|
David Farland
|
|
Written by David Farland
|
|
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 17:19 |
|
News Update: Our first vote on how the new Writer's Forum will work is still going on. The decision is whether to have assigned groups or choose your own writing group. We are hosting the vote on the new construction forum, which is where we are brainstorming the details of the writing groups forum. Come join us. Go to this forum now: http://www.amberdine.com/forum and vote. ### David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants—Plotting Software As a writer, I believe that you should always be trying to increase your knowledge base. I’ve said before that "As soon as you think you know it all, you’ll begin to diminish as a writer." Every writer should be continually educating himself or herself. I’ve read hundreds of books on writing, taken many classes and seminars, but there’s one thing that I haven’t done: buy writing software. At least I didn’t do it until last week. There are reasons why I’ve resisted buying software. I’ve had a couple of other authors who strongly recommend programs. Logically, I can see software as being helpful—sort of a step-by-step guide in nonlinear form, but too often I worry that if an author writes using software, the work will lose its organic nature. I admire a work that is organic in nature, where the author doesn’t let preconceived notions about how a story should work force the story into a mold. You see, if you’ve studied screenwriting enough, you learn all kinds of "conventional wisdom" about how to do it: you start with an opening that grabs the viewer—something that breaks before the eight minute mark so that you can get the title sequences in and allow for a commercial break when the film goes to television. Then you’re going to head for big plot twists at pages 30 and 60, and so on. If you watch a Hollywood movie with other screenwriters, you’ll hear them say, "Hey, aren’t we at page 30? Isn’t it about time for our protagonist to reveal his secret desire?" and right on cue, the protagonist will blurt out something like, "All I want out of life is my own private island, so’s I can have some peace and quiet and get away from all you creeps!" Knowing the formula, for me at least, sucks a great deal of the fun out of a movie. Sure, you can find some great films that feel organic despite the fact that they are formulaic, but not many. In any case, since I will be teaching this plotting course in the spring, I’d like to be able to recommend any good plotting software. (Go ahead, if you have a program that you like, email me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.) I’m going to go ahead and offer a little review. Last week, I picked up a program called Contour, created by Jeff Schechter. The program seems fairly easy to use, but I have to say that I worked as a tech-writer for a few years, so I’ve had some practice figuring out how to use software. It comes with an 81-page help section that explains how the writer can act with the software to create a screenplay, and it does a good job of telling an author how to develop a story using an archetypal approach, moving a character through various phases of life from "orphan," to "wanderer," to "warrior," and finally to "martyr." It divides the story up into 44 discreet plot points that an author needs to hit, and gives directions about how to think about some of the plot points, use alternate approaches, and so on. Not only that, but it provides examples from hit movies to let you see how this archetype fits with many other films, so as an instructional tool, it’s not bad. In fact, if you’re new to writing and you want to write your first blockbuster, it could be very helpful. I particularly like the way that Jeff stresses the importance of internal character growth, and recognizes how important the major "movements" are in keeping a story alive and vital. That’s something that new authors don’t often think about. All in all, it’s a useful program and I’ll certainly give it a recommendation. Yet I also have to point out some pitfalls to Jeff’s approach. I’ve known some authors who read Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces and see it as a guide to good literature. They’ll say, "You have to have the baptism scene in Act III," or "You need the Battle in a High Place scene here!" They miss the entire point of Campbell’s work—that archetypes are subconscious elements that span entire cultures. You shouldn’t need to have someone else point out those subconscious elements. They should come out of you naturally. If you do start reading books on how to plot using this approach, you risk turning archetypes into stereotypes. I’m sure that Jeff understands the danger, too, and if he were here, he’d be telling you that this shouldn’t be an "instant guide to success." Rather, his program is a useful tool for creating a story structure. He’d warn you to think deeply and profoundly as you work, not treat this as a paint-by-number program. This program can’t teach you everything, of course. No one book or program can. The program doesn’t talk about how to create a world, for example, and how characters grow out of that world. So it would be difficult for a writer like me to use this program to create a novel simply because I am a "world creation" author. In other words, there is a lot more to study than this one program, and you’ll need to study things like characterization, tone, and so on. Beyond that, this really only teaches one approach to telling a story. For example, what if I want to structure my tale using an "orphan," "innocent," "wizard," "martyr" approach? Jeff’s software suggests that this might be a slightly different archetypal structure that one might want to follow, and it would be nice to see the software expanded to accommodate a couple of other types of stories. Part of the reason for having a library on writing has to do with the fact that I know that you can’t learn everything from just one book. I’ve got several books on plotting, and each has some unique and valuable insights. It’s obvious to me that Jeff has thought deeply about the topic, spending years of study, developing his own insights. That’s what makes a book on writing valuable, the unique insights gleaned from another person who spent thousands of hours tackling problems so that you don’t have to. If you’re interested in Contour, check it out online. It’s simple, fun, informative, and it only costs about $40, which isn’t much more than the price of a good book on writing, and it’s less than the cost of a class at a community college!
|
|
|
LifeWriting Articles
|
|
Written by Steven Barnes
|
|
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 17:15 |
|
IF your hero accepts the responsibility, correctly assesses his shortcomings and surrounds himself with appropriate friends and mentors, and IF he takes action, and IF he keeps faith…then in the minds of most readers and viewers, he has earned his victory. This is the moment when the barriers to excellence, growth, success, or survival, will fall. Now, its possible that this doesn't match your philosophy, that you believe that a person can do absolutely everything right, and the universe will still trash them. Do you know something? In life, you're right. But if you do this in a story, the average reader will hate it. Don't let that stop you, but do understand that your audience shrinks when you do things like that. In America, especially, we still believe in the virtue of hard work and honesty. There are definitely cultures far more pessimistic about human efforts than ours. Just be aware of your intended audience, and the impact your story will have. The philosophy of the writer is revealed in two ways: 1)Character reactions to life stress reveal the writer's belief about human nature. 2) The results they get in response to their efforts reveals the writer's beliefs about the structure and nature of reality. You are revealing more about yourself than you think, so write carefully! Steve Lifewriting ™ is the first 360-degree high-performance system for writers. You have absolutely nothing to lose…and everything to gain by ordering yours today. www.Lifewriting.biz! Dark Dream 906 Ashworth Pl Glendora, CA 91741 US |
|
|
David Farland
|
|
Written by David Farland
|
|
Tuesday, 10 August 2010 22:23 |
|
News Update: We are having our first vote today on how the new Writer's Forum will work. The decision is whether to have assigned groups or choose your own writing group. We are hosting the vote on the new construction forum, which is where we are brainstorming the details of the writing forum. Come join us. Go to this forum now: http://www.amberdine.com/forum and vote. ### Industry News: The president of Amazon.com said this past week that within the next twelve months, electronic sales will out-strip paperback sales on his site. He said that shortly after that, electronic sales will out-strip both paperback and hardback sales. Given that Amazon.com is the largest book retailer in the US, and that so few e-readers are on the market (certainly fewer than 10% of the population has one), the data suggests that people who read on e-books are buying far more widely than they did previously, most likely because they can get the books at a deep discount. In other news, at least two states are moving against Amazon.com and Apple with antitrust legislation because they say that both companies are making contracts that set minimum prices for e-books, and that these same contracts prohibit the publishers from selling to other vendors for a lower price. Expect to hear more about this in the weeks to come. ### David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants—Prioritizing Your Work My article today is inspired by a question from Adrienne Harmer, who asks, "When do you decide to let a novel go, and how do you do it?" In my Million Dollar Outlines Course, I teach writers that some properties have more inherent worth than others. They’ll sell to a much larger audience. These properties won’t always make you a "million dollars" instantly, of course, but over time they will as you sell the rights to foreign markets, movies, and so on. In the course, I teach you some of the keys to recognize what will make a valuable property and what won’t. In the past year, we’ve covered most of that material in the course of the daily kicks, so I’m going to give the answer here. First, I always look at a potential novel before I write it and decide whether or not it is worth pursuing. Getting a huge advance isn’t always my first priority. In fact, I write my novels because I see that it has BOTH a potential to appeal to a wide audience and it means something to me personally. If you write only for money, I think that your work will feel rather shallow and soulless. Some authors can fake it, but most can’t. You can look to Hollywood’s summer fare for excellent examples of movies that just don’t seem to have any real internal life to them. On the other hand, if you write a story that really moves you personally, I think that you’re likely to connect to a larger audience. There are dozens of examples of "small stories" that have taken off simply because they could move a larger audience. I think of books like TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, an artfully told piece about a mother-daughter relationship. Many times, a book like this will get turned into a "movie of the week," if it gets optioned at all, but this piece had enough emotional depth and breadth that it attracted star-quality actors. Remember, one of the hallmarks of a bestseller is that it scores high on the "emotional Richter scale," so even a rather pedestrian tale that doesn’t have a lot of blockbuster elements to it can do quite well. Given this, you yourself have to gauge whether your tale is going to score high emotionally for others. You have to follow your own gut on this one. There are some stories that just won’t make it. For example, I have a friend who recently wrote a novel about a young man’s struggle with same-gender attraction. The novel was written for a religious audience, and it was my feeling that despite the author’s obvious talents, the audience potential just wasn’t there. My friend wrote the story and, despite excellent reviews and awards consideration, wasn’t able to sell a hundred copies. I warned my friend that he was aiming at too small of an audience for this one, and he’d be better off writing something else that he loves. Since he’s always been drawn toward high fantasy, I thought that that would have been a better place to start. Maybe it wouldn’t have given him more emotional satisfaction, but I’m certain that it would have done much better economically. So you need to follow your gut and use your own head in making this kind of determination. But when do you do it? Quite simply, if you think you’re working on a novel that doesn’t have sales potential—and if that is a strong motivating factor for you—step back from it as early in the process as you can. If you’re really drawn to it, you can try to salvage the story by looking for ways to boost the power and payoff in the piece, or by broadening the audience (which often requires adding or changing viewpoint characters, tweaking your settings, and so on). But if you really just think that this piece won’t work, I’d strongly consider just walking away from it. A novel that sells poorly will hurt your sales—and possibly ruin your career. I’ve had dozens of authors—even in just the last year—who tell me how deeply they regret writing a novel that "felt good" at the time but was only written to a small audience.
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 8 of 68 |
