The two-headed writer #CreativeWriting #IAmWriting

A lot of (British) writers simply do it by instinct… instinctively reducing huge themes into a clear and deceptively simple plot… without ever rationally unpacking the genius of what they’ve done. The unpacking bit is important for agents, publishers and readers, however – as they often lack the instinctive genius of the writer. Yet that means a writer needs to wear two heads (like Worzel Gummidge) if they’re ever going to be commercially successful. I always cite JK Rowling and Terry Pratchett as examples here – they’re okay/good writers, but they would never have succeeded if they hadn’t had acute business minds as well.

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Creative writing mini-lesson: no.20 ‘Embrace The Fear!’ #Lockdown #selfisolation #creativewriting #IAmWriting #WednesdayMotivation #WednesdayThoughts #WedesdayMorning #WednesdayVibes #IanRankin

It is The Fear that means so many people start writing a novel and then give up, never to finish it. 

Watch the short video below to learn about ‘The Fear’ that Ian Rankin experiences when writing a novel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010h3yc

Having watched the video, now consider these questions:

1. What are the two fears Ian has as he writes the book?
2. What’s the Iris Murdoch quote?
3. What does his wife have to remind him? WHY do you think she needs to remind him?
4. Do you think everyone experiences The Fear when writing?
5. Does it help to know that everyone suffers it and that it’s a natural part of the process of writing a novel?

 

Having taught Creative Writing for many years, I can tell you that it’s relatively easy to teach people the mechanics of writing and to provide them with exercises that improve their writing. It’s far harder helping them through the emotional process/aspects of writing a novel. 

Ian Rankin is an extremely experienced writer, having published over twenty novels, and yet he still experiences The Fear when writing. There seem to be several reasons for him experiencing this crisis of confidence:

1. in our heads, the original idea we come up with is always a wondrous insight-based revelation and therefore amazing to us, only for the written attempt at describing or capturing it to seem a mundane rendering
2. extending or sustaining one main idea over the length of an entire novel is really hard, and will make the idea sometimes feel stretched thin, contrived and just plain rubbish
3. The Fear is natural, and simply that intelligent, necessary moment of self-questioning that helps us interrogate our work in order to re-organise it and help drive it further forward.

It’s worth reading that third point again. Once a writer understands The Fear is a natural, necessary and important aspect of writing a novel, they can begin to appreciate and embrace it. They begin to realise that their writing is NOT simply rubbish. They begin to realise that they’re NOT just a rubbish writer who should give up. They are simply going through the process. Being able to see the experience from this (detached, objective) perspective is essential to surviving the experience.

Yet some writers cannot be so entirely detached when in the creative throes of writing a novel. In such situations, it is necessary for a writer to have someone who can serve as emotional support to them while they are writing. EVERY writer tends to need such support, no matter how psychologically robust they are.

Quick task

Find someone you think might be an emotional support to you in your writing. Tell them about a piece of writing you started but never finished. Embrace The Fear.

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.19 ‘what type of creative are you?’ #Lockdown #cov19 #creativewriting #TuesdayMotivation #TuesdayThoughts #TuesdayMorning

Complete the self-diagnostic quiz below in order to find out what sort of creative/thinker you are.

1. I get some of my best ideas for writing

a) when I’m ‘in the zone’

b) when I’m socialising or reading

c) when I’m in the shower or about to go to sleep

2. Reading

a) gives me ideas when I’m thinking critically

b) sometimes inspires me

c) is enjoyable, but I prefer to have my own ideas

3. Writer’s block

a) can be worked through, to the point I’m not sure it really exists

b) is not the end of the world

c) is a curse, and happens to everyone

4. Originality

a) does not exist

b) is a concern for me

c) is not a problem because I have my own style of prose

5. Writing a plan first

a) is usually helpful for me

b) sometimes helps and sometimes doesn’t

c) is a bit of a straight-jacket to my creativity

6. When it comes to the act of writing

a) I usually have a clear idea in my head beforehand

b) it’s often two steps forward and one step back

c) I just put pen to paper and see where it goes

7. Ideas come to me when

a) I need them

b) every now and then

c) when I’m truly inspired

8. To me, creativity

a) is a skill you can work on

b) is neither an art nor a science

c) is something that you either have or do not have

Now add up your answers to see if you have a majority in either a), b) or c). If you have an equally high number of two answers, review the questions again and see if you could change one answer. Now read up on your strengths and weaknesses below.

 

If you had a majority of a) answers

You are a DELIBERATE thinker. You work hard at your writing, planning, polishing and finessing as necessary. Strengths: you hardly ever struggle for ideas. You do not tend to suffer from writer’s block. You are happy to redraft your work, and nearly always meet your deadlines. You are very self-motivated and have good confidence. Weaknesses: you can be a bit of a perfectionist and are rarely entirely satisfied with your work. You put pressure on yourself and are hard on yourself. You risk taking all the enjoyment out of writing.

If you had a majority of b) answers

You are a TWO-SPEED thinker. You are able to sustain a consistent output, even though you sometimes find it hard work. Strengths: you tend to have a few big ideas that you work on. You might sometimes have writer’s block on a plot detail or two, but nothing too insurmountable. You are receptive to input and feedback, and are prepared to use it to improve your writing. You like to have the support of others. Weaknesses: as much as you enjoy writing, sometimes it is a bit of a chore, particularly when you’re not feeling inspired. You have ups and downs when writing, but usually have the personal wherewithal to see it through. You’re not always confident about the quality of what you have produced.

If you had a majority of c) answers

You are a CREATIVE thinker. Strengths: your writing is very individual and creative. Your mind is more often than not teeming with ideas. When you are inspired, you can produce quite significant output. You particularly enjoy feedback that recognises what you are trying to achieve. Weaknesses: you do experience ‘down’ periods, when you don’t feel very inspired. Your output drops off significantly during these times. Deadlines become a challenge. At other times, you have so many ideas that you find it hard to stick with just one and see it all the way through. Finally, there is the risk of being quite demoralised by feedback that doesn’t understand your work in the same way that you do.

How do you feel about the comments above?

It’s important to appreciate that none of the types of creative or thinker above is better suited to creative writing than another. Each type has its own strengths and weaknesses.

At the same time, it’s important for a writer to be aware of their particular strengths and weaknesses. If you don’t know your own strengths, then you won’t be sure that you’re playing to them. And if you don’t know your weaknesses… well! Another advantage of knowing your strengths and weaknesses: if you can find someone who is a different type to you, then they might well be able to help you in particular areas where you struggle.

At the end of the day, it is YOU who has to deliver successful writing. If you’re struggling to write that novel or successfully resolve that piece of writing you’ve been working on, then perhaps, just perhaps, it’s YOU that you need to work on before you can work successfully on the writing.

Quick task

Find someone who is a different type of thinker to yourself and see what advice they might give on your weakness(es).

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.18 ‘coming up with ideas!’ #selfisolation #lockdown #creativewriting #IAmWriting #MondayMotivation #MondayMood #MondayMorning

Match the following nine approaches (to ideas generation) to their full definitions below.

1. Reading a lot, to write a photonegative of what you’ve read
2. Brainstorming and bouncing ideas off others
3. Problem-solving strategies
4. Go on a writing retreat
5. Creative writing exercises
6. ‘Free’ writing
7. Fuzzy thinking
8. Experimenting with sensory inputs/stimulants
9. Simply not worrying about it

a) This is when your mind ‘relaxes’, for example when you are about to go to sleep. It’s at times like this that you solve that crossword clue you’ve been mulling all day. It’s at times like this when the synapse patterns in your brain change and things combine in unusual ways: you get new ‘ideas’. Make sure you keep an ideas diary by the bed, because when the morning comes your mind returns to its normal state and struggles to recapture those ideas you had before dropping off.

b) A classic example of this is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), when participants are challenged to write 2000 words a day for a month. The quality is NOT at all important. It’s the quantity that’s all important. Just let the words flow (even if you don’t think much of them), because you will come back to them at the end of the month to edit it all (probably down to a far smaller wordcount).

c) If you’re going to copy, copy from the best. If you are writing within a genre, you need to be familiar with the most famous titles in that genre, because more often than not those titles define the genre. If your own work doesn’t reference them in any way, your work might not even be recognisable as a part of that genre! In this sense, there is no such thing as 100% originality. At the same time, while you’re reading, think to yourself: ‘Hmm. I wouldn’t have written it like that. I’d have written it like this! Oo. That’s a good idea. I think I will write it just like that!’ So you’re not copying exactly, you’re writing something differently, almost the opposite of what you’ve read.

d) If you become stressed with the ‘need’ to come up with new ideas all the time, your mind might never relax properly to come up with anything new or insightful. Leave it to the muse. Let them worry about it instead.

e) Samuel Coleridge famously wrote Kubla Khan while under the influence of drugs. Just as famously, he failed to complete the poem, when his inspiration was interrupted by his personal secretary. This story about Coleridge may not be entirely ‘true’, but it contains insights about both the power and risks of using artificial stimulants.

f)Instead of trying to achieve some altered state of mind through the use of stimulants, you may simply find that changing location can help. Jeffrey Archer often to went some idyllic village in France to write his novels. Roald Dahl wrote in his shed, looking out on the peace of his garden. They say your mental space often maps onto your physical space, and viceversa.

g) Get all the ideas you have out onto a piece of paper and try and organise them in some sort of logical order… or plot. If you’re wrestling with the plot progression or characters, ask your mate in the pub.

h) Studying an aspect of written language, with examples, can give you insights about how to combine things in a new way yourself. Writing magazines or writing courses will often provide such opportunities. They will also suggest things to try yourself, and sometimes run a competition.

i) Private sector companies are always looking to develop new world-beating products. In order to do this, they treat the current state of the world or their markets as a ‘problem’ that needs ‘solving’. They use a range of ‘innovation and creativity’ methodologies to help them gather information, generate insights and then design products. One of the most famous approaches is the ‘story-telling methodology’, in which the customer experience is told as a sort of hero’s quest. The company might then brainstorm particular ‘interventions’ to change the quest’s outcome from negative to positive.

 

Answers: 1c, 2g, 3i, 4, 5h, 6b, 7a, 8e, 9d.

Which of the approaches do you already use? Do they work? There is no ‘correct’ way to come up with ideas. There’s only finding which way(s) work(s) best for you.

However, if you tend to struggle with coming up with ideas – if you sometimes get writer’s block – then you’re clearly going about things the ‘wrong’ way. In such a case, it’s time to try something new. Which of the approaches do you think you might like to try in the future?

Yet some of the approaches might seem just plain daft to you. You don’t have to try all the approaches in order to come up with great ideas. Often, the most suitable approach for you is based on the ‘type’ of thinker that you are. If you’re not sure what type you are, check out tomorrow’s lesson.

Quick task

If you want to develop as a writer, you need to develop yourself. That means you need to develop your thinking also. If you feel that you’re in a rut, getting nowhere or you’ve stalled, you need to force yourself to try something new. Show the nine approaches to someone else, see which ones they tend to use, and then see if they can help you with those approaches! At least have a chat about the topic. You might be amazed by what you find out. But it’s up to you. I can’t force you. (Wait for tomorrow’s lesson if necessary.)

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.17 ‘writing science fiction, part 2’… THE COVID19 SPECIAL EDITION! #Lockdown #coronavirus #creativewriting #FridayMotivation #FridayThoughts #FridayMorning #sciencefiction

Decide if each of the statements below is true (T) or false (F).

1. Good sci-fi is ‘grounded’.
2. A sci-fi novel must include future technology (AI, robots, spaceships, etc) or alien life.
3. With sci-fi book sales at an all-time low, the genre is probably less relevant nowadays.
4. With its laser guns and robots, sci-fi is all a bit silly.
5. As Brian Aldiss said, we don’t really need to read about sci-fi anymore because we live in a world where new technology comes out every week and we don’t really understand how any of it works.
6. With its sense of the alien ‘other’, sci-fi is just as important as any other genre.
7. Dystopian fiction (e.g. The Hunger Games) satirises today’s society.
8. Sci-fi doesn’t need strong characterisation or a particularly logical plot.
9. ‘Realist sci-fi’ like The Martian (the Matt Damon movie) isn’t as progressive as other types of sci-fi.

 

 

Answers: 1T, 2T, 3F, 4F, 5T, 6T, 7T, 8F, 9F

The statements and answers above give us some particular insights about sci-fi. Firstly, although it’s less popular in terms of its literature than it once was, it’s as popular as ever in terms of TV and film. Therefore, if you’re going to write sci-fi, you probably want to be quite filmic in your style and composition.

Sci-fi is not just silly and made up. It captures the very real experience of today’s world (as Mr Aldiss pointed out), including its totalitarian regimes (The Hunger Games/Putin’s Russia), alien invasion (District 9/waves of immigrants) and its genetic plague scenarios (World War Z/Covid-19). It satirises society, it explores situations, it provides warnings (if we would but listen), and it implicitly suggests possible solutions.

Central to sci-fi, however, is the issue of technology. Fundamentally, all sci-fi is about using a new technology (or technological function) to change our lives or the wider world. That ‘vision’ of the future is invaluable to us. Why? How so? Isn’t it just made-up silliness? No, it’s not.

Think about Star Trek, the original series. Are phasers, communicators and nano-technology completely silly and made-up nowadays? Why do you think China banned all sci-fi for 100 years, but now hosts a global sci-fi conference every year? Think.

[If you would like to learn more about all of the above, I would recommend my new title: The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Hey! It’s up to you.]

Quick task

• Imagine you have arrived on a planet where the aliens (the majority) do not welcome humans (the minority). They think humans bring germs. All humans are put into a holding camp. Write the beginning of a story from the perspective of a human in one of the camps…
• Remember ‘the rule of 5’ for description of the setting… and ‘the rule of 5’ for describing a character… and the 6-step plot that requires a moral dilemma at the start (previous lessons)…
• Discuss or plan things for 5mins…
• And then write the opening paragraph or two… GO!

If you’d like me to look at your attempt, please do feel free to email me (Adam): adz_d2003 @ yahoo.co.uk – deleting the two spaces either side of the @ sign.

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.16 ‘writing science fiction, part 1’ #Lockdown #coronavirus #creativewriting #ThursdayMotivation #ThursdayThoughts #ThursdayMorning #sciencefiction

Look at the following science fiction movies and TV series, and try and identify from which original book (‘Ur-narrative’) they all borrow their basic plot-line or scenario!

1. WestWorld
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. The Blade Runner
4. Avengers: Age of Ultron
5. Metropolis
6. Ex Machina

 

 

Answer: Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley, 1816!

Amazing, right? But why do science fiction writers almost have to come back to this fundamental plot again and again? Well, Frankenstein represented not only a massive shift in how the plot-lines of literature were driven and organised; it also described the massive shift in society and thinking that was enabled by technology.

How so? Well, prior to Frankenstein, most western literature operated with God’s will as the organising function of the plot’s progression, and ‘natural justice’ (or God’s judgement upon the relative ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ of the protagonist and antagonist) served as the plot’s resolution (and lesson). In Frankenstein, however, the character of the human scientist replaces God as the organising function of the plot, by using technology to bring (im)mortality, existence and Creation itself entirely within his own control! Famously, even when the scientist abandons his monstrous creation, the end of the narrative is left ambiguous, both in terms of its moral judgement and resolution.

And the social context that both informed and was reflected in the novel Frankenstein? The UK was experiencing the Industrial Revolution, when technology was changing our day-to-day lives, the nature of work, our relationship to the natural world/God’s Creation (we could now use the Earth on a massive scale to suit our own ends, rather than simply being at its mercy), and the very organisation of society itself (the working classes began to realise new social freedoms and a middle class began to emerge).

Frankenstein is the original narrative that encapsulates humankind’s desire to transcend our own corporeal limitations (of our physical bodies and/or our place on Earth), to become something more or to discover something more. In some ways, then, it is the only science fiction story that has ever been told. [If you would like to learn more about the above, I would recommend my new title: The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Hey! It’s up to you.]

Quick task

Write a short plot outline (or write a short piece of flash fiction) that represents a modern version of the Frankenstein story. You might like to start with one of these scenarios…

• An army doctor despairs of the war. He looks at all the dead bodies around him in the medical tent. He mourns for the loss… Most of the bodies are so mutilated that the deceased will never even be identified…
• A woman has been so unlucky and abused by love, that she decides she will have to build herself the ‘perfect’ man, one who will obey her desires. Now to collect the parts!
• A lonely child decides to create a friend for themselves out of snow…
• An old person does not want to die. They have read Sergio Canavero’s medical paper that ‘head transplants’ should be possible, but the Italian government has banned the practice (true story, by the way!). The old person is becoming more desperate and ill with every day that passes. They need a young body as soon as possible…

If you’d like me to look at your attempt, please do feel free to email me (Adam): adz_d2003 @ yahoo.co.uk – deleting the two spaces either side of the @ sign.

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.15 ‘fantasy v. realism’ #Lockdown #coronavirus #creativewriting #WednesdayMotivation #WednesdayThoughts #WednesdayMorning

Decide if each of the short passages below represent fantasy (F) or realism (R).

1. Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country; but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and another of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him.
2. The name he bore as a child, Duny, was given him by his mother, and that and his life were all she could give him, for she died before he was a year old. His father, the bronze-smith of the village, was a grim unspeaking man, and since Duny’s six brothers were older than he by many years and went one by one from home to farm the land or sail the sea or work as smith in other towns of the Northward Vale, there was no one to bring the child up in tenderness. He grew wild, a thriving weed, a tall, quick boy, loud and proud and full of temper.
3. ‘I have come to vanquish thee!’ bruited the knight, his horse rearing. The sun shone prettily off the killer’s plate armour. / She retreated further into her cave and called out: ‘Do you really have to? I’m not that bad once you get to know me, honestly.’
4. Dust. As strong as the seals on his father’s chambers were, the dust of the realm still found its way inside to cover everything. It was in the air, unseen but there, like so many things. It coated the inside of his throat and made his eyes run constantly. It was a permanent taste in the back of his mouth and he could feel it causing damage down in his lungs. When he moved, it caused irritation between his robes and his body, and sores at his joints. There was no escaping the dust, for it was pretty much all that was left of his realm.
5. I’m not even sure I belong at this party. That’s not on some bougie shit, either. There are just some places where it’s not enough to be me. Neither version of me. Big D’s spring break party is one of those places. I squeeze through sweaty bodies and follow Kenya, her curls bouncing past her shoulders. A haze lingers over the room, smelling like weed, and music rattles the floor. Some rapper calls out for everybody to Nae-Nae, followed by a bunch of “Heys” as people launch into their own versions. Kenya holds up her cup and dances her way through the crowd. Between the headache from the loud-ass music and the nausea from the weed odor, I’ll be amazed if I cross the room without spilling my drink.
6. Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.

 

 

Answers: 1R, 2F, 3F, 4F, 5R, 6 (trick question – magical realism, which is both F and R).

Most readers are able to identify the passages correctly as either fantasy or realism. What that tells us is that there is a particular style, quality, theme and set of motifs typical for each of fantasy and realism.

Furthermore, it tells us that realism is a genre of literature just as much as fantasy is. Realist literature, therefore, is not so simply understood as being ‘about the real world’. Instead, we might understand that realist literature is just as artistically created, deliberately contrived and dramatically constructed as any other genre of literature.

Curious, right? Why label it ‘real’ then? Ah, well, the reasons for that are concerned with social history, philosophic arguments, and artistic movements. Suffice it to say that any aspiring writer needs to have a grip on the features that typify realism and fantasy, which brings us to the ingenious checklist below…

Quick task

For each pair of statements, decide which one tends (as a ‘rule of thumb’) to represent or be used by realism (R) and which one by fantasy (F)…

DESCRIPTION AND NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE

1. Stative, matter-of-fact or journalistic description/language
2. Figurative, metaphorical or symbolic description/language

LANGUAGE

1. Mainly emotional, Anglo-Saxon and sometimes antiquated vocabulary
2. A regular mix of Latinate and Anglo-Saxon language

DESCRIPTION FOR GROUNDING THE NARRATIVE

1. Familiar, domestic, boring detail
2. Rich, exotic, world-building detail

SPEECH

1. Dialogue in vernacular, colloquial, ‘street’ language
2. Declarative, rhetorical speech

CHARACTERS WITH PLOT

1. Heroic and archetypal characters who triumph against the odds
2. A disempowered individual who fails despite their best efforts

PLOT

1. Incidental and haphazard plot, a bit like life
2. A plot that has a clear shape and is a journey of spiritual growth

If you’d like me to check your answers, please do feel free to email me (Adam): adz_d2003 @ yahoo.co.uk – deleting the two spaces either side of the @ sign.

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

 

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.14 ‘writing romance♥’ #Lockdown #coronavirus #creativewriting #TuesdayMotivation #TuesdayThoughts

Put the 6 steps (‘beats’) of this generic romantic plot into the correct order!

1. They meet by a strange coincidence again, and there is a repeat of the initial connection, but the original problem repeats and there is an absolutely terrible argument or crisis moment where all seems lost. They separate, apparently forever! (Don’t cry!)
2. Two people suffering loneliness (or unhappy relationships) meet by chance… and there’s some wonderful spark or special moment! It’s a slightly giddy moment too, with touching humour. (Ahhh! Cute. Don’t throw up! It might happen to you.)
3. The universe rewards the protagonist’s self-sacrifice with a miracle! The love-interest is moved beyond words by the self-sacrifice of the other. ‘Of course I love you. I’ve always loved you, I now see!’ And the love-interest in turn saves the protagonist. (Or not!)
4. Realising what they need to do, the protagonist rushes back to the love-interest and sacrifices themselves to ‘save’ the love-interest, even though it means that they might never be together in the end! (Such a selfless and pure love! I need a tissue!)
5. Wallowing in their misery and separation, a random event or conversation with a friend allows the protagonist to realise the true nature of the problem, their selfishness or previous blindness. It’s a moment of self-realisation. And they know the solution now! (Yay!) But what if it’s too late? (Yikes!)
6. Yet events, circumstances and/or self-doubt pull them apart… so that after that initial moment they now suffer even more! They are upset, angry or haunted by ‘What if?’ The protagonist might decide to give up on ever finding someone (Sad!)

 

 

Answer: 1b, 2f, 3a, 4e, 5d, 6c

In previous lessons, we looked at the plot-shape for fantasy and science fiction (mini-lesson no.7) and horror and suspense (mini-lesson no.12). As you can see from the above, romance (and erotic fiction) has its own traditional shape.

The classic shape for romance is used by blockbuster Hollywood movies like When Harry Met Sally and The Adjustment Bureau, both of which have happy endings. At the same time, romance can sometimes have an unhappy ending (note the ‘Or not! warning in step 6), when one or both of lovers tragically dies, as in Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and Cressida.

Curiously, erotic fiction uses the same plot-shape as romance! You might consider Fifty Shades of Grey as an example. The difference between erotic fiction and romance? Well, the former involves sexual encounters, while romance involves playful banter and excessive eye-contact (flirtation, the style of which varies from culture to culture) over a cup of coffee instead. That’s human beings for you.

Quick task

Use the general plot-shape above to write your own specific plot summary for a piece of romantic or erotic fiction.

If you’d like me to look at how successful your attempt is, please do feel free to email me (Adam): adz_d2003 @ yahoo.co.uk – deleting the two spaces either side of the @ sign.

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.13 ‘More pain please’, or the principles of conflict #Lockdown #coronavirus #creativewriting #MondayMotivation #MondayThoughts #MondayMorning

Today’s lesson was produced by scriptwriter (and former Lecturer in Scriptwriting) Matthew White. He can be found on IMDb or twitter, and his latest movie is Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunchbreak, starring Katherine Parkinson, Tom Meetan, Jonny Vegas and Kriss Marshall.

Check out this passage from a script, and see if you recognise which film it’s from:

John wakes up – his clothes are neatly arranged on the end of the bed. He gets dressed, enjoys a steaming mug of coffee with his muesli. He kisses MICHAEL goodbye, climbs into his car and drives to work.

 

 

Trick question: it’s not from a film, because it’s terrible. It’s poorly written, it has no rhythm or movement or life.

And, most importantly, there’s no conflict.

Conflict is your story engine: you can’t tell a story without drama, and you can’t have drama without conflict. Here’s my very simplified description of how drama works:

A character or group of characters wants and/or needs something (goal). A character or thing (antagonist) gets in their way. There’s a struggle (conflict), rising to a crescendo (climax) and an emotionally powerful resolution (catharsis).

Simple!

 

As a bonus, here are some handy tips on how to make conflict your friend:

1) Keep conflict central to your planning

A powerful way to express your theme is to do so through conflict. For example: I once had an advisory session with Barbara Crampton, one of the Gods of Horror. And she told how to deal with theme in horror: when someone lives according to your message, they live. When they don’t, they die.

2) Forget good guy/bad guy

The world has moved on from this binary conflict. Think about the most successful “bad guys” of the last 30 years in film, TV, theatre and literature. They may be monstrous, they may do some horrible things, but in their own mind they are convinced that they are the good guy. Kurt Vonneghut never wrote a villain in his life – and he didn’t do too badly. Consider a book and movie like The Martian. Where’s the bad guy? There’s fundamental conflict between the characters, but it’s caused by brilliant people struggling to solve an almost impossible problem.

3) Conflict can – and should – take many forms

As Robert McKee famously said, conflict can be as simple as two people needing to get past each other to reach the other side of the room. He also encourages writers to build conflict upon conflict, and try, at the very least, to cover the following:

• Internal conflict: the battle between opposing aspects of the protagonist’s own psyche. It’s often the most fundamental battle of the story, and what your third act is really about. Or to put in another way:
  • Chief Brody has to overcome his fear of the water before he can kill the shark.
  • Carol Danvers has to overcome her disdain for the Skrulls and unleash her true self if she wants to save the day.
  • Arthur Fleck has to channel his rage before he can fight back against a world that keeps stamping on him.
• Personal conflict: the battle between the protagonist and their lovers, friends, family. In a heist or quest movie, your team is a great source of conflict. If a hero needs to save her loved ones, make sure that the loved ones don’t WANT saving. And don’t even think about writing romance or drama without having a wealth of conflict stored up here.
• Everything else! The shark. The rules of society in Victorian England. The ticking clock – and the bomb sitting underneath it. This is the stuff that hooks your audience in, gives them excitement, makes them hold their breath and propels them into that third act where our protagnist has to resolve all the other problems!

[Different genres of story will focus more on different areas of conflict, but if you can deliver on all three, you’re going to give us powerful stories and reduce the risk of repetition.]

4) There’s always room for one more

In other words – don’t be nice to your characters. Think about the last time a story left you breathless. Was it because the hero was having an easy time? Or did things just keep getting worse?

As the old saying goes: get your character up a tree, throw some rocks at them, show them getting down from the tree. To which I would add: whilst you are throwing rocks at them, put some barbed wire around the tree. Tell them that their wife hates them. Steal their dog. And set fire to the tree.

Quick tasks

Look at the passage at the top of the page and try to imagine five places where you could introduce some conflict.

OR

Use my ‘how drama works’ formula below in order to write a logline or short summary of your own movie idea.

A character or group of characters wants and/or needs something (goal). A character or thing (antagonist) gets in their way. There’s a struggle (conflict), rising to a crescendo (climax) and an emotionally powerful resolution (catharsis).

If you’d like me to look at how successful your attempt is, please do feel free to email me (Adam, in lieu of Matthew): adz_d2003 @ yahoo.co.uk – deleting the two spaces either side of the @ sign.

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.

 

Creative writing mini-lesson: no.12 ‘writing HORROR and suspense’ #SaturdayMotivation #SaturdayThoughts #Lockdown #coronavirus #creativewriting

Look at the famous passage below and identify the x3 ambiguous signs, the protagonist’s x3 failed attempts to rationalise, and then ‘the monstrous reveal’!

He must have slept soundly for an hour or more, when a sudden clatter shook him up in a most unwelcome manner. In a moment he realized what had happened: his carefully-constructed screen had given way, and a very bright frosty moon was shining directly on his face. This was highly annoying. Could he possibly get up and reconstruct the screen? Or could he manage to sleep if he did not?

For some minutes he lay and pondered over the possibilities: then he turned over sharply, and with all his eyes open lay breathlessly listening. There had been a movement, he was sure, in the empty bed on the opposite side of the room. Tomorrow he would have it moved, for there must be rats or something playing about in it. It was quiet now. No! the commotion began again. There was a rustling and shaking: surely more than any rat could cause.

I can figure to myself something of the Professor’s bewilderment and horror, for I have in a dream thirty years back seen the same thing happen; but the reader will hardly, perhaps, imagine how dreadful it was to him to see a figure suddenly sit up in what he had known was an empty bed.

[from ‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, M.R. James]

 

 

Answer: the ambiguous signs are the strange fall of the ‘screen’, the ‘movement’ and ‘the commotion’; the failed attempts to rationalise are the moonlight causing the screen to fall(?!), the ‘rats’ and then the gibberish related to the ‘dream’;… all leading to the ghostly figure suddenly sitting up in what had previously been an empty bed! Argh!

And there you have the classic shape of suspense as a narrative device or even a plot-shape. You’ll notice, therefore, that the suspense and horror genres use a very different plot-shape compared to the fantasy and science fiction genres (‘The Hero’s Journey’, described in mini-lesson no.7).

M.R. James was one of the UK’s most famous ghost-writers. Indeed, his short stories are still regularly dramatized by the BBC every Christmas. James knew his craft.

You will notice in the passage above how the prose shifts between Anglo-Saxon (phrases made up of shorter words) when the protagonist is caught up in moments of emotion (fear) and Latin (longer words) when the protagonist is rationally/objectively trying to get to grips with what is going on. It’s extremely effective writing, employing enactment (mini-lesson no.5)!

Finally, you will notice that the third paragraph of the passage above is just one overlong sentence. It’s confusing, and hard to follow both in terms of grammar and meaning. It struggles for coherence. It is all but an incoherent gabble or ‘stream of consciousness’. Indeed, it represents the psychological fragmentation and loss of rationality of the protagonist, and so we have another example of enactment. Oh, yes, James certainly knew his craft.

Quick task

Write a short scene that involves one of the following:

• Someone hiding in a wooden shack from an ‘unnatural’ storm
• A stuffed animal that is out of place/moving
• A pub where there is a ‘strange’ atmosphere
• An attic that might or might not be haunted

If you’d like me to look at how successful your attempt is, please do feel free to email me (Adam): adz_d2003 @ yahoo.co.uk – deleting the two spaces either side of the @ sign.

I’ll be posting a new lesson every day (Monday-Friday), to help people who are stuck at home because of the coronavirus situation. These mini-lessons will give you a useful daily routine, and might just keep you sane! Stay safe.

If you enjoyed this mini-lesson, do SHARE it with others.