Alexandra Sokoloff's Blog, page 14
October 12, 2016
BITTER MOON giveaway!
Goodreads is giving away 100 copies of my newest book, #4 in the Thriller Award-nominated Huntress series! BITTER MOON is available for preorder, on sale Nov. 1. Click here to enter the giveaway,
But – you really need to read the Huntress series from the beginning, and as it happens, Amazon Prime members can get Book 1, HUNTRESS MOON for free this month. Click here to order.
Also for bloggers and reviewers - BITTER MOON is now up for download on Netgalley. Let me know if you'd like a direct link/invitation.
The Huntress/FBI Thrillers:
Special Agent Matthew Roarke is on the trail of that most rare of killers – a female serial. His hunt for her will take him across four states and will force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
BITTER MOON: A haunted FBI agent and a ruthless killer track evil across decades in the next thrilling Huntress/FBI novel. A sixteen-year-old cold case offers Roarke a glimpse into the Huntress's past…and a chance to catch a savage predator.
Pre-order now for Nov. 1 delivery, $3.99
But – you really need to read the Huntress series from the beginning, and as it happens, Amazon Prime members can get Book 1, HUNTRESS MOON for free this month. Click here to order.
Also for bloggers and reviewers - BITTER MOON is now up for download on Netgalley. Let me know if you'd like a direct link/invitation.
The Huntress/FBI Thrillers:
Special Agent Matthew Roarke is on the trail of that most rare of killers – a female serial. His hunt for her will take him across four states and will force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
BITTER MOON: A haunted FBI agent and a ruthless killer track evil across decades in the next thrilling Huntress/FBI novel. A sixteen-year-old cold case offers Roarke a glimpse into the Huntress's past…and a chance to catch a savage predator.
Pre-order now for Nov. 1 delivery, $3.99
October 7, 2016
NANOWRIMO PREP: The Three-Act, Eight Sequence Structure
Okay, now, this is the one - the most important thing I can tell you about film story structure that will help you for the rest of your writing life - no matter what form you're writing in.
There is a rhythm to dramatic storytelling, just as there’s a rhythm to every other pleasurable experience in life, and the technical requirements of film and television have codified this rhythm into a structure so specific that you actually already know what I’m about to say in this post, even if you’ve never heard it said this way before or consciously thought about it. And what’s more, your reader or audience knows this rhythm, too, and unconsciously EXPECTS it. Which means if you’re not delivering this rhythm, your reader or audience is going to start worrying that something’s not right, and you have a real chance of losing them.
You don’t want to do that!
Early playwrights (and I’m talking really early, starting thousands of years ago in the Golden Age of Greece) were forced to develop the three-act structure of dramatic writing because of intermissions (or intervals). Think about it. If you’re going to let your audience out for a break a third of the way through your play, you need to make sure you get them back into the theater to see the rest of the play, right? After all, there are so many other things a person could be doing on a Saturday night….
So the three acts of theater are based on the idea of building each act to a CLIMAX: a cliffhanger scene that spins the action of the play in such an interesting direction that the audience is going to want to hurry back into the theater at the warning chime to see WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. Many plays break at the middle, so the Midpoint Climax is equally important.
This climactic rhythm was in operation for literally thousands of years before film and television came along and the need for story climaxes became even more, um, urgent. Not just because life was faster paced in the 20th century, but again, because of the technical requirements of film and television.
In a two-hour movie, you have not three climaxes, but seven, because film is based on an eight-sequence structure.
The eight-sequence structure evolved from the early days of film when movies were divided into reels (physical film reels), each holding about 10-15 minutes of film. The projectionist had to manually change each reel as it finished, so early screenwriters incorporated this rhythm into their writing, developing sequences that lasted exactly the length of a reel and built to a cliffhanger climax, so that in that short break that the projectionist was scrambling to get the new reel on, the audience was in breathless anticipation of “What happens next?” – instead of getting pissed off that the movie just stopped right in the middle of a crucial scene. (If you get hold of scripts for older movies, pre-1950’s, you can find SEQUENCE 1, SEQUENCE 2, etc, as headings at the start of each new sequence.)
Modern films still follow that same storytelling rhythm, because that rhythm was locked in by television – with its even more rigid technical requirements of having to break every fifteen minutes for a commercial. Which meant writers had to build to a climax every 15 minutes, to get audiences to tune back in to their show after the commercial instead of changing the channel.
So what does this mean to you, the novelist or screenwriter?
It means that you need to be aware that your reader or audience is going to expect a climax every 15 minutes in a movie – which translates to every 50 pages or so in a book. Books have more variation in length, obviously, so you can adjust proportionately, but for a 400-page book, you’re looking at climaxing every 50 pages, with the bigger climaxes coming around p. 100 (Act I Climax) p. 200 (Midpoint Climax), p. 300 (Act II Climax), and somewhere close to the end. Also be aware that for a shorter movie or book, you may have only six sequences.
If you put that structure on a grid, it looks like this:
Looking at that grid, you can see that what I started out in this article calling the three-act structure has evolved into something that is actually a four-act structure: four segments of approximately equal length (30 minutes or 100 pages), with Act II containing two segments (60 minutes or 200 pages, total).
That’s because Act II is about conflict and complications. While plays tend to have a longer Act I, because Act I is about setting up character and relationships, the middle acts of films have become longer so that the movies can show off what film does best: action and conflict. And books have picked up on that rhythm and evolved along with movies and television, so that books also tend to have a long, two-part Act II as well.
You don’t have to be exact about this (unless you’re writing for television, in which case you better be acutely aware of when you have to hit that climax!). But you do need to realize that if you’re not building to some kind of climax in approximately that rhythm, your reader or audience is going to start getting impatient, and you risk losing them.
Once you understand this basic structure, you can see how useful it is to think of each sequence of your story building to a climax. Your biggest scenes will tend to be these climaxes, and if you can fit those scenes onto the grid, then you already have a really solid set of tentpoles that you can build your story around.
So here’s the challenge: Start watching movies and television shows specifically looking for the climaxes. Take a film from your Master List (you did make that, didn't you?) Screen it and use the clock on your phone or the counter on your DVD player to check where these climaxes are coming. It won’t take long at all for you to be able to identify climactic scenes.
Your next task is to figure out what makes them climactic!
I can give you a few hints. The most important thing is that the action of your story ASKS A QUESTION that the audience wants to know the answer to. But climaxes also tend to be SETPIECE scenes (think of the trailer scenes from movies, the big scenes that everyone talks about after the movie).
And what goes into a great setpiece scene?
Well, that’s another post, isn’t it?
- Alex
If you'd like to to see more of these story elements in action, I strongly recommend that you watch at least one and much better, three of the films I break down in the workbooks, following along with my notes.
I do full breakdowns of The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz, Chinatown, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Romancing the Stone, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, and The Mist - and act breakdowns of You've Got Mail, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Raiders of the Lost Ark in Stealing Hollywood.
I do full breakdowns of The Proposal, Groundhog Day, Sense and Sensibility, Romancing the Stone, Leap Year, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, While You Were Sleeping and New in Town in Writing Love.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook, $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, $13.99
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)
- Amazon US
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
=====================================================
I also recommend that you sign up for my Story Structure mailing list to receive movie breakdowns, story structure articles, and other bonus materials.
(This mailing list is NOT the same as the RSS feed of the blog - you must opt in to this list to receive the extras mailings.)
Sign up to receive free Story Structure Extras!* indicates requiredEmail Address * Email Format
htmltext
There is a rhythm to dramatic storytelling, just as there’s a rhythm to every other pleasurable experience in life, and the technical requirements of film and television have codified this rhythm into a structure so specific that you actually already know what I’m about to say in this post, even if you’ve never heard it said this way before or consciously thought about it. And what’s more, your reader or audience knows this rhythm, too, and unconsciously EXPECTS it. Which means if you’re not delivering this rhythm, your reader or audience is going to start worrying that something’s not right, and you have a real chance of losing them.
You don’t want to do that!
Early playwrights (and I’m talking really early, starting thousands of years ago in the Golden Age of Greece) were forced to develop the three-act structure of dramatic writing because of intermissions (or intervals). Think about it. If you’re going to let your audience out for a break a third of the way through your play, you need to make sure you get them back into the theater to see the rest of the play, right? After all, there are so many other things a person could be doing on a Saturday night….
So the three acts of theater are based on the idea of building each act to a CLIMAX: a cliffhanger scene that spins the action of the play in such an interesting direction that the audience is going to want to hurry back into the theater at the warning chime to see WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. Many plays break at the middle, so the Midpoint Climax is equally important.
This climactic rhythm was in operation for literally thousands of years before film and television came along and the need for story climaxes became even more, um, urgent. Not just because life was faster paced in the 20th century, but again, because of the technical requirements of film and television.
In a two-hour movie, you have not three climaxes, but seven, because film is based on an eight-sequence structure.
The eight-sequence structure evolved from the early days of film when movies were divided into reels (physical film reels), each holding about 10-15 minutes of film. The projectionist had to manually change each reel as it finished, so early screenwriters incorporated this rhythm into their writing, developing sequences that lasted exactly the length of a reel and built to a cliffhanger climax, so that in that short break that the projectionist was scrambling to get the new reel on, the audience was in breathless anticipation of “What happens next?” – instead of getting pissed off that the movie just stopped right in the middle of a crucial scene. (If you get hold of scripts for older movies, pre-1950’s, you can find SEQUENCE 1, SEQUENCE 2, etc, as headings at the start of each new sequence.)
Modern films still follow that same storytelling rhythm, because that rhythm was locked in by television – with its even more rigid technical requirements of having to break every fifteen minutes for a commercial. Which meant writers had to build to a climax every 15 minutes, to get audiences to tune back in to their show after the commercial instead of changing the channel.
So what does this mean to you, the novelist or screenwriter?
It means that you need to be aware that your reader or audience is going to expect a climax every 15 minutes in a movie – which translates to every 50 pages or so in a book. Books have more variation in length, obviously, so you can adjust proportionately, but for a 400-page book, you’re looking at climaxing every 50 pages, with the bigger climaxes coming around p. 100 (Act I Climax) p. 200 (Midpoint Climax), p. 300 (Act II Climax), and somewhere close to the end. Also be aware that for a shorter movie or book, you may have only six sequences.
If you put that structure on a grid, it looks like this:
Looking at that grid, you can see that what I started out in this article calling the three-act structure has evolved into something that is actually a four-act structure: four segments of approximately equal length (30 minutes or 100 pages), with Act II containing two segments (60 minutes or 200 pages, total).That’s because Act II is about conflict and complications. While plays tend to have a longer Act I, because Act I is about setting up character and relationships, the middle acts of films have become longer so that the movies can show off what film does best: action and conflict. And books have picked up on that rhythm and evolved along with movies and television, so that books also tend to have a long, two-part Act II as well.
You don’t have to be exact about this (unless you’re writing for television, in which case you better be acutely aware of when you have to hit that climax!). But you do need to realize that if you’re not building to some kind of climax in approximately that rhythm, your reader or audience is going to start getting impatient, and you risk losing them.
Once you understand this basic structure, you can see how useful it is to think of each sequence of your story building to a climax. Your biggest scenes will tend to be these climaxes, and if you can fit those scenes onto the grid, then you already have a really solid set of tentpoles that you can build your story around.
So here’s the challenge: Start watching movies and television shows specifically looking for the climaxes. Take a film from your Master List (you did make that, didn't you?) Screen it and use the clock on your phone or the counter on your DVD player to check where these climaxes are coming. It won’t take long at all for you to be able to identify climactic scenes.
Your next task is to figure out what makes them climactic!
I can give you a few hints. The most important thing is that the action of your story ASKS A QUESTION that the audience wants to know the answer to. But climaxes also tend to be SETPIECE scenes (think of the trailer scenes from movies, the big scenes that everyone talks about after the movie).
And what goes into a great setpiece scene?
Well, that’s another post, isn’t it?
- Alex
If you'd like to to see more of these story elements in action, I strongly recommend that you watch at least one and much better, three of the films I break down in the workbooks, following along with my notes.
I do full breakdowns of The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz, Chinatown, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Romancing the Stone, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, and The Mist - and act breakdowns of You've Got Mail, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Raiders of the Lost Ark in Stealing Hollywood.
I do full breakdowns of The Proposal, Groundhog Day, Sense and Sensibility, Romancing the Stone, Leap Year, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, While You Were Sleeping and New in Town in Writing Love.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook, $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, $13.99
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)
- Amazon US
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
=====================================================
I also recommend that you sign up for my Story Structure mailing list to receive movie breakdowns, story structure articles, and other bonus materials.
(This mailing list is NOT the same as the RSS feed of the blog - you must opt in to this list to receive the extras mailings.)
Sign up to receive free Story Structure Extras!* indicates requiredEmail Address * Email Format
htmltext
October 5, 2016
NANOWRIMO PREP: What KIND of story is it?
So, do you have your Master List of movies, yet?
I think that the best thing that you can do to help yourself with story structure is to look at and compare in depth 5-10 (ten being best!) stories – films, novels, and plays - that are similar in kind (or structural pattern) to yours. Because different kinds of stories have different and very specific structural arcs, and those structures have their own unique and essential elements which are incredibly useful to be aware of so you can use them for yourself.
The KIND of story a story is does not always have anything to do with genre. Let me use a couple of movie examples to illustrate this.
- What genre would you call Inception? Something like a sci-fi thriller, right? It’s futuristic, it uses dream technology, it has thriller elements and action… but what really drives Inception is that it’s a caper story (you could also say a heist, or reverse heist), like The Sting, Ocean’s 11, Armageddon, The Hot Rock, and Topkapi. The structure of Inception is a professional dream burglar gathering a team of professionals to pull off a big job, then training for and executing that job. That’s the action of the story. And that’s what made Inception stand out: it crosses a caper story with a sci-fi thriller.
- The Hangover (the brilliant first one, I mean) is a guy comedy. But the structure of the story is a traditional mystery: the groom has gone missing during a wild blackout night of a bachelor party, and his friends have to follow the clues to piece together what happened that night and get the groom back (before the wedding!). The action of the story is unraveling that mystery. So if you’re writing a story like The Hangover, you want to be looking at how mysteries are put together just as much as you want to be learning from comedies.
- Leap Year is a romantic comedy, but the structure of the story is a road trip: the action of the story is a journey across Ireland. And if you’re writing a road trip story you can learn a lot from taking a look at road trip stories in all genres: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, It Happened One Night, Thelma and Louise, even Natural Born Killers.
So while it’s important to know the general, Three-Act, Eight-Sequence structure (which we'll be reviewing next), and it’s important to know the patterns of the particular genre you’re writing in, it’s sometimes even more useful to identify the KIND of story you’re writing within that genre.
Once you know the kind of story you’re writing, you can look at examples of that particular story pattern and get a sense of the structural elements and tricks common to that story pattern – the key scenes a reader wants and expects to see in these stories. A Mistaken Identity story, for example, will almost always have threat of discovery, a confidante who knows the score, numerous tests of the hero/ine’s story, scenes of trapping the hero/ine into the role, scenes of the role starting to backfire, and of course, a big unmasking scene, usually at the climax of Act III. Identifying these expected scenes and taking a look at how other storytellers have handled them is a great way of brainstorming unique and fun scenes of your own (See Tootsie, While You Were Sleeping, Roman Holiday).
So what are these story types?
The late and much-missed Blake Snyder said that all film stories break down into just ten patterns that he outlined in his Save The Cat! books. Dramatist Georges Polti claimed there are Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations and outlined those in his classic book.
I think those books on the subject are truly useful; as I say often, I think you should read everything. But I believe you also have to get much more specific than ten plots or even thirty-six.
(I also think it’s plainly lazy to use someone else’s analysis of a story pattern instead of identifying your own. Relying on anyone else’s analysis, and that for sure includes mine, is not going to make you the writer you want to be.)
Personally, I think there are hundreds of story types and kinds.
For example, in a workshop I taught recently, there was a reluctant witness story, a wartime romance story, an ensemble mystery plot, a mentor plot, a heroine in disguise plot, a high school sleuth story. And others.
Each of those stories has a story pattern that you could force into one of ten general overall patterns – I guess – but they also have unique qualities that would get completely lost in such a generalization. And all of those stories could also be categorized in other ways besides “reluctant witness” or “hero in disguise”.
Harry Potter is what you could call a King Arthur story – the Chosen One coming into his or her own (also see Star Wars, The Matrix…) but it is told as a traditional mystery, with clues and red herrings and the three kids playing detectives (high school sleuth). It’s also got strong fairy tale elements. So if you’re writing a story that combines those three (and more) types of stories, looking at examples of any of those types of stories is going to help you brainstorm and structure your own story.
If you find you’re writing a “reluctant witness” story, whether it’s a detective story, a sci-fi setting, a period piece, or a romance, it’s extremely useful to look at other stories you like that fall into that “reluctant witness” category – like Witness, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Conspiracy Theory, Someone To Watch Over Me, Collateral.
If you’re writing a mentor plot, you could take a look at The Princess Diaries, Silence of the Lambs, Searching For Bobby Fischer, An Officer And A Gentleman, Dirty Dancing - all stories in completely different genres with strong mentor plot lines, with vastly different mentor types.
A Mysterious Stranger or Traveling Angel story has a very specific plotline, too: a “fixer” character comes into the life of a main character, or characters, and turns it upside down – for the good. And the main character, not the Mysterious Stranger, is the one with the character arc (look at Mary Poppins, Shane, Nanny McPhee, and Lee Child's Jack Reacher books).
A Cinderella story, well, where do you even start? Pretty Woman, Cinderella of course, Arthur, Rebecca, Suspicion, Maid in Manhattan, Slumdog Millionaire, Notting Hill.
A deal with the devil story: The Firm, Silence of the Lambs, Damn Yankees, The Little Mermaid, Rosemary’s Baby, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Devil’s Advocate.
And you might violently disagree with some of my examples, or have a completely different designation for what kind of story some of the above are…
But that is exactly my point. You have to create your own definitions of types of stories, and find your own examples to help you learn what works in those stories. All of writing is about creating your own rules and believing in them.
So this is what I'm trying to say. Identifying genres is not enough. Identifying categories of stories is not enough. Knowing how general story structure works is not enough. What’s the kind of story you’re writing – by your own definition?
When you start to get specific about that, that’s when your writing starts to get truly interesting.
And when you look at great examples of the type of story you're writing, you'll find yourself coming up with your own, specific story elements checklist, that goes much farther than a general story elements checklist ever could.
Here are just a few dozen examples to get you started brainstorming types of stories
Caper/Heist/Con (Inception, Topkapi, Ocean’s 11, Armageddon)
Mythic Journey or Hero’s Journey (The Wizard of Oz, Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars)
Mentor story (Karate Kid, Good Will Hunting, Dirty Dancing, Silence Of The Lambs, An Officer And A Gentleman, The King’s Speech)
Mystery (too many to list!)
Cinderella story (Notting Hill, Slumdog Millionaire, Pretty Woman, Titanic)
The Soul Journey (Eat Pray Love, The Razor’s Edge, Lost Horizon)
MacGuffin story (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Maltese Falcon, Romancing The Stone)
Mistaken Identity or False Identity (Tootsie, While You Were Sleeping, Sommersby, Beloved, Roman Holiday, You’ve Got Mail)
The Wrong Man (Hitchcock loved to do this type of thriller, with an innocent falsely accused, or set up: The Wrong Man, North By Northwest)
Forbidden Love (Lost In Translation, Butterfield 8, Casablanca, Sea Of Love, Someone To Watch Over Me, Water For Elephants, Roman Holiday)
Mysterious Stranger or Traveling Angel (Mary Poppins, Shane, the Reacher books, Mrs. Doubtfire, Nanny McPhee)
Three Brothers (The Godfather, The Deerhunter, Mystic River)
Reluctant Witness (Witness, Conspiracy Theory, Someone To Watch Over Me)
Wartime Romance (Casablanca, From Here To Eternity, Gone With The Wind)
High School Sleuth (Brick, Twilight, Harry Potter stories)
Trapped (Die Hard, The Poseidon Adventure)
The Wrong Brother - or Wrong Sister (While You Were Sleeping, Holiday)
Road Trip (Leap Year; Natural Born Killers; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; It Happened One Night; Thelma and Louise.)
Fairy Tale (there are dozens of sub-genres here, including Cinderella, the Animal Groom, The Three Brothers, The Journey To Find The Lost Loved One, etc.)
Epic (Gone With the Wind, Gladiator)
Monster in the house (Alien, The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, The Haunting)
The Roommate From Hell (or best friend from hell, first date from hell, neighbor from hell: Fatal Attraction, Morningside Heights, Single White Female, The Roommate)
Rashomon (Rashomon)
Redemption (Groundhog Day, Jaws)
Hero Falls (Chinatown, The Godfather, The Shining)
Alternate Reality (It’s A Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Back To The Future)
A variation of this is “The Road Not Taken” story (Sliding Doors, Family Man)
Chase/On The Run (The Fugitive, Thelma And Louise, Natural Born Killers)
Lovers Handcuffed Together (Leap Year, What Happens In Vegas, The Proposal)
Enemies Handcuffed Together (The Defiant Ones)
Gaslight (Gaslight, So Evil My Love, Let’s Scare Jessica To Death)
Alien Attack (Signs, The Day The World Ended, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers)
Slasher (or - Ten Little Indians, which was the play and film that started off that genre)
Changeling Child (Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Orphan)
Man Against Nature (Jaws, Twister)
Fish Out Of Water (The Proposal, New In Town)
Ensemble Mystery Plot (Murder On The Orient Express, The Last of Laura)
Ensemble Romance (Four Weddings And A Funeral)
Impostor (While You Were Sleeping, Tootsie)
The Therapeutic Journey (Good Will Hunting, The Sixth Sense, The King’s Speech)
Unreliable Narrator (The Usual Suspects, Fallen, The Sixth Sense)
A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do (Jaws, High Noon)
Descent Into Madness (Apocalypse Now, The Shining, Black Swan, Sunset Boulevard)
And that doesn’t even scratch the surface! Are you starting to get the idea? Have you even already thought of a few of your own that I haven’t listed?
Create your own names for them – just like I did above. There’s no right or wrong, here. And the story types you notice are the ones you’re likely to be attracted to in your own writing.
So - what kind of story are you writing? And do you have other examples of the kinds of stories I've listed above, or other kinds of stories to add to the list?
- Alex
------------------------------------------------
And if you'd like to to see more of these story elements in action, I strongly recommend that you watch at least one and much better, three of the films I break down in the workbooks, following along with my notes.
I do full breakdowns of The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz, Chinatown, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Romancing the Stone, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, and The Mist - and act breakdowns of You've Got Mail, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Raiders of the Lost Ark in Stealing Hollywood.
I do full breakdowns of The Proposal, Groundhog Day, Sense and Sensibility, Romancing the Stone, Leap Year, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, While You Were Sleeping and New in Town in Writing Love.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook, $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, $13.99
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)
- Amazon US
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
=====================================================
I also recommend that you sign up for my Story Structure mailing list to receive movie breakdowns, story structure articles, and other bonus materials.
(This mailing list is NOT the same as the RSS feed of the blog - you must opt in to this list to receive the extras mailings.)
Sign up to receive free Story Structure Extras!* indicates requiredEmail Address * Email Format
htmltext
I think that the best thing that you can do to help yourself with story structure is to look at and compare in depth 5-10 (ten being best!) stories – films, novels, and plays - that are similar in kind (or structural pattern) to yours. Because different kinds of stories have different and very specific structural arcs, and those structures have their own unique and essential elements which are incredibly useful to be aware of so you can use them for yourself.
The KIND of story a story is does not always have anything to do with genre. Let me use a couple of movie examples to illustrate this.
- What genre would you call Inception? Something like a sci-fi thriller, right? It’s futuristic, it uses dream technology, it has thriller elements and action… but what really drives Inception is that it’s a caper story (you could also say a heist, or reverse heist), like The Sting, Ocean’s 11, Armageddon, The Hot Rock, and Topkapi. The structure of Inception is a professional dream burglar gathering a team of professionals to pull off a big job, then training for and executing that job. That’s the action of the story. And that’s what made Inception stand out: it crosses a caper story with a sci-fi thriller.
- The Hangover (the brilliant first one, I mean) is a guy comedy. But the structure of the story is a traditional mystery: the groom has gone missing during a wild blackout night of a bachelor party, and his friends have to follow the clues to piece together what happened that night and get the groom back (before the wedding!). The action of the story is unraveling that mystery. So if you’re writing a story like The Hangover, you want to be looking at how mysteries are put together just as much as you want to be learning from comedies.
- Leap Year is a romantic comedy, but the structure of the story is a road trip: the action of the story is a journey across Ireland. And if you’re writing a road trip story you can learn a lot from taking a look at road trip stories in all genres: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, It Happened One Night, Thelma and Louise, even Natural Born Killers.
So while it’s important to know the general, Three-Act, Eight-Sequence structure (which we'll be reviewing next), and it’s important to know the patterns of the particular genre you’re writing in, it’s sometimes even more useful to identify the KIND of story you’re writing within that genre.
Once you know the kind of story you’re writing, you can look at examples of that particular story pattern and get a sense of the structural elements and tricks common to that story pattern – the key scenes a reader wants and expects to see in these stories. A Mistaken Identity story, for example, will almost always have threat of discovery, a confidante who knows the score, numerous tests of the hero/ine’s story, scenes of trapping the hero/ine into the role, scenes of the role starting to backfire, and of course, a big unmasking scene, usually at the climax of Act III. Identifying these expected scenes and taking a look at how other storytellers have handled them is a great way of brainstorming unique and fun scenes of your own (See Tootsie, While You Were Sleeping, Roman Holiday).
So what are these story types?
The late and much-missed Blake Snyder said that all film stories break down into just ten patterns that he outlined in his Save The Cat! books. Dramatist Georges Polti claimed there are Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations and outlined those in his classic book.
I think those books on the subject are truly useful; as I say often, I think you should read everything. But I believe you also have to get much more specific than ten plots or even thirty-six.
(I also think it’s plainly lazy to use someone else’s analysis of a story pattern instead of identifying your own. Relying on anyone else’s analysis, and that for sure includes mine, is not going to make you the writer you want to be.)
Personally, I think there are hundreds of story types and kinds.
For example, in a workshop I taught recently, there was a reluctant witness story, a wartime romance story, an ensemble mystery plot, a mentor plot, a heroine in disguise plot, a high school sleuth story. And others.
Each of those stories has a story pattern that you could force into one of ten general overall patterns – I guess – but they also have unique qualities that would get completely lost in such a generalization. And all of those stories could also be categorized in other ways besides “reluctant witness” or “hero in disguise”.
Harry Potter is what you could call a King Arthur story – the Chosen One coming into his or her own (also see Star Wars, The Matrix…) but it is told as a traditional mystery, with clues and red herrings and the three kids playing detectives (high school sleuth). It’s also got strong fairy tale elements. So if you’re writing a story that combines those three (and more) types of stories, looking at examples of any of those types of stories is going to help you brainstorm and structure your own story.
If you find you’re writing a “reluctant witness” story, whether it’s a detective story, a sci-fi setting, a period piece, or a romance, it’s extremely useful to look at other stories you like that fall into that “reluctant witness” category – like Witness, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Conspiracy Theory, Someone To Watch Over Me, Collateral.
If you’re writing a mentor plot, you could take a look at The Princess Diaries, Silence of the Lambs, Searching For Bobby Fischer, An Officer And A Gentleman, Dirty Dancing - all stories in completely different genres with strong mentor plot lines, with vastly different mentor types.
A Mysterious Stranger or Traveling Angel story has a very specific plotline, too: a “fixer” character comes into the life of a main character, or characters, and turns it upside down – for the good. And the main character, not the Mysterious Stranger, is the one with the character arc (look at Mary Poppins, Shane, Nanny McPhee, and Lee Child's Jack Reacher books).
A Cinderella story, well, where do you even start? Pretty Woman, Cinderella of course, Arthur, Rebecca, Suspicion, Maid in Manhattan, Slumdog Millionaire, Notting Hill.
A deal with the devil story: The Firm, Silence of the Lambs, Damn Yankees, The Little Mermaid, Rosemary’s Baby, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Devil’s Advocate.
And you might violently disagree with some of my examples, or have a completely different designation for what kind of story some of the above are…
But that is exactly my point. You have to create your own definitions of types of stories, and find your own examples to help you learn what works in those stories. All of writing is about creating your own rules and believing in them.
So this is what I'm trying to say. Identifying genres is not enough. Identifying categories of stories is not enough. Knowing how general story structure works is not enough. What’s the kind of story you’re writing – by your own definition?
When you start to get specific about that, that’s when your writing starts to get truly interesting.
And when you look at great examples of the type of story you're writing, you'll find yourself coming up with your own, specific story elements checklist, that goes much farther than a general story elements checklist ever could.
Here are just a few dozen examples to get you started brainstorming types of stories
Caper/Heist/Con (Inception, Topkapi, Ocean’s 11, Armageddon)
Mythic Journey or Hero’s Journey (The Wizard of Oz, Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars)
Mentor story (Karate Kid, Good Will Hunting, Dirty Dancing, Silence Of The Lambs, An Officer And A Gentleman, The King’s Speech)
Mystery (too many to list!)
Cinderella story (Notting Hill, Slumdog Millionaire, Pretty Woman, Titanic)
The Soul Journey (Eat Pray Love, The Razor’s Edge, Lost Horizon)
MacGuffin story (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Maltese Falcon, Romancing The Stone)
Mistaken Identity or False Identity (Tootsie, While You Were Sleeping, Sommersby, Beloved, Roman Holiday, You’ve Got Mail)
The Wrong Man (Hitchcock loved to do this type of thriller, with an innocent falsely accused, or set up: The Wrong Man, North By Northwest)
Forbidden Love (Lost In Translation, Butterfield 8, Casablanca, Sea Of Love, Someone To Watch Over Me, Water For Elephants, Roman Holiday)
Mysterious Stranger or Traveling Angel (Mary Poppins, Shane, the Reacher books, Mrs. Doubtfire, Nanny McPhee)
Three Brothers (The Godfather, The Deerhunter, Mystic River)
Reluctant Witness (Witness, Conspiracy Theory, Someone To Watch Over Me)
Wartime Romance (Casablanca, From Here To Eternity, Gone With The Wind)
High School Sleuth (Brick, Twilight, Harry Potter stories)
Trapped (Die Hard, The Poseidon Adventure)
The Wrong Brother - or Wrong Sister (While You Were Sleeping, Holiday)
Road Trip (Leap Year; Natural Born Killers; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; It Happened One Night; Thelma and Louise.)
Fairy Tale (there are dozens of sub-genres here, including Cinderella, the Animal Groom, The Three Brothers, The Journey To Find The Lost Loved One, etc.)
Epic (Gone With the Wind, Gladiator)
Monster in the house (Alien, The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, The Haunting)
The Roommate From Hell (or best friend from hell, first date from hell, neighbor from hell: Fatal Attraction, Morningside Heights, Single White Female, The Roommate)
Rashomon (Rashomon)
Redemption (Groundhog Day, Jaws)
Hero Falls (Chinatown, The Godfather, The Shining)
Alternate Reality (It’s A Wonderful Life, Groundhog Day, Back To The Future)
A variation of this is “The Road Not Taken” story (Sliding Doors, Family Man)
Chase/On The Run (The Fugitive, Thelma And Louise, Natural Born Killers)
Lovers Handcuffed Together (Leap Year, What Happens In Vegas, The Proposal)
Enemies Handcuffed Together (The Defiant Ones)
Gaslight (Gaslight, So Evil My Love, Let’s Scare Jessica To Death)
Alien Attack (Signs, The Day The World Ended, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers)
Slasher (or - Ten Little Indians, which was the play and film that started off that genre)
Changeling Child (Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Orphan)
Man Against Nature (Jaws, Twister)
Fish Out Of Water (The Proposal, New In Town)
Ensemble Mystery Plot (Murder On The Orient Express, The Last of Laura)
Ensemble Romance (Four Weddings And A Funeral)
Impostor (While You Were Sleeping, Tootsie)
The Therapeutic Journey (Good Will Hunting, The Sixth Sense, The King’s Speech)
Unreliable Narrator (The Usual Suspects, Fallen, The Sixth Sense)
A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do (Jaws, High Noon)
Descent Into Madness (Apocalypse Now, The Shining, Black Swan, Sunset Boulevard)
And that doesn’t even scratch the surface! Are you starting to get the idea? Have you even already thought of a few of your own that I haven’t listed?
Create your own names for them – just like I did above. There’s no right or wrong, here. And the story types you notice are the ones you’re likely to be attracted to in your own writing.
So - what kind of story are you writing? And do you have other examples of the kinds of stories I've listed above, or other kinds of stories to add to the list?
- Alex
------------------------------------------------
And if you'd like to to see more of these story elements in action, I strongly recommend that you watch at least one and much better, three of the films I break down in the workbooks, following along with my notes.
I do full breakdowns of The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz, Chinatown, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Romancing the Stone, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, and The Mist - and act breakdowns of You've Got Mail, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Raiders of the Lost Ark in Stealing Hollywood.
I do full breakdowns of The Proposal, Groundhog Day, Sense and Sensibility, Romancing the Stone, Leap Year, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, While You Were Sleeping and New in Town in Writing Love.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook, $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, $13.99
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)
- Amazon US
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
=====================================================
I also recommend that you sign up for my Story Structure mailing list to receive movie breakdowns, story structure articles, and other bonus materials.
(This mailing list is NOT the same as the RSS feed of the blog - you must opt in to this list to receive the extras mailings.)
Sign up to receive free Story Structure Extras!* indicates requiredEmail Address * Email Format
htmltext
October 1, 2016
October is Nanowrimo PREP month!!
by Alexandra Sokoloff
It's October first, and you know what that means....
It's Nanowrimo PREP month!
I always do a brainstorming and story structure review series in October, and continue throughout November with prompts and encouragement, based on my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks and workshops.
Because if you’re going to put a month aside to write 50,000 words, doesn’t it make a little more sense to have worked out the outline, or at least an overall roadmap, before November 1?
- There is a separate page on this blog where I'll collect the Nanowrimo posts in order as we work our way through Nanowrimo Prep in October. (There's a tab on the nav bar at the top of the blog that says Nanowrimo - Junowrimo!)
- And for those who want to skip ahead, I've also put up a Table of Contents page (the tab says Story Structure) and linked some of the major posts in a useful order.
- And if this way of looking at story appeals to you, the writing workbooks based on this blog and my workshops: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are available here:
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook, $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, $13.99
This new book updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding six more full story breakdowns.
The print book is a nice big 8 x 10 workbook, so well laid out! And it even lies flat for easy highlighting and scribbling in margins.
There’s also a companion ebook that you can buy separately – or can get for just $1.99 as a Kindle Matchbook if you buy the print workbook.
And if you're a romance writer, or have a strong love plot or subplot in your novel or script, then Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks II is an expanded version of the first workbook with a special emphasis on love stories, and more full story breakdowns.
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)
- Amazon US
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
=====================================================
I also recommend that you sign up for my Story Structure mailing list to receive movie breakdowns, story structure articles, and other bonus materials.
(This mailing list is NOT the same as the RSS feed of the blog - you must opt in to this list to receive the extras mailings.)
Sign up to receive free Story Structure Extras!* indicates requiredEmail Address * Email Format
htmltext
- And finally, I'm always up for suggestions - what would YOU like me to cover in this Nano prep month?
---------------------
THE MASTER LIST
So let's get this party started with The Master List.
The first thing I always have my workshop students do is make a Master List of their favorite movies in the genre they're writing in.
And you guys who have done this master list before, remember, it helps to do a new one every time you sit down with a new project, and brainstorm a list of movies and books that are structurally similar to your new project.
It’s very simple: in order to write stories like the ones that move you, you need to look at the specific stories that affect you and figure out what those authors and filmmakers are doing to get the effect they do.
Every genre has its own structural patterns and its own tricks — screenwriter Ryan Rowe says it perfectly: “Every genre has its own game that it’s playing with the audience.”
For example: with a mystery, the game is “Whodunit?” You are going to toy with a reader or audience’s expectations and lead them down all kinds of false paths with red herrings so that they are constantly in the shoes of the hero/ine, trying to figure the puzzle out.
But with a romantic comedy or classic romance, there’s no mystery involved. 99.99% of the time the hero and heroine are going to end up together. The game in that genre is often to show, through the hero and heroine, how we are almost always our own worst enemies in love, and how we throw up all kinds of obstacles in our own paths to keep ourselves from getting what we want.
So if you’re writing a story like It’s A Wonderful Life, it’s not going to help you much to study Apocalypse Now. A story that ends with a fallen hero/ine is not going to have the same story shape as one that ends with a transcended hero/ine (although if both kinds of films end up on your list of favorite stories, you might find one is the other in reverse. That’s why you need to make your own lists!)
Once you start looking at the games that genres play, you will also start to understand the games that you most love, and that you want to play with your readers and audience.
I’m primarily a thriller writer, and my personal favorite game is: “Is it supernatural or is it psychological?” I love to walk the line between the real and unreal, so I am constantly creating story situations in which there are multiple plausible explanations for the weird stuff that’s going on, including mental illness, drug-induced hallucinations, and outright fraud. That’s why my master list for any book or script I write will almost always include The Haunting of Hill House and The Shining, both classic books (and films) that walk the line between the supernatural and the psychological.But what works for me structurally is not necessarily going to do it for you.
If you take the time to study and analyze the books and films that have had the greatest impact on you, personally, or that are structurally similar to the story you’re writing, or both, that’s when you really start to master your craft. Making the lists and analyzing those stories will help you brainstorm your own, unique versions of scenes and mega-structures that work in the stories on your master list; it will help you figure out how your particular story will work. And doing this analysis will embed story structure in your head so that constructing a story becomes a fun and natural process for you.
Another great benefit of making the master list is that it helps you “brand” yourself as an author. Agents, editors, publishing houses, publicists, sales reps, bookstores, reviewers, media interviewers, librarians, and most importantly, your readers — all of these people want to be able to categorize you and your books. You need to be able to tell all of these people exactly what it is you write, what it’s similar to, and why it’s also unique. That’s part of your job as a professional author. So the first order of business is to make your master list.
And I encourage you to splurge on a nice big beautiful notebook to work in. We writers live so much in our heads it’s important to give ourselves toys and rewards to make the work feel less like work, and also to cut down on the drinking.
ASSIGNMENT: Go to an office or stationery store or shop on line and find yourself a wonderful notebook to work in.
ASSIGNMENT: List ten books and films that are similar to your own story in structure and/or genre (at least five books and three movies if you’re writing a book, at least five movies if you’re writing a script.).
Or – if you’re trying to decide on the right project for you to work on, then make a list of ten books and films that you wish you had written!
ANALYZING YOUR LIST
Now that you’ve got your list, and a brand-new notebook to keep it in, let’s take a look at what you’ve come up with.
For myself, I am constantly looking at:
Silence of the Lambs (book and film) A Wrinkle in Time (book) The Wizard of Oz (film) The Haunting of Hill House (book and original film) Anything by Ira Levin, especially Rosemary’s Baby (book and film), and The Stepford Wives The Exorcist (book and film) Jaws (film, and it’s interesting to compare the book) Pet Sematery (book, obviously!) The Shining (book and film) It’s A Wonderful Life
That's off the top of my head, just to illustrate the point I'm about to make – and not necessarily specific to the book I’m writing right now. On another day my list could just as easily include Hamlet, The Fountainhead, Apocalypse Now, The Treatment, Alice in Wonderland, Philadelphia Story, and Holiday Inn.
All of those examples are what I would call perfectly structured stories. But that list is not necessarily going to be much help for someone who's writing, you know, romantic comedy. (Although the rom coms of George Cukor, Preston Sturges, and Jane Austen, and Shakespeare are some of my favorite stories on the planet, and my master list for a different story might well have some of those stories on it).
Okay, what does that list say about me?
• It’s heavily weighted toward thrillers, fantasy, horror, and the supernatural. In fact, even the two more realistic stories on the list, Jaws and Silence of the Lambs, are so mythic and archetypal that they might as well be supernatural – they both have such overwhelming forces of nature and evil working in them.
• It’s a very dark list, but it includes two films and a book that are some of the happiest endings in film and literary history. I read and watch stories about the battle between good and evil… but if you’ll notice, except for the Ira Levin books, I do believe in good triumphing.
• The stories are evenly split between male protagonists and female protagonists, but except for Jaws, really, women are strong and crucial characters in all of them.
And guess what? All of the above is exactly what I write.
A lot of the stories on your own list will probably be in one particular genre: thriller, horror, mystery, romance, paranormal, historical, science fiction, fantasy, women’s fiction, YA (Young Adult, which is really more of an umbrella for all genres). And odds are that genre is what you write.
(If you’re not clear on what your genre is, I suggest you take your master list to the library or your local independent bookstore and ask your librarian or bookseller what genre those books and films fall into. These people are a writer’s best friends; please use them, and be grateful!)
But there will also always be a few stories on your list that have nothing to do with your dominant genre, some complete surprises, and those wild cards are sometimes the most useful for you to analyze structurally. Always trust something that pops into your head as belonging on your list. The list tells you who you are as a writer. What you are really listing are your secret thematic preferences. You can learn volumes from these lists if you are willing to go deep.
Every time I teach a story structure class it’s always fantastic for me to hear people’s lists, one after another, because it gives me such an insight into the particular uniqueness of the stories each of those writers is working toward telling.
You need to create your list, and break those stories down to see why they have such an impact on you - because that's the kind of impact that you want to have on your readers. My list isn't going to do that for you. Our tastes and writing and themes and turn-ons are too different - even if they're very similar.
So try it:
ASSIGNMENT: Analyze your master list of stories. What does the list say about the stories, themes and characters that most appeal to you?
- Alex
It's October first, and you know what that means....
It's Nanowrimo PREP month!
I always do a brainstorming and story structure review series in October, and continue throughout November with prompts and encouragement, based on my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks and workshops.
Because if you’re going to put a month aside to write 50,000 words, doesn’t it make a little more sense to have worked out the outline, or at least an overall roadmap, before November 1?
- There is a separate page on this blog where I'll collect the Nanowrimo posts in order as we work our way through Nanowrimo Prep in October. (There's a tab on the nav bar at the top of the blog that says Nanowrimo - Junowrimo!)
- And for those who want to skip ahead, I've also put up a Table of Contents page (the tab says Story Structure) and linked some of the major posts in a useful order.
- And if this way of looking at story appeals to you, the writing workbooks based on this blog and my workshops: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are available here:
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook, $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, $13.99
This new book updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding six more full story breakdowns.
The print book is a nice big 8 x 10 workbook, so well laid out! And it even lies flat for easy highlighting and scribbling in margins.
There’s also a companion ebook that you can buy separately – or can get for just $1.99 as a Kindle Matchbook if you buy the print workbook.
And if you're a romance writer, or have a strong love plot or subplot in your novel or script, then Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks II is an expanded version of the first workbook with a special emphasis on love stories, and more full story breakdowns.
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)
- Amazon US
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
=====================================================
I also recommend that you sign up for my Story Structure mailing list to receive movie breakdowns, story structure articles, and other bonus materials.
(This mailing list is NOT the same as the RSS feed of the blog - you must opt in to this list to receive the extras mailings.)
Sign up to receive free Story Structure Extras!* indicates requiredEmail Address * Email Format
htmltext
- And finally, I'm always up for suggestions - what would YOU like me to cover in this Nano prep month?
---------------------
THE MASTER LIST
So let's get this party started with The Master List.
The first thing I always have my workshop students do is make a Master List of their favorite movies in the genre they're writing in.
And you guys who have done this master list before, remember, it helps to do a new one every time you sit down with a new project, and brainstorm a list of movies and books that are structurally similar to your new project.
It’s very simple: in order to write stories like the ones that move you, you need to look at the specific stories that affect you and figure out what those authors and filmmakers are doing to get the effect they do.
Every genre has its own structural patterns and its own tricks — screenwriter Ryan Rowe says it perfectly: “Every genre has its own game that it’s playing with the audience.”
For example: with a mystery, the game is “Whodunit?” You are going to toy with a reader or audience’s expectations and lead them down all kinds of false paths with red herrings so that they are constantly in the shoes of the hero/ine, trying to figure the puzzle out.
But with a romantic comedy or classic romance, there’s no mystery involved. 99.99% of the time the hero and heroine are going to end up together. The game in that genre is often to show, through the hero and heroine, how we are almost always our own worst enemies in love, and how we throw up all kinds of obstacles in our own paths to keep ourselves from getting what we want.
So if you’re writing a story like It’s A Wonderful Life, it’s not going to help you much to study Apocalypse Now. A story that ends with a fallen hero/ine is not going to have the same story shape as one that ends with a transcended hero/ine (although if both kinds of films end up on your list of favorite stories, you might find one is the other in reverse. That’s why you need to make your own lists!)
Once you start looking at the games that genres play, you will also start to understand the games that you most love, and that you want to play with your readers and audience.
I’m primarily a thriller writer, and my personal favorite game is: “Is it supernatural or is it psychological?” I love to walk the line between the real and unreal, so I am constantly creating story situations in which there are multiple plausible explanations for the weird stuff that’s going on, including mental illness, drug-induced hallucinations, and outright fraud. That’s why my master list for any book or script I write will almost always include The Haunting of Hill House and The Shining, both classic books (and films) that walk the line between the supernatural and the psychological.But what works for me structurally is not necessarily going to do it for you.
If you take the time to study and analyze the books and films that have had the greatest impact on you, personally, or that are structurally similar to the story you’re writing, or both, that’s when you really start to master your craft. Making the lists and analyzing those stories will help you brainstorm your own, unique versions of scenes and mega-structures that work in the stories on your master list; it will help you figure out how your particular story will work. And doing this analysis will embed story structure in your head so that constructing a story becomes a fun and natural process for you.
Another great benefit of making the master list is that it helps you “brand” yourself as an author. Agents, editors, publishing houses, publicists, sales reps, bookstores, reviewers, media interviewers, librarians, and most importantly, your readers — all of these people want to be able to categorize you and your books. You need to be able to tell all of these people exactly what it is you write, what it’s similar to, and why it’s also unique. That’s part of your job as a professional author. So the first order of business is to make your master list.
And I encourage you to splurge on a nice big beautiful notebook to work in. We writers live so much in our heads it’s important to give ourselves toys and rewards to make the work feel less like work, and also to cut down on the drinking.
ASSIGNMENT: Go to an office or stationery store or shop on line and find yourself a wonderful notebook to work in.
ASSIGNMENT: List ten books and films that are similar to your own story in structure and/or genre (at least five books and three movies if you’re writing a book, at least five movies if you’re writing a script.).
Or – if you’re trying to decide on the right project for you to work on, then make a list of ten books and films that you wish you had written!
ANALYZING YOUR LIST
Now that you’ve got your list, and a brand-new notebook to keep it in, let’s take a look at what you’ve come up with.
For myself, I am constantly looking at:
Silence of the Lambs (book and film) A Wrinkle in Time (book) The Wizard of Oz (film) The Haunting of Hill House (book and original film) Anything by Ira Levin, especially Rosemary’s Baby (book and film), and The Stepford Wives The Exorcist (book and film) Jaws (film, and it’s interesting to compare the book) Pet Sematery (book, obviously!) The Shining (book and film) It’s A Wonderful Life
That's off the top of my head, just to illustrate the point I'm about to make – and not necessarily specific to the book I’m writing right now. On another day my list could just as easily include Hamlet, The Fountainhead, Apocalypse Now, The Treatment, Alice in Wonderland, Philadelphia Story, and Holiday Inn.
All of those examples are what I would call perfectly structured stories. But that list is not necessarily going to be much help for someone who's writing, you know, romantic comedy. (Although the rom coms of George Cukor, Preston Sturges, and Jane Austen, and Shakespeare are some of my favorite stories on the planet, and my master list for a different story might well have some of those stories on it).
Okay, what does that list say about me?
• It’s heavily weighted toward thrillers, fantasy, horror, and the supernatural. In fact, even the two more realistic stories on the list, Jaws and Silence of the Lambs, are so mythic and archetypal that they might as well be supernatural – they both have such overwhelming forces of nature and evil working in them.
• It’s a very dark list, but it includes two films and a book that are some of the happiest endings in film and literary history. I read and watch stories about the battle between good and evil… but if you’ll notice, except for the Ira Levin books, I do believe in good triumphing.
• The stories are evenly split between male protagonists and female protagonists, but except for Jaws, really, women are strong and crucial characters in all of them.
And guess what? All of the above is exactly what I write.
A lot of the stories on your own list will probably be in one particular genre: thriller, horror, mystery, romance, paranormal, historical, science fiction, fantasy, women’s fiction, YA (Young Adult, which is really more of an umbrella for all genres). And odds are that genre is what you write.
(If you’re not clear on what your genre is, I suggest you take your master list to the library or your local independent bookstore and ask your librarian or bookseller what genre those books and films fall into. These people are a writer’s best friends; please use them, and be grateful!)
But there will also always be a few stories on your list that have nothing to do with your dominant genre, some complete surprises, and those wild cards are sometimes the most useful for you to analyze structurally. Always trust something that pops into your head as belonging on your list. The list tells you who you are as a writer. What you are really listing are your secret thematic preferences. You can learn volumes from these lists if you are willing to go deep.
Every time I teach a story structure class it’s always fantastic for me to hear people’s lists, one after another, because it gives me such an insight into the particular uniqueness of the stories each of those writers is working toward telling.
You need to create your list, and break those stories down to see why they have such an impact on you - because that's the kind of impact that you want to have on your readers. My list isn't going to do that for you. Our tastes and writing and themes and turn-ons are too different - even if they're very similar.
So try it:
ASSIGNMENT: Analyze your master list of stories. What does the list say about the stories, themes and characters that most appeal to you?
- Alex
September 8, 2016
BITTER MOON now available on Netgalley!
BITTER MOON, Book 4 of my Thriller Award-nominated HUNTRESS MOON series, is now available on Netgalley!
Bitter Moon
(Release date November 1).
If you’re on Netgalley you can download it now for Kindle or as a pdf. If you’re not on Netgalley, here’s your chance - I can send you a book link that will invite you to join and request not must my book but any number of pre-releases – just message me for the direct link and instructions.
But – you really need to read the Huntress series from the beginning. So if you need any of the first books to get started, please message me and I’ll get them to you.
Special Agent Matthew Roarke is on the trail of that most rare of killers – a female serial. His hunt for her will take him across four states and will force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
Alexandra Sokoloff
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon
Cold Moon
Bitter Moon
Bitter Moon
(Release date November 1).
If you’re on Netgalley you can download it now for Kindle or as a pdf. If you’re not on Netgalley, here’s your chance - I can send you a book link that will invite you to join and request not must my book but any number of pre-releases – just message me for the direct link and instructions.
But – you really need to read the Huntress series from the beginning. So if you need any of the first books to get started, please message me and I’ll get them to you.
Special Agent Matthew Roarke is on the trail of that most rare of killers – a female serial. His hunt for her will take him across four states and will force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
Alexandra Sokoloff
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon
Cold Moon
Bitter Moon
September 1, 2016
Back to school - and back to work
Hey, it's September 1st! (Rabbit rabbit…)
Happy Fall! Now back to work.
I know, we're writers, we never stop working. But I can't be the only one that slacks off a bit in August. No more of that, though.
Book 4 of the Huntress series, Bitter Moon , is out November 1 (and is now available for pre-order, just $3.99) and my deadline for Book 5 is January 2. Which seems like a lot of time now, but with the Bloody Scotland Crime Festival coming up next week, then Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, the week after - that's a big chunk of time cut out of my schedule.
So now I am in the throes of my least favorite part of the writing process, to put it mildly, and that’s the first horrific bash-through draft.
Because I come from theater, I think of my first draft as a blocking draft. When you direct a play, the first rehearsals are for blocking – which means simply getting the actors up on their feet and moving them through the whole play on the stage so everyone can see and feel and understand the whole shape of it. That’s what a first draft is to me. As you all know, I outline extensively, index cards, story structure grid, all of it. Then when I start to write a first draft I just bash through it from beginning to end. It’s the most grueling part of writing a book (the suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark called it “clawing through a mountain of concrete with my bare hands...”) and takes the longest, but writing the whole thing out, even in the most sketchy way, from start to finish, is the best way I know to actually guarantee that I will finish a book or a script.
I do five pages a day minimum, more is gravy. I write the page count down in a calendar every day. And I never, ever, think about how much is left to go, I just get through those pages one day at a time, however I can. I think of myself as a shark – if I don’t keep moving, I’ll die. (What I would really like is for someone to put me to sleep for three months so I could just wake up when the bash through draft is DONE. I would pay a lot of money for that.)
And I’ve written about this before, here, but as far as I’m concerned the only thing a first draft has to do is get to the end. (Your First Draft is Always Going to Suck).
But then everything after that initial draft is frosting – it’s seven million times easier for me to rewrite than to get something onto a blank page.
After that first draft I do layer after layer after layer – different drafts for suspense, for character, sensory drafts, emotional drafts – each concentrating on a different aspect that I want to hone in the story – until the clock runs out and I have to turn the whole thing in.
I may be totally wrong about this, but I’ve had a lot of contact with a lot of writers over the years, and I would unofficially guess that the ratio of writers who grimly bash through that first draft to THE END without revision to the writers who polish along the way is about 90 percent bashers to 10 percent polishers. A recent Facebook discussion I started seemed to back up those percentages. I might even go as high as 95-5.
Yet the interesting thing is, a lot of writers are surprised to hear that other people besides themselves use this “bash your way through to the end” approach. So I thought I’d bring it up today just in case this is news to some of you, so you can consider it. It might just set you free.
So what about you? Basher or polisher? Do you swim sharklike through that first draft to the end, or when you write THE END, are you actually done?
Have you ever tried doing it another way? How’d that work for you?
And - do you know what you're writing this fall?
- Alex
=====================================================
All the information on this blog and more, including full story structure breakdowns of various movies, is available in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks. e format, just $3.99 and $2.99; print 12.99 - 14.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD
This new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding six more full story breakdowns.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD US print $14.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, all countries
Happy Fall! Now back to work.
I know, we're writers, we never stop working. But I can't be the only one that slacks off a bit in August. No more of that, though.
Book 4 of the Huntress series, Bitter Moon , is out November 1 (and is now available for pre-order, just $3.99) and my deadline for Book 5 is January 2. Which seems like a lot of time now, but with the Bloody Scotland Crime Festival coming up next week, then Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, the week after - that's a big chunk of time cut out of my schedule.
So now I am in the throes of my least favorite part of the writing process, to put it mildly, and that’s the first horrific bash-through draft.
Because I come from theater, I think of my first draft as a blocking draft. When you direct a play, the first rehearsals are for blocking – which means simply getting the actors up on their feet and moving them through the whole play on the stage so everyone can see and feel and understand the whole shape of it. That’s what a first draft is to me. As you all know, I outline extensively, index cards, story structure grid, all of it. Then when I start to write a first draft I just bash through it from beginning to end. It’s the most grueling part of writing a book (the suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark called it “clawing through a mountain of concrete with my bare hands...”) and takes the longest, but writing the whole thing out, even in the most sketchy way, from start to finish, is the best way I know to actually guarantee that I will finish a book or a script.
I do five pages a day minimum, more is gravy. I write the page count down in a calendar every day. And I never, ever, think about how much is left to go, I just get through those pages one day at a time, however I can. I think of myself as a shark – if I don’t keep moving, I’ll die. (What I would really like is for someone to put me to sleep for three months so I could just wake up when the bash through draft is DONE. I would pay a lot of money for that.)
And I’ve written about this before, here, but as far as I’m concerned the only thing a first draft has to do is get to the end. (Your First Draft is Always Going to Suck).
But then everything after that initial draft is frosting – it’s seven million times easier for me to rewrite than to get something onto a blank page.
After that first draft I do layer after layer after layer – different drafts for suspense, for character, sensory drafts, emotional drafts – each concentrating on a different aspect that I want to hone in the story – until the clock runs out and I have to turn the whole thing in.
I may be totally wrong about this, but I’ve had a lot of contact with a lot of writers over the years, and I would unofficially guess that the ratio of writers who grimly bash through that first draft to THE END without revision to the writers who polish along the way is about 90 percent bashers to 10 percent polishers. A recent Facebook discussion I started seemed to back up those percentages. I might even go as high as 95-5.
Yet the interesting thing is, a lot of writers are surprised to hear that other people besides themselves use this “bash your way through to the end” approach. So I thought I’d bring it up today just in case this is news to some of you, so you can consider it. It might just set you free.
So what about you? Basher or polisher? Do you swim sharklike through that first draft to the end, or when you write THE END, are you actually done?
Have you ever tried doing it another way? How’d that work for you?
And - do you know what you're writing this fall?
- Alex
=====================================================
All the information on this blog and more, including full story structure breakdowns of various movies, is available in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks. e format, just $3.99 and $2.99; print 12.99 - 14.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD
This new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding six more full story breakdowns.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD US print $14.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, all countries
August 28, 2016
FLASH SALE: Huntress Moon $1.99 today
HUNTRESS MOON $1.99
Book 1 of my Thriller Award-nominated Huntress Moon series is on sale for just $1.99 on Amazon US! (August 28 only). If you haven’t caught up with the series, here’s your chance to start with a great deal.
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
Huntress: Amazon US: $1.99 Blood Moon: Amazon US: $3.99 Cold Moon: Amazon US: $4.99
A haunted FBI agent is on the hunt for that most rare of killers… a female serial.
BITTER MOON available for Pre-order:
Book 4 of the Huntress series, Bitter Moon, will be out November 1, with Book 5 to come mid-2017. Just when you thought things couldn’t get more complicated for Roarke…
Pre-order BITTER MOON for just $3.99.But remember, these books should be read in order! So if you need to catch up, start with:
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon Cold Moon
As you might guess by the cover, this book takes Roarke deep into the desert, following a sixteen year old cold case that may be the key to Cara's bloody history. It's probably the most mystical of the books, unfolding on a dual time line, with the present and past intersecting as Roarke and fourteen-year old Cara both race to stop a sadistic serial predator.There are new characters I think you'll love as much as I do, and you'll find out much more about Cara's past. And there are new settings! The California desert is possibly my favorite place on the planet, and for this one I'll be taking you to the magical Coachella Valley and the wine country of Temecula.Scroll down for more details about the book - but if you haven't read the first three, you'll want to do go back and do that first. Pre-order BITTER MOONHave a great rest of the summer!
- Alex
Book 1 of my Thriller Award-nominated Huntress Moon series is on sale for just $1.99 on Amazon US! (August 28 only). If you haven’t caught up with the series, here’s your chance to start with a great deal.
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
Huntress: Amazon US: $1.99 Blood Moon: Amazon US: $3.99 Cold Moon: Amazon US: $4.99
A haunted FBI agent is on the hunt for that most rare of killers… a female serial.
BITTER MOON available for Pre-order:
Book 4 of the Huntress series, Bitter Moon, will be out November 1, with Book 5 to come mid-2017. Just when you thought things couldn’t get more complicated for Roarke…
Pre-order BITTER MOON for just $3.99.But remember, these books should be read in order! So if you need to catch up, start with:
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon Cold Moon
As you might guess by the cover, this book takes Roarke deep into the desert, following a sixteen year old cold case that may be the key to Cara's bloody history. It's probably the most mystical of the books, unfolding on a dual time line, with the present and past intersecting as Roarke and fourteen-year old Cara both race to stop a sadistic serial predator.There are new characters I think you'll love as much as I do, and you'll find out much more about Cara's past. And there are new settings! The California desert is possibly my favorite place on the planet, and for this one I'll be taking you to the magical Coachella Valley and the wine country of Temecula.Scroll down for more details about the book - but if you haven't read the first three, you'll want to do go back and do that first. Pre-order BITTER MOONHave a great rest of the summer!
- Alex
July 7, 2016
BITTER MOON cover and pre-order!
I'm very excited to reveal the cover of Book 4 of the Huntress/FBI Thrillers!Bitter Moon is out November 1, and is now available for pre-order for just $3.99.Pre-order BITTER MOONBut remember, these books should be read in order! So if you need to catch up, start with:
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon Cold Moon
As you might guess by the cover, this book takes Roarke deep into the desert, following a sixteen year old cold case that may be the key to Cara's bloody history. It's probably the most mystical of the books, unfolding on a dual time line, with the present and past intersecting as Roarke and fourteen-year old Cara both race to stop a sadistic serial predator.There are new characters I think you'll love as much as I do, and you'll find out much more about Cara's past. And there are new settings! The California desert is possibly my favorite place on the planet, and for this one I'll be taking you to the magical Coachella Valley and the wine country of Temecula.Scroll down for more details about the book - but if you haven't read the first three, you'll want to do go back and do that first. Pre-order BITTER MOON
------------- WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES -----------
BITTER MOONFBI agent Matthew Roarke has been on leave, and in seclusion, since the capture of mass killer Cara Lindstrom—the victim turned avenger who preys on predators. Torn between devotion to the law and a powerful attraction to Cara and her lethal brand of justice, Roarke has retreated from both to search his soul. But Cara’s escape from custody and a police detective’s cryptic challenge soon draw him out of exile—into the California desert and deep into Cara’s past—to probe an unsolved murder that could be the key to her long and deadly career.Following young Cara’s trail, Roarke uncovers a horrifying attack on a schoolgirl, the shocking suicide of another, and a human monster stalking Cara’s old high school. Separated by sixteen years, crossing paths in the present and past, Roarke and fourteen-year-old Cara must race to find and stop the sadistic sexual predator before more young girls are brutalized.
June 20, 2016
It's first day of summer! So here's JAWS….
Get free Story Structure extras and movie breakdownsHappy Solstice!! It’s the first day of summer, and naturally our minds turn to thoughts of shark attacks. I mean, of happy days at the beach.
I know that many of you are doing Junowrimo. And you know my advice at this point is JUST KEEP WRITING. But this is the point in a book that you may feel a bit, well, lost. And so I’m going to give you my best advice about how to get UNlost:
When all else fails, go back and take a look at the hero/ine’s PLAN.
• What does the protagonist WANT? • How does he PLAN to do it? • What’s standing in her/his way?
Then once you’ve got your initial plan, you need to be constantly blocking that plan, either with your antagonist, or the hero/ine’s own inner conflict, or outside forces beyond her or his control. If the hero/ine were able to carry out the plan without a hitch, it wouldn’t make for very good drama, would it?
So throughout the second act, the antagonist has his or her own goal and plan, which is in direct conflict or competition with the hero/ine’s goal. We may actually see the forces of evil plotting their plots, or we may only see the effect of the antagonist’s plot in the continual thwarting of the hero/ine’s plans. Both techniques are effective.
This continual opposition of the protagonist’s and antagonist’s plans is the main underlying structure of the second act.
The hero/ine’s plans should almost always be stated. The antagonist’s plans might be clearly stated or kept hidden, but the effectof his/her/their plotting should be evident. It’s good storytelling if we, the reader or audience, are able to look back on the story at the end and understand how the hero/ine’s failures were a direct result of the antagonist’s scheming.
I’d like to demonstrate all of this by following a plan through a classic movie. And to celebrate the first day of summer, of course that movie is JAWS.
Book by Peter BenchleyScreenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl GottleibDirected by Stephen Spielberg
When in Jaws, Sheriff Brody is confronted with the problem of a great white shark eating people in his backyard (ocean), his initial PLAN is to close the beach to swimmers. He throws together some handmade “Beaches Closed” signs and sticks them in the sand. Problem solved, right?
Yeah, right.
If that initial plan had actually worked, Jawswouldn’t have made a gazillion dollars worldwide, not to mention cinematic history. The whole point of drama (including romance and comedy) is that the hero/ine’s plan is constantly being thwarted: by the main antagonist, by any number of secondary and tertiary opponents, by the love interest, by the weather, or by the hero/ine him or herself (because you know, we’re all our own worst enemies!).
So almost always, the initial plan fails. Or if it seems to succeed, it’s only to trick us for a moment — before we realize how wretchedly the plan has failed. That weak initial effort is because it’s human nature to expend the least effort possible to get what we want. We only take greater and more desperate measures if we are forced to. And a hero/ine being forced to take greater and more desperate measures is one of the cornerstones of dramatic action.
Now, in Jaws, the primary antagonist is the shark. The shark’s PLAN is to eat. Not just people, but whatever it can sink its teeth into. (Interestingly, that plan seems to evolve….)
Brody’s initial PLAN of closing the beaches might actually have solved his problem with the shark, because without a steady supply of food, the beast probably would have moved on to another beach with a better food supply.
But Brody’s initial PLAN brings out a secondary antagonist: the town fathers, led by the mayor (and with a nice performance by co-screenwriter Carl Gottleib as the newspaper editor). They don’t want the beaches closed because the summer months, particularly the Fourth of July weekend, represent seventy percent (or something like that) of the town’s yearly income. The officials’ PLAN is to keep the beaches open, a direct conflict to Brody’s plan. So the town fathers obliquely threaten new Sheriff Brody with the loss of his job if he closes the beaches, and Brody capitulates.
This proves disastrous and tragic when the very next day (as Brody watches the ocean from the beach, as if that’s going to prevent a shark attack!), another swimmer, a little boy, is killed by the shark practicing its PLAN.
The town fathers hold a town meeting and decide on a new PLAN: they will close the beaches for twenty-four hours. Brody disagrees, but is overruled. Eccentric ship’s captain Quint offers his services to kill the shark —for ten grand. The town fathers are unwilling to pay.
In response, Brody develops a new PLAN, one we see often in stories: he contacts an Expert From Afar, oceanographer Matt Hooper, a shark specialist, to come in and give expert advice.
Meanwhile a new antagonist, the grieving mother of the slain little boy, announces a PLAN of her own: she offers a bounty for any fisherman who kills the shark that killed her son.
The bounty brings on a regatta of fishermen from up and down the eastern seaboard. One of these crews captures a tiger shark, which the mayor is quick to declare is the killer shark. Case closed, problem solved, and the beaches can be reopened. Hooper is adamant that the shark is far too small to have caused the damage done to the first victim, and wants to cut the shark open to prove it. The mayor refuses, and is equally adamant that there is no more need for Hooper. We see that Brody secretly agrees with Hooper, but wants to believe that the nightmare is over. However, when the dead boy’s mother slaps Brody and accuses him of causing her son’s death (by not closing the beaches), Brody agrees to investigate further with Hooper (PLAN), and they sneak into cold storage to cut the shark open themselves to check for body parts. Of course, they discover it’s the wrong shark.
Brody’s revised PLAN is to talk the mayor into closing the beaches, but the mayor refuses again and goes on with his plan to reopen the beaches (and highly publicize the capture of the “killer” shark).
The beaches reopen for 4th of July and the town fathers’ failsafe PLAN is to post the Coast Guard out in the ocean to watch, just in case. While everyone is distracted by a false shark scare, the real shark glides into a supposedly secure cove where Brody’s own son is swimming, and eats a boater and nearly kills Brody’s son. (And the timing is so diabolical that it almost seems the shark has a new PLAN of its own: to taunt Brody and menace his family.)
At that point the mayor’s PLAN changes: he writes a check for Quint and gives it to Brody to hire Captain Quint to kill the shark. But that’s not enough for Brody now. He needs to go out on the boat with Quint and Hooper himself, despite his fear of the water, to make sure this shark gets dead (NEW PLAN).
This happens at the story’s MIDPOINT, and it’s a radical revamp of Brody’s initial plan (which was always to avoid going in the water himself, at all costs). And it’s very often the case that at the midpoint of a story, the initial PLAN is completely shattered.
And yet, Brody is still not ultimately committed. For the next half of the second act, he allows first Quint and then Hooper to take the lead on the shark hunt. Quint’s PLAN is to shoot harpoons connected to floating barrels into the shark and force it to the surface, where they can harpoon it to death. But the shark proves far stronger than anyone expected, and keeps submerging, even with barrel after barrel attached to its hide.
And now a truly interesting thing happens. The shark, supposedly a dumb beast, starts to do crafty things, like hide under the boat so the men think they’ve lost it. It seems to have a new, intelligent PLAN of its own. And when the men’s defenses are down, the shark suddenly batters into the ship and breaks a hole in the hull, causing the boat to take on alarming quantities of water, and making the men vulnerable to attack.Brody’s PLAN at that point is to radio for help and get the hell off the boat. But in the midst of the chaos, Quint suddenly turns into an opponent himself by smashing the radio — he intends to kill this shark on his own.
Hooper takes over now and proposes a new PLAN: he wants to go down in a shark cage to fire a poison dart gun at the shark. But the shark attacks the cage, and then as the boat continues to sink, the shark leaps half onto the deck and eats Quint.
Brody is now on his own against the shark, and in one last, desperate Hail Mary PLAN (the most exciting kind in a climax), he shoves an oxygen tank into the shark’s jaws and then fires at the shark until the tank explodes, and the shark goes up in bloody bits. As almost always, it is only that last ditch plan, in which the hero/ine faces the antagonist completely on his or her own, that saves the day.
I hope this little exercise gives you an idea of how it can be really enlightening and useful to focus on and track just the plans of all the main characters in a story and how they clash and conflict, especially how they FAIL. Because every time a plan fails, it requires a recalibration and a new action, which builds tension, suspense, emotional commitment, and excitement.
If you find your own plot sagging, especially in that long middle section, try identifying and tracking the various plans of your characters. It might be just what you need to pull your story into new and much more exciting alignment.
And here’s a hint: you may find it useful to put those huge failures of the plan at your Midpoint and at the Act Two Climax — the Dark Night of the Soul/All Is Lost scene. Every time your hero/ine loses big, it makes the reader wonder WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, and that’s what we’re after, here. You want your reader to be as desperate as your hero/ine is to win.
Now back to writing! Or the beach!
- Alex
=====================================================
All the information on this blog and more, including full story structure breakdowns of various movies, is available in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks. e format, just $3.99 and $2.99; print 13.99.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD
This new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding six more full story breakdowns.
STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook $3.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD US print $14.99
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, all countries
WRITING LOVE
Writing Love is a shorter version of the workbook, using examples from love stories, romantic suspense, and romantic comedy - available in e formats for just $2.99.
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)- Amazon/Kindle
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
---------------------
You can also sign up to get free movie breakdowns here:
Get free Story Structure extras and movie breakdowns
March 9, 2016
Is Crime Fiction Entertainment?
by Alexandra SokoloffI belong to several online readers groups and there’s a question that has been coming up frequently, lately: Is crime fiction entertainment?This is a thorny issue, right? But I’m glad to see it being discussed. For me – no. I DON’T read crime fiction for entertainment. When I pick up a crime novel as a reader, I want to see intelligent treatment of societal evils that focuses on bringing awareness to problems and proposing activist solutions.That’s my goal as an author, too.My
Huntress Moon
series is intense, page-turning psychological and procedural suspense. I worked as a Hollywood screenwriter for ten years before I wrote my first novel, and I’m well aware that I need to deliver a satisfying genre experience to my readers. If they’re not biting their nails and staying up way past their bedtimes, I’m not doing my job.
But within the context of a ripping thriller, I am writing about issues I care passionately about and want to eradicate for good – meaning the good of everyone on the planet. Violence against women. Child sexual abuse. Human trafficking.
The last thing I want to do is show these scenes in a way that anyone could get pleasure out of. The few times I show anything on the page, it’s very brief and absolutely not there for entertainment. I think we all understand that rape is horrific – we don’t need to see graphic scenes to understand that. And I am very suspicious of any book that starts with a beautiful woman obviously being set up to be raped and tortured. Sexualizing rape and torture is not solving any problem – it’s actually contributing to the atrocity of sexual abuse. Personally I won’t support any book or author that sexualizes scenes of abuse.
I suppose as an author you can avoid these tough issues by writing cozies, or another genre entirely. But I don’t read cozies, and I wouldn’t know how to write one. I used to teach in the Los Angeles County prison system. I want to explore the roots of crime, not soft-pedal it. For better or worse, my core theme as a writer is “What can good people do about the evil in the world?”
So my choice is to confront the issue head on.
The fact is, one reason crime novels and film and TV so often depict women as victims is because it’s reality. Since the beginning of time, women haven’t been the predators – we’re the prey. Personally, I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
But after all those years (centuries, millennia) of women being victims of the most heinous crimes out there… wouldn’t you think that someone would finally say – “Enough”?
And maybe even strike back?
Well, that’s a story, isn’t it?
So my Huntress Moon series is about just that.
The books take the reader on an interstate manhunt with a haunted FBI agent on the track of what he thinks may be that most rare of criminals – a female serial killer.
And here’s what’s really interesting. Arguably there’s never been any such thing as a female serial killer in real life. The women that the media holds up as serial killers operate from a completely different psychology from the men who commit what the FBI calls “sexual homicide” (including most of the famous serial killers you know of: Bundy, Tobin, Kemper, Gacy, Tobin, Nilsen, Sutcliffe, and yes, Jack the Ripper…)
So what’s that about? Why do men do it and women don’t? Women rarely kill, compared to men — but when it happens, what does make a woman kill?
Because another pet peeve I have about crime fiction is the way so many authors presents serial killers for entertainment. So many authors seem to have no clue what a serial killer actually does. What we see on the page is criminal masterminds who stage their murders like artistic masterpieces or leave poetic clues in a cat-and-mouse game they're playing with the cops or FBI.
Well, bullshit. What serial killers do is rape, torture and kill for their own gratification. They are NOT masterminds. There is NO art or poetry to their sadism.
Yes, two of my favorite books are Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, both of which deal with mythic versions of serial killers. But Harris was writing HORROR novels in which he created mythological monsters within the frame of very accurate police procedurals. And authors who don't really understand the complexity of what he did have been ripping him off - almost always badly - every since.
Silence and Red Dragon are entertaining, no doubt. But they're also brilliant, passionate explorations of the nature of evil and the quest of good people to fight evil.
As an author, you can settle for writing entertainment, and make a living at it. But is that really all we're here for?
Within the context of my Huntress series I can explore the psychological and sociological questions that most trouble me, and invite my readers to ask – Why? I can realistically bring light to crimes that I consider pretty much the essence of evil – and turn the tables on the perpetrators.
And I’ve created a female character who breaks the mold – but in a way that makes psychological sense for the overwhelming majority of people who read the books. I am thrilled when readers find themselves as conflicted about the Huntress as Roarke is.
One of the profilers says in the book: “I’ve always wondered why we don’t see more women acting out this way. God knows enough of them have reason.”
For me, that's a question that's worth exploring.
So what do you think?
Readers, do you read crime fiction for entertainment? Are you looking for something that goes farther and examines the root of crime, and maybe even solutions? Are you concerned about scenes of violence against women being presented as sexualized entertainment?
Authors/writers: is this an issue you grapple with? Have you found ways of exploring real-life issues such as violence against women and children that both fulfill the conventions of the thriller genre and avoid brutalization for entertainment?
I’m always interesting in hearing!
- - Alex
http://alexandrasokoloff.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SALE ALERT: The first three books in the HUNTRESS MOON series, and my witchy supernatural thriller BOOK OF SHADOWS are all on sale on Amazon UK this month for just 99p each.
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
Huntress: Amazon UK: $.99 Blood Moon: Amazon UK: $.99 Cold Moon: Amazon UK: $.99
Huntress Moon Blood Moon Cold Moon
Book of Shadows is just 99p in the UK throughout March ($3.99 US and worldwide).
"A wonderfully dark thriller with amazing "Is-it-isn't-it?"suspense all the way to the end. Highly recommended." - Lee Child
Amazon USAmazon UKAmazon DEAmazon FRAmazon ESAmazon ITAmazon AU
A cynical Boston cop must teams with a mysterious Salem witch in a race to solve a Satanic murder.
But within the context of a ripping thriller, I am writing about issues I care passionately about and want to eradicate for good – meaning the good of everyone on the planet. Violence against women. Child sexual abuse. Human trafficking.
The last thing I want to do is show these scenes in a way that anyone could get pleasure out of. The few times I show anything on the page, it’s very brief and absolutely not there for entertainment. I think we all understand that rape is horrific – we don’t need to see graphic scenes to understand that. And I am very suspicious of any book that starts with a beautiful woman obviously being set up to be raped and tortured. Sexualizing rape and torture is not solving any problem – it’s actually contributing to the atrocity of sexual abuse. Personally I won’t support any book or author that sexualizes scenes of abuse.
I suppose as an author you can avoid these tough issues by writing cozies, or another genre entirely. But I don’t read cozies, and I wouldn’t know how to write one. I used to teach in the Los Angeles County prison system. I want to explore the roots of crime, not soft-pedal it. For better or worse, my core theme as a writer is “What can good people do about the evil in the world?”
So my choice is to confront the issue head on.
The fact is, one reason crime novels and film and TV so often depict women as victims is because it’s reality. Since the beginning of time, women haven’t been the predators – we’re the prey. Personally, I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
But after all those years (centuries, millennia) of women being victims of the most heinous crimes out there… wouldn’t you think that someone would finally say – “Enough”?
And maybe even strike back?
Well, that’s a story, isn’t it?
So my Huntress Moon series is about just that.
The books take the reader on an interstate manhunt with a haunted FBI agent on the track of what he thinks may be that most rare of criminals – a female serial killer.
And here’s what’s really interesting. Arguably there’s never been any such thing as a female serial killer in real life. The women that the media holds up as serial killers operate from a completely different psychology from the men who commit what the FBI calls “sexual homicide” (including most of the famous serial killers you know of: Bundy, Tobin, Kemper, Gacy, Tobin, Nilsen, Sutcliffe, and yes, Jack the Ripper…)
So what’s that about? Why do men do it and women don’t? Women rarely kill, compared to men — but when it happens, what does make a woman kill?
Because another pet peeve I have about crime fiction is the way so many authors presents serial killers for entertainment. So many authors seem to have no clue what a serial killer actually does. What we see on the page is criminal masterminds who stage their murders like artistic masterpieces or leave poetic clues in a cat-and-mouse game they're playing with the cops or FBI.
Well, bullshit. What serial killers do is rape, torture and kill for their own gratification. They are NOT masterminds. There is NO art or poetry to their sadism.
Yes, two of my favorite books are Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, both of which deal with mythic versions of serial killers. But Harris was writing HORROR novels in which he created mythological monsters within the frame of very accurate police procedurals. And authors who don't really understand the complexity of what he did have been ripping him off - almost always badly - every since.
Silence and Red Dragon are entertaining, no doubt. But they're also brilliant, passionate explorations of the nature of evil and the quest of good people to fight evil.
As an author, you can settle for writing entertainment, and make a living at it. But is that really all we're here for?
Within the context of my Huntress series I can explore the psychological and sociological questions that most trouble me, and invite my readers to ask – Why? I can realistically bring light to crimes that I consider pretty much the essence of evil – and turn the tables on the perpetrators.
And I’ve created a female character who breaks the mold – but in a way that makes psychological sense for the overwhelming majority of people who read the books. I am thrilled when readers find themselves as conflicted about the Huntress as Roarke is.
One of the profilers says in the book: “I’ve always wondered why we don’t see more women acting out this way. God knows enough of them have reason.”
For me, that's a question that's worth exploring.
So what do you think?
Readers, do you read crime fiction for entertainment? Are you looking for something that goes farther and examines the root of crime, and maybe even solutions? Are you concerned about scenes of violence against women being presented as sexualized entertainment?
Authors/writers: is this an issue you grapple with? Have you found ways of exploring real-life issues such as violence against women and children that both fulfill the conventions of the thriller genre and avoid brutalization for entertainment?
I’m always interesting in hearing!
- - Alex
http://alexandrasokoloff.com
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SALE ALERT: The first three books in the HUNTRESS MOON series, and my witchy supernatural thriller BOOK OF SHADOWS are all on sale on Amazon UK this month for just 99p each.
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
Huntress: Amazon UK: $.99 Blood Moon: Amazon UK: $.99 Cold Moon: Amazon UK: $.99
Huntress Moon Blood Moon Cold Moon
Book of Shadows is just 99p in the UK throughout March ($3.99 US and worldwide).
"A wonderfully dark thriller with amazing "Is-it-isn't-it?"suspense all the way to the end. Highly recommended." - Lee ChildAmazon USAmazon UKAmazon DEAmazon FRAmazon ESAmazon ITAmazon AU
A cynical Boston cop must teams with a mysterious Salem witch in a race to solve a Satanic murder.
