What are you Writing?

[AmateisGal]

About 4 pages in to another fantasy story, not the one I mentioned above -- that's not gelling yet -- but one inspired by, of all things, a Have Gun --
Will Travel episode I watched last weekend. At least one member of my writing group says that my stuff verges on the "Weird West" genre. I'm not writing stuff about Frank and Jesse James battling (or seducing!) vampires, so I don't quite get what she means. But I often find inspiration in Western novels and films, so . . .

I have garnered inspiration many a time from watching movies or t.v. shows.

 

[AmateisGal]

Both you and Benz are doing better than me, I should be stockpiling blog posts for upcoming promo efforts but I'm currently having more fun wandering around in the Colorado sunshine. Theoretically I was going to do some research and model some new story structure elements on this trip but it's hard to get into.

I've long been researching and building a model of every concept I can find of story structure. It's sort of a layered vision of everything I can find an example of in literature and film as well as all those conflicting "this is what you have to do to be successful in film" or "this is what Joseph Campbell really meant" ideas. It's all slightly nonsense but I have found that it can help when I get stuck or feel something is out of whack. Every time I sense someone doing something new and different I jot it down and then eventually add it to a master document. Truly, however, if you have enough going on anybody can find whatever structure they want in your work, if they really want to. People see what they want to.

When I worked doing TV movies (a dying art but really the lowest style of film produced) we always dealt in 7 to 8 act structure and would get into laughing fits after meetings where the Executives would try to make it all fit into whatever they had learned from Syd Field or whatever numb nuts seminar they'd just been in. You had to do what they said but you didn't have to like it and if possible you'd do something to save them from themselves. I got pissed one day while a guy was telling me I didn't understand The Hero's Journey (I wasn't as up on it as I could have been but I knew more than he, my boss, did) and I started studying up, taking notes when I could, seeing what as many of the possibilities as I could find were. Following some predetermined structure isn't a convincing argument to me (so far) but having A structure (potentially of your own devising and specific to the story at hand) is really quite necessary ... it's your promise to the audience that you are not wasting their time!

Or at least that's my current theory ...

I'm not sure that coming up with abstractions about writing is a viable alternative to actual writing. I'll have to get back to something truly creative sooner or later.

I admire your commitment to studying the craft of story structure! For me, story structure still remains a rather nebulous concept. I *know* what makes a story a story, but constructing one that really works continues to be a thorn in my side. I have several books on plotting, and some of them say that a certain plot point should appear on exactly page 25 or whatever while others say that it should be a more organic process, that you need to write without structure. I think I fall somewhere in between.

I also think you should definitely not worry about writing right now and have fun wandering in the Colorado sunshine! Everyone needs to "refill the creative well" and being out in nature and disconnecting from the world is one surefire way to do it. Enjoy!

 

[AmateisGal]

I have had to renew my commitment to writing. I'm tired of it being a "if I get around to it today I'll write" type of deal. So I'm currently strategizing a way to do more fully immerse myself in the writing life. I used to be that way and am trying to figure out where I went wrong. I tried to explore why in a blog post.

https://grosvenorsquare.blogspot.com/2016/07/missing-me.html

 

[ChiTownScion]

Soldier's Heart, a graphic trilogy/ bio of a World War II combat vet by his daughter, Carol Tyler. No punches pulled in demonstrating how war affected three generations.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I have garnered inspiration many a time from watching movies or t.v. shows.

Lawrence Block, one of my all-time favorite mystery/crime writers, has also written several texts on writing. In one, he mentions his own technique for using TV inspiration. It's okay, he says, to use the basic idea from someone else's script. But you have to take it in a different direction, give it your own twist and ending.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lawrence Block, one of my all-time favorite mystery/crime writers, has also written several texts on writing. In one, he mentions his own technique for using TV inspiration. It's okay, he says, to use the basic idea from someone else's script. But you have to take it in a different direction, give it your own twist and ending.

Could not agree more. There are so few original - truly, completely original - ideas, that everything is borrowed to some extent. Most honest people know if they have added original ideas, twists, observations, etc.

Most of my writing is in the financial markets and economic space and rarely do I write anything approaching a completely new idea - the value and originality I add (hopefully) is my interpretation of the situation, the perspective I put the situation in, the projections I bring to the current analysis or the historical context I put the situation in.

We've all watched a TV or movie and said that was a rip off of someone else's story ("Downton Abbey" completely ripped off "Mrs. Miniver" in one episode) and we've watched a TV or movie and said that was a great variation on a theme - the second Christopher Nolan "Batman" movie brought a fresh and dramatic perspective to the "crazed terrorist threatening a city" story.

 

[MikeKardec]

I admire your commitment to studying the craft of story structure! For me, story structure still remains a rather nebulous concept. I *know* what makes a story a story, but constructing one that really works continues to be a thorn in my side. I have several books on plotting, and some of them say that a certain plot point should appear on exactly page 25 or whatever while others say that it should be a more organic process, that you need to write without structure. I think I fall somewhere in between.

I think that somewhere in between is good. Most of that structure by page number stuff is adapted from the movie business, where it's taken slightly too seriously and the TV business where it's pretty damn important because you have EXACTLY "X" amount of time and you have to break for commercials at other predetermined spots.

In prose I don't think that timing is so important other than to change it up and inject new life in a story before your audience gets bored. A teacher once said to my class, "The engine of story telling the is difference between expectation and outcome." Alterations between the audience's (and the characters) expectations of what is going to happen and what eventually DOES, is what gives a story life and energy ... those switches (large or small) are the fundamental of structure.

The things I search for in structure are the resonances and that is, unfortunately, rarely discussed. An example would be, in a typical "Hero's Journey" structure, the hero receives a "call to adventure," the thing that COULD set him off into it. Though I think Star Wars is over rated when it comes to these things, Luke seeing Leia saying "Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope" is a good example. But, soon enough, a hero's journey hero is "refusing that call," is reluctant to go all the way into the adventure (until an additional, usually external, push is given, like Luke's Aunt and Uncle being killed). The stuff I like to work with is the WHY of the refusal ... what does the hero's initial refusal to get involved tell us about him or her and what role does it play in the story later. It is possible that it is a good idea to have them face and overcome (on their own, without an external push) a similar reluctance in the story's ultimate crisis.

If you get enough going on, enough resonances, enough overlapping characters arcs, an audience member carefully examining your work will find that when your acts, or beats, or sections, or whatever begin or end will be totally subjective. They can see nearly any structure they want in the work and it will legitimately be there.

Overly meticulous structuring can slow a story down. The Hero's Journey beats in Star Wars are present but are so superficial and rapid I really can't agree with many who claim that it was the structure that created the Star Wars magic. Star Wars does not suffer from being slow! Creating the The Diamond of Jeru audio drama out of the movie script I decided to experiment with carefully establish every Hero's Journey element (though I did move a few around slightly) including a few of my own.* I had a required 180 minutes (as opposed to the 89 minute TV movie) so there was plenty of time to get it all in ... but the pace is RELAXED (and it's a question as to whether that's a good thing).

I like an element I call the "ghost" which is an event (or events) that occurred prior to the story that deeply effected the characters and to which they are still unconsciously reacting. In the Jeru audio the hero has been through a traumatic event as a Captain in the Marines in Korea. Initially he resists the call to adventure because he doesn't want to take responsibility for others lives ... by the time of the crisis he has gotten over that and in fact he has to be called back from the brink of self sacrifice (the "tough" alternative but one where he won't have to deal with the possibility of his failure to protect others because he'll be dead) and inspired to make a "brave" choice to face down the bad guys in a very risky manner which, if it works, will threaten fewer lives. However, if it doesn't, things will go very permanently bad. He has to face the thing he's hiding from: pretty straight up story requirement!

I find that tough and brave are opposites: both can deal with hard choices and hard times but tough is essentially defensive and often closed minded whereas brave is the opposite. Toughness is dismally addictive but only truly useful if you are biding your time preparing for bravery. Tough is Stalingrad. Eating rats for one more opportunity to snipe an enemy. Brave is the invasion of Normandy; getting out of the boat when everyone on the beach is dying.

 

[AmateisGal]

I think that somewhere in between is good. Most of that structure by page number stuff is adapted from the movie business, where it's taken slightly too seriously and the TV business where it's pretty damn important because you have EXACTLY "X" amount of time and you have to break for commercials at other predetermined spots.

In prose I don't think that timing is so important other than to change it up and inject new life in a story before your audience gets bored. A teacher once said to my class, "The engine of story telling the is difference between expectation and outcome." Alterations between the audience's (and the characters) expectations of what is going to happen and what eventually DOES, is what gives a story life and energy ... those switches (large or small) are the fundamental of structure.

The things I search for in structure are the resonances and that is, unfortunately, rarely discussed. An example would be, in a typical "Hero's Journey" structure, the hero receives a "call to adventure," the thing that COULD set him off into it. Though I think Star Wars is over rated when it comes to these things, Luke seeing Leia saying "Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope" is a good example. But, soon enough, a hero's journey hero is "refusing that call," is reluctant to go all the way into the adventure (until an additional, usually external, push is given, like Luke's Aunt and Uncle being killed). The stuff I like to work with is the WHY of the refusal ... what does the hero's initial refusal to get involved tell us about him or her and what role does it play in the story later. It is possible that it is a good idea to have them face and overcome (on their own, without an external push) a similar reluctance in the story's ultimate crisis.

If you get enough going on, enough resonances, enough overlapping characters arcs, an audience member carefully examining your work will find that when your acts, or beats, or sections, or whatever begin or end will be totally subjective. They can see nearly any structure they want in the work and it will legitimately be there.

Overly meticulous structuring can slow a story down. The Hero's Journey beats in Star Wars are present but are so superficial and rapid I really can't agree with many who claim that it was the structure that created the Star Wars magic. Star Wars does not suffer from being slow! Creating the The Diamond of Jeru audio drama out of the movie script I decided to experiment with carefully establish every Hero's Journey element (though I did move a few around slightly) including a few of my own.* I had a required 180 minutes (as opposed to the 89 minute TV movie) so there was plenty of time to get it all in ... but the pace is RELAXED (and it's a question as to whether that's a good thing).

I like an element I call the "ghost" which is an event (or events) that occurred prior to the story that deeply effected the characters and to which they are still unconsciously reacting. In the Jeru audio the hero has been through a traumatic event as a Captain in the Marines in Korea. Initially he resists the call to adventure because he doesn't want to take responsibility for others lives ... by the time of the crisis he has gotten over that and in fact he has to be called back from the brink of self sacrifice (the "tough" alternative but one where he won't have to deal with the possibility of his failure to protect others because he'll be dead) and inspired to make a "brave" choice to face down the bad guys in a very risky manner which, if it works, will threaten fewer lives. However, if it doesn't, things will go very permanently bad. He has to face the thing he's hiding from: pretty straight up story requirement!

I find that tough and brave are opposites: both can deal with hard choices and hard times but tough is essentially defensive and often closed minded whereas brave is the opposite. Toughness is dismally addictive but only truly useful if you are biding your time preparing for bravery. Tough is Stalingrad. Eating rats for one more opportunity to snipe an enemy. Brave is the invasion of Normandy; getting out of the boat when everyone on the beach is dying.

This was all SO good, Mike. You should write a book on writing!

 

[scotrace]

I have had to renew my commitment to writing. I'm tired of it being a "if I get around to it today I'll write" type of deal. So I'm currently strategizing a way to do more fully immerse myself in the writing life. I used to be that way and am trying to figure out where I went wrong. I tried to explore why in a blog post.

https://grosvenorsquare.blogspot.com/2016/07/missing-me.html

I find that having constant deadlines forces me to keep writing, and that is a very good thing. I like the challenge of telling a quick story about an often dull event in a way that is fresh and interesting. It's rare to actually hit that mark.
I'm producing around 4,000 words each week that way. It feels like a lot more work than it is. I like the Dorothy Parker bit: "I hate writing. I love having written."

The Big Novel Idea is stuck at one chapter. There's a play script sitting at two pages. Another is just in my head, taking up space with the Film Script Idea.
That stuff is difficult, man.

We're not the first to say that the hardest part about writing is the ********* writing.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I find that having constant deadlines forces me to keep writing, and that is a very good thing. I like the challenge of telling a quick story about an often dull event in a way that is fresh and interesting. It's rare to actually hit that mark.
I'm producing around 4,000 words each week that way. It feels like a lot more work than it is. I like the Dorothy Parker bit: "I hate writing. I love having written."

The Big Novel Idea is stuck at one chapter. There's a play script sitting at two pages. Another is just in my head, taking up space with the Film Script Idea.
That stuff is difficult, man.

We're not the first to say that the hardest part about writing is the ********* writing.

When I get stuck in a scene, wondering how to say what I have to say, it often turns out that I'm trying to be too complex: in the number of ideas, or the showing of details, or just the language itself. If I take a step back and say, "Simplify," that often works. In '08-'09 I was working on a mystery novel, and had gotten about 100 pages into it -- but the story was stuck. I set it aside and worked on something else (that I was also picking up from a stall point). When that was done, I came back to the mystery and realized I was trying to do and show too much. I cut out a subplot with several suspect characters and steamed ahead with the first-person narrator's storytelling. It went more easily and wound up at 300 pages (ca. 75K words). If I'd held on to my original plot structure, it might have topped 85K, and I doubt it would have been any better.

 

[MikeKardec]

I find that having constant deadlines forces me to keep writing, and that is a very good thing. I like the challenge of telling a quick story about an often dull event in a way that is fresh and interesting. It's rare to actually hit that mark.
I'm producing around 4,000 words each week that way. It feels like a lot more work than it is. I like the Dorothy Parker bit: "I hate writing. I love having written."

The Big Novel Idea is stuck at one chapter. There's a play script sitting at two pages. Another is just in my head, taking up space with the Film Script Idea.
That stuff is difficult, man.

We're not the first to say that the hardest part about writing is the ********* writing.

It's odd, I FREEZE when given a close deadline, but I'll work like the devil was after me to get something done before a deadline is imposed or before someone starts pressuring me. I know that's a deadline of sorts but I'm just petrified of letting people down because I'm under pressure. To make it all odder, I'm good at being motivated to work to support my family and maintain the business. I'm not very good when I have to do it for myself, to support just my ego or wallet.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Deadlines taught me to write, period. Radio was the harshest school there was because you didn't just live by the clock, you lived by the second hand on the clock and you knew that when it reached "12" you had better be ready, but if you weren't it was still going to reach 12 and you'd look like a public idiot in front of thousands of people.

When you work under that kind of pressure every single day for years, you emerge disciplined and able to write under any conditions to meet the clock. I turn out my quota of radio scripts every week in the projection booth during the Friday night show, because I know they're due Saturday, and ready or not, Saturday is coming.

 

[Shangas]

Lately I've been doing a lot of writing and adding stuff to my blog. Mostly antiques and hstory and things of that nature. My blog can be found at: www.throughouthistory.com

 

[scotrace]

Deadlines taught me to write, period. Radio was the harshest school there was because you didn't just live by the clock, you lived by the second hand on the clock and you knew that when it reached "12" you had better be ready, but if you weren't it was still going to reach 12 and you'd look like a public idiot in front of thousands of people.

When you work under that kind of pressure every single day for years, you emerge disciplined and able to write under any conditions to meet the clock. I turn out my quota of radio scripts every week in the projection booth during the Friday night show, because I know they're due Saturday, and ready or not, Saturday is coming.

That was my experience, also. Ten years in radio teaches many lessons. I can still talk for exactly 30 seconds without a timer.

 

[Fading Fast]

Deadlines taught me to write, period. Radio was the harshest school there was because you didn't just live by the clock, you lived by the second hand on the clock and you knew that when it reached "12" you had better be ready, but if you weren't it was still going to reach 12 and you'd look like a public idiot in front of thousands of people.

When you work under that kind of pressure every single day for years, you emerge disciplined and able to write under any conditions to meet the clock. I turn out my quota of radio scripts every week in the projection booth during the Friday night show, because I know they're due Saturday, and ready or not, Saturday is coming.

For years I had to write a daily financial market / economy recap and analysis by 4:30pm - the market closed at 4pm. The goal was this to be more than a balls and strikes piece (i.e., stocks went up x, etc.) and to get into the hows and whys. It evolved over the years - at one point, owing to technology, I had about 150 word limit and when that went away, the average piece was 300-400 words - but I'd start feeling the pressure in the morning, usually scratched out ideas in my notebook into the middle of the afternoon and wrote it from about 3pm to 4:15pm (amidst interruptions from my trading job) where an editor would give it a once over and out it went.

While not anywhere near the pressure or time-lines you had, this taught me a lot about writing - how to be concise, organize ones thoughts, keep your reader's attention and get it done quickly. It also taught me that you need to have something to say - an original idea, thought, angle - or your piece would be boring and it taught me that you better check your facts as every single thing you write will be challenged by someone. I no longer write those pieces, but to this day, I realize how much they helped me.

 

[AmateisGal]

I've discovered that I need deadlines to really get me to work. I, too, cannot stand to let people down by not meeting deadlines, so I'll work like the devil to get things done.

 

[scotrace]

Amen to that. I'd rather chew off my own foot than have to say "I didn't get this one..."
Of course, there are sometimes situations where you just cannot track a person down for comment, or the story turns out to be codswallop. That's different (as long as you keep your editor in the loop).

Writing ad copy for radio also forces you to learn to tightly create a story with a beginning, middle, and end, tell the tale, hit key points, and leave them wanting more- in one minute or less. Most of the spots I wrote were miniature sitcoms.

"This is Dirty Doodaa, Dirt Detective for Joe's Dry Cleaners."

"Don't touch the tomatoes Bugsy. Fingerprints!"

There was one I could NEVER get away with today. A guy walks onto a car lot with a shotgun, shooting down one high price after another...

But that's the root of my problem as both reader and writer now. In teaching myself to read radio copy, I learned to read each word for its own emphasis. "The inside of this new machine is glass-smooth..." And I can't read any other way, even to myself. It takes me forever to finish a book.
As a writer, I've written a great deal in short format. Radio copy, 600 word features and columns, 2,000 word short stories. Finding a way to think in terms of stretching a tale out over 300 pages is the mountain before me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wrote a ton of that stuff too - comedy spots using various dialect characters were my specialty, and I won an award for a Maine dialect bit advertising "Uncle Henry's Swap and Sell It Guide" -- a spot which ended up having a life far beyond that originally intended. "Forget them local papers, just toss 'em all aside, when you put your ad in Uncle Henry's Swap an' Sell It Guide," delivered in a honking, semi-singing Muscongus accent. The zenith of my career.

But the real teacher for me was writing news copy. It was always easy for me to write about things that actually interest me -- I could, and often did, do that in my sleep. But the real challenge was taking something that I absolutely couldn't care less about in any way whatsoever -- the permutations of the Rockport Sewer Committee, for example -- and make it not only interesting, but interesting in a way that differed from the ten other times I'd written the exact same story. If I were ever to teach a writing course that'd be my favorite assignment to give students -- give me three different in-depth 90 second reports on the rising popularity of dung beetle farming. And give them to me before noon today. It's 11:30 now. Time's a wastin'.

 

[MikeKardec]

As a writer, I've written a great deal in short format. Radio copy, 600 word features and columns, 2,000 word short stories. Finding a way to think in terms of stretching a tale out over 300 pages is the mountain before me.

Well you're in good company. Lots of writers in the early part of the 20th century had to break their short story habits and write novels when the magazine fiction market collapsed. Some, while brilliant, never really succeeded (Ray Bradbury), some just interwove a bunch of short stories together (Raymond Chandler), some overindulged on detail and flabby plotting because they couldn't get the mixture right (Steven King; not really a early 20th Century writer but ...). It's tough to change your roots and go from short to long ... and probably visa versa!

Many of the paperback original writers of the 1950s struggled struggled to gear up to the 350 + page requirements in the 1970s.

Have you ever read Fredrick Brown? Mid century SF writer. Belted out hundreds of super short short stories; 1, 3, 5, 10 pages. He also wrote a couple of paperback originals that, if not great were at least paced correctly for their length. 130 to 180 pages was the model in those days.

I'm guessing the issue is scaling up both plot and detail with a touch more plot than detail. I've done this but, so far, it's been going from short story length 10 to 20 pgs to novella length 70 to 80 pgs., and to screenplays which are a LOT like a novella in scope.

I'm guessing the scaling up you are talking about is sort of the opposite of paring down a novel into a screenplay, where you cut more plot than you might think you had to to allow the detail of the scenes to grow ... The trick might be to add some additional and escalating or character or situation defining plot/events but not so much that a bit of added detail will turn you into James Mitchner. But I'm guessing that's not news.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Sold a story!

Tree Lion Press is putting together an anthology of "Weird West" stories; I think I mentioned this some pages back. Anyway, I opened my email yesterday to find an acceptance from the editor! "If your story is still available, we would like to include it in our Weird Western project. If so, just let me know, and we'll have the editors notes and author contract out to you a little later this summer."

I told 'em to stuff it.

No, of course not! I told him I'd be pleased to be included, and that I'd revise as necessary. Amazing what a charge even a small sale gives you, huh?