Molly O'Keefe's Blog, page 54

Internal Conflict at the Movies

I used to love romantic comedies at the movies. In fact one question Molly asked me not long after we met and I confessed I didn't love reading romance was, "Why the contradiction? Why do you love romantic comedies at the movies, but not in books?" I didn't really have an answer at the time, and all I could come up with is a book is a bigger time commitment than a movie.



But I actually think that discovering and reading romance ruined my enjoyment of rom com movies. After reading some great romance novels and learning how to analyze them, I expect too much. I can spot the silly coincidences and weak internal conflicts and contrived external conflicts. Not to mention the "big misunderstandings".



Last week I mentioned that the only thing I've heard come out of Michael Hauge's mouth during presentations that I didn't agree with, or didn't want to agree with, is that he claims that all romantic comedies (American ones, anyway) NEED a big misunderstanding. He believes that's the main plot point they all hang on.



And maybe that started to ruin rom coms for me, too... because he was kind of right. Not in that they NEEDED to have them, IMO. Just that almost all of them did rely on one.



No internal conflict, just a big lie or misunderstanding keeping the couple apart.



But my faith in my love of romance at the movies was re-awoken this week by two movies. Friends with Benefits and Crazy, Stupid Love.



Friends with Benefits wasn't the best movie I've ever seen or anything, but I did believe the internal conflict and actually thought it was a strong internal conflict. And there isn't a "big misunderstanding". Sure, we hit a point where if the couple actually had a honest conversation, all would be right, but the reasons for each of them not wanting to have the conversation were completely believable given their internal conflicts. Each was believably terrified of admitting what they really felt and opening themselves up to hurt. And the one who caves and grovels is the one who should and it's really kind of perfect. (If contrived... but still so cute.)



Justin Timberlake is turning into a half decent actor and Mila Kunis is WAY better than I ever thought she'd be based on the one season of That Seventies Show that I watched. So, ya, I definitely give that movie a "worth a rental for sure" rating.



Then tonight I saw Crazy, Stupid Love. And it's a better film. Really well written. If you've seen the trailer, you've seen most of the funny parts and normally that makes me crazy, but it really isn't a comedy, or doesn't rely on being a comedy, so it doesn't matter that they blew some of the jokes with the advertising. Sure, there are tons of smiles in the movie, but really it's more of a heart warming film.



It has two romances. Actually three, I guess... One between a married couple who are divorcing and one between a womanizer and a smart, witty girl who doesn't buy his line. The third, well, I think it's spoilerish, so I won't say. The second romance (between Gosling and Stone) sounds like it's cliche but it really doesn't come off that way.



I think there are a few reasons for this. First, it's a subplot -- it's not carrying the movie. Second, the acting is stellar -- Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Third, the writing is stellar -- Dan Fogelman. Fourth, and I think this is the main reason, and it's highly dependent on both #2 and #3, and that is -- we actually see the couple falling in love. That is, we're shown a scene in which we believe this couple is falling in love. And it's not just a montage of running on the beach. In fact, not at all. It's a planned one night stand where nothing goes the way you (or either character) assumes it will go and ends up so perfectly coming full circle that I don't want to say how and ruin it.



The movie also has a major plot twist that for a change, I did not see coming -- at all.



I give Crazy, Stupid Love a "worth going out and seeing in theatres" rating. :) Oh, and another nice little surprise in this movie was one of the main secondary characters was a former contestant from America's Next Top Model, Analeigh Tipton. I just looked her up and it says she placed third in "cycle 11). And... drumroll... she was good in this. I totally believed her. And she has an important pivotal part.



It was so nice to see movies with smart romances that were also entertaining.

What's Up with all the Serial Killers?

The other night at a dinner party, one of my friends asked why it is we're all so fascinated with serial killers. After all, they're evil. They're twisted. They're not anyone we would or should admire. We clearly are fascinated, however.. If there were as many serial killers out there as there are in books, on TV and in the movies, I don't there would be many of us left.



I really didn't have a ready answer as to why we're so fascinated. There are a lot of theories about our fascination with serial killers. A lot of people refer to them as the rock stars of the homicide world and I suppose they do get a lot of news and media coverage, but I don't think that's it. I think they're the rock stars because they fascinate us, not the other way around.



I read a few articles that posited a case that we are jealous of serial killers, of the boldness of their actions, of their willingness to do what we only think about doing. This worried a whole more about the people writing those articles than it did even about serial killers. Jealous? I don't think so. Revolted by? More likely.



I think what fascinates me about serial killers is how easily they seem to live among us. The idea that such incredible evil might be lurking underneath the too polite exterior of the guy in the house down the street is both terrifying and mesmerizing. We all know the cliché. He was so quiet. He kept to himself. I have neighbors like that. Are there bodies in their basements?



As an author, I always want to understand people's hidden lives. I don't think there's too much more hidden than the inner life of a serial killer. What is it about serial killers that fascinates you?

Visualization and Terminology

I am in the process of taking an epic break from writing. Between the madness of summer and packing for a two month trip to New Zealand and Fiji, I've only had one day to write in the last two months. But man-oh-man what a day. A break through day. Not in word count but I finally got past this block I've had about my book.



When things are going well in a book scenes stack up in my head like building blocks. That's how I see it. Building blocks with these little threads hanging off and I tie the threads to different building blocks in my book. Those would be subplots and tangents and character quirks.



When things aren't going well it's like walking through a cave. Light is coming in behind me so I can see around myself, but up ahead - a big nothing. A big dark nothing. And I keep walking and walking hoping I'll find a light switch somewhere.



So, after writing roughly half a book in the dark, waiting for something to tie everything together, I finally got to a place where my scenes started stacking up and I got the threads out and started to make it work.



I was feeling really good about this and was telling my husband about it. I rarely get the "WTF" looks from him about writing. We've been together a long time and that whole time I've been a writer, so he knows the drill. But man explaining the building blocks and the threads I got the look.



So, how do you visualize your work? What's your insane terminology? Come on...make me feel less crazy!

Stuff

There is a character in Clueless, a really great movie and her response at one point is "stuff", but the way she drawls it, and the expression on her face as she says it has always stuck in my head and when I'm at a loss for something to say, my response is always "stuff".

how the hell do you follow up a post in identity and trilogy arcs that namechecks not one, but two amazing craft books with anything but "stuff"?

So here are my inane, random thoughts for the week.

first off, has anyone out there read the Karen Marie Moning fae series? Seriously, I'm glad I'm reading it now, because if I'd had to wait a year between books, I might have been genuinely annoyed. Love the books, hate the cliffhanger endings to each of them. (Molly, am on the last one, Thrones is next)

Am stupidly excited that Bachelor Pad is starting on Monday. Sad, I know. As a show it pretty much sums up the worst of humanity and I'm still going to watch, because while I gave up on the Bachelor stuff a long time ago, this show has no qualms about what it is, it knows, it's not afraid to investigate the worst of what fame whores will do to stay on Tv and because of that I'm in.

And then I'll cleanse my palate with a little So you think you can dance, because it's on the opposite end of the scale and I'm afraid that when it's over all I'll be left with is Bachelor pad to watch on TV.

Sad, I know. I should probably get out of the house more often. Anyone else stuck in a summer TV rut... especially now that True Blood is letting us down. Maybe this is just a sign that I should be watching less TV and exercising more...

Identity, Essence and Trilogy Story Arcs

So, my latest project is a trilogy and I'm just getting going on Book 2. Writing a trilogy is moderately terrifying to me, because I've read some great ones and others that I've given up on after book one or soon into Book 2. The trick is to keep escalating the stakes/tension while still having them as high as they possibly can be in each book (not holding back). So, I'm a little nervous heading into Book 2.

I already have a fairly detailed synopsis for Book 2 and a sketchy one for Book 3 (which both went out on submission with the manuscript for Book 1 -- and I hope to announce exciting news about that soon -- probably in September) but before I got too far into the second book, I wanted to stop and do a little brainstorming.

If you read this blog often you might know that I can hate brainstorming my own stories with other people. But this "hate" is really only true if I'm not ready for input yet. I like to have the basic world/plot/characters, and the overall kind of story I want to tell, firm in my mind before I let other people into my brain. Probably because the two people I brainstorm with most often are AWESOME at story ideas and I end up feeling as if their ideas are better than mine, or things head off in the direction of the books they'd write given the same idea, not the book I'd write... And then I start emitting "back off" vibes and they shut down... and little brainstorming happens... (And we drink instead, which is good, too...)

Anyway... Monday night we did a little brainstorming for my Book 2 and 3 and it was pretty awesome. I already had a 10 + page synopsis for one and a 5+ page one for the other... so really it wasn't about coming up with stories, it was about making them better. Adding some surprises. Taking out the weak/obvious choices and plot points, most of which were the first things that came to mind when I wrote the synopses (very quickly) (under pressure) before we sent the manuscript to I'm not allowed to say who...

Anyway, one of the coolest moments for me (because I'm a total craft nerd, okay: nerd nerd) was when I realized one of the ideas we came up with, or an epiphany I had during our discussion, fit so well with Michael Hauge's Identity to Essence character arc method.

Now, he teaches it in the context of a single story (screenplay or novel) but what I realized was that it was (hopefully) going to fit for me across the three book story arc with one particular bit of her character growth.

If you've never heard Michael Hauge speak, or read one of his books, or bought one of his DVD's => DO! Now!!   Here's a handy link. Writing Screenplays That Sell


But in a nutshell, the identity to essence concept is that over the course of a story, a character moves from who they think they are/how they see themselves (their identity), to their true selves (their essence). And the truly changed character emerges when the identity and essence meld. (At least I think that's what he says... This isn't sounding right to me now. If I'm wrong, I don't want to know right now, because I'm still high on my epiphany.)

Okay, I broke down and looked it up. I was merging Michael Hauge's Identity/Essence concept with the late Blake Snyder's Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis concept. Or what he calls the thematic progression of the hero's journey. (Blake Snyder's Save The Cat!. Go buy it. Now!!!)  Actually, I think my epiphany fits even better with Snyder's verbiage, so I'll go with that. ;)

What I realized that while each of my books has an internal character arc itself (I hope), the overall trilogy will have one, too. Yay! In the first book, the protagonist, Glory,  completely defines herself by one particular trait (a power she has). Which could be defined as her "identity", but it's also the "Thesis" in terms of this overall trilogy character arc. It's who she believes she is and for that particular trait, she pretty much still believes that trait defines her throughout Book 1.

In the second book, she'll have rejected her identity, that is: she'll be doing all she can do deny that she's defined by that trait (power) and she'll be essentially rejecting/denying it. So, to use Snyder's terms, this will be her antithesis stage -- which I think will continue on into the early parts of Book 3.
Then, I hope, during the course of the third book, she'll find the balance and be in her "essence", to use Hauge's term, or she'll find Synthesis to use Snyder's. To quote him, "...the hero gains the knowledge to combine what was and its opposite to form a synthesis of everything he has learned." (See why I think Snyder's works better? Because it merges the two... And she can learn she can be both her identity and her essence... or that her identity doesn't completely define her...)

I don't know why this got me so excited. But sometimes it helps me to see my your story in an overall way that makes sense. Helps in those rare instances where one can glimpse the forest and not just all the trees.

Will this hold up as I write books 2 and 3? Who knows. Ask me again in a month when I'm neck deep in my first draft and whining about how hard it is to write a book. Because you know I will.  ;)

Too Much 'Magination

So yesterday morning when I was out running, I almost stepped on a dead rat. I was coming around the corner and there it was and I had to do a little leap to avoid landing right on it.

No biggie, right? Oh, yes. Biggie. I couldn't stop thinking about the stupid rat. I couldn't stop imagining what it would have been like if I hadn't noticed it (I'm often more than a little oblivious out there) and had stepped on it. I kept thinking about how it would have squished, how I would have slipped, how the hair and the guts would have been embedded in the tread of my shoe. I had to stop running and do some deep breathing because I was literally making myself sick.

I got home, showered and headed off to work, but my stomach would not stop rolling and I could not stop imagining the squish and the crunch and the guts and the hair and the slipping and the smell. I was so nauseous that I had to go home and curl up in bed with tea and toast.

It was totally a case of too much imagination. I rarely have this happen (although I'm realizing now that this is sort of related to last week's post about the abduction on the bike path). I always feel like life is so crazy that I don't have to make anything up. This time . . .definitely too much 'magination. Have you ever sabotaged yourself that way?

Blow up your world

So the reading has gotten really good for me lately. I'm deeply entrenched in the Karen Marie Moning Fae series. (I'm getting to the RR Martin books, promise, Molly). And while it drives me batty that Moning ends every book on a cliff hanger, she did something between book number three and book number four that has made me a serious fan.

She blew up her world. She didn't change the rules, or take the heroine in a different character arc, she simply changed the world, at the perfect time and in a way I truly didn't see coming. It's something I wish Laurell K. Hamilton had done with the Anita Blake series, because I loved that character and didn't buy into where she took Anita, but had she changed the world, she could have kept the books interesting.

But these fae books, I'm completely on board now. Excited to see what the author does next, because she's proved that anything could and will happen and that's pretty exciting. RR Martin does that with the Throne series. He proved with book one that anyone could die, at any time, and with that, there is a sense of unpredictability to it.

Now I'm thinking how can I blow up my own fictional world, because there is no better way to keep a series fresh.

My Book Needs a Diet...

I know it's cliché to say you learn with every book, but wow. I'm reading a book I wrote about four years ago and while at the time I thought it was the "greatest thing I ever wrote"… the writing is crap.

Okay maybe not crap – but it's not tight. It's interesting to me after having so much time away from it to really see "me" as a writer. Who am I and what do I do well. I still love my characters. I still love the "big" scenes.

But I think I use the word "that" between every other word in a sentence.

I read this book ten maybe twenty times over and I never saw a thing wrong with it. Now having spent more time on craft, sentence structure, making each word count I can see how loose and flabby I was back then. I remember JR Ward at a workshop once saying do a find on "that" and delete all of them. This is what I plan to do.

And it's funny because while I kept telling myself the book was getting rejected on the premise, it very well could be anyone reading it just couldn't get through all the fat.

Since dieting is something I'm very familiar with… I'm failing at one right now… I figure I should know how to fix this.

My book needs to be trimmed, my sentences need to be focused. My words need to be scrutinized. Call it ten pounds or ten thousand words. It's going to be hard. I'll need to be disciplined. In the end hopefully it will be worth it.

What about you? Anyone got a book out there that (I feel the need to change this to "which" right now) needs to stop eating "justs" and "thats"?

The Stories that Shape Us

Winston Churchill once said, "We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." I feel the same way about my books.

Each book starts out because of something inside me, after all. They all grow out of my way of viewing the world. At a certain point, however, they start to take over. Since I started writing romantic suspense, for instance, my view of the world has gotten a bit darker. I see a lot more situations as dangerous.

It gets pretty hot in the summer where I live so some time around May or June, I start running in the early morning. The bike paths and streets aren't completely deserted, but they're definitely quieter than they are at mid-day. The other morning, just as I ran past an apartment complex, a man pulled out of the parking lot in his car. As I was running down the street, I saw him pull his car to the curb and get out. Then he opened his trunk.

I put on a burst of speed rivaled only by the time Lamb Chop the Airedale tried to take a chunk out of my calf. I instantly imagined this man (who I think was just trying to stop something from rattling in the trunk of his car) hitting me with a Taser, dragging me to the car, stuffing me in the trunk and driving away. No one would ever know.

Then as I continued to run and the man had long since gotten back in his car, I started wondering how hard it would be for a decent-sized man to get a good-sized woman like myself into a trunk. Would I fit? What injuries might I sustain in the process? What injuries might he sustain?

I don't remember thinking like that before I started writing romantic suspense. It did, however, get me home in record time.

So do you imagine weird creepy things? Am I alone in this? Oh . . . and by the way, my newest romantic suspense, Vanished in the Night, is available for purchase starting today! Leave a comment below and maybe you'll win a free signed copy!

Best. Reading. Experience. Ever.

I've been MIA from most things in my life these days. No much writing. No time for a blog. Largely, because it's summer and my kids are home and it's hot and the wading pool beckons. But, if I'm honest, it's because I've been reading. All the time. As much as I can. I was given the first four books in the George R.R. Martin Series this is being made into Game of Thrones on HBO.

I am not one for fantasy books - but I can't call this fantasy. At least in the way I knew fantasy. And I apologize to Sinead and her husband for calling them nerds. They are - but so am I. These books are epic in scope, heartbreaking in detail. Complicated, utterly suprising and freaking unputdownable. Having the whole series on hand this summer as I sit by the wading pool and hide out in my room and read dockside while my husband swims with the kids has been one of the best reading experiences of my life. Largely because this is the first summer that a child doesn't NEED me on the playground. I can read and look up every few minutes. It's amazing!

Which made me think of other great reading experiences. I have a list - because I love lists. But to be a great experience - the book has to match the opportunity to read it or the situation it was read in. So, start thinking about your own. Here are mine.

1. Blue Willow - Deborah Smith - I was living in California and I always went to this used bookstore and this book sat on the shelf for six months. I considered it everytime but for some reason I always put it back. I'd never read one of Smith's books, and I am rarely in the mood for family legacy/saga books. One day there was nothing else at the store and I grabbed it and stayed up until three am reading it. Next day I went to Borders and bought every book of hers I could get my hands on.

2. Seabiscuit. I took my fourth month old son sailing with my parents. He was not a great sleeper, but the hum of the engines and the rocking of the boat lulled him into sleeps of which I had never seen from him. I laid in the aft cabin reading this book voraciously while my son slept beside me and my mom brought me watermelon. Perfection.

3. The Time Traveller's Wife - it was a slow start with this book, but the last one hundred pages I read in my bathroom at one o'clock in the morning so my sobbing wouldn't wake up my husband. I was uncomfortable, kept telling myself to go to bed, but I couldn't.

4. The fifth Black Dagger Brotherhood book - the cop's story. I was speaking at a conference, my first time away from my second child. I'd just stopped breastfeeding and I felt so free. Picked up this book at the airport, didn't read it until I got to the hotel room that I had all by myself and read it all the way through. Delicious.

All right -what are yours?