I had a call yesterday from a writer who wasn’t sure if the story she wants to write will best be told as fiction or memoir. We talked about fear of exposure and how fictionalizing a life story does not necessarily do anything to address that issue. We talked about the kinds of books she loves to read. At the end of our brief conversation, she asked if I had an exercise that would guide her along a discovery process to find her story’s form. I have a simple step, I said, to take you in that direction. Sit down …
Tag: writing
TREBLE THE TROUBLE
Writing fiction? Then Les Edgerton’s nifty book, HOOKED, is a great choice for your holiday gift list. (If you’re like me, you play secret Santa and buy yourself a few pounds of libros for the holidays.) Edgerton covers well-traveled ground when it comes to the how-to of structure. But he does it by focusing intensely on the basics of story setup–the opening hooks and problems–that directly connect to deep story structure. Edgerton defines the Inciting Incident–a term often used in the language of screenplays–as something that “happens to the protagonist that creates his surface problem and introduces the first indications …
ACTION–OBJECTIVE–PARITY!!
My previous post focused on a character’s action-objective. Now, I want to expand the discussion and consider action-objective in terms of parity. In physics, parity may be defined as an intrinsic symmetry. In terms of narrative, parity means equality. It means that you, the writer, know and understand the motivation and objective of the viewpoint character and the important non-viewpoint characters in each scene. You know what they want and why. And if you don’t know what and why yet, you discover it. For example: Say we are writing a scene from the viewpoint of Jane, a 37-year-old singer, who is engaged …
10 Things I know about writing (not in order of importance)
Beginning with 1 – 5 1) I know that writing is in our blood. Follow the twisty, knotty line of our ancestry back through time, and sooner or later, you’ll reach the storyteller. This storytelling business is part of our human DNA. 2) I know that to be a good writer, you must be awake—really listening, observing, feeling, tasting life. Living life! This is a great gift. But sometimes you’ll curse it. Sometimes you’ll be willing to sell your soul for a few minutes of numbed-out oblivion. Take me to the Devil—just let me watch TV. Resist that impulse and …