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The Memorable Character Line-Up

March 16th, 2015Sarah Lovett0 Comments

A writer friend trying his hand at fiction recently asked, “…since my protagonist is a woman, what traits might both men and women find appealing in her?” My first response: Whether readers are male, female, gay, straight, transgender or some combo thereof, almost everyone is drawn to someone who passionately and actively yearns for something we consider meaningful. The person on the page who truly catches our attention, emotion and heart is the character who shows desire, yearning, drive and who takes all steps possible to achieve their desire, no matter if the pursuit is misguided, and no matter the …

COACHING QUESTIONS TO KEEP YOU ON COURSE

August 20th, 2014Sarah Lovett0 Comments

When I was nineteen I started a business with a partner and we called it “Hat Trick Hats”. We wanted to be portable. We sold our hand-stitched leather creations on the sidewalks of Santa Barbara and on the Wharf and Union Square in San Francisco. We wanted to be free to make our own designs and decisions and we accomplished both. We needed to make a living and sometimes we actually ended the month with a financial surplus! Of course that money was quickly spent to replenish our supplies to make more hats. Our goal was never to get rich—and …

While We Dream: Creative Process Often Misunderstood

September 16th, 2011Sarah Lovett0 Comments

In the midst of a creative life and after countless conversations with other Creatives, I’ve come to believe that many people understand very little about their creative process and the creative process in general. Expectations–defined and reinforced by social mores–often have to do with achieving goals based on tangible production. For a writer, that means word counts and page counts. But, really, creative process does not bow to our everyday expectations. Writers often talk about “productive days” versus “next to nothing” days. And our idea of what is productive and what is not…well, our conscious, every day, practical minds usually …

The Loose Novelist

August 12th, 2011Sarah Lovett0 Comments

This advice from Alan Watt’s wise how-two, THE 90-DAY NOVEL: “I didn’t try to figure out the ending, but rather, imagined a sense of my hero at the end of the story. How was he relating differently to his father? What had he come to understand as a result of his journey? How was the dilemma resolved? What was the visual metaphor, the image that captured the essence of my story at the end? As I pondered these questions, ideas came to me, and I realized that they were a goldmine of images for what preceded the ending. Imagining our …

Deep Problems, Big Story

September 13th, 2010Sarah Lovett0 Comments

When it comes to creating a great protagonist, the character with the biggest, deepest problem wins. In my last blog entry–Does Your Story’s “Equation” Add Up?– I touched on the terms “story catalyst” and “deep-story problem”. I want to discuss them both in a bit more depth because they are crucial to the creation of a marketable story. A truly effective story catalyst (also referred to as inciting incident) kicks off the narrative, hooks the reader, and sets the protagonist on a journey (dealing with the deep-story problem) that will end in a life-changing crisis and climax. Because they are …

WRITING BASICS: ELEMENTS OF CRAFT IN A NUTSHELL

March 3rd, 2008Sarah Lovett0 Comments

It’s always handy to have writing basics at your fingertips in a nutshell: Viewpoint – The perspective you choose and use to tell your story. In the simplest terms the choices are 1st person (I), 2nd person (you, rarely used), limited 3rd person (he, she, as in a central character or protagonist), and 3rd person omniscient (sometimes defined as a godlike viewpoint, shifting between and encompassing the viewpoints of multiple characters). Viewpoint a.k.a. POV. Summary – The efficient and active accounting of story events that otherwise are not rendered fully in a scene. Story-telling with the emphasis on the telling versus the …