affect your reader.

The second factor to keep in mind is an international readership. Most of the English-speakers in the world speak English as a second, third, fourth, or fifth language. Maybe your spy novel would be of interest to some of the hundreds of millions of Chinese English-speakers. If so, keep the language down-to-earth and everyday. If you use idiomatic expressions like “chew someone out” or “Elvis has left the building,” make sure it’s clear in context what they mean.

5. Literary Sophistication

By literary sophistication, I don’t mean intelligence or education, just an appreciation for unusual narrative techniques for their own sake. There’s a novel, Time Zone by Tom Lichtenberg, that shows time travel as a process that changes the traveler. The story is told in vignettes that only gradually reveal the relationships between the characters. The storytelling illustrates the concept of the book.

Not everybody’s cup of tea, I’m sure, but I love it.

If you need an unusual technique to tell your story, by all means, go for it.  Know, though, that not everybody is going to like it (not a bad thing in itself). But as you write and market the book,  be aware of who enjoys these techniques and watch for ways to communicate specifically to those people.

6. Character Identification

Who in your novel will your audience identify with? It might be your protagonist, but maybe not. It might be your Dr. Watson. Or maybe if your book is Winnie-the-Pooh, some of your readers will identify with Pooh, and some with Eeyore.

If one your characters belongs to a professional, social, or ethnic group, your readers might identify with that character, protagonist or not.

If a character suffers from a common condition or ailment — homelessness, schizophrenia, autism — you might be able to make a connection with people who have someone in their lives who shares the same affliction. You might also be able to get a nonprofit dedicated to that affliction to promote your book for you.

Target Audience and Your Fiction

The truth is, we use target marketing every time we try to communicate with anybody. If we talk about some topic to a friend, a small child and our mom, the conversation doesn’t come out the same. We adjust our words, our tone, our approach to reach the people we’re talking to. Your fiction is the same way.

Red Riding Hood is a classic story. But when you tell it to a specific audience, it takes on new resonances and new power. Keeping your audience in mind will give your story a deep unity and help you make the right decisions to connect with your audience, in both the writing and the selling.

About the Author

Jan Bear helps writers establish a web presence so that they can connect with their audience, build a following, and sell more books, even if they’re new to the web. She is the author of a new book, Target Marketing for Authors: How to Find and Captivate Your Book’s Target Audience.

(NOTE from Larry: I’ve known Jan for years, she’s one of the smartest and most analytical writers I know.  This is must-read stuff for writers who are looking to build an effective platform.  Which we must if we’re serious about seling what we write.)

6 Ways Novelists Can Use Target Marketing — a Guest Post from Jan Bear is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Do you talk to your characters? Should you?

If you’re going to write a truly believable novel, then you need to know your characters to the core of their souls. And the best way to get to their core is to ask them three simple questions.

Leon Surmelian in his book (written forty years ago) Techniques of Fiction Writing, has this to say about creating characters in fiction:

“Characterization is a complex and elusive art and cannot be reduced to exact rules or to a comprehensive statement. The more we talk about it, the more we feel has been left out, and this is necessarily so because the human personality remains a mystery, subject to obscure forces; it is a universe it itself, and we are strangers even to ourselves. Characterization requires self-knowledge, insight into human nature . . . it is more than impersonation.”

Getting Real Doesn’t Happen on Its Own

That quote contains some terrific stuff. Too many characters are just that—impersonations of real people.

In order to create real characters, you have to become somewhat of a psychologist and learn about human nature. Suffice it to say, most of the novels I edit and critique fall way short on creating real characters. And I don’t think it’s only due to not spending enough time working on them. I sense that some of my clients spend a whole lot of time thinking about their characters, but their creations still come across flat and stereotyped.

It may have something to do with laziness and not wanting to work too hard to create each character. It may be that the writer doesn’t think characters have to be all that developed—that as the plot unfolds, the character will just “come into his own” and become real. I’m thinking, though, the real reason is the writer hasn’t gone deep into herself and examined why she is who she is.

I’m not suggesting we all go into therapy for a while or spend years psychoanalyzing ourselves (although some of us—writers especially—might benefit from that). But if we do some digging inside, we’ll find there are certain truths about why we are the way we are. And the first idea I’d like to throw out at you is tied in with persona and true essence. Basically, we all present a face to the world—a face we feel will help us survive—which is not wholly who we are. Some people may really live in that place of “true essence” and that’s great. But populating a novel with characters like that just give us “happy people in happy land.” We’re more interested in flawed characters, and I bet, if you’re like me, there are some serious flaws lingering under the surface.

Getting to Know You

So, I’m going to share one technique I use when I sit down to create my characters.

I already at this point have my characters in mind. I know my plot and premise, and I either may already have a lot of the story worked out, or I might have only a germ of an idea. It doesn’t matter. But at some point I will sit down (for numerous days) and spend time creating the characters that are going to be the heart and blood of my novel. This time spent is crucial to me, and I never begin writing a novel until my characters are so well fleshed out that I know pretty much everything I need to know about them. And I’m not talking about what they like to eat or what movies they watch. That stuff is inconsequential—trust me. Those little bits about character that come out in your novel are only flavoring, not meat.

Most of my novels have up to a dozen main POV characters, so every one of them must be totally real—to me. I don’t let them run off and start behaving without getting to that place first. I can’t stress enough how vital it is you do this in advance of writing your book. Some writers think it’s fine to just start writing and let the characters run amok to see what they’ll do. That’s all well and good if writing to you is a crapshoot. On the other hand, if you want to write a very specific story and convey very specific themes, this just isn’t going to work. You may be brilliant but you’re not that brilliant, okay?

The Three Most Important Questions

I write down my list of main characters on a page. Or sometimes I’ll do this on the first page of my character sketches. Then I spend some time asking my characters these three questions:

• What is your core need (and what you will do if you can’t get that need met)?

• What is your greatest fear?

• What is the incident(s) that wounded you early in life that got you believing a lie? (And just what is that lie?)

These three questions are so helpful and powerful that it’s just possible they are all you need to create each character. The last question is the most crucial and the one I spend the most time with. Each of us has been hurt in the past. Because of that hurt, two things resulted:

• One: We created a false persona to protect our heart. Like the girl who is abandoned by her father when she was young and now can’t get close to men or stay in a relationship long. If you look at yourself, you will find something in there like this. Somewhere in your past you got hurt, and so you’ve formed a persona to survive in the world.

• Two: That hurt makes us believe a lie about ourselves and the world. In this example the lie this girl believes is that all men walk out and always will. That she can’t trust men or give her heart to them. And that’s why her whole life she’s kept her distance. That’s the outward lie. The other side to that lie turns inward (and you need to look at both parts—they are two sides of the same coin). That part says something about yourself. With this example, the girl believes a lie about herself—that she’s not worthy of being loved.

Need = Fear = Lie (Repeat)

Ah, do you see that? That’s rich, deep, and powerful.

Okay, that character type is used a lot, especially in chick flicks, but I hope you can see here how we’re getting to the heart of motivation. Now, when you put this girl in various scenes, she is going to react certain ways based on the lies she’s been telling herself her whole life and the lies she believes about other people. This then ties in with her greatest fear (fear of intimacy, fear of abandonment) and her core need, which is . . . have you guessed it? See the connection? Her core need is to get the very thing she believes is impossible because of the lies she believes. She wants more than anything to be loved, but she can’t get there. She’s blocking her own way.

Hopefully, these three questions will grow in you to where they are the first and foremost things you ask your characters. They speak to the core of motivation, and that’s where you’ll find the heart and believability in the characters you create. So talk to them, and let them reveal themselves. You’ll find your characters will be compelling, complex, and most importantly—human.

C. S. Lakin is the author of twelve novels, including the seven-book fantasy series “The Gates of Heaven.” She also writes contemporary psychological mysteries, including her Zondervan contest winner Someone to Blame. She works as a professional copyeditor and writing coach and loves to teach the craft of writing. Her websites are dedicated to critiquing fiction and building community to help survive and thrive in your writing life: www.LiveWriteThrive.com and www.CritiqueMyManuscript.com.

You can read more about her and her books at www.cslakin.com.

Follow @cslakin and @livewritethrive. Facebook: C. S. Lakin, Author, Editor.

3 Questions You Must Ask Your Characters — A Guest Post by C. S. Lakin is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

 “The novel is an event in consciousness. Our aim isn’t to copy actuality, but to modify and recreate our sense of it. The novelist is inviting the reader to watch a performance in his own brain.”
                                                                                             - George Buchanan

It was the late 1980’s and my writing had stalled. 

I’d finished college and I hadn’t published a poem or short story in over a year.  On that hot Riverside, California night in July, I sat at my makeshift desk and – at about 2 am – thought I might be well and truly finished.  I knew I wanted a wider audience and I knew that I was drawn much more to movies, TV and plays – scriptwriting – than I was to the long form of novels. But, in the stillness of that morning, I just wasn’t sure how to start. I worried that this was the end of my fledgling career.  And, on top of that, I felt myself getting blocked for the first time in my life.

Something that had been a part of me had dried up in the relentless summer heat.

In the following week, I was inconsolable. Then someone, I cannot remember who, gave me a copy of the catalog for the Learning Annex, an adult community learning center in Los Angeles. In it they offered a number of writing classes, including one taught by David Gerrold, the renowned science fiction writer of books like When HARLEY Was One (1970) and The Man Who Folded Himself (1973), and – most importantly – my favorite STAR TREK episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles”. 

I read the course description. The class was six weeks long.

It was going to cost me money I wasn’t sure I had.

It meant a drive about a hundred miles each way on every Thursday night.

But  none of that mattered.  I was desperate.  And so I went . . .

 . . . and it changed everything.

In that classroom twenty-five years ago, David Gerrold did a number of unique things:

(1)    He had us set a page goal for the week. 

Not a daily goal and not one expressed in the form of “I will write some set number of short stories or chapters over the course of the class.”  He just asked us to a set number of pages per week. And he made no suggestion as to how many, either.  Several people said they’d do ten pages a day (70 per week) and another said they would try to get one done in that weeks’ time.  David didn’t object to either goal, but he was firm on the commitment we were making to ourselves to get it done.  If we succeeded, the pride would be ours – if we failed, we would own that too.  This put the emphasis and obligation where it belonged: on ourselves.

(2)    He workshopped the writer rather than the writing.

Critiquing an individual piece could give you a well-written piece, but improving the writer made everything better.  This was different than any college classes I’d ever taken.

(3)    He answered our questions. 

Standing in front of me for the first time in my life was a produced and published screenwriter and novelist.  He never balked at any question no matter how elementary.  And he shared with us something more important: we learned about a writer’s life.  Dealings with producers, editors, directors, deadlines, writer’s block.  The joys when things led to creative success –which meant  from idea to finished product – and the sorrows when they did not. And always, it was about the work.

(4)    He had us read our work aloud at a coffee shop where we met after class. 

I learned about rhythm from hearing my voice. I learned what worked and did not from the reaction of the audience more than from their critiques afterward.  And I could see how my work compared amongst my peers and was pleased to find that I didn’t really suck.

However, there was one night near the end of the class that meant the most to me. David was taking questions when somebody mentioned that she kept losing track of what their characters were doing halfway through her short story.

DAVID: What do you mean “lose track”?

WRITER: The characters are so clear in the beginning and then again at the end, but I lose them in the middle.

DAVID: Maybe you’re not sitting where you can see them.

He then had us all close our eyes (unfortunately, I was more likely rolling my eyes at this point, thinking this was a bit “touchy-feely” for me).  He said to bring up image of a place where we were peaceful and comfortable, and make sure that we imagined this place as somewhere far away so that might take a journey to get to.  There, we were to build a perfect and unique structure to live in, dress out in any way we liked, but to make sure that it had one door inside that led to a secret room, which he described this way:

“The place is bare except for a small desk and a chair facing a makeshift stage or projection screen.  Sit at the desk and when you’re ready, the house lights will come down and the performance of your story will place out in from of you.  Watch.  Take note.  Object.  Applaud.  Make changes to the performance as you see fit because anything can happen here.  Everything is available to you. Then just describe what you see and hear and feel.  Take dictation from your story.”

That day, I created my vacation house, a small cabin on a lake in British Columbia. Each time I write now – especially when I’m struggling – I set out on that long journey.  More than 25 years later, that stage still is there, worn but still inviting, and that image centers me no matter where I’m at or what I’m doing.  I fear no story, no new idea, because it already exists for me.  The stage and players are always ready.  And I merely watch, take it all down and rewrite until it’s done.

The Dream and the Draft

It was there that I forged the connection between The Dream and The Draft – that dark translation where writers often lose their way.  That cabin on the lake became my bridge between the two.

I was nearly too cool to try the one thing that saved my writing.  The things learned in David’s class became my best practices and, in a real way, made possible my career.

 Because I learned that I can’t sell anything until I write it . . .

. . . and I can’t write it until I see it.

Thanks, David.

The Second Act of my career began with you.

Art Holcomb is a screenwriter and frequent contributor to Storyfix.com, whose work has appeared on the SHOWTIME Channel and a comic book author of such comics as Marvel’s X-MEN and Acclaim’s ETERNAL WARRIORS.  A number of his recent posts appear in the Larry Brooks’ collection: Warm Hugs for Writers: Comfort and Commiseration of The Writing Life.  He appears and teaches at San Diego Comic-Con and other writing and media conventions.  His most recent screenplay is 4EVER (a techno-thriller set in the Afterlife) and is completing a work book for writers entitled,  The Pass:  A Proven System for Getting from Notion to Finished Manuscript.  He lives in Southern California.

The March issue of “Writers On The Brink – A Storyfix Newsletter, was sent out this week.  You can read it HERE, and if you like what you see, subscribe from that page (top left) or from this website (top right).

David Gerrold and the Cabin by the Lake: A Guest Post by Art Holcomb is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

by Nann Dunne

Recently, I watched an episode of CSI:NY that had a scene that impressed me enough to stick in my mind. In the scene setup, the character Jo, a policewoman played by Sela Ward, accompanies a female witness home.

Shortly after the woman goes into her bedroom to get some clothes, Jo calls out a question to her. When the woman doesn’t answer, Jo walks to the bedroom door. She sees the woman’s legs on the floor past the end of the bed. She draws her gun and slips into the room. She gets punched in the face, and the gun drops from her hand.

Fade out.

Fade in, minutes or hours later, we aren’t sure.

Jo is lying on the living room floor, regaining awareness. A man, the serial rapist her unit has been pursuing, forces her to her feet, beats her with his fists, and slams her against a wall mirror. She falls to the floor, bleeding and barely conscious.

The rapist has her gun. He ejects the magazine into his hand and sets the gun on the coffee table. He sits in a chair and slowly flicks the bullets out of the magazine at Jo, one by one. All the while, he taunts her about how he has outsmarted the police.

He laughs and even encourages Jo as she inches across the floor to the table and wraps her hand around the gun butt.

Finally, the gun now in her hand, she struggles to a sitting position, points it at him and says in a raspy voice, “You know how most gun accidents happen and people shoot themselves?”

The guy, now sneering at her, stands up and spreads his arms wide. “Bang! You got me. You finally got me.” 

Jo gets that look on her face. You know the one. When a person is sure she’s won the battle.

The unspoken moment between them — which we understand better than he does — is priceless.

She says, “They always forget the one in the chamber.”

The camera cuts to the rapist. Realization dawns. His face sobers. His body twitches. The camera turns back to Jo… she pulls the trigger.

Out of the thousands of scenes I’ve watched over the years, this onewill stay with me.

We all like to see the bad guy get his due, and in most crime shows, he or she usually does. I asked myself what makes this scene more memorable than those others?

The answer I arrived at? The symbolism of the bullet in the chamber.

The scene is an allegory of life.

We can be sailing along with everything going smoothly, then, bam! Something turns our little part of the world topsy-turvy. The upset can affect us physically, mentally, or emotionally; it can be as small as fighting a case of the flu or as large as losing a loved one to the finality of death. Often it seems our small segment of the world shows no sympathy, even laughing at us, as we battle to return to stability.

If we keep our wits about us, as Jo did, and do our best to resolve the situation, we can find deep inside ourselves the power that the bullet symbolizes—the steel force we have ingrained in us that can give us the strength and courage to win against the struggles we face.

Symbolism in writing is a mighty tool.

We who are authors should strive to write memorable scenes that mean more than their face value. We can’t use symbolism in every scene, but two or three per book is a reachable goal.

Some common symbols, for example, are flags for patriotism; rings for commitment; the Statue of Liberty for freedom, smiley faces for happiness and friendship. We also have the not-so-nice symbols: finger-flipping for contempt; the “raspberry” for derision; the twirling finger at the temple for craziness.

And there are uncommon symbols. Images and moments that allow the reader to assign their own meaning.

Have you read or seen scenes that had such a strong effect on you that you still remember them? Ask yourself why—was symbolism involved? Use that memory as a basis to fashion your own original symbols within your story. Work to strengthen your recognition of symbolism – read some poetry, listen to songs… poets and lyricists rely on symbolism to imbue their work with power and depth.

Symbolism reaches into our readers’ minds and hearts and touches them in ways they didn’t foresee. To create these moments in our stories is to write with power.

Remember the bullet still in the chamber. Use it in your writing—and in your life.

Have you written any symbolism in your work? Do you remember any outstanding use of symbolism in what you’ve read?  

Nann Dunne is the a uthor of Dunne With Editing: A Last Look At Your Manuscript
Check it out at www.nanndunnebooks.com.
See Nann’s novels at www.nanndunne.com.
Read Nann’s blog at www.justaboutwrite.com/blog

Image courtesy of kcdsTM

Also… check out a guest post by frequent Storyfix contributor Art Holcomb on Routines For Writers.

The Power of Symbolism: A Guest Post by Nann Dunne is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

by Art Holcomb

Two pieces of paper hang above my desk.  

One is a quote (more about that next time) and the other is the picture below. It is from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.

As the tale goes, the Persian King Shahryar would marry a new virgin each night only to slay them the following day. He had gone through a thousand virgins before he got around to Scheherazade, the daughter of the King’s vizier; a woman who was witty, wise and – most importantly – well-read.

So as to avoid being slain, Scheherazade spun for the king a fabulous story but stopped in the middle.  So enthralled by the story was the king that he broke his rule for the first time and spared her life for a day so she might finish the story the next night.  

But the following night, Scheherazade finished that story and then started another – only to stop halfway through once more as dawn approached.  

The King spared her again.

This pattern continued for a thousand and one nights.  By the time Scheherazade ran out of stories, the king had fallen deeply in love with her.

I look at that picture and think about Scheherazade each time I work on a script.  She was THE consummate storyteller and understood that how you tell the tale is at least as important as the tale itself.  I try to always edit my own work with the image of a swordsman’s blade waiting for me if I should ever lose my readers’ or viewers’ interest.

If the greatest duty of the writer is to the truth, then the greatest obligation has to be to not bore his audience.  And since the majority of my work is scriptwriting – with its tight time limits and page counts – I ask the same question of all my efforts:  

Is it dramatic enough?  

I have long subscribed to the famed screenwriter and playwright David Mamet’s definition of the dramatic scene:  

“The quest of the Hero to overcome whatever ever obstacles there are that prevent him from achieving his goal. Each scene must culminate with the Hero finding him/herself either thwarted in his attempt or educated that another way to achieve his goal exists.”

This is the crucible in which all scenes must be tested. Pass this test and survive or fail the test and be cut out.
The three filters Mamet uses for every scene are:

1. Who wants what?
2. What happens if s/he doesn’t get it?
3. What HAS to happen next?

Answer these three questions truthfully and you’ll be able to tell very quickly whether your scene works as drama or not.

For me, I work from outline, not long but broke into beats.  And, invariably, someplace between the outline and first draft sprout all manner of talking head scenes, extraneous material and false starts.  It’s natural and I let it happen because sometimes I learn things about the characters here that I didn’t know before.  

But they never survive the later drafts because here is where I have to be ruthless.  Any scene where two people are talking about a third has to go unless by taking it out I lose my audience’s focus. Applying the filters above, I know that each scene builds – unfold – upon the last.  Each character must have a pressing need that impels him from the last scene into this one and then from this scene into the next.  There must be a real reason for him/her to show up each time.  If there isn’t, the scene will be boring and that violates my First Rule.  

From Mamet again:

“This need (compelling reason) is why they came.  It is what the scene is all about.  His/her inability to get their need met will lead, at the end of the scene, to FAILURE – this is how you know the scene is over.  This failure will then, of necessity, propel us all into the next scene.”

. . . and so on until the final resolution.

These attempts and failures, taken together, constitute your plot.  Note here this is your plot, NOT your story.

Think of it this way: your job here is to make the audience/reader NEED TO know what happens next.

Questions:

Ask yourself these questions about your current piece:

1. How much of the time are you TELLING the readers what’s happening versus SHOWING them through your character’s actions?
2. Be honest with yourself: are there passages in your current work that can’t hold your own attention?  If so, why should they then hold your readers’?
3. Do your scenes flow necessarily from one to another?  Look at the juncture at the end of any given scene.  Is this where your characters should be heading?  Are you still interested in seeing what they do next?

Practice Exercises:

Choose a scene you’re having trouble with:

1. If it’s dialogue heavy, try rewriting the scene without dialogue – just description and action.  See how much of the content you can give non-verbally.
2. Try staging the scene in a different location of the story.  See if the location adds better continuity and drama.
3. If it still doesn’t work, consider eliminating the scene altogether.  Can you move the main element of the scene to another that works better?

Next time: Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock . . .

Art Holcomb is a screenwriter whose work has appeared on the SHOWTIME Channel and a comic book author of such comics as Marvel’s X-MEN and Acclaim’s ETERNAL WARRIORS. He is a regular guest blogger to STORYFIX.COM.  A number of his recent posts appear in the Larry Brooks’ collection: Warm Hugs for Writers: Comfort and Commiseration of The Writing Life.  He appears and teaches at San Diego Comic-Con and other writing and media conventions.  His most recent screenplay is 4EVER (a techno-thriller set in the Afterlife) and is completing a work book for writers entitled,  The Pass:  A Proven System for Getting from Notion to Finished Manuscript.  He lives in Southern California.

“Scheherazade” — A Guest Post from Art Holcomb is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

(Art Holcomb knocked it out of the park for us with a guest post six weeks ago.  He’s back, another killer contribution. This guy is good. L.)

GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY

 by Art Holcomb         

 “An exhaled breath must be cast away from you before you can take another.” 

Years ago, a friend of mine was writing a mystery about a famous abandoned house in Northern California.  David had teased me with this book for a very long time and after much cajoling and nagging on my part, he agreed to let me read it.  

He finally showed it to me at a party over the Christmas break from college.  He sat me down in his spare bedroom, handed me this beautiful leather binder, thick with each chapter tabbed and labeled, and then quietly left.

I was in for a treat.  I held my breath for a moment. 

And I read . . .

And, as I read, I grew even more excited.  The first chapter was good, opened well, excellent visuals, with pacing and language that was capable and accessible.  And I loved the characters.  

The first chapter had been 34 pages long and absolutely left me hungry for more. 

I flipped the tab marked CHAPTER TWO over and  . . .

Blank paper. 

Twenty blank pieces of typing paper. 

I went through the rest of the binder and it was the same thing: 18 more tabbed sections of blank white typing paper.

About which point, David couldn’t wait any more.  He came in and nonchalantly asked how I liked the story.

ME: I love it! Where’s the rest?

DAVID: Well, that’s all there is so far.

ME: I thought you’d been at this for a while.

DAVID (proudly)I have been.  I’ve been rewriting the first chapter until I got it right.

ME: For how long?

DAVID: Eleven years this February.

I couldn’t believe it.  I was startled at first and then I experienced something that surprised me:

I started to get angry.

I wasn’t upset that he had been working on a story for eleven years; I, in fact, had several ideas that I’d been working on since I was in high school that I was never able to get out of me.  But eleven years on the same chapter, writing it over and over again, refining, polishing, rewriting, perfecting?  This seemed less a labor of love and more like Sisyphus pushing that boulder uphill.

At this rate, David was scheduled to complete his Great American Novel 54 years after his death . . . assuming he got past the first chapter.

It was a great effort doomed to failure.  The squandering of what I saw as a real and special talent and it upset me. 

We talked about it, but I was never able to get him to see that this was less a novel and more a delicious sort of penitence.  That unless he let that chapter go and move on, this wonderful story would be relegated to that binder forever. We discovered that there was a real fear that lie for him just beyond the tab marking CHAPTER TWO. 

We grew apart in the years that followed and, in that time, I met a number of people like David, who were caught in a loop, unable to take a step out of their comfort zone.

I’ve often wondered what separates the Davids of the world from the writers who go on to have long careers and satisfying relationships with their talents?

In the end, I think it comes down the combination of FAITH and TRUST.

FAITH that you have more than one idea in you, that you don’t have to be defined by a single effort, that your next chapter can be better than your last.

And TRUST in the breadth and width of your talent, and that not only can you see yourself completing that novel but that it will be just one part  in a great body of work . . .

And, most of all, that you will have an audience out there .

In the end, regardless of how any single effort comes out, you have to be able to let it go when finished . . .

And take that next breath.

Success will always lie in the difference between what a person can do and what that person WILL DO!

And you can do it.

Make your talent count for something.  Work hard.  Dig deep.

And then . . . move on to the next challenge. 

Art Holcomb is a screenwriter whose work has appeared on the SHOWTIME Channel and has written for such comics as Marvel’s THE X-MEN and Acclaim’s ETERNAL WARRIORS. He has appeared as a guest and taught at San Diego Comic-Con and other conventions.  His most recent work is THE MEADOWS (with Mark L. Haynes), a science fiction police procedural.

****

An “It’s About Time Larry…” Announcement Disguised as an Update

Just added a “Search” function (top right-hand column).  As Storyfix nears 500 posts… well, duh.

“Get Out of Your Own Way” – A Guest Post by Art Holcomb is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

I did NaNo this year and won (50,664 words). It was a blast; enjoyed every moment. Got up at 6 a.m. everyday and wrote until I made my daily word count, usually going well over in around three hours.

Read Story Engineering and planned carefully during October. Wrote an outline, character study, backstory, theme, premise–everything. The idea for the story had rattled around my brain for at least 35 years, and I did attempt to write in once but quit because of circumstances beyond my control.

In October I created a concept and began planning, following your suggestions. It worked. I struggled very little with the writing because I was sure of where I was going.

Having said that, I know I did not plan enough. Could have spent more time planning scenes, refining plot, but overall the product I ended with was not bad. Now, about that product. I see it as a precise of my outline and plans. Thinking back, I recall your touching on that in Story Engineering, except you didn’t refer to it as “précis” (a summary or abstract of a text or speech). With the précis I will do more planning, revise my outline, and refine my scenes. My characters will lie on the couch for analysis. What I hope I produce is a tighter novel with dazzling characters.

But, I do contend a first draft, planned well, is still a précis.

I found gems popping up all the time that I did not expect. Some of them had to be explored right then, so I “pantsed.” Had to. I do believe, however, I stumbled upon to the gems because I HAD planned. They emerged kind of naturally from the grist of my mill, which I had developed via planning.

I’ve written two novels.

Both concepts came from ideas I had thought about for years, but I did not plan them carefully. I placed the seat of my pants on the seat of a chair and went to it. The first For the Heart’s Treasure took me five years, a lot of that time in research. Actual writing took about six months to get a first draft. My rewrites were many, and now I know it was because I hadn’t planned and was searching for the story in each draft. I think it’s a good story, not best-seller quality, but alright for a rank beginner.

My second was planned a bit. It’s called Children of Bast, and it is a memoir of a cat told by the cat. I was a year writing it, and I drafted twice after the first. I was lucky. I think it’s a great story, interesting — I’ve been told so by members of the Cat Writers Association — and unusual. It is not a children’s story or a YA; I aimed it at adults who love cats.

I will do NaNo next year for sure. And I will plan my pants off.

You can read the first two chapters of Frederick’s novel, “For the Heart’s Treasure,” on the Storyfix Peer Review section HERE.  Please enjoy offer feedback… that’s the idea.

*****

Vote for your favorite writing website HERE.

*****

Editor’s note: the word précis is a new one on me.  I challenged Frederick on it — I thought he was saying “premise,” which sort of works as used here — but he explained.  Have you encountered this cool word before?  You almost can’t say it without a nifty French accent.

NaNo Now: A Guest Post from Frederick Fuller is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Each writer treads upon a writing path unique to him or her. Hearing about others’ steps along that lonesome and sometimes treacherous path can bolster our confidence as we try to push past life’s detours and persist toward our writing goals. Here’s my story. I hope it encourages you.

My fiction writing didn’t begin until I was fifty-eight years old, but the foundation had been built long before that. My two older brothers and I played school at home, and they taught me to read at a fourth-grade level before I started first grade. Once my mother realized I could read, she gave me a real dictionary – not a children’s one – and showed me how to use it. I fell in love with words.

All through grade school, high school, and college, I got high grades on anything I wrote as an assignment, but I didn’t acquire the writing bug. People all along the way would tell me I should write. I became an editor in the advertising and corporate worlds and spent many years editing other people’s work. In fact, I occasionally composed business letters and resumes and even helped with work manuals and organizational bylaws just as favors to my friends. Still, I had no compulsion to attempt creative writing.

When I was forty-two years old, I suffered a stroke that affected my right side. Suddenly my life turned upside down. I had difficulty walking, talking, and manually writing (I’m right-handed). I lost huge gobs of memory. My physical ability to walk and talk improved rather quickly, thank goodness, but in a strange fashion, my words partially deserted me. While speaking, I often had to search for words I knew and couldn’t bring to mind – a recall problem that still plagues me. But in that strange fashion I mentioned, I discovered I could write words with much less difficulty. I’d always been a computer hound, so I switched from editing manually to editing on a word processor and that enabled me to cope with my job. Still, I had no urge to write stories.

Fifteen years later, several factors conjoined. My mother died, my best friend of twenty-five years died, the owner of the company I worked for retired, and I switched jobs. I was overwhelmed with grief and loss. I had difficulty focusing, and I spent a lot of time watching television, something I had rarely done before. But it turned out to be my salvation.

I got caught up in watching the Xena: Warrior Princess show, a somewhat campy but delightfully entertaining show. After I had watched it for about six months, I learned that fans were writing their own stories for the show that they posted online and I began to read them. I read this fanfic, as it was called, off and on for about a year, and one day it occurred to me that it might be fun to write one of those stories. But I hesitated; I had never written fiction. Then I read an interview of one of the writers who was a consummate storyteller. She said writing was easy. Just put the two main characters in a setting and keep on asking “what if.”

So I did that. I wrote and posted three fanfic novellas. To my surprise, I caught the writing bug and churned out six more. Fanfic is a great way to cut your writing teeth. Fans read your stories and give you instant feedback. My fans were very encouraging and kept asking me to write more. I was co-writing and posting a full-length novel with a friend, and a publisher’s agent contacted us and wanted to publish the story. We were ecstatic. The company published that novel and a sequel. Subsequently, I wrote a story by myself and that got published too.

I stopped writing for a while. I decided if I was going to have stories out there with my name on them, I wanted them to be the best-written stories I was capable of. So I diligently perused books and websites on the craft of writing, studied the conventions of fiction writing for three years, and picked the brains of writers I knew and admired. Lori L. Lake helped me so much and so generously, that I still call her my mentor. Then I went back to writing.

I’ve had two more books of fiction published. I re-edited the first three books and they’ve been reissued. I learned so much in those three years of study that three different publishing houses contracted with me to edit their books, and I’ve written a book on editing. I love to help other writers by editing their stories, but it’s terribly time consuming and “steals” from my writing time. So I’ve started cutting back.

For the past eight years, I published an online ezine called Just About Write (JAW), and December’s issue is the last. I’m clearing the deck to free up more writing time. It took a long while for me to become a writer who yearns to write, but it finally did happen. Now when I don’t write, I get antsy.

My writing path has been a long and winding one with plenty of detours, but once I was sure where I wanted to go, I became persistent about working toward my goals. And I will constantly sharpen my tools by learning from teachers like Larry Brooks. That’s an important part of the process.

Stay on your path. Learn. Write. Persist. It has worked for me. I got a late start, but I’m having the time of my life!

 Visit Nann Dunne’s sites:  

- www.nanndunne.com for her fiction

- www.nanndunnebooks.com for her book on editing

Vote for your favorite writing website HERE.

“One Author’s Writing Path” — A Guest Post by Nann Dunne is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

(Editor’s note: this should be mandatory reading for anyone with a serious writing bug.  One word: brilliant.) 

“I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.” 
                                                                                        – William Faulkner

 More about the quote later.

I started my writing career as a 12 year old in San Jose, California when in 1968 I won a contest and had my one act play produced at a small San Francisco theater.  The play, entitled “The Birnbaum Guide to Hell on Five Dollars a Day”, was a goof, a class project that I was goaded into writing by my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Hanzad.  It was about an old married couple who were accidentally killed during a European vacation and ended up having a wonderful time touring the Afterlife.

The story had a devil and imps and smoke and brimstone and ended up being a gas to write.  It also had a scene near the end where the husband has to say goodbye to the wife when it’s discovered that there was a clerical error and she was actually destined for Heaven.  It was the only really emotional scene in an otherwise funny piece and it was this scene that sold the play, the judges said. I remember that it came out of  me in a sudden rush and took me by surprise when I wrote it. I later thought several times that it should be taken out, that it had no place in the play.

I didn’t take it out.  In retrospect, I knew that it was the only way the story worked. I also came to know that it was this scene was only reason I wrote the play in the first place.

I’ve thought about the Birnbaum play off and on as I wrote other things. In my professional career I’ve scripted animation for television, optioned a film treatment to a production company, written dozens of comic books and published many poems, essays and newspaper pieces.  I came to write this piece today, in fact,  at Larry’s invitation after I sent him a long overdue appreciation for his fantastic books and posts, many of which have gotten me over some difficult writing patches and have supplied excellent motivational pushes when they were needed the most. And once again, the play came to mind as I started to write this article.

Through it all, one thing has become clear: I believe that none of my art – my writing, publications and career – would have been possible had I not written that play and gotten that scene out of me.

Of course, I now know why I had to write the goodbye scene, where the husband has to let go of his wife of forty years.  I had lost my mother to cancer several years earlier when I was six. And I came to realize why it was considered the most powerful scene in the play.

Because it came from the defining moment in my life so far.

Because it was real. Because it was actual.

It was the goodbye scene that I was never destined to have with my own mother, told by a child who had yet to learn how to keep such feelings to himself.  The scene was part of me; part of my personal story arc, and it said more about me and my life than that 12 year old boy knew at the time.

Experts will tell you that a child who has lost a parent at an early age very often turns to the arts in later life; he or she is trying to make sense of their own stories, to explain their experiences to themselves and then learn how to share them with others. The pain and abandonment that comes with such a loss will always create some kind of dramatic reaction such as it did with me. And when I finally wrote that scene out — when I heard it spoken by an actor and felt the hush of the people seated around me in the theatre — I knew I’d found something meaningful to me.  A pathway for my own personal stories. And through it, I moved one step farther as a writer and one step closer to understanding.

So . . . back to the quote.

Faulkner was right, of course. We don’t know who we are and what we know and feel until we write about it or paint it or sculpt it or dance it away into the cool, dark air. We must resist the urge to curb it and dismiss it as art-as-therapy because it can be the force behind the stories we tell. As writers, we must use every bit of whatever emotion is inside to tell our stories because, although we are each special, our experiences are not unique.  Parents die; children grow up and all things eventually change. It is that common thread of shared burdens and joys that tie your readers to you and you to them. To ignore this is to shackle your talent; to use it as part of your natural gifts is to elevate your writing to the realm of the genuine and true.

Every piece you write tells you something about yourself that you had not actively known before.  Make that knowledge part of your process.  It will be the spark that leads to greater understanding and to a deeper and more authentic work.

So, ignore your inner critics.

Learn your craft . . .

But let that six year old in you . . . out.

*****

Art Holcomb is a screenwriter whose work has appeared on the SHOWTIME Channel and has written for such comics as Marvel’s THE X-MEN and Acclaim’s ETERNAL WARRIORS. He has appeared as a guest and taught at San Diego Comic-Con and other conventions.  His most recent work is THE MEADOWS (with Mark L. Haynes), a science fiction police procedural.

The Personal Story Arc: A Guest Post by Art Holcomb is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com