Book Review, Part IV: STORY ENGINEERING by Larry Brooks - Practical Principles for Writing

By Chris Mathews

Story engineering, Larry Brooks contends in his book by the same name, must contain milestones, which he defines as the points in the story where new information changes the direction, tension, and stakes of the story(the first plot point, midpoint, and second plot point, he calls “major milestones”).  Here are the milestones he outlines, along with my illustrations of his points using the Little Red Riding Hood story:

1)       The opening scene of the story—the set-up scene(the mother in Little Red Riding Hood, for example, carefully instructing her daughter to stay on the path and not to talk to strangers as she goes to take goodies to her sick grandmother)

2)       A hook (first 20 pages in novel, first 10 pages in screenplay)—the reader is grabbed by a question he/she must know the answer to(Why does the Wolf want to know where Little Red is going?)

3)      First plot point (occurs about ¼ of way into story)—the hero suddenly has a quest and a mission as the antagonist emerges(Little Red meets the manipulative BB Wolf and we see he may have bigger plans in mind—or else why wouldn’t he just eat her?—he could.) Conflict, without which there can be no story, comes into sharp focus here. (This wolf is big and bad and conniving and he is going to get in Red’s way.)

4)      The midpoint (at the exact middle of the story) which shifts the story’s context--probably occurs in Little Red when she gets to her grandma’s and starts to realize there is something a little wrong with this picture.

5)      The second plot point (3/4 of the way through the story)—in Little Red, when Red learns that the wolf is playing the part of Granny(“the better to eat you with”). At this point, the true power of the antagonist is revealed.

6)       The final resolution scene (In Red Riding Hood, this scene occurs when the hunter bursts in and kills the wolf.)

I find Brooks’ outline of structure useful, but too programmed.  Fortunately, he realizes that while screenplays must adhere closely to this structure, these points might be better thought of as principles for the novelist, rather than hard-and-fast rules.

Scene execution and writing voice comprise his final core competencies for the aspiring writer. The most important point he makes about scenes, I believe, is that each scene must move the story forward. All scenes must have a mission. He suggests writing scenes that propel the story forward, ending a scene with a question that drives the reader’s interest on. Brooks spends even less time on writing voice, feeling this competency is way overrated, especially at writing conferences. His watchwords are: keep it simple, and less is more. He favors “essence” over “eloquence.” While he acknowledges the importance of dialogue and feels you can develop an ear for dialogue, writers fail, he maintains, when they don’t get outside themselves in their dialogue.

In Story Engineering Larry Brooks has put together good benchmarks to help writers stand a better chance of being published. His contention is that knowing where you are going as you write is a good thing. Outlining can help strengthen and hold your story together. Intuition can be cultivated. Little Red Riding Hood may not be much of a heroine, by Brooks’ definition, but the story is compelling because the construction of the story holds. Theme is intertwined with character and conflict: listen to your mother, don’t be too naive, there are bad creatures out there. The storytelling of Little Red Riding Hood is tight. Every part fits together and has a purpose that leads forward.

Last Words Can Mean So Much

By Kimberly Johnson

The other day, at lunch, a friend of mine asked me how to write an obituary. We were eating at McAlister’s in Forest Acres. The place was pretty crowded and I wasn’t sure I heard him clearly. He repeated it and chewed on his club sandwich cautiously.  In a split second, a couple thoughts flashed through my mind: “(a) he must be really grief-stricken, and (b) why did he ask me?” To me, an obituary is a highly personal thing. I had to write one for my aunt, for my father and for my grandmother. So, after sipping some lemonade, I said:  “Just write from the heart. The rest will come to you.” My friend slightly persisted, “I want a Homegoing service that reflects the memory of my momma, not the staid stuff from the funeral home. I want the words to mean something.”

Back at work, I stared at my computer screen. Another thought entered my mind: Is there a formal way to write an obituary? That’s a heavy question. And I narrowed my search and found out, yes. Definition: An obituary is a news article that reports the person’s death, personal information and funeral information. Or, it can be the life story of the deceased in the funeral program. Text/layout and design: There are websites that provide templates. There are websites that restate what the funeral home staff explains. There are websites that provide instructions. Here’s one I liked: “Show, rather than tell. Show that the person was charitable by actual examples. Show with interesting stories, rather than telling with just dry facts.” (www. obituaryguide.com) Cultural notes: My friend wants a Homegoing Service. It’s a phrase used in the African American community to celebrate the life and achievements of the deceased.

Alana Baranick, a newspaper obituary writer echoes the same sentiment I encountered, and soon my friend will face: “Summing up a life is an awesome responsibility.” 

My Biggest Writing Regret

By Sarah Herlong

I‘ve never written a story about my first epic road trip. I remember the route, but not all the fresh insights of seeing this country for the first time. We were just out of college and I had the trip planned to Arizona. With my boyfriend Eric, we pieced together the rest of the trip on the fly. We drove 10-12 hours a day. We were busy stopping at national parks and monuments, and roadside attractions. We were poor, so we stayed at hostels and Motel 6’s along the way. So here is the story of my epic road trip in 394 words.

We traveled through 26 states in 15 days. We left Charlotte having been paid by my boyfriend’s mom for making her a sequined Christmas tree skirt. Weird, I know. We sped away from an angry mob in New Orleans, where we saw burned out cars. Stayed in El Paso in a hostel full of cowboys. Then to Tucson where we saw the most beautiful sunset ever amongst the saguaro cacti. Then it was on to the meteor crater. That’s in Arizona along with the little known place called the Grand Canyon. If you have a choice, go to the meteor crater, seriously.

At this point I was faced with driving through the desert at night up into the hills and then over the Hoover Dam. There were lots of white crosses with messages warning about hell that added to the ambience of fear. Then we rounded a curve and there was Vegas laid out beneath us, lighting up the sky. It was breathtaking. We stayed in a Motel 6 off the strip with lots of people clutching briefcases, and wearing desperate looks on their faces.

It was disconcerting.

The next day we drove the length of Nevada, which is all desert. We crossed over the Sierra Nevadas and made our way to San Francisco. We were totally overwhelmed with its beauty, and promptly made our way through the tenderloin district on foot. I looked as tough and mean as I could. Eric did too, but he was wearing a sweater vest, and that look is hard to pull off. We made quite the bizarre pair alongside all the crack heads.

Then to Yellowstone where we made the acquaintance of some menacing buffalo surrounding our car, with us still in it. And we saw a moose minding it’s own business. We went to Thermopolis, a town with an old hot spring spa turned hostel. I remember a scary lady staring out at us from her window, never taking her eyes off us. It was a little Bates Motel. We had to use a payphone to contact the manager to actually let us in, which we were having a considerably hard time doing. This was before cell phones. I swear some places are just built scary, like that’s what the architect had in mind. Then after some more adventures, it was time to go home.

The Latest Addition

Meet a New Columbia II Blogger

MARION ALDRIDGE

Marion Aldridge is enjoying his retirement career as a writer, blogger, humorist and consultant. His latest book is about coming “unstuck” at any age:  Overcoming Adolescence. It has sold over 20,000 copies.    He has written over 100 articles for magazines ranging from SC Wildlife to Sandlapper to Tennis. Aldridge is married, has two adult daughters and one grandson and was recently awarded the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor. 

Marion's first blog at this site follows.

Writing Non-Fiction Articles and Columns

By Marion Aldridge“Writing Non-Fiction Articles and Columns”

Marion Aldridge

for July 7, 2013, SCWW Blog

“Two types of writers fall short; those who write well about unimportant things, and those who write badly about important things.” Edward Hoagland, Tigers and Ice

Bodies don’t fall out of closets in most non-fiction, which is what I write. Short of corpses, I try to begin my articles, columns or chapters with some startling fact, or a clever, edgy, surprising, or funny phrase or story. Is there an elephant in the room that needs to be named? I like it when my writing provokes an “I can’t believe you said that!” response.

Start with a bang, and then assume that your reader has Attention Deficit Disorder.

Write about your passion. If the subject bores you, pity your poor reader.

Upgrade the verbs and adjectives in your document. If you treat one subject frequently, create your own thesaurus for that topic.

Avoid duplicating words, unless you use repetition for effect. I am utterly predictable in my critique groups. When someone uses the exact expression two times in close proximity, I will circle each instance. If the author returns to the cognates of that term over and over in the course of a manuscript, I believe a writer must find a way to say the same thing differently.

Read. The first time I heard someone declare that though they wanted to write, they did not enjoy reading, I thought that might be the stupidest confession I have ever heard. If you don’t like to read, don’t write.

Be witty. Even in the most serious of novels, odd and quirky events provide texture to the narrative. Entertain. Light and airy is better for most people than dense and intense.

Read what you have written out loud. Revise. Cut. Get to a fifth draft and a sixth draft. Whatever it takes. No short cuts. Composing an article is torturous and tedious work for me. I have served on boards when people would ask me, “Would you write up an account of this meeting? You are a good writer.” Would you ask a painter to sketch a watercolor of the meeting? Would your request that a pianist provide a melody describing the meeting? The person making the request doesn’t understand what they are asking. Writing, for me, is serious business and hard work.

Give the readers some way to respond to your composition with their senses. What in your article can they taste? Or smell? Get them to snap their fingers. That involves sound and touch. Don’t let the reader get bored or go to sleep. Can you add some color, maybe a vivid neon orange, or a subtle violet?

The biggest mistake I see in wannabe writers is thinking they will be the next Emily Dickenson, that when they are dead, someone will come along and find their clever words and finally appreciate the genius that they were. Not gonna happen. It occurred exactly once in history—and that was to Emily Dickenson. Every other writer had to work at the craft. William Shakespeare wrote for profit and on deadline. You are not better than Shakespeare. Hunker down. Write. Practice your profession. We learn to write by writing.

Book Review, Part III: STORY ENGINEERING by Larry Brooks

By Chris Mathews

I have been looking at the usefulness of Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering to the aspiring writer. We have looked at three of what he deems the six core competencies of storytelling: concept, character, and theme. Although I believe concept and theme could be combined into one category, I did find his breakdown of character very useful in identifying it as having three dimensions (surface, backstory, and character growth, or character arc). However, Brooks, I believe, takes too long to get to the most important aspect of writing from which the title comes, not beginning his explanation of structure in good storytelling until Chapter 22, almost halfway through Story Engineering. I have been using the story of Little Red Riding Hood to test out his advice(my choice, not his).

He breaks storytelling into “four boxes.” The first box is subtitled “The Setup.” In this section of the story, we learn what the stakes are for the main character(what he or she has to lose). There should also be some foreshadowing of the antagonist in this section. And empathy for the main character or hero needs to be created. In the case of Little Red Riding Hood, box one would include her backstory that her mother told her not to leave the path, and her encounter with the wolf. Here we see how naïve she is when the conniving wolf wheedles information about the grandmother out of her and tells her to pick flowers thereby leaving the path and we glimpse the wolf’s duplicitous nature. Box One ends with the first plot point when we sense what conflict is going to take place—in this case Innocent Red versus scheming wolf. According to 

Brooks this is where the story really begins.

The protagonist’s quest begins the second box, which should show the hero studying the problem faced. In Little Red, this section would include Little Red’s questioning of the wolf(“My, grandma, what big eyes you have”), culminating in the Wolf’s “…the better to eat you with.” Brooks calls this moment the midpoint of the story. For Little Red, her purpose is clear: the wolf is out to get her.

This third box, the attack, occurs in stories when the protagonist becomes proactive. At this point, the protagonist usually mounts his or her strongest attack against the antagonist or dies trying. In most versions of Little Red, it is the later. The hunter’s entrance on the scene would mark the second plot point. The final struggle now takes place in this box.

The fourth box is the resolution. In the Grimms’ Brothers version, the hunter cuts the wolf open and Little Red and Grandma are both freed, and after he replaces rocks for humans and sews him up the wolf meets his demise. According to Brooks, Little Red would fall into the category of “lame part 4 hero status” because she is not the primary catalyst in the story’s resolution, the hunter is.

In a final blog on this book, I will examine Brooks’ remaining structural component of structure, milestones. In addition, I will comment on his final two competencies, scene execution and writing voice.

My Musings About a Music Mogul

By Kimberly Johnson

I had no intention of reading The Soundtrack of My Life, music mogul Clive Davis’ biography. I assumed it was a mea culpa about the late Whitney Houston. It wasn’t. It was a handcrafted tale of how a Harvard law grad working at Columbia Records in the late ‘50s, transformed the record industry by becoming the producer-manager-confidante to folks like Simon & Garfunkel and Alicia Keyes. I thought it was an industry insider’s regretful recount of a pop diva. It wasn’t. For me, it was about a storyteller (Davis) and a story writer (Anthony DeCurtis). Anthony DeCurtis, a 30 year veteran of Rolling Stone magazine, employs the simplest of writing techniques to recreate the venerable Brooklynite’s rollercoaster life.

Rollercoaster ride 1: ‘ 70s icon Barry Manilow. DeCurtis chronicled the music lawyer’s tempestuous “handling” of the songwriter. By infusing a casual tone, the author made me feel like I was there when Davis and Manilow slugged it out over Mandy, a song that Manilow detested. Davis won: 1974’s Mandy catapulted Manilow into the stratosphere.

Rollercoaster ride 2: American Idol runner ups Clay Aiken and Chris Daughtry. DeCurtis glosses over the producer’s “I know what’s best for you” attitude by portraying Davis as a veteran trying to mentor neophytes.

Rollercoaster ride 3: Whitney Houston. DeCurtis threads the needle on a sensitive subject: Houston’s career and untimely death. He helps the producer to combat the Svengali “handling” of Houston by portraying him as a father figure that was unaware of her demons.

I thought those rollercoaster rides were enough. They weren’t. Davis’ pre-Grammy parties and peccadillos added to the ride. I recommend you get this book.

Don’t Sell Me Your Book—Sell Me YOU!

By Len Lawson 

Much has been written in recent years about how the publishing industry and its consumers have changed. The gaps among the success of authors published through traditional publishing, small press, and self-publishing continue to be diminished. The difference in the success remains in the marketing of the product. Regardless of the means of publication, an author in today’s writing industry needs to have a clear marketing strategy for their own work. Publishers may even be more likely to consider an author’s work if authors submit their queries with some options for marketing their books.

The core of these marketing ideas exists in the individual author. Readers not only want to read a good book, but they also want to read from a good author and more books from that author. Then, they will tell their friends about this great new author whose book they read. The more readers can identify with their authors, the more likely they will be return customers. The key here is more transparency, especially for first-time authors. Authors that market themselves can turn readers into fans!

Below I provide some tips for how an author can brainstorm ways to impress agents and publishers how to market—and eventually sell your book.

• Be unique. To establish a brand, discover a quality that distinguishes you from the millions of other authors in this saturated industry. For example, if you are a teacher, start a blog that is unique to your subject area or to education in general. As a platform, you can speak at teacher conferences or write articles for teacher newsletters to build an audience. Share the story of your career path or your passion for your subject. Once again, the key is transparency. If you have a niche or a passion, then there are readers waiting to learn more about you and subsequently about your writing!
• Be proactive. After you decide who your audience is, find the readers where they are, talk to them directly, and establish more settings to meet readers besides just book signings. Finding book clubs to join or market to is a good idea, but why not start your own book club? Rally other readers around you who enjoy your genre. This creates a built-in audience that can expand exponentially! Don’t just sit back and wait for readers to come after you write your book. Go out and get ‘em before the process starts!
• Be enterprising. Some of the best partners for book marketing are in other industries. Someone you know with their own business can use your assistance in exchange for publicity. For example, a store owner may provide a space for your books in their shop in exchange for publicity. Partner with others who believe in your work. The key here is to be creative and to think like an entrepreneur.
• Be diverse. Since your readers are diverse, different aspects of your book may appeal to different readers. For example, your romance novel may be set at the beach. During the summer, this would be a great read! Therefore, you could market to beach readers or readers going on a long trip. Once again, be creative.

The possibilities are endless for aspiring authors to market themselves along with their stories. Millions of readers are waiting for their next book to buy and read. They are also waiting for an author that appeals to them. Being transparent as an author can open the door to more opportunities with agents, publishers, and ultimately readers.  Don’t allow your book to be the barrier between you and your readers, and don’t wait for publishers and agents to have the last say in the marketing. Your readers are waiting; give them what they want. Give them you!

Drama in Everyday Life

By Bonnie Stanard

Human experience, especially misery, is fertile ground for writers. Misery is not hard to find, whether produced by our fellow man or visited on us by nature. Just think of the books written about cancer, diabetes, and other diseases. The criminal hardships we visit on ourselves, such as murder, slander, and theft inspire innumerable books. Governments, because of their authority, are capable of widespread misery, and writers like Stephen Ambrose, Elie Wiesel, and Philip Caputo have made careers of recording warfare’s toll on us.

I’ve just finished reading Mukiwa, A White Boy in Africa, a personal account of life in Rhodesia at the time of its civil war. Author Peter Godwin begins with his childhood, which is recalled with nostalgia and only the occasional hint that the indigenous tribes are chafing under unfair government policy. The pleasant life of the first pages is the quiet before the storm.

Black resistance becomes more organized and develops into guerilla warfare, and the winds of change ratchet up to gale forces. Godwin, in spite of his sympathy for the oppressed blacks, is forced to fight in Ian Smith’s army. Atrocities occur, and as we already know from history, the whites lose control and are defeated.

Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe. Just as there’s hope that the new black leadership will usher in a judicious government, the storm becomes a hurricane, exceeding in misery and death the former rebellion. The Shona tribe, which controls the government, attempts to wipe out the Matabele, resulting in wholesale slaughter of unarmed villages.

Zimbabwe’s government is able to make peace with its victims and survives with impunity in spite of the bloodbath, or perhaps because of it. From the Matabele perspective, peace is purchased at an enormous price.

Godwin’s story grew out of a background of insurgency and warfare. However, many good books are written about less dramatic challenges. Writers like Joan Didion, Bill Bryson, and Tobias Wolff call attention to everyday events in a way that allows us to see them in a different light. Some of our workshop writers are in situations that are mundane or exciting, depending on our way of seeing. For instance, here are titles for books they might could write (yes! might could—they might, they could):

My Worst Moment with Shakespeare (Leigh)

Mother is Funny, But She’s not a Joke (Sarah)

Dropping into a War Zone (Mike)

A Lightweight In the Ring with Fighters (Laura)

Lucifer’s Embrace—Friedreich's Ataxia (Ginny)

An Alien In Antarctica (Shaun)

I Had No Idea I Had An AVM (Debbie)

Sometimes the things closest to us escape our notice. We hardly think of writing about them. We wait for a lightning muse to strike us when the earthy one is with us all the time.

Book Review Part II: Story Engineering, Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing

By Chris Mathews

For those writers looking for a sure-fire way to create a powerful story, Story Engineering, Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing by Larry Brooks illuminates some of the shadowy precepts of structure, while at the same time acknowledging that good storytelling can never just be a paint-by-the-numbers process. With a working knowledge of the tools and process which Brooks calls the six competencies of storytelling--concept, character, theme, structure, scene execution, and voice--, the writer can discover how to create a great story. Without these craft secrets, Brooks contends, great storytelling is just not possible.

As I stated before, I was very dubious of concept as a core competency apart from theme. However, Brooks does a credible job of making the case that the writer should write with an intention of theme, and not just let it emerge mystically. Theme is, of course, what a story is about, but Brooks expands the definition adroitly. Theme must be “relevant” to life itself; in a real sense, Brooks believes that theme is the launching pad for story in that it is what “makes us think and feel” about the plot.

As far as implementation of theme, he believes what the story means can be linked like the double-helix with character arc, the character’s growth.  It’s why the critics panned The DaVinci Code, he maintains. The main character’s growth was secondary to plot and therefore Robert Langdon appeared an empty suit. The character has to conquer both inner and outer forces to make a theme viable. Like the main character in Dan Brown’s novel, Little Red in Little Red Riding Hood does not change very much, remaining naïve until the wolf makes his “all-the-better-to-eat-you” speech. Little Red’s rose-colored world comes crashing down as she fails to grasp the wolf’s trick until it is too late…unless you buy the dues ex machina of the hunter. The theme could be: You have to see things for what they are or you’re going down. The wolf’s cross-dressing makes his character development much more intriguing than Red’s, but the story’s theme emerges. In defense of Dan Brown’s writing and in most best-selling novels, plot takes precedence over character.  

After spending half the book on other core competences, Brooks finally devotes the second half of his book to what he clearly believes should be the mantra for aspiring writers—structure.

To be sure, he qualifies his advice, constantly reminding the writer, that all of the other core elements need to be intertwined into the story to make it truly riveting. The hopeful note for the writer here, as Brooks points out, is that structure can be learned.

In a final blog, I will examine in more detail Brooks’ concept of structure, the pith of Story Engineering.

My Mother Loves My Writing

By Sarah Herlong

So my mother loves my writing. What’s new, right? She really likes it because it’s about her. That’s right, I write about my mother. I write about her struggles with mental illness and physical decline. She likes this. But what she really enjoys is that I wrote an entire comedy routine about her. I only have this hilarious information because I live with her. 

My parents had been very strict and very religious parents to us kids. When I first moved back home this was a problem. I scoured her old books to see where they came up with their parenting styles and convictions. I grabbed her journals to see just who was she at this time. But they weren’t personal journals, simply spiritual writings. It gave me insight into what she believed, which I already knew, but not who she was as a person. I then found a book of hers on anxiety. Not only had she underlined passages pertinent to her, she also filled in the little scoring sheets determining how anxious she was. She was very anxious. Something I never knew about her. Something I actually had in common with her. It was the next best thing to a journal from that time period.

Now I’ve discarded my wish to know my mother of the past, I want to know her now in the present. The person she has become. Frankly what I found was amusing. This is what gave birth to the comedy routine. The routine was initially just stories I would tell my siblings, something to enlighten them that she wasn’t the strict person she used to be. Now I’m actually starting to really like my mother, which is different from loving your mother.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written stories about relatives. The night before my grandmother died, I sat at the computer and wrote down every story I could remember about her. Now years later people still ask to read it because it brings her to life again if only for a few minutes. Now I’m doing it before my mom dies, that way she gets to enjoy it too.

My mother was there for me when no one was, and I’m trying to do the same for her now. What I get for my taking care of her is that I know her from a different perspective. We’re much closer because she is learning about me too. Sometimes when she goes to bed she says, “You know, I really like you Sarah Anne.” Which of course is different than loving your daughter.

A Reason To Write

 By Sarah Herlong

When my friend, Neil, was diagnosed with colon cancer I was a continent away. We would stay on the phone for hours at night talking. He wanted me to write about him so he wouldn’t be forgotten. I made notes on all the funny stories as I could remember about him. Only once he died, and the pain subsided somewhat, did I work on writing the full version of my notes. Then my cousin wanted me to tell her about Neil. It ramped up my writing about him, culminating in what I call the Book of Neil.

It was a passion of mine to fulfill this obligation. Get the material down while it’s fresh. Document our relationship so I’ll have it for the future, and so I can share Neil with others. And I can read it in the years to come to remember him as a well-rounded person instead of a shadowy person from my past.

Now I’m faced with a slightly different situation. My friend Lizzie has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. Whenever Lizzie would come over she would show interest in my writing, asking me to read her my latest creation. I would, and it passed the time while she helped my mom with various tasks. She even enjoyed my comedy routine. She had me practice it over and over with her.

Now she is in the hospital waiting to hear if they can do surgery, and waiting to start chemo. She called me today and wanted to talk. I asked if she wanted me to be there in the hospital with her now, and she said yes. I grabbed my latest two stories and arrived at the hospital in record time. She requested that I read to her. I began with Bernadette’s Big Night. Then I read Ghost Story to her. As always she liked both of them. I asked if she wanted reading material, some magazines, but what she requested is for me to read her more of my stories. She told me it helps her stop thinking about the cancer for a while.

So now my work is cut out for me. I need to write as productively as I can to polish old writings, and create new work. Maybe then I can provide her a respite from cancer even if just for a few minutes. 

Writing for Documentaries

By Laura Puccia Valtorta

The two types of independent films I’ve been crafting involve two different types of writing. With scripted screenplays the filmmaker begins with a regular formatted script, the various elements zapped into place by such programs as Final Draft or Adobe Acrobat Premiere.

Documentary writing is more complicated. The producer or director should start with a treatment. The treatment resembles a simple short story – a narrative of the plot and message the director expects to convey in the documentary.

The treatment does not sell the documentary. The director uses the treatment to guide her in filming the documentary and piecing it together.

Don’t ask me, the neophyte, how to write an effective treatment. The writer must follow her gut. David Trotter defines the treatment well in his book The Screenwriter’s Bible. He also differentiates among the synopsis, the outline, and the treatment.

I adore my new documentary White Rock Boxing. Cliff Springs and I filmed and edited it without a treatment. The process took 13 months. I believe we could have cut that time in half had we started with a treatment (as I plan to do with my next documentary – Blind Runner).

Here is sample text from the treatment for Blind Runner:

This film will trace Amy’s life from a child who became blind at eleven and                                was ridiculed because of her deformed face to a star athlete who inspires      everyone around her. 

White Rock Boxing was a joy to produce, and I learned a million lessons from it. The public premiere will be on September 23, 2013 at 7 p.m. at the Russell House on the University of South Carolina campus. We expect it to be aired on Southern Lens, a series on South Carolina ETV, in the fall or spring of 2013-2014.

A Primer on Inspiration From a Few Masters

By Leigh Stevenson

It’s always been of interest to me what motivates writers. Where do they get their inspiration? Newspaper articles? Childhood memories? Music? Art? Other writers? From your own personal Job Bank, as Sarah put forth in her humorous April 7^th blog? Is it a conscious creative exercise or do ideas spring fully formed? Do you say, “I think I’ll write about golf,” and then go do it? Do you pay attention to what you feel in any given situation, or are you an observer? Both? Neither? Looking at a few published authors, some literary icons, some not, offers some interesting clues about their process.

Elizabeth Strout, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for Olive Kitteridge suggests marriage as one rich source of drama for fiction writers. She said, “I hope when I pick up a book to find that part of myself that I never dared say anything about.”

Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame, says it’s important to literally “touch the earth,” as in feel the soil, experience nature. She goes on to say that she believes “creativity is an entirely spiritual practice.”  She thinks “you should treat your gift with the highest possible respect” and the Archetype of the suffering artist is outdated. Instead, she suggests you ask yourself, “where have you felt joy in your life?”

Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife, a New York Times Bestseller and finalist for the national Book Award, calls herself a National Geographic nerd. She merges a unique blend of mythic folklore, story and memory in her work. She says it is surprising how one’s work takes on a life of its own and describes one experience of only fully realizing a character after meeting the “real-life” version in a Moscow flea market.

It is said that Emily Dickinson was inspired by the mysticism of William Blake, the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe and even the Bible.

In a recent interview, Josephine Humphries said she is stimulated by her hometown of Charleston. She called it a place with a complex, difficult history. She feels lucky to have been born in a city that is rife with contradictions.

What gets your creative juices flowing? I would love to hear your thoughts on your personal artistic process.

Inspiration

By Alex Raley

                                                                     We look for inspiration when we write. Often it comes out of the blue or from the pleasant and interesting things going on around us. A couple months ago, I found myself with my head against the wall waiting for the 911 folks to arrive and wondered why I had put myself in that situation. In the hospital and on my way to recovery, I began to think of all the experiences a hospital brings: some debilitating, some embarrassing, and some just downright nasty. With the right attitude they can be funny. I began to think poetry as soon as I settled down in hospital routine (meals to the minute, vital signs as soon as you fall asleep, the day’s date with nurse and nurse tech names, shift changes with new names, morning doctor visits. I imaged everything poetically, including the 911 activity. When not interrupted by hospital routine, I was constructing poems, poems much too bawdy for a blog but poems that will eventually see the light of day. Does that seem odd?

                                                                       Do not let experiences pass by you. Even the most unusual or gruesome can be an inspiration to write. I had never thought of gruesome as an inspiration, but I cannot tell you how my mind raced once I wandered into the groove. Now that I am at home I need to hit the computer and put those bawdy poems to paper.

Let Them Say I Failed—

By Shaun McCoy

What happens to those writers, whom we all know and struggle not to be, that tell people at parties that they love to write. You know the kind I’m speaking of, the kind that don’t write. The kind that had a brilliant thought or two as they passed through college. Maybe once a decade they put pen to paper, or fingers to keys, or whatever it is.

One moment, at age thirty, as I stared at the stream of water that poured from my bathroom sink while it washed away the last of the hairs from my morning shave, I realized that I was dangerously close to finding out what happens to them. I was about to be one. Wasn’t writing my dream? Had I really never submitted a story? Had I really never written and finished anything?

They say that truth is many things, but she is seldom accused of being pretty. At that moment, she was downright ugly. It was time to put some lipstick on that pig. I was going to do this, I was going to write. More than that, I was going to be a writer.

The first part was the hardest, I had to admit that I didn’t know how to write… see, I told you she was ugly.

I spent the next few months learning how, reading self-help writing books and watching inspirational Youtube videos. Then, while on an airplane, I imagined a pretty, young professional girl on an elevator, headed down. I didn’t know what was at the bottom of that impossibly long and futuristic elevator shaft, but I knew it was evil.

This became the first scene of the first story I wrote after I decided to actually become a writer. It was called Simon’s Folly, and it was the first story I sold.

But writing is hard, as time consuming as it is soul destroying. It is a draw on one’s mental and emotional resources like no other. My day job was the biggest obstacle in my way, so it had to go. I began living off half of my paycheck each month. I did this, living a minimalistic lifestyle, for two years. Those two years ended on March 24^th, when I left my workplace for the last time. Now I have two years to write. Two years to make it.

It is, I must say, a stupid gamble. This same money could easily be spent on buying a house. I could have married the nice girl I was dating and started a real life. But I don’t care. It’s not that I don’t care about failing. There is nothing in this world that would devastate me as much, that would hurt me as deeply, as failing in this … well, almost nothing.

I imagine myself at near the end of my days, looking back on my life, wondering why I never wrote a damn thing. Wondering why millions of people had never read one of my novels. I know what I’d say to myself. “I could have,” I’d say, “if I had only tried.” Maybe I’d believe it. Maybe I’d figure I was lying to myself. Maybe, but whatever. Let them say I failed. Let them say I crashed and burned, that I waded through a sea of mediocrity on the way to an island of ignominy, before they say I never tried. 

No Namby-Pamby…Just Write It.

By Kimberly Johnson

To borrow a phrase or two from singer/songwriter John Mayer: “It’s better to say too much than to never…Say what you need to say, Say what you need to say…”

Those words underlie the crux of Jason Whitlock’s sports column Real Talk—say what you mean or better yet, write what you mean.

That’s why I relish reading Whitlock’s articles for FoxSports.com. Whitlock has the chops. He majored in Journalism from Ball State University. He’s the first sports writer to win the National Journalism Award for Commentary from the Scripps Howard Foundation. He even played high school football with Jeff George, a former NFL quarterback. He’s got some notoriety for being fired from ESPN.

I want to strengthen my writing style and use Whitlock’s techniques. I don’t if I could take the stones and daggers from his detractors. No worries though, I still like his flair because:

#1: He frames out his main argument in simplistic terms. Most writers know that is not as easy as it sounds.

#2: He provides provocative examples to illustrate his argument.

#3: He has an astute sense of humor.

Here’s one example from a September 7, 2012 column:

“Some football fans believe I dislike Peyton Manning and refuse to recognize his greatness out of some twisted loyalty to my high school teammate and former Colts QB Jeff George. …“Breaking Bad” is Peyton Manning. We want both of them to be what they once were. We want them to fulfill their promise. It’s not going to happen. That does not mean I hate either of them. It simply means I’m not going to sit quiet as a significant portion of the media mislead (and in some cases lie) you into believing something that isn’t true. Elway and/or Montana are still the greatest. Tom Brady has the best chance of catching them. Manning is one of the 10 or 15 best QBs to ever play the game.”

Ouch. For non NFL fans, that’s the equivalent of soap opera diva Susan Lucci slapping a young, blond ingénue in the face for disrespecting her. Again, Whitlock got to the point (Peyton Manning ain’t that great.). He provided an example. (Read the full story online). He gave us a laugh. (Compared him to a t.v.show).

By the time this blog comes out, there’ll be a winner in the NCAA basketball tourney.I’m sure that Jason will have a lot to write…and mean it.

Source: http://msn.foxsports.com

The Latest Addition

Meet Our Newest Blogger

SARAH HERLONG 

Sarah spent 10 years on the west coast and hopes to return someday. She is currently writing children’s literature and short stories. She takes care of her mother and was inspired to write a comedy routine, all about her mother. Sarah nervously delivered this routine at a benefit for Turning Pages, and hopes to keep getting inspired to write more comedy. 

Sarah's first blog with us follows.

What’s a Job Bank?

 By Sarah Herlong

One thing I find helpful in my writing is to keep a Job Bank. Everyone has been in an interesting workplace at some point in her life. Okay, maybe not. Perhaps you’ve only worked in boring office jobs, but somewhere in there are details that a writer would love.  You never know when in your writing this information will come in handy. 

Keeping a Job Bank is like the opposite of a resume. This is the list that would get you fired. These are the down and dirty details that made the job hell or so enjoyable you miss it. Describe those annoying coworkers. Hopefully you’ve had a tyrannical boss that still gives you nightmares. Did your office have a bad odor? Did one of your coworkers catch a potato on fire in the office microwave? Describe it in detail as you would for a story.

Start a Job Bank by listing all the jobs you’ve ever had, even the ones when you were a teenager.  For me this is quite a list. Then when you’ve hit a roadblock with your writing, just work on your Job Bank. Fill in smells, characters and events as you remember them. You’ll be surprised how many stories crop up that you had forgotten long ago. Remember no detail is too small, something what was completely normal or humiliating to you, might be hysterical to your readers. These details can make your characters feel more like real people.

This isn’t something you complete in one sitting. This is something you can work on whenever you have time, or suddenly remember something. Create your own Interviews From Hell section, everyone has some of those, surely.

Creating your Job Bank

List all of your jobs, and write down everything you can remember about each one.

Fill in the descriptive blanks over time as they come to you. 

No detail is too small. Remember this is the down and dirty stuff.

If it reads like a resume you’re doing it wrong. This is the anti-resume.

If you are laughing, fuming, or cringing, you’re doing it right.

A Little Too Much Description!!!

By Fred Fields

Since his death in 2001, 23 new novels have been published in Robert Ludlum's name. Tom Clancy and James Patterson rarely write the new novels attributed to them; WEB Griffin, one of my favorite authors, has turned his writing chores over to his son, William E Butterworth IV (WEB).

I mention these facts to demonstrate a new era in publishing, one that causes some pain to readers when the substitute authors don't meet the standards of their originals.

Here is a demonstration of the quality of Butterworth's writing, and why I no longer look for Griffin in the bookstores. The following is a synopsis of eight pages, early in the book, Double Agents, by Griffin (Butterworth IV).

Bottom of  Page 17: President Franklin D. Roosevelt welcomes General William J. Donovan to the Oval office, followed by a description of Donovan.

Page 18: Begins with two paragraphs commenting on Donovan's recent promotion from colonel to brigadier general. This is followed by two paragraphs about what Donovan thinks of Roosevelt's happy state of mind, and that he is sorry to be bringing bad news. Donovan says how happy he is to note the President's good mood. Roosevelt thinks Donovan looks unhappy. The next paragraph discusses Donovan's experience in World War I.

Page 19: Continues Donovan's record, including partial wording of his Medal of Honor citation, followed by eight paragraphs describing the two men's original meeting and subsequent friendship.

Page 20: Six more paragraphs about the friendship. Four paragraphs about what FDR is thinking about the lack of coordination of intelligence gathered during World War II.

Page 21: The whole page is devoted to the history of interagency warfare between intelligence services and the formation of the department of Coordination of Intelligence, headed by Donovan.

Page 22: More on the Coordination of Intelligence Department and its transition to the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services.

Page 23: History of the President's desk, (yes) along with a description of its contents, including FDR's stamp collection and how the State Department saves foreign stamps for his collection. A paragraph describing the Oval Office. Roosevelt looks out the window at his rose garden, rolls his wheelchair behind the desk, and asks about Donovan's family.

Page 24: Five paragraphs about the Donovan family condition. Two paragraphs about Major James Roosevelt, USMC. Donovan goes back to discussing his son's military activities

Page 25: In paragraph two, General Donovan finally delivers the news that the Germans have nerve gas in Sicily! On the ninth page after we learn that General Wild Bill Donovan has important news for the President, we finally find out what the news is.

BORED TO SLEEP? ME TOO! By this time, I have put the book down and decided no longer to search for Griffin books in the bookstores.