Eric Kent Edstrom's Blog, page 15

If this was in the US, there would be personal injury lawyers camped out at the …

If this was in the US, there would be personal injury lawyers camped out at the bottom.

Reshared post from +Incredible

Mount Hua – Shaanxi Province, China

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Die Hard: A Great Example of Nested MICE

This post is about writing craft, so you can just stop right now if that doesn’t interest you.

In a recent class, author and Writing Excuses celeb, Mary Robinette Kowal, opened my eyes to Orson Scott Card’s MICE Quotient. (To find out more, check out his book Characters and Viewpoint.)

I’ve had that book for a looong time, and I’ve read at it several times. But Mary offered a very simple explanation of the MICE concept that sort of blew my mind. I had always thought of the M, I, C, and E as types of stories, but I totally missed that they are more than that: they are structures.

For an excellent overview, check out Karen Woodward’s overview. None of the rest of this will make sense without that.

Even if you’re familiar with MICE, here’s a reminder of what the letters stand for:

Milieu
Idea
Character
Event

Using these structures, let’s take a look at the structure of Die Hard, one of the most awesomest movies—and therefore, scripts—ever! As a bonus, I’ve included a summary analysis of the story from Hans Gruber’s POV.

Click John’s face to read Montreal Film Journal’s post about this great movie. (I nicked the pic from their article).

(You could skip to the summary if you don’t want to relive the whole movie.)

When John McClane arrives in Los Angeles, the limo driver Argyle takes him to the Nakatomi Plaza where he will join his wife at her company’s Christmas party. As they ride Argyle asks why he’s in NY and she’s in LA. John says, “It’s complicated.”

As John is getting out of the car, Argyle poses a scenario, that John will go in and his wife will rush into his arms and everything will be better. To which, John replies, “I can live with that.”

And so that all tells me we’re opening with a Character story, that John is dissatisfied with the current situation. He’s living in New Yorkm and his wife, Holly, is living in California. (Interestingly, he’s a blue-collar cop, and she’s an ambitious, white-collar executive)

Next, John enters the building, and in doing so enters the Milieu of both of the building itself, but also the world his wife has chosen to live in.

So he goes up the elevator and into the corporate Christmas party. At that point he meets up with Holly, and they have a big argument to remind us and them why they are separated. Holly goes off to talk to the other employees at the Christmas party.

Then the bad guys, lead by Hans Gruber, arrive and start shooting guns and taking everyone hostage. This is an Event that disrupts the status quo. It sends John McClane running off into the stairwell with no shoes on.

One of the bad guys comes after him, and John kills him and discovers that the bad guy had a bag full of plastic explosives and European cigarettes. John looks at the explosives and says, “Who are these guys?” This opens the Idea story. Two questions are in play: Why do they need the explosives? And who are these guys?

Then we have a middle stretch where John alternately hunts and is hunted by the bad guys. Using a walkie-talkie, he communicates to the outside world through the character of the Al the cop. John ends up having to fight not only the bad guys but the incompetence of the assistant deputy police chief and the FBI jerks.

How does the MICE Quotient reverse and resolve?

Well, John learns that the main bad guy is Hans Gruber. That answers the “who are these guys” to a certain extent. Then John learns that the roof of the building us wired to blow, and thereby kill all the hostages. That answers the what are they going to do with the explosives question. That closes the Idea.

John eventually ends up killing almost all of the terrorists, including Hans Gruber, who falls to his death from a high floor of the building. It’s a false ending to the Event story, because Karl of the long blond hair wasn’t actually killed when John hanged him by the neck from a chain.

John and Holly exit the Milieu by leaving the building through the front door.

Then the Karl comes out in a rage and nearly kills them, but Al (the cop who couldn’t draw his weapon after killing a kid by mistake) shoots Karl. THAT ends the Event story for good, and it establishes a new status quo because the Nakatomi building is in pretty bad shape.

Finally, John and Holly get into Argyle’s limo (the same one John arrived in), and as they drive away, they kiss. This reunion wraps up the Character story as John gets what he came all the way to LA to get.

Here’s the summary

Die Hard MICE structure from John McClane’s POV

 

Character opens: John wants to reunite with his wife and put his marriage back together
Milieu opens: enters building through front entrance
Event opens: bad guys take everyone hostage and kill some people in a brand new building
Idea opens: who are these guys, and why do they have plastic explosives and detonators
Idea closes: They are thieves and they plan to destroy the building
Event closes: Hostages escape and bad guys killed, new status quo: building pretty much ruined
Milieu closes: John exits building through front door
Character closes: gets in same limo he arrived in, but has his wife whom he kisses as credits roll

Now let’s look at the story from the POV of Hans Gruber, the bad guy!

Character opens: A super-educated European, Hans Gruber, wants to steal millions of dollars worth of negotiable bearer bonds in order to live a life of luxury, but more importantly, he wants to steal them beautifully
Milieu opens: He enters building through basement loading dock
Event opens: A hostage (John McClane) is running free, is killing his men, and has stolen the detonators. This disrupts the status quo of Hans’ plan. In particular, he needs those detonators back!
Idea opens: Who is this cowboy?
Idea closes: It’s a New York cop
Event closes: Hans recovers the detonators and the cop is severely injured. (Remember John running barefoot over shards of glass?) This establishes a new status quo, one acceptable to Hans as time is running out anyway
Milieu closes: Whoops. Hans exits the building by falling from a top floor, thereby delivering the closing the the Character piece.
Character closes: Hans fails to steal the bonds and is killed by the cowboy

Outlining and More Outlining

Wow. This has been a productive and intense couple days. I did some outlining on the next book project earlier, but now I’ve taken it to the next level. This phase of a book project is always fun, and sometimes scary.

I started with a very general concept. Maybe even a high concept, whatever that means. It was more a of a world concept than anything character based. This happened with Undermountain too. I just said, “What if . . .” and started world building from there.

But now there are characters, plot elements, twists, setting, and a whole bunch of holes. The trick is to put all these pieces into an order than makes sense and then fill in the holes. Also, I need an ending. I think I’m getting close to figuring that out.

I know there are some who don’t believe outlining counts as writing. Tell that to my poor, sore, typing hands. This isn’t a one page bullet point deal; this is looong, with lots of notes.

For those curious, I’m using OmniOutliner for this phase of the project. Once I get the outline in good shape, I’ll move over to Scrivener for assembling the actual story.

I also have the beginnings of the book guide, which is a list of characters, setting elements, and some plot stuff.

Happy 9th Birthday, Beanie!

In celebration here's a song that gets to me because I think of my daughter when I hear it. Because when she walks into the room it's like the sun rising after a long lonely winter.

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Book Recomendation: The Icarus Deception #non-fiction

Book Recomendation: The Icarus Deception #non-fiction

I would recommend this book for anyone who is trying to create someting important, whether it's an organization, a novel, a rock band, or a house. 

I've always been a fan of Godin's writing. He is terrifically motivating, but sometimes his riffs feel a bit empty. And that's what he does: riff.

The premise of The Icarus Deception (which I can't help but mispronounce in my head as eye-care'-us), is that we're only familiar with one part of the story, the part where Icarus flies too close to the sun, has his wax wings melt, and plummet to his death.

We forget that he was cautioned against flying too low and getting his wings wet. Godin's point is that for creatives, flying too low is the the biggest risk. If one is to make a difference or stand out, one has to risk flying too high. The rest of the book is riff after riff about taking risks.

I highlighted some useful quotes, particularly about the value naysayers. I like the idea that they help you sort out the people who are not your audience.

The Icarus Deception is a fast read, and you could open it to any page and find inspiration. In fact, reading it cover to cover like I did is probably the wrong approach.

Embedded Link

The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?: Seth Godin: 9781591846079: Amazon.com: Books

The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? [Seth Godin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* super saver shipping on qualifying offers. In Seth Godin’s most inspiring book, he challenges readers to find th…

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My First Sketchnote Attempt: The Future of Publishing

I watched a youtube discussion panel on "The Future of Publishing", so I thought I'd try to sketchnote it.

The video is interesting, though I didn't hear too much new. But then, I'm pretty deeply immersed in the subject matter. I really suck at drawing and I have no image vocabulary, so I pretty much winged it.

I took pictures of both pages and edited it together (rather incompetently) in pixelmator. I have in mind a bunch of other vids I intend to sketchnote now!

  #sketchnotes  

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Getting Back into the Swing of My Kettlebell Workouts

Today was the second day back to workouts following my sedentary vacay in the tropics. Somewhere over the past few months a bit of wisdom spontaneously developed in my head, and it is this: don't go full tilt with workouts after being away for an extended period.

It may seem obvious to some, but for me—who was raised to believe that if an activity didn't nearly kill you, you probably didn't try hard enough—this was an epiphany.

Let's rewind. Why was I coming off an extended time away from my workouts? Because I screwed up (that's the technical term) my back. I ended  up going to physical therapy (which did little to solve the problem) and then, before I was truly healed, I returned to kettlebells and did more damage.

KBs aren't inherently bad for your back if you have proper technique and mobility (neither of which I possessed), but they certainly can exacerbate imbalances and lead to disaster.

Let's rewind to this past summer, to the Bed Making Incident. The BMI happened one morning when I was making the bed (if you don't make your bed, you should be ashamed! ashamed, I say). I was drawing a blanket up to the head of the bed, and leaned over and suddenly I was writhing on the floor going, "ahauahahauaha!" I might also have said "gosh darn it."

After five minutes of slow, agonizing effort, I managed to get onto the bed and onto my back. What followed was painkillers (that didn't really work), anti-inflammatory pills (that did nothing except make me feel vaguely stupid), and the aforementioned PT.

By and by I recovered, but never to 100% pain freedom. Until I got an inversion table. Five days of periodically hanging upside down on that thing got me to 98% better. And now I think I'm 99.999%. I think the last .001% is physiological. It's actually quite a miracle, since I was somewhat skeptical that it would make a difference.

So now I'm back to my kettlebell workouts and I'm thinking, I'm going to kill it in the gym!

But no, I'm being cautious, focusing on my form, and doing about half the volume and weight I probably could do. I'm going to ease my way into it over the next month. I hope never to have another Bed Making Incident, or any other incident. #kettlebelltraining  

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CORRECTED Uh Oh, I've been Cleaning Out My Closet (free books!)

I gave the WRONG email address when I originally posted this. It's eric at ericedstrom dot com If you sent something to the wrong address, please resend and I'll hook you up.

I found 10 copies of Shadow of the Oak (a light, YA pseudo horor novella) These have the original BAD, HIDEOUS, HORRIBLE cover. These (ahem) collectibles will be worth trillions someday (in the year 600000, when inflation makes .01 today worth trillions tomorrow).

Just so you know, this novella isn't crap, only the cover is. Take my word for it. 

Anyway, you can get a free copy mailed to you if you want. Just send me an email at eric at ericedstrom dot com with your address.

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Uh Oh, I've neen Cleaning Out My Closet (free books!)

I found 10 copies of Shadow of the Oak (a light, YA pseudo horor novella) These have the original BAD, HIDEOUS, HORRIBLE cover. These (ahem) collectibles will be worth trillions someday (in the year 600000, when inflation makes .01 today worth trillions tomorrow).

Just so you know, this novella isn't crap, only the cover is. Take my word for it. 

Anyway, you can get a free copy mailed to you if you want. Just send me an email at eric at edstrom dot com with your address.

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The Best Cup of Coffee* I've Ever Made (Aeropress)

After my beloved Bunn died a leaky, miserable death on Christmas day (when I actually had guests over who might have wanted a cup), I began searching for a new solution. I wanted something small and fast which would make super great coffee.

I heard about this Aeropress thing from Ferriss' book, but I immediately dismissed it because it didn't look like my conception of what a coffee maker is. Well, while on holiday (really a vacation, but I get anglophilic when I write), I did some more research, and I kept coming across this ridiculous thing invented by the frisbee (aerobie) guy. I remember whipping aerobies in the back field behind the farmhouse when I was a kid, so I knew he understood something about fluid dynamics or physics or whatever.

So I ordered one. When it arrived last night, it was too late to make real coffee, so I made some decaf. One problem. I didn't have any. But I did have some Walgreens brand Keurig K-cups of decaf lying around, so I cut one open and used that. The resulting decaf tasted pretty darn good. I nodded appreciately as I sipped it, feeling encouraged that the next morning I would be able to enjoy some good brew.

This morning was the real test. I ground up some of my beloved Kona (infused with spirit lifting, vitality granting, Hawaiian mana), and tried it out.

Smooth. Delicious. And simple. As a bonus, the whole kit fits in a drawer, so now I get back a bunch of kitchen counter space.

*Disclaimer: I don't like strong, bitter coffee. Also, I make no claims to being an aficionado.

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AeroPress® | AEROBIE® High Performance Sport Toys

SMOOTHEST Using the ideal water temperature and gentle air pressure brewing yields rich flavor with lower acidity and without bitterness. RICHEST Total immersion brewing results in uniform extraction …

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