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Posts from the ‘Craft’ Category

Jun 13

How to create memorable dialogue that becomes part of popular culture

A hallmark of a well-written script is a memorable line that could become part of popular culture.

Here are several examples:

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Gone with the Wind.

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” The Godfather

“You had me at hello.” Jerry Maguire

“I’ll be back.” Terminator

So how can you create memorable lines in your scripts?

Hal Croasmun, president of ScreenwriterU, explained this and other tips in “21 Steps to a Professional Rewrite,” a screenwriting teleconference on June 8. For more information about ScreenwriterU classes, visit the website.

First, go to the five most emotional moments in your script where most memorable dialogue happens. Read more

Jun 10

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Energize your writing life with these three tips from other writers

Sometimes the trick to having a great writing day is just getting started. Here are three tips from other writers that inspired me and may help you too.

Write scenes out of order. Sometimes I know the end of a story before I know the beginning. So I go ahead and write the last scene. Or sometimes I have a key scene in mind that is asking to be written. I write it, and it gives me momentum to find the rest of my story.

This drives one of my writing friends crazy because she absolutely must write her novels starting from the beginning. I say, do what works. You’ll find advantages and disadvantages to every approach. But if you’re stuck about how to approach your next piece of writing, think about writing scenes in the order they come to you. Read about how Roz Morris started doing this in her post, Writing your scenes out of order on her Nail Your Novel blog. Read more

Jun 2

Act out to create vivid scenes

When my cousin Gayle and I were kids, our idea of a good time was making up stories and acting them out. Sometimes we were spies and we had to slink around her house. We’d crawl under the coffee table and around the couch pretending that none of the adults who were sitting there could see us. I think we actually believed it at the time. Maybe it was true. Or just the adults ignoring us.

Since then, as a writer, I’ve often thought about the idea of acting out a scene to make it more real and vivid when I put the words down on the page. It worked to draw a scene out, so why not act it out? (See my post, How drawing can help you become a better writer).

I’d never heard anyone else suggest acting out a scene until now. I was reading an article in “Native Peoples” magazine last week about the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) MFA program in which Sherman Alexie is a faculty member. Alexie is author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, and numerous other stories, novels, and poem.

In the article, the writer relates how Alexie instructs the class about the value of acting out scenes and advises a student to stand behind a door while another student tries to drag him out. Alexie says that simulating the events and trauma a character experiences allows descriptions to become much more accurate and vivid. I could also imagine that acting out a scene could help a writer map out logistics and order in which actions take place.

Do you ever have a scene that feels stiff or flat on the page? Try stepping away from your computer and into the world of your characters. Speak the dialogue, imagine the action, and see what happens next.

For another take on how to write vivid scenes, read Carol’s post, Use images in a scene to ground your readers.

May 29

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Waste a notebook with your random ideas

One day when I was in the fourth grade, I got in trouble for not paying attention in class. I was scribbling away on my tablet, writing notes that had nothing to do with what my teacher was talking about. She said I was daydreaming. She said I had to go sit in the hallway. I narrowly avoided a visit to the principal’s office.

Writing in a notebook has been part of me for as long as I can remember. In my notebooks, I write interesting words or phrases, the title of a good book recommendation, the date of the next book club meeting, words of a song that sound like poetry.

At some point, I type the notes from my notebooks into my computer so they’re easy to search. I know that in this electronic age, many people type everything on their digital devices, but I don’t enjoy typing with one finger. Mostly I just enjoy the act of writing with pen in hand. And it gives me a good excuse to buy more notebooks.

Little did I know, with all my scribblings, I was creating a “waste book” in the tradition of 18th century German scientist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who had a habit of collecting aphoristic notes, ideas, and lists. According to a Scientific American review on Amazon.com, in his student days, Lichtenberg began the lifelong practice of recording his observations and reminders in notebooks that he called “Sudelbücher” after the waste books that English businesses used to enter transactions temporarily until they could be recorded in formal account books.

This is one of my favorite of Lichtenberg’s aphorisms: “The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalog of banned books.” Lichtenberg’s writings have been translated in The Waste Books.

My waste books might seem a morass of random scribblings to some people, but when I look back at them, I find a gem here and there — an idea that may find it’s way into a story, the root of an essay, or a character waiting to be born.

For another take on keeping a notebook, read my previous post, A twist on the writer’s journal: The commonplace book.

 

May 27

4 Comments

Stay in your writing groove with this tip

One of my biggest challenges is staying in the flow of my writing. I find it especially hard to stay in the groove if something interrupts my regular writing practice. Long gaps between writing sessions make it hard to maintain creative momentum.

I’ve been inspired by my friend Mandy who takes pages of her manuscript, or sometimes the whole thing, with her wherever she goes. She says having the pages with her helps her stay connected to her project. She can also take advantage of down time while waiting in a doctor’s office or commuting to her day job.

Mandy uses her breaks at work to read pages, make edits, or just think about where she’ll take her story next. The pages are a constant reminder of how important writing is to her.

Mandy says it’s hard to find quiet time when she gets home at night and is caught up with the demands of her family: fixing dinner, helping children with baths and homework, and getting ready for the next day. So those moments on a break or during a commute are golden for grabbing quality writing and revising time. And on those days when she’s too tired to write, reading the pages maintains her connection to the words.

If you want to create a strong link to your project in process, consider carrying a few chapters with you. Just having your pages close by may be enough to help you stay in your writing groove.

For more writing practice tips, read these posts:

Talent vs hard work: 5 tips for a deliberate writing practice

Don’t beat your head against the wall: Try these tips to develop a daily writing practice

May 20

1 Comment

How to delete B.S. (backstory) from your novel

Artists can be creative, quirky, eccentric, motivated, focused, visionary, delusional, imaginative, paranoid….Ah, the highs and lows of living a creative life. The other day, I caught myself practicing a little delusion.

I’ve been taking an online class this month “Creating Compelling Characters,” taught by author and writing mentor Rhay Christou through the Margie Lawson Writer’s Academy. One section is on managing backstory in your novel. Backstory (aka B.S.) is mostly the stuff that never makes it into your novel but that you have to know in order to understand and flesh out your characters.

If you include any backstory at all, one of the best ways to do so is to drip it in only when needed in small bits—a line or two at most. I know this. I thought I was practicing this. But one of our assignments was to read through our chapters and tag any sections of backstory so we could then analyze how we inserted them into the story.

I discovered I had a three-paragraph section of backstory in chapter one! And, after I tagged this B.S., I began making excuses for having it there—it’s necessary information that the reader needs to know, it’s shorter than it looks, etc.—yes, I was deluding myself.

Fortunately, Rhay called me on my B.S. So now, once I finish my first draft, I’ll go back to this area and employ the “shard and slip” exercise described in Margie Lawson’s post, Write Fab Back Story: Not BS!

Read Margie’s post to learn about some of the best ways to include backstory and eliminate any B.S. that will bog your story down. Then, stay tuned for my next post on backstory.

 

 

May 8

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How to make your characters come alive

In his video “Make Your Characters Come Alive,” author James Scott Bell discusses the wisdom of mixing “plot” and “character.”

He says:

Plot without character bonding = action without engagement

Character without plot = overstaying a welcome

Bells also advises that plot needs to be about death. Physical death, professional death or psychological death. This applies even to comedy. Death is what raises the stakes. It can be death of a career, a job, a reputation, or the death of a way of being.

True character, he says, is revealed only in crisis—where death is on the line.

For more on Bell’s thoughts about creating characters that come alive watch his 8-minute video here:

For more tips on plot, read my earlier post, “Plotting a story is like solving a puzzle.”

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