Alexandra Sokoloff's Blog, page 18
June 8, 2015
Huntress Moon 99 cents today only!
Sorry for the VERY late notice, but I just found out myself that HUNTRESS MOON is a Kindle Daily Deals, .99 cents today only on Amazon US!
Fantastic deal - please share!
Buy on Amazon US: 99 cents
Fantastic deal - please share!
Buy on Amazon US: 99 cents
June 5, 2015
The Index Card Method and Story Structure Grid
by Alexandra Sokoloff
I'm heading off to teach next week, the one really intensive workshop I do all year, at the West Texas A & M Writers Academy.
Usually when I do a workshop it's a day-long interactive lecture that I give to a large class - sixty to several hundred people - in which I review the Three-Act, Eight Sequence Structure and other general film writing techniques that are invaluable for authors, and then start with Act I and go through all the story elements I talk about here and in the workbooks, one sequence at a time.
Which is a great overview, and I answer a lot of individual questions and use lots of examples, but it's by necessity a very general class.
At the Writers Academy, the class size is limited to fifteen people and we can go through everyone's stories one sequence at a time. I love being able to be hands-on (at least, for a limited time!) and it's really remarkable to see writers at very different levels and at very different points in the writing process pull their ideas into coherent, complete and exciting story outlines in just five days.
I always give the class some exercises to prep for the class, and it occurred to me that I might as well post them here, especially for people who are doing Junowrimo (yes, there is now a Junowrimo, too). I know that anyone participating is already into the frenzy of writing, but index cards and the structure grid are brilliant refocusing tools if you, you know, get stuck along the way.
THE INDEX CARD METHOD
This is the number one structuring tool of most screenwriters I know. I have no idea how I would write without it.
Get yourself a pack of index cards. You can also use Post-Its, and the truly OCD among us use colored Post-Its to identify various subplots by color, but I find having to make those kinds of decisions just fritzes my brain. I like cards because they’re more durable and I can spread them out on the floor for me to crawl around and for the cats to walk over; it somehow feels less like work that way. Everyone has their own method - experiment and find what works best for you.
Now, get a corkboard or a sheet of cardboard - or even butcher paper - big enough to lay out your index cards in either four vertical columns of 10-15 cards, or eight vertical columns of 5-8 cards, depending on whether you want to see your story laid out in four acts or eight sequences. You can draw lines on the corkboard to make a grid of spaces the size of index cards if you’re very neat (I’m not) – or just pin a few marker cards up to structure your space. I find the tri-fold boards that kids use for science projects just perfect in size and they come pre-folded in exactly three acts of the right size! Just a few dollars at any Office Max or Staples.
Write Act One at the top of the first column, Act Two: 1 at the top of the second (or third if you’re doing eight columns), Act Two: 2 at the top of the third (or fifth), Act Three at the top of the fourth (or seventh).
Then write a card saying Act One Climax and pin it at the bottom of column one, Midpoint Climax at the bottom of column two, Act Two Climax at the bottom of column three, and Climax at the very end. If you already know what those scenes are, then write a short description of them on the appropriate cards. These are scenes that you know you MUST have in your story, in those places - whether or not you know what they are right now.
And now also label the beginning and end of where eight sequences will go. (In other words, you’re dividing your corkboard into eight sections – either four long columns with two sections each, or eight shorter columns).
Here is a photo of the grid on a white board - with sticky Post Its as index cards:
And an example of index cards on a tri-fold board from my friend, the wonderful author Diane Chamberlain. (As you can see, you can be as neat or as messy as you feel like being!)
So you have your structure grid in front of you.
What you will start to do now is brainstorm scenes, and that you do with the index cards.
A movie has about 40 to 60 scenes (a drama more like 40, an action movie more like 60), every scene goes on one card. Now, if you’re structuring a novel this way, you may be doubling or tripling the scene count, but for me, the chapter count remains exactly the same: forty to sixty chapters to a book.
This is the fun part, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. All you do at first is write down all the scenes you know about your story, one scene per card (just one or two lines describing each scene - it can be as simple as - "Hero and heroine meet" or - "Meet the antagonist".) You don’t have to put them in order yet, but if you know where they go, or approximately where they go, you can just pin them on your board in approximately the right place. You can always move them around. And just like with a puzzle, once you have some scenes in place, you will naturally start to build other scenes around them.
I love the cards because they are such an overview. You can stick a bunch of vaguely related scenes together in a clump, rearrange one or two, and suddenly see a perfect progression of an entire sequence. You can throw away cards that aren’t working, or make several cards with the same scene and try them in different parts of your story board.
You will find it is often shockingly fast and simple to structure a whole story this way.
And this eight-sequence structure translates easily to novels. And you might have an extra sequence or two per act, but I think that in most cases you’ll find that the number of sequences is not out of proportion to this formula. With a book you can have anything from 250 pages to 1000 (well, you can go that long only if you’re a mega-bestseller!), so the length of a sequence and the number of sequences is more variable. But an average book these days is between 300 and 400 pages, and since the recession, publishers are actually asking their authors to keep their books on the short side, to save production costs, so why not shoot for that to begin with?
I write books of about 350-400 pages (print pages), and I find my sequences are about 50 pages, getting shorter as I near the end. But I might also have three sequences of around 30 pages in an act that is 100 pages long. You have more leeway in a novel, but the structure remains pretty much the same.
In the next few posts we’ll talk about how to plug various obligatory scenes into this formula to make the structuring go even more quickly – key scenes that you’ll find in nearly all stories, like opening image, closing image, introduction of hero, inner and outer desire, stating the theme, call to adventure/inciting incident, introduction of allies, love interest, mentor, opponent, hero’s and opponent’s plans, plants and reveals, setpieces, training sequence, dark night of the soul, sex at sixty, hero’s arc, moral decision, etc.
And for those of you who are reeling in horror at the idea of a formula… it’s just a way of analyzing dramatic structure. No matter how you create a story yourself, chances are it will organically follow this flow. Think of the human body: human beings (with very few exceptions) have the exact same skeleton underneath all the complicated flesh and muscles and nerves and coloring and neurons and emotions and essences that make up a human being. No two alike… and yet a skeleton is a skeleton; it’s the foundation of a human being.
And structure is the foundation of a story.
ASSIGNMENTS:
-- Make two blank structure grids, one for the movie you have chosen from your master list to analyze, and one for your WIP (Work In Progress). You can just do a structure grid on a piece of paper for the movie you’ve chosen to analyze, but also do a large corkboard or cardboard structure grid for your WIP. You can fill out one structure grid while you watch the movie you’ve chosen.
-- Get a pack of index cards or Post Its and write down all the scenes you know about your story, and where possible, pin them onto your WIP structure grid in approximately the place they will occur.
If you are already well into your first draft, then by all means, keep writing forward, too – I don’t want you to stop your momentum. Use whatever is useful about what I’m talking about here, but also keep moving.
And if you have a completed draft and are starting a revision, a structure grid is a perfect tool to help you identify weak spots and build on what you have for a rewrite. Put your story on cards and watch how quickly you start to rearrange things that aren’t working!
Now, let me be clear. When you’re brainstorming with your index cards and you suddenly have a full-blown idea for a scene, or your characters start talking to you, then of course you should drop everything and write out the scene, see where it goes. Always write when you have a hot flash. I mean – you know what I mean. Write when you’re hot.
Ideally I will always be working on four piles of material, or tracks, at once:
1. The index cards I'm brainstorming and arranging on my structure grid.
2. A notebook of random scenes, dialogue, character descriptions that are coming to me as I'm outlining, and that I can start to put in chronological order as this notebook gets bigger.
3. An expanded on-paper (or in Word) story outline that I'm compiling as I order my index cards on the structure grid.
4. A collage book of visual images that I'm pulling from magazines that give me the characters, the locations, the colors and moods of my story (we will talk about Visual Storytelling soon.)
In the beginning of a project you will probably be going back and forth between all of those tracks as you build your story. Really this is my favorite part of the writing process – building the world – which is probably part of why I stay so long on it myself. But by the time I start my first draft I have so much of the story already that it’s not anywhere near the intimidating experience it would be if I hadn’t done all that prep work.
At some point (and a deadline has a lot to do with exactly when this point comes!) I feel I know the shape of the story well enough to start that first 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 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, and 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, 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 you will finish a book or a script.
Everything after that initial draft is frosting – it’s seven million times easier to rewrite than to get something onto a blank page.
Then 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.
But that’s my process. You have to find your own. If outlining is cramping your style, then you’re probably a “pantser” – not my favorite word, but common book jargon for a person who writes best by the seat of her pants. And if you’re a pantser, the methods I’ve been talking about have probably already made you so uncomfortable that I can’t believe you’re still here!
Still, I don’t think it hurts to read about these things. I maintain that pantsers have an intuitive knowledge of story structure – we all do, really, from having read so many books and having seen so many movies. I feel more comfortable with this rather left-brained and concrete process because I write intricate plots with twists and subplots I have to work out in advance, and also because I simply wouldn’t ever work as a screenwriter if I wasn’t able to walk into a conference room and tell the executives and producers and director the entire story, beginning to end. It’s part of the job.
But I can’t say this enough: WHATEVER WORKS. Literally. Whatever. If it’s getting the job done, you’re golden.
Next up - a list of essential story elements that will help you brainstorm your index cards.
- Alex
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you'd like some in-depth help, the writing workbooks based on this blog, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are available for just $3.99 and $2.99.
- Amazon US
- Amazon UK
- Amaxon DE
- Amazon FR
- Amazon ES
- Amazon IT
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'm heading off to teach next week, the one really intensive workshop I do all year, at the West Texas A & M Writers Academy.
Usually when I do a workshop it's a day-long interactive lecture that I give to a large class - sixty to several hundred people - in which I review the Three-Act, Eight Sequence Structure and other general film writing techniques that are invaluable for authors, and then start with Act I and go through all the story elements I talk about here and in the workbooks, one sequence at a time.
Which is a great overview, and I answer a lot of individual questions and use lots of examples, but it's by necessity a very general class.
At the Writers Academy, the class size is limited to fifteen people and we can go through everyone's stories one sequence at a time. I love being able to be hands-on (at least, for a limited time!) and it's really remarkable to see writers at very different levels and at very different points in the writing process pull their ideas into coherent, complete and exciting story outlines in just five days.
I always give the class some exercises to prep for the class, and it occurred to me that I might as well post them here, especially for people who are doing Junowrimo (yes, there is now a Junowrimo, too). I know that anyone participating is already into the frenzy of writing, but index cards and the structure grid are brilliant refocusing tools if you, you know, get stuck along the way.
THE INDEX CARD METHOD
This is the number one structuring tool of most screenwriters I know. I have no idea how I would write without it.
Get yourself a pack of index cards. You can also use Post-Its, and the truly OCD among us use colored Post-Its to identify various subplots by color, but I find having to make those kinds of decisions just fritzes my brain. I like cards because they’re more durable and I can spread them out on the floor for me to crawl around and for the cats to walk over; it somehow feels less like work that way. Everyone has their own method - experiment and find what works best for you.
Now, get a corkboard or a sheet of cardboard - or even butcher paper - big enough to lay out your index cards in either four vertical columns of 10-15 cards, or eight vertical columns of 5-8 cards, depending on whether you want to see your story laid out in four acts or eight sequences. You can draw lines on the corkboard to make a grid of spaces the size of index cards if you’re very neat (I’m not) – or just pin a few marker cards up to structure your space. I find the tri-fold boards that kids use for science projects just perfect in size and they come pre-folded in exactly three acts of the right size! Just a few dollars at any Office Max or Staples.
Write Act One at the top of the first column, Act Two: 1 at the top of the second (or third if you’re doing eight columns), Act Two: 2 at the top of the third (or fifth), Act Three at the top of the fourth (or seventh).
Then write a card saying Act One Climax and pin it at the bottom of column one, Midpoint Climax at the bottom of column two, Act Two Climax at the bottom of column three, and Climax at the very end. If you already know what those scenes are, then write a short description of them on the appropriate cards. These are scenes that you know you MUST have in your story, in those places - whether or not you know what they are right now.
And now also label the beginning and end of where eight sequences will go. (In other words, you’re dividing your corkboard into eight sections – either four long columns with two sections each, or eight shorter columns).
Here is a photo of the grid on a white board - with sticky Post Its as index cards:
And an example of index cards on a tri-fold board from my friend, the wonderful author Diane Chamberlain. (As you can see, you can be as neat or as messy as you feel like being!)
So you have your structure grid in front of you.
What you will start to do now is brainstorm scenes, and that you do with the index cards.
A movie has about 40 to 60 scenes (a drama more like 40, an action movie more like 60), every scene goes on one card. Now, if you’re structuring a novel this way, you may be doubling or tripling the scene count, but for me, the chapter count remains exactly the same: forty to sixty chapters to a book.
This is the fun part, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. All you do at first is write down all the scenes you know about your story, one scene per card (just one or two lines describing each scene - it can be as simple as - "Hero and heroine meet" or - "Meet the antagonist".) You don’t have to put them in order yet, but if you know where they go, or approximately where they go, you can just pin them on your board in approximately the right place. You can always move them around. And just like with a puzzle, once you have some scenes in place, you will naturally start to build other scenes around them.
I love the cards because they are such an overview. You can stick a bunch of vaguely related scenes together in a clump, rearrange one or two, and suddenly see a perfect progression of an entire sequence. You can throw away cards that aren’t working, or make several cards with the same scene and try them in different parts of your story board.
You will find it is often shockingly fast and simple to structure a whole story this way.
And this eight-sequence structure translates easily to novels. And you might have an extra sequence or two per act, but I think that in most cases you’ll find that the number of sequences is not out of proportion to this formula. With a book you can have anything from 250 pages to 1000 (well, you can go that long only if you’re a mega-bestseller!), so the length of a sequence and the number of sequences is more variable. But an average book these days is between 300 and 400 pages, and since the recession, publishers are actually asking their authors to keep their books on the short side, to save production costs, so why not shoot for that to begin with?
I write books of about 350-400 pages (print pages), and I find my sequences are about 50 pages, getting shorter as I near the end. But I might also have three sequences of around 30 pages in an act that is 100 pages long. You have more leeway in a novel, but the structure remains pretty much the same.
In the next few posts we’ll talk about how to plug various obligatory scenes into this formula to make the structuring go even more quickly – key scenes that you’ll find in nearly all stories, like opening image, closing image, introduction of hero, inner and outer desire, stating the theme, call to adventure/inciting incident, introduction of allies, love interest, mentor, opponent, hero’s and opponent’s plans, plants and reveals, setpieces, training sequence, dark night of the soul, sex at sixty, hero’s arc, moral decision, etc.
And for those of you who are reeling in horror at the idea of a formula… it’s just a way of analyzing dramatic structure. No matter how you create a story yourself, chances are it will organically follow this flow. Think of the human body: human beings (with very few exceptions) have the exact same skeleton underneath all the complicated flesh and muscles and nerves and coloring and neurons and emotions and essences that make up a human being. No two alike… and yet a skeleton is a skeleton; it’s the foundation of a human being.
And structure is the foundation of a story.
ASSIGNMENTS:
-- Make two blank structure grids, one for the movie you have chosen from your master list to analyze, and one for your WIP (Work In Progress). You can just do a structure grid on a piece of paper for the movie you’ve chosen to analyze, but also do a large corkboard or cardboard structure grid for your WIP. You can fill out one structure grid while you watch the movie you’ve chosen.
-- Get a pack of index cards or Post Its and write down all the scenes you know about your story, and where possible, pin them onto your WIP structure grid in approximately the place they will occur.
If you are already well into your first draft, then by all means, keep writing forward, too – I don’t want you to stop your momentum. Use whatever is useful about what I’m talking about here, but also keep moving.
And if you have a completed draft and are starting a revision, a structure grid is a perfect tool to help you identify weak spots and build on what you have for a rewrite. Put your story on cards and watch how quickly you start to rearrange things that aren’t working!
Now, let me be clear. When you’re brainstorming with your index cards and you suddenly have a full-blown idea for a scene, or your characters start talking to you, then of course you should drop everything and write out the scene, see where it goes. Always write when you have a hot flash. I mean – you know what I mean. Write when you’re hot.
Ideally I will always be working on four piles of material, or tracks, at once:
1. The index cards I'm brainstorming and arranging on my structure grid.
2. A notebook of random scenes, dialogue, character descriptions that are coming to me as I'm outlining, and that I can start to put in chronological order as this notebook gets bigger.
3. An expanded on-paper (or in Word) story outline that I'm compiling as I order my index cards on the structure grid.
4. A collage book of visual images that I'm pulling from magazines that give me the characters, the locations, the colors and moods of my story (we will talk about Visual Storytelling soon.)
In the beginning of a project you will probably be going back and forth between all of those tracks as you build your story. Really this is my favorite part of the writing process – building the world – which is probably part of why I stay so long on it myself. But by the time I start my first draft I have so much of the story already that it’s not anywhere near the intimidating experience it would be if I hadn’t done all that prep work.
At some point (and a deadline has a lot to do with exactly when this point comes!) I feel I know the shape of the story well enough to start that first 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 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, and 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, 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 you will finish a book or a script.
Everything after that initial draft is frosting – it’s seven million times easier to rewrite than to get something onto a blank page.
Then 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.
But that’s my process. You have to find your own. If outlining is cramping your style, then you’re probably a “pantser” – not my favorite word, but common book jargon for a person who writes best by the seat of her pants. And if you’re a pantser, the methods I’ve been talking about have probably already made you so uncomfortable that I can’t believe you’re still here!
Still, I don’t think it hurts to read about these things. I maintain that pantsers have an intuitive knowledge of story structure – we all do, really, from having read so many books and having seen so many movies. I feel more comfortable with this rather left-brained and concrete process because I write intricate plots with twists and subplots I have to work out in advance, and also because I simply wouldn’t ever work as a screenwriter if I wasn’t able to walk into a conference room and tell the executives and producers and director the entire story, beginning to end. It’s part of the job.
But I can’t say this enough: WHATEVER WORKS. Literally. Whatever. If it’s getting the job done, you’re golden.
Next up - a list of essential story elements that will help you brainstorm your index cards.
- Alex
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you'd like some in-depth help, the writing workbooks based on this blog, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are available for just $3.99 and $2.99.
- Amazon US
- Amazon UK
- Amaxon DE
- Amazon FR
- Amazon ES
- Amazon IT
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
May 30, 2015
The Silence of the Lambs - Act I story breakdown and analysis
by Alexandra Sokoloff
The Silence of the Lambs
My Silence of the Lambs breakdown is turning into a dissertation, so I figured I'd better start mailing it out act by act or I'll never get through it!
As I talked about here, I will not be posting full story breakdowns on the blog anymore – I’m asking that you join my free Story Structure Extras list to get the story breakdowns.
If you haven’t joined the list, you can do it here, and get a full breakdown of The Wizard of Oz and the full Act I breakdown of Silence. Then I'll mail the rest of the Silence breakdown in segments as I work through it.
I did an intro to the movie here, if you didn't catch it - and anyone who is not familiar with story breakdowns will probably want to review the Elements of Act I.
And I'm posting the first sequence breakdown here, so that we have a place to discuss!
The GENRE is a cross of psychological thriller, police procedural, and horror—in fact, it’s the only horror film ever to win a Best Picture Oscar —and one of only three films in cinematic history to win what’s known in Hollywood as the Big Five: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (adapted), Best Actor, Best Actress.
The KIND of story it is: a mentor story, a therapeutic journey, a deal with the devil story, and a fairy tale: a twist on the “peasant boy rescues princess from evil troll” story. In this story, it’s a peasant girl who rescues the princess from an evil troll.
The Silence of the Lambs
Screenplay by Ted Tally
Adapted from the novel by Thomas Harris
Directed by Jonathan Demme
ACT ONE
SEQUENCE ONE: The case and Lecter
All of the following is under the CREDITS. In the olden days, before ADHD, filmmakers used the opening credits sequence to establish all kinds of thematic information, and to get the audience right where they wanted them emotionally before the first line of dialogue was spoken. Now credits sequences go at the end of the movie, apparently because audiences won’t sit still for them. It’s a tragedy.
The OPENING IMAGE is a misty lake, seen through trees, just at dawn. (Water, clouds and mist are all images of the subconscious. Dawn is of course a symbol of enlightenment. All very thematic.) The music underneath is dark and haunting (a fantastic score by Howard Shore, reminiscent of Bernard Hermann’s scores for many of Hitchcock’s psychological thrillers). We hold on these images long enough to slow our heart rate, and then a tiny female figure emerges from a misty chasm, pulling herself up a steep hill via a thick rope.
(INTRODUCTION TO HEROINE)
Her breathing is labored, which effectively puts us inside her, breathing with her – it’s a very subjective point of view. As she reaches the top we hold for a moment on Jodie Foster’s exquisitely sculpted face… she is sweating and panting, which activates our own senses… then she runs on in the mist, the moving camera following her slowly. All in all a very dreamlike opening. This is a classic horror movie technique, to put the viewer inside a dream from the very beginning. The very worst things we can imagine can happen in dreams – it’s a very vulnerable state for the audience to be in. And we’ve all had that dream of running, running, running…
The running is also a thematic clue: Clarice is running away from her past – a past that her unlikely mentor and this case will force her to confront and resolve.
Clarice is negotiating a wooded obstacle course on the grounds of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. But throughout, the scene is more dreamlike than real. She approaches a rope barrier that she climbs, an image reminiscent of a spider web and the first of many insect and arachnid images. (VISUAL AND THEMATIC IMAGE SYSTEM). Director Jonathan Demme and his production team very, very successfully found visual images to create the same thematic resonance that Thomas Harris creates in the book.
The scene also serves to show Clarice’s daily TRAINING as an FBI agent, and visually demonstrates both her special skills (strength, stamina, endurance) and her fragility (she is so very small…)
A voice calls her name “Starling!” and then almost out of nowhere a man runs up behind her – another dreamlike and disorienting moment. He says “Crawford wants to see you.” This is a HERALD – summoning her to a task. (It adds import to the CALL TO ADVENTURE to have a Herald character come to the protagonist first, and lead her to another person who will actually deliver the CALL. See Raiders of the Lost Ark for another great example of this double call.)
Clarice turns and runs past a tree with signposts that read HURT PAIN AGONY - LOVE IT. Real signs from the Quantico training course that have a lot of thematic resonance here!
She runs toward and into the concrete FBI Academy building, where other trainees, all male, are working out (visually establishing Clarice as the unique outsider she is in this environment.)
I’ll stop for a moment to note that is a story about a protagonist with a big WOUND (or GHOST), and the casting of Jodie Foster was an extra stroke of genius. In real life, Foster suffered relentless and intrusive public attention after her stalker, John Hinckley, shot then-president Ronald Reagan to get Foster’s attention when Foster was just nineteen. Throughout her career Foster has maintained an almost reclusive privacy. Certainly this brilliant actor could have played the part regardless of her background, but for this excruciatingly psychological movie, in which the key internal character struggle is the painful reveal and resolution of a childhood wound, it added an extra layer to the character to have Foster’s wounded energy and deep reluctance to share anything personal about herself.
Now we see Clarice cross a glass bridge (directors love to use bridges as symbols of transition, of crossing into another world) and briefly meet ARDELIA, her roommate, on the stairs (MEET THE ALLY) then wend her way through the ballistics lab (setting up more FBI training).
In the elevator we see how tiny Clarice is beside her male classmates (all dressed in red shirts, while she is in gray) which establishes her as an underdog, an outsider and terribly, terribly vulnerable - all in in just a few seconds’ visual.
END CREDITS SEQUENCE as Clarice walks into the Behavioral Sciences Services department and is told by two suited agents to wait in Crawford’s office.
While Clarice waits, we and she get our first glimpse of the ANTAGONIST as she looks over the white board with newspaper articles about a serial killer, Buffalo Bill (“Bill Skins Fifth”) along with bloody and heartbreaking crime scene photos of the young female victims, and a map showing the locations of body dump sites. A HORROR moment that registers in Clarice’s face. These are the STAKES: life and death. And it’s the first moment of layering in the FEAR we will have for Clarice – that she, too, will be killed. She is a young white Southern woman, like all of the victims.
(This is also a PLANT: In the final scenes, we will see an almost identical map and collection of news articles in the killer’s basement. The bookended images will give the action a feeling of coming full circle.)
Note how quickly we are introduced to the antagonist by name and with visuals of his terrible crimes – it’s very important to introduce the opponent as quickly as possible, at least by reference.
And no, Lecter is NOT the antagonist in SOTL. Lecter is the MENTOR.
We meet Jack Crawford, who will serve as Clarice’s law enforcement MENTOR. Crawford quickly sketches out Clarice’s backstory as he reads out her education and training from her file (“double major, psych and criminology” - these are some of the HEROINE’S SPECIAL SKILLS). We also learn Clarice’s OUTER DESIRE: After graduation she wants to come work for Crawford as a psychological profiler in Behavioral Science.
Crawford delivers the CALL TO ADVENTURE (also known as the INCITING INCIDENT. This is also her first TEST), telling her he has “an interesting errand” for her. She’s to go interview convicted serial killer Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter, ostensibly for a FBI research study. Clarice immediately shows her insight (SPECIAL SKILLS) - she asks if there’s a connection to Buffalo Bill, the serial killer from the news articles, who has been kidnapping young women, killing them and skinning them. Campbell dismisses the idea, saying “I wish there were,” then diverts Clarice from the topic as he warns her that she must not tell Lecter anything personal about herself: she does not want Lecter inside her head. (SET UP – because what’s Lecter going to demand of her?) Crawford tells her she must never forget what Lecter is:
[8:20] The scene cuts to a visual of the foreboding brick prison (for the criminally insane), and Dr. Chilton finishes Crawford’s sentence:
“Oh, he’s a monster. A pure psychopath.” (As I always say, just SAY it!)
Dr. Chilton is the slimy little head of the prison asylum, a SECONDARY OPPONENT. He clumsily flirts with Clarice (such a refreshing scene, this is, to see this numbing sexual harassment portrayed so bluntly!). Then when she politely rebuffs him, he turns cold and vindictive.
Chilton now takes Clarice INTO THE SPECIAL WORLD. It’s a descent into the underworld: he leads her down an Escher-like set of stairs to the basement where the most dangerous inmates are kept. (The basement recalls dungeons, and also is a favorite location of psychological thrillers: in psychology, “basement issues” are our deepest fears.)
As Chilton leads her down to the cells he gives her a rundown on Lecter, including a brutal description and photo of what Lecter did to a nurse recently (establishing more FEAR in us for Clarice).
Having other characters talk about a character before we meet them builds anticipation and makes them more powerful. This introduction gives Lecter almost supernatural power. (“His pulse never went above eighty-five - even when he ate her tongue.”)
This scene is a prime example of how a really great SETPIECE SCENE is a lot more than just dazzling (and that a setpiece doesn’t have to take place on some epic, multimillion-dollar set. You don’t need a cast of thousands – two great actors and a great script will do the trick). A great setpiece is thematic, too. This is much more than your garden-variety prison. It’s a labyrinth of twisty staircases and creepy corridors. And it’s hell: Clarice goes through —count ‘em— seven gates, down, down, down under the ground to get to Lecter. Because after all, she’s going to be dealing with the devil, isn’t she? And the labyrinth is a classic symbol of an inner psychological journey, just exactly what Clarice is about to go through. And Lecter is a monster, like the Minotaur, so putting him smack in the center of a labyrinth makes us unconsciously equate him with a mythical beast, something both more and less than human. The visuals of that setpiece express all of those themes perfectly (and others, too) so the scene is working on all kinds of visceral, emotional, subconscious levels. There are many visual HORROR elements at work in this scene as well: a medieval dungeon/insane asylum, gates of hell, stone walls, cages, hissing monsters. Chilton is a gnome.
Now, yes, that’s brilliant filmmaking by director Jonathan Demme, and screenwriter Ted Tally and production designer Kristi Zea and DP Tak Fujimoto… but it was all there on Harris’s page, first, all that and more; the filmmakers had the good sense to translate it to the screen. In fact, both Silence of the Lambsand Red Dragon are so crammed full of thematic visual imagery you can catch something new every time you reread those books.
Chilton leaves Clarice at the last gate, and there prison guard Barney is a calm, kind GUARDIAN AT THE GATE who lets her through the last gate with warnings but also a blessing: “I’ll be watching you. You’ll do fine.” It’s very important in a story about good and evil to show powerful, ordinary good at work as well as powerful evil.
Clarice must pass the cells of other human monsters who ogle and harass her before she comes to Lecter’s cell. (It’s interesting to compare and contrast this overt sexual harassment with the way male FBI classmates are constantly looking Clarice and Ardelia over, and the more aggressive ogling that Clarice encounters with the West Virginia deputies, later. I truly appreciate Demme’s understanding of that fact of feminine life.)
[12:42] In the last cell, Hannibal Lecter is standing, very still and pale, waiting for her behind a thick glass wall (a cinematic choice which allows Clarice and Lecter to seem to be in the same room with each other.) INTRODUCTION TO MENTOR.
Lecter forces her to step closer with her credentials, establishing dominance… but interestingly, when the two are in close up, eyes to eyes, it is Lecter who looks away first from Clarice’s clear and steady gaze. Almost as if evil can’t bear to directly confront good… (THEME).
Lecter conceals the moment and immediately disparages her for being just a trainee, but she says, “I’m a student. I’m here to learn from you.” (which precisely sums up the story). And then she adds a challenge: “Maybe you can decide for yourself whether I’m qualified.”
Lecter obviously admires this rejoinder – a point to Clarice. He begins mentoring her almost immediately: when she segues too clumsily into the questionnaire, he admonishes her, telling her precisely what she’s done wrong, like a professor with a student. He asks her almost immediately about Buffalo Bill and challenges her to analyze why Bill removes his victims’ skins. We are also getting a sense of Lecter’s SPECIAL SKILLS: he has an extraordinary sense of smell and can and identify her skin cream and the perfume she usually wears. The cell walls are covered with his fine sketches of the Duomo in Italy (he says sketches because he has no view – an early statement of his DESIRE: a view of the outside).
Lecter toys with her and taunts her, but she impresses him, passing a TEST by winning their sparring match to get him to look at the questionnaire Crawford sent her in with. Lecter looks it over and throws it back to her, with a blistering assessment of her personality. “You’re so ambitious, aren’t you?” Lecter purrs.
And here we learn Clarice’s OUTER DESIRE is for advancement in the FBI. It’s a brilliant storytelling trick to have Dr. Lecter tell us so - brilliant because it makes Lecter all knowing, but it also clearly spells out Clarice’s desire, which the audience/reader really does need to know to commit to the character and relax into the story. I’m a big believer in just spelling it out.
In Lecter’s brief, scathing monologue, we learn of Clarice’s desperate teenage years and her struggle to escape rural West Virginia. Though it clearly pains her, she admits he’s right, but then challenges him to “point that high powered perception” at himself. “Or are you afraid?”
He shoves the questionnaire back to her with a warning (now one of the most-quoted lines of film history): “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” The message is clear – “Cross the line with me and I will kill you.” STAKES and FEAR.
And then Lecter dismisses her: “Fly back to school, little Starling. Fly fly fly.”
Also note this thematic bit of business: the questionnaire they’re playing hot potato with is a symbol for psychological analysis – this is a story about a therapeutic journey, and they’re both challenging each other to unmask.
And I’ll stop again for a note about Lecter. Here we have a devil character, my absolute favorite. Thomas Harris created a monster for the ages by turning a serial killer into a mythic archetype (although for my money he should have stopped with The Silence of the Lambs.) But what really does me about Lecter is the magician/mentor aspect of him. Here’s this evil, psychotic genius —who sees something in Clarice that makes at least part of him want to mentor her, even protect her. More than that, he understands her, better than any other living soul. That to me is the ultimate seductiveness of the devil: that he gets you — right down to the core of your being. In a way, there’s no greater intimacy. And that dynamic gives the relationship between Clarice and Lecter a very subtle erotic tension that is key to this movie (and that Harris completely destroyed by making it overt in Hannibal.) In Jungian psychology, Lecter could also be said to be Clarice’s animus, the inner male.
After Lecter’s dismissal, as Clarice starts to walk back down the corridor, we see the prisoner in the next cell, Miggs, is jerking off on his cot. He throws semen on Clarice, igniting crazy ranting from the other prisoners. Lecter shouts to Clarice, calling her back.
As the prisoners babble and shout, Lecter apologizes for Miggs’ behavior and Clarice seizes the moment to ask again that he do the questionnaire for her (her AMBITION comes through even under the circumstances). He refuses, but then gives her a clue toward “What you love most: advancement.” He tells her to “Look deep into yourself” and seek out an old patient of his, Miss Hester Moffat. Then he shouts at her to go and she runs from the dungeon. (Another TEST. In a mentor story, much of the early action will consist of testing of the hero/ine.)
Note how the sudden speed of dialogue and the cacophony of the inmates contribute to the feeling of CLIMAX (well, literally…) to this tense and claustrophobic scene.
As an emotional tag to the sequence, outside the asylum, Clarice has a flashback to herself as a child and her sheriff father returning home (showing another INNER DESIRE: for a father figure and explaining her desire for a law enforcement career). Then, in the present, she breaks down and weeps against her car. [20:40]
SEQUENCE ONE CLIMAX
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join my free Story Structure Extras list to get full story breakdowns.
________________________________________________________________
Books 1, 2 and 3 of the Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, and Cold Moon are available now from Thomas & Mercer.
I very strongly recommend that you read the series in order, starting with Huntress Moon.
Buy on Amazon US Buy on Amazon US Buy on Amazon US
Buy on Amazon UK Buy on Amazon UK Buy on Amazon UK
The Silence of the Lambs
My Silence of the Lambs breakdown is turning into a dissertation, so I figured I'd better start mailing it out act by act or I'll never get through it!
As I talked about here, I will not be posting full story breakdowns on the blog anymore – I’m asking that you join my free Story Structure Extras list to get the story breakdowns.
If you haven’t joined the list, you can do it here, and get a full breakdown of The Wizard of Oz and the full Act I breakdown of Silence. Then I'll mail the rest of the Silence breakdown in segments as I work through it.
I did an intro to the movie here, if you didn't catch it - and anyone who is not familiar with story breakdowns will probably want to review the Elements of Act I.
And I'm posting the first sequence breakdown here, so that we have a place to discuss!
The GENRE is a cross of psychological thriller, police procedural, and horror—in fact, it’s the only horror film ever to win a Best Picture Oscar —and one of only three films in cinematic history to win what’s known in Hollywood as the Big Five: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (adapted), Best Actor, Best Actress.
The KIND of story it is: a mentor story, a therapeutic journey, a deal with the devil story, and a fairy tale: a twist on the “peasant boy rescues princess from evil troll” story. In this story, it’s a peasant girl who rescues the princess from an evil troll.
The Silence of the Lambs
Screenplay by Ted Tally
Adapted from the novel by Thomas Harris
Directed by Jonathan Demme
ACT ONE
SEQUENCE ONE: The case and Lecter
All of the following is under the CREDITS. In the olden days, before ADHD, filmmakers used the opening credits sequence to establish all kinds of thematic information, and to get the audience right where they wanted them emotionally before the first line of dialogue was spoken. Now credits sequences go at the end of the movie, apparently because audiences won’t sit still for them. It’s a tragedy.
The OPENING IMAGE is a misty lake, seen through trees, just at dawn. (Water, clouds and mist are all images of the subconscious. Dawn is of course a symbol of enlightenment. All very thematic.) The music underneath is dark and haunting (a fantastic score by Howard Shore, reminiscent of Bernard Hermann’s scores for many of Hitchcock’s psychological thrillers). We hold on these images long enough to slow our heart rate, and then a tiny female figure emerges from a misty chasm, pulling herself up a steep hill via a thick rope.
(INTRODUCTION TO HEROINE)
Her breathing is labored, which effectively puts us inside her, breathing with her – it’s a very subjective point of view. As she reaches the top we hold for a moment on Jodie Foster’s exquisitely sculpted face… she is sweating and panting, which activates our own senses… then she runs on in the mist, the moving camera following her slowly. All in all a very dreamlike opening. This is a classic horror movie technique, to put the viewer inside a dream from the very beginning. The very worst things we can imagine can happen in dreams – it’s a very vulnerable state for the audience to be in. And we’ve all had that dream of running, running, running…
The running is also a thematic clue: Clarice is running away from her past – a past that her unlikely mentor and this case will force her to confront and resolve.
Clarice is negotiating a wooded obstacle course on the grounds of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. But throughout, the scene is more dreamlike than real. She approaches a rope barrier that she climbs, an image reminiscent of a spider web and the first of many insect and arachnid images. (VISUAL AND THEMATIC IMAGE SYSTEM). Director Jonathan Demme and his production team very, very successfully found visual images to create the same thematic resonance that Thomas Harris creates in the book.
The scene also serves to show Clarice’s daily TRAINING as an FBI agent, and visually demonstrates both her special skills (strength, stamina, endurance) and her fragility (she is so very small…)
A voice calls her name “Starling!” and then almost out of nowhere a man runs up behind her – another dreamlike and disorienting moment. He says “Crawford wants to see you.” This is a HERALD – summoning her to a task. (It adds import to the CALL TO ADVENTURE to have a Herald character come to the protagonist first, and lead her to another person who will actually deliver the CALL. See Raiders of the Lost Ark for another great example of this double call.)
Clarice turns and runs past a tree with signposts that read HURT PAIN AGONY - LOVE IT. Real signs from the Quantico training course that have a lot of thematic resonance here!
She runs toward and into the concrete FBI Academy building, where other trainees, all male, are working out (visually establishing Clarice as the unique outsider she is in this environment.)
I’ll stop for a moment to note that is a story about a protagonist with a big WOUND (or GHOST), and the casting of Jodie Foster was an extra stroke of genius. In real life, Foster suffered relentless and intrusive public attention after her stalker, John Hinckley, shot then-president Ronald Reagan to get Foster’s attention when Foster was just nineteen. Throughout her career Foster has maintained an almost reclusive privacy. Certainly this brilliant actor could have played the part regardless of her background, but for this excruciatingly psychological movie, in which the key internal character struggle is the painful reveal and resolution of a childhood wound, it added an extra layer to the character to have Foster’s wounded energy and deep reluctance to share anything personal about herself.
Now we see Clarice cross a glass bridge (directors love to use bridges as symbols of transition, of crossing into another world) and briefly meet ARDELIA, her roommate, on the stairs (MEET THE ALLY) then wend her way through the ballistics lab (setting up more FBI training).
In the elevator we see how tiny Clarice is beside her male classmates (all dressed in red shirts, while she is in gray) which establishes her as an underdog, an outsider and terribly, terribly vulnerable - all in in just a few seconds’ visual.
END CREDITS SEQUENCE as Clarice walks into the Behavioral Sciences Services department and is told by two suited agents to wait in Crawford’s office.
While Clarice waits, we and she get our first glimpse of the ANTAGONIST as she looks over the white board with newspaper articles about a serial killer, Buffalo Bill (“Bill Skins Fifth”) along with bloody and heartbreaking crime scene photos of the young female victims, and a map showing the locations of body dump sites. A HORROR moment that registers in Clarice’s face. These are the STAKES: life and death. And it’s the first moment of layering in the FEAR we will have for Clarice – that she, too, will be killed. She is a young white Southern woman, like all of the victims.
(This is also a PLANT: In the final scenes, we will see an almost identical map and collection of news articles in the killer’s basement. The bookended images will give the action a feeling of coming full circle.)
Note how quickly we are introduced to the antagonist by name and with visuals of his terrible crimes – it’s very important to introduce the opponent as quickly as possible, at least by reference.
And no, Lecter is NOT the antagonist in SOTL. Lecter is the MENTOR.
We meet Jack Crawford, who will serve as Clarice’s law enforcement MENTOR. Crawford quickly sketches out Clarice’s backstory as he reads out her education and training from her file (“double major, psych and criminology” - these are some of the HEROINE’S SPECIAL SKILLS). We also learn Clarice’s OUTER DESIRE: After graduation she wants to come work for Crawford as a psychological profiler in Behavioral Science.
Crawford delivers the CALL TO ADVENTURE (also known as the INCITING INCIDENT. This is also her first TEST), telling her he has “an interesting errand” for her. She’s to go interview convicted serial killer Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter, ostensibly for a FBI research study. Clarice immediately shows her insight (SPECIAL SKILLS) - she asks if there’s a connection to Buffalo Bill, the serial killer from the news articles, who has been kidnapping young women, killing them and skinning them. Campbell dismisses the idea, saying “I wish there were,” then diverts Clarice from the topic as he warns her that she must not tell Lecter anything personal about herself: she does not want Lecter inside her head. (SET UP – because what’s Lecter going to demand of her?) Crawford tells her she must never forget what Lecter is:
[8:20] The scene cuts to a visual of the foreboding brick prison (for the criminally insane), and Dr. Chilton finishes Crawford’s sentence:
“Oh, he’s a monster. A pure psychopath.” (As I always say, just SAY it!)
Dr. Chilton is the slimy little head of the prison asylum, a SECONDARY OPPONENT. He clumsily flirts with Clarice (such a refreshing scene, this is, to see this numbing sexual harassment portrayed so bluntly!). Then when she politely rebuffs him, he turns cold and vindictive.
Chilton now takes Clarice INTO THE SPECIAL WORLD. It’s a descent into the underworld: he leads her down an Escher-like set of stairs to the basement where the most dangerous inmates are kept. (The basement recalls dungeons, and also is a favorite location of psychological thrillers: in psychology, “basement issues” are our deepest fears.)
As Chilton leads her down to the cells he gives her a rundown on Lecter, including a brutal description and photo of what Lecter did to a nurse recently (establishing more FEAR in us for Clarice).
Having other characters talk about a character before we meet them builds anticipation and makes them more powerful. This introduction gives Lecter almost supernatural power. (“His pulse never went above eighty-five - even when he ate her tongue.”)
This scene is a prime example of how a really great SETPIECE SCENE is a lot more than just dazzling (and that a setpiece doesn’t have to take place on some epic, multimillion-dollar set. You don’t need a cast of thousands – two great actors and a great script will do the trick). A great setpiece is thematic, too. This is much more than your garden-variety prison. It’s a labyrinth of twisty staircases and creepy corridors. And it’s hell: Clarice goes through —count ‘em— seven gates, down, down, down under the ground to get to Lecter. Because after all, she’s going to be dealing with the devil, isn’t she? And the labyrinth is a classic symbol of an inner psychological journey, just exactly what Clarice is about to go through. And Lecter is a monster, like the Minotaur, so putting him smack in the center of a labyrinth makes us unconsciously equate him with a mythical beast, something both more and less than human. The visuals of that setpiece express all of those themes perfectly (and others, too) so the scene is working on all kinds of visceral, emotional, subconscious levels. There are many visual HORROR elements at work in this scene as well: a medieval dungeon/insane asylum, gates of hell, stone walls, cages, hissing monsters. Chilton is a gnome.
Now, yes, that’s brilliant filmmaking by director Jonathan Demme, and screenwriter Ted Tally and production designer Kristi Zea and DP Tak Fujimoto… but it was all there on Harris’s page, first, all that and more; the filmmakers had the good sense to translate it to the screen. In fact, both Silence of the Lambsand Red Dragon are so crammed full of thematic visual imagery you can catch something new every time you reread those books.
Chilton leaves Clarice at the last gate, and there prison guard Barney is a calm, kind GUARDIAN AT THE GATE who lets her through the last gate with warnings but also a blessing: “I’ll be watching you. You’ll do fine.” It’s very important in a story about good and evil to show powerful, ordinary good at work as well as powerful evil.
Clarice must pass the cells of other human monsters who ogle and harass her before she comes to Lecter’s cell. (It’s interesting to compare and contrast this overt sexual harassment with the way male FBI classmates are constantly looking Clarice and Ardelia over, and the more aggressive ogling that Clarice encounters with the West Virginia deputies, later. I truly appreciate Demme’s understanding of that fact of feminine life.)
[12:42] In the last cell, Hannibal Lecter is standing, very still and pale, waiting for her behind a thick glass wall (a cinematic choice which allows Clarice and Lecter to seem to be in the same room with each other.) INTRODUCTION TO MENTOR.
Lecter forces her to step closer with her credentials, establishing dominance… but interestingly, when the two are in close up, eyes to eyes, it is Lecter who looks away first from Clarice’s clear and steady gaze. Almost as if evil can’t bear to directly confront good… (THEME).
Lecter conceals the moment and immediately disparages her for being just a trainee, but she says, “I’m a student. I’m here to learn from you.” (which precisely sums up the story). And then she adds a challenge: “Maybe you can decide for yourself whether I’m qualified.”
Lecter obviously admires this rejoinder – a point to Clarice. He begins mentoring her almost immediately: when she segues too clumsily into the questionnaire, he admonishes her, telling her precisely what she’s done wrong, like a professor with a student. He asks her almost immediately about Buffalo Bill and challenges her to analyze why Bill removes his victims’ skins. We are also getting a sense of Lecter’s SPECIAL SKILLS: he has an extraordinary sense of smell and can and identify her skin cream and the perfume she usually wears. The cell walls are covered with his fine sketches of the Duomo in Italy (he says sketches because he has no view – an early statement of his DESIRE: a view of the outside).
Lecter toys with her and taunts her, but she impresses him, passing a TEST by winning their sparring match to get him to look at the questionnaire Crawford sent her in with. Lecter looks it over and throws it back to her, with a blistering assessment of her personality. “You’re so ambitious, aren’t you?” Lecter purrs.
And here we learn Clarice’s OUTER DESIRE is for advancement in the FBI. It’s a brilliant storytelling trick to have Dr. Lecter tell us so - brilliant because it makes Lecter all knowing, but it also clearly spells out Clarice’s desire, which the audience/reader really does need to know to commit to the character and relax into the story. I’m a big believer in just spelling it out.
In Lecter’s brief, scathing monologue, we learn of Clarice’s desperate teenage years and her struggle to escape rural West Virginia. Though it clearly pains her, she admits he’s right, but then challenges him to “point that high powered perception” at himself. “Or are you afraid?”
He shoves the questionnaire back to her with a warning (now one of the most-quoted lines of film history): “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” The message is clear – “Cross the line with me and I will kill you.” STAKES and FEAR.
And then Lecter dismisses her: “Fly back to school, little Starling. Fly fly fly.”
Also note this thematic bit of business: the questionnaire they’re playing hot potato with is a symbol for psychological analysis – this is a story about a therapeutic journey, and they’re both challenging each other to unmask.
And I’ll stop again for a note about Lecter. Here we have a devil character, my absolute favorite. Thomas Harris created a monster for the ages by turning a serial killer into a mythic archetype (although for my money he should have stopped with The Silence of the Lambs.) But what really does me about Lecter is the magician/mentor aspect of him. Here’s this evil, psychotic genius —who sees something in Clarice that makes at least part of him want to mentor her, even protect her. More than that, he understands her, better than any other living soul. That to me is the ultimate seductiveness of the devil: that he gets you — right down to the core of your being. In a way, there’s no greater intimacy. And that dynamic gives the relationship between Clarice and Lecter a very subtle erotic tension that is key to this movie (and that Harris completely destroyed by making it overt in Hannibal.) In Jungian psychology, Lecter could also be said to be Clarice’s animus, the inner male.
After Lecter’s dismissal, as Clarice starts to walk back down the corridor, we see the prisoner in the next cell, Miggs, is jerking off on his cot. He throws semen on Clarice, igniting crazy ranting from the other prisoners. Lecter shouts to Clarice, calling her back.
As the prisoners babble and shout, Lecter apologizes for Miggs’ behavior and Clarice seizes the moment to ask again that he do the questionnaire for her (her AMBITION comes through even under the circumstances). He refuses, but then gives her a clue toward “What you love most: advancement.” He tells her to “Look deep into yourself” and seek out an old patient of his, Miss Hester Moffat. Then he shouts at her to go and she runs from the dungeon. (Another TEST. In a mentor story, much of the early action will consist of testing of the hero/ine.)
Note how the sudden speed of dialogue and the cacophony of the inmates contribute to the feeling of CLIMAX (well, literally…) to this tense and claustrophobic scene.
As an emotional tag to the sequence, outside the asylum, Clarice has a flashback to herself as a child and her sheriff father returning home (showing another INNER DESIRE: for a father figure and explaining her desire for a law enforcement career). Then, in the present, she breaks down and weeps against her car. [20:40]
SEQUENCE ONE CLIMAX
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Join my free Story Structure Extras list to get full story breakdowns.
________________________________________________________________
Books 1, 2 and 3 of the Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, and Cold Moon are available now from Thomas & Mercer.
I very strongly recommend that you read the series in order, starting with Huntress Moon.
Buy on Amazon US Buy on Amazon US Buy on Amazon US
Buy on Amazon UK Buy on Amazon UK Buy on Amazon UK
May 19, 2015
I'm chatting live tonight, 9pm ET
Just a quick note to let you all know - I'm chatting live tonight in the WriterSpace chat room, 9pm ET
http://www.writerspace.com/chat/
It's 1 am for me so I'm not always coherent (!) but I'll happily answer any questions you might have about the Huntress series, my concern over escalating violence against women in the media and in life, and, um, story structure.
All welcome, and there's an audiobook giveaway, too!
YES, I am working on the Silence of the Lambs breakdown. Some family issues and a spate of traveling and the Cold Moon launch have slowed me down a bit….
- Alex
http://www.writerspace.com/chat/
It's 1 am for me so I'm not always coherent (!) but I'll happily answer any questions you might have about the Huntress series, my concern over escalating violence against women in the media and in life, and, um, story structure.
All welcome, and there's an audiobook giveaway, too!
YES, I am working on the Silence of the Lambs breakdown. Some family issues and a spate of traveling and the Cold Moon launch have slowed me down a bit….
- Alex
May 4, 2015
Enough: Violence against women in crime fiction & film
by Alexandra Sokoloff
I'm excited to announce that today Cold Moon, book 3 in the Huntress/FBI series, is available worldwide (ebook out now, print and audio coming July 7).
Anyone who's read the first two books in this series knows that I'm very passionate about it. More than passionate.
I'm writing these books because I've had enough.
Last summer I was at Harrogate, the international crime writing festival, and prominently displayed in the book tent was a new crime fiction release that featured a crucified woman on the cover.
A crucified woman. On the cover.
It’s not like I’ve never come across a crucified woman in a crime novel before. In fact, I’ve had to stop reading three or four novels in the past two years when variations of this scene came up. But on the cover, now? The selling image of the novel?
2014 was also the year of the highly praised TV miniseries True Detective, which featured two complex male detectives and a female cast made up entirely of hookers, dead hookers, little dead girls, a mentally challenged incest victim, and the female lead: a wife who cheats on her husband with his partner because she’s too weak to just freaking leave him. Oh right, there was a female love interest who was a doctor – but she had, I believe, one line in the entire show. Maybe two.
Defenders of the show argue, “But the detectives weren’t sympathetic, either.” No, they weren’t, always – but unlike the entire female cast, they were actual, developed characters, not fuck toys for the male characters or – well, corpses.
Then there’s Game of Thrones – a great series that became unwatchable for me a while ago because of the overwhelming frequency of rapes. Defenders of that show say: “But in that world, in those warring countries, there would be a lot of rape. It’s reality.” Yeah, but if you’re arguing realism – the boys and male hostages would be being raped along with the women – just look at the US statistics of male-on-male rape in our own military. But on Game of Thrones, somehow it’s just the women. Over and over and over again.
And difficult as it is to confront the videogame images dissected in Anita Sarkeesian’s sobering series, “Tropes vs.Women” - I think we can’t afford not to watch and learn. We’re going to have to wake up to the messages teenage boys are growing up with.
Those are just some high-profile examples. Believe me, I could go on all day and not scratch the surface.
So what do we do? How do we counteract the brutalization of women in crime fiction and media?
I suppose as an author you can avoid the issue 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 L.A. 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 Moonseries is about just that.
The books are intense psychological suspense, and 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 killers – a female serial.
Now, I’ve been studying serial killers for years. Years ago, when I was a screenwriter writing crime thrillers, I tracked down the FBI’s textbook on sexual homicide before it was ever available to the public. I attend Citizens Police Academies and other law enforcement and forensics workshops whenever I get the chance. If I know there’s a behavioral profiler at a writing convention, I stalk that person so I can pick his or her brain about serial killers. And I attend Lee Lofland’s fantastic Writers Police Academy (a yearly three-day conference that’s a law enforcement and forensics immersion course).
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 actually operate from a completely different psychology from the men who commit what the FBI calls “sexual homicide”.
Even Aileen Wuornos, infamous in the media as “America’s First Female Serial Killer” wasn’t a serial killer in the sense that male killers like Bundy, Gacy and Kemper were serial killers. The profilers I’ve interviewed call Wuornos a spree killer with a vigilante motivation. (I write about her case, and the psychology of other real life mass killers, in Huntress Moon.)
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?
Within the context of my Huntress series I can explore those psychological and sociological questions, and invite my readers to ask – Why? I can realistically bring light on crimes that I consider pretty much the essence of evil – and turn the tables on the perpetrators.
I do not depict rape or torture on the page. I can assure you, no one gets crucified. I think real life crime is horrific enough without rubbing a reader’s face in it or adding absurd embellishments (my personal literary pet peeve is the serial killer with an artistic streak or poetic bent).
In this series I can pose questions about human evil, as it actually presents in real life, without exploiting it. 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.
Whoever she is, whatever she is, the Huntress is like no killer Agent Roarke – or the reader – has ever seen before. And you may find yourself as conflicted about her as Roarke is.
Because as 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.”
So I’d like to know: do the authors among you grapple with the issue of how to counteract the brutalization of women in crime fiction?
And what about readers? Do you ever feel that violence against women in crime fiction, TV and film has gone over the top?
-- Alex
____________________________________________________
Books 1, 2 and 3 of the Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, and Cold Moon are available now from Thomas & Mercer.
I very strongly recommend that you read the series in order, starting with Huntress Moon.
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon
Cold Moon
I'm excited to announce that today Cold Moon, book 3 in the Huntress/FBI series, is available worldwide (ebook out now, print and audio coming July 7).
Anyone who's read the first two books in this series knows that I'm very passionate about it. More than passionate.
I'm writing these books because I've had enough.
Last summer I was at Harrogate, the international crime writing festival, and prominently displayed in the book tent was a new crime fiction release that featured a crucified woman on the cover.
A crucified woman. On the cover.
It’s not like I’ve never come across a crucified woman in a crime novel before. In fact, I’ve had to stop reading three or four novels in the past two years when variations of this scene came up. But on the cover, now? The selling image of the novel?
2014 was also the year of the highly praised TV miniseries True Detective, which featured two complex male detectives and a female cast made up entirely of hookers, dead hookers, little dead girls, a mentally challenged incest victim, and the female lead: a wife who cheats on her husband with his partner because she’s too weak to just freaking leave him. Oh right, there was a female love interest who was a doctor – but she had, I believe, one line in the entire show. Maybe two.
Defenders of the show argue, “But the detectives weren’t sympathetic, either.” No, they weren’t, always – but unlike the entire female cast, they were actual, developed characters, not fuck toys for the male characters or – well, corpses.
Then there’s Game of Thrones – a great series that became unwatchable for me a while ago because of the overwhelming frequency of rapes. Defenders of that show say: “But in that world, in those warring countries, there would be a lot of rape. It’s reality.” Yeah, but if you’re arguing realism – the boys and male hostages would be being raped along with the women – just look at the US statistics of male-on-male rape in our own military. But on Game of Thrones, somehow it’s just the women. Over and over and over again.
And difficult as it is to confront the videogame images dissected in Anita Sarkeesian’s sobering series, “Tropes vs.Women” - I think we can’t afford not to watch and learn. We’re going to have to wake up to the messages teenage boys are growing up with.
Those are just some high-profile examples. Believe me, I could go on all day and not scratch the surface.
So what do we do? How do we counteract the brutalization of women in crime fiction and media?
I suppose as an author you can avoid the issue 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 L.A. 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 Moonseries is about just that.
The books are intense psychological suspense, and 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 killers – a female serial.
Now, I’ve been studying serial killers for years. Years ago, when I was a screenwriter writing crime thrillers, I tracked down the FBI’s textbook on sexual homicide before it was ever available to the public. I attend Citizens Police Academies and other law enforcement and forensics workshops whenever I get the chance. If I know there’s a behavioral profiler at a writing convention, I stalk that person so I can pick his or her brain about serial killers. And I attend Lee Lofland’s fantastic Writers Police Academy (a yearly three-day conference that’s a law enforcement and forensics immersion course).
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 actually operate from a completely different psychology from the men who commit what the FBI calls “sexual homicide”.
Even Aileen Wuornos, infamous in the media as “America’s First Female Serial Killer” wasn’t a serial killer in the sense that male killers like Bundy, Gacy and Kemper were serial killers. The profilers I’ve interviewed call Wuornos a spree killer with a vigilante motivation. (I write about her case, and the psychology of other real life mass killers, in Huntress Moon.)
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?
Within the context of my Huntress series I can explore those psychological and sociological questions, and invite my readers to ask – Why? I can realistically bring light on crimes that I consider pretty much the essence of evil – and turn the tables on the perpetrators.
I do not depict rape or torture on the page. I can assure you, no one gets crucified. I think real life crime is horrific enough without rubbing a reader’s face in it or adding absurd embellishments (my personal literary pet peeve is the serial killer with an artistic streak or poetic bent).
In this series I can pose questions about human evil, as it actually presents in real life, without exploiting it. 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.
Whoever she is, whatever she is, the Huntress is like no killer Agent Roarke – or the reader – has ever seen before. And you may find yourself as conflicted about her as Roarke is.
Because as 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.”
So I’d like to know: do the authors among you grapple with the issue of how to counteract the brutalization of women in crime fiction?
And what about readers? Do you ever feel that violence against women in crime fiction, TV and film has gone over the top?
-- Alex
____________________________________________________
Books 1, 2 and 3 of the Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, and Cold Moon are available now from Thomas & Mercer.
I very strongly recommend that you read the series in order, starting with Huntress Moon.
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon
Cold Moon
April 21, 2015
The Silence of the Lambs: why no one has done it better
by Alexandra Sokoloff
I’ve decided that for our next full movie breakdown I’m going to do The Silence of the Lambs.
Because oddly, I’ve never actually done it, here or in one of the Screenwriting Tricks workbooks. I reference it so often you would think I had, and I’ve actually taught the movie in my film classes - but that’s not the same as powering down and doing a full on-paper story breakdown. And I’m in the mood to do it because I just started and almost instantly abandoned another one of thoseserial killer novels.
I don’t usually read serial killer novels, even though I am sort of writing a serial killer series. But really the Huntress series is more like an anti-serial killer series.
However, The Silence of the Lambs is one of my all-time favorite books and movies.. It and Red Dragon are the platinum standard of serial killer novels and probably the reason that I ever pick up any other serial killer novel to begin with. And those books are also the reason that I almost always abandon any serial killer novel almost as soon as I start it – often in disgust and horror.
So over the next month or so (we’ll see how long it actually takes!) I’m going to explore what makes this particular story so great. And I’ll start today with some background.
It was Thomas Harris who mythologized the serial killer to classic monster status, although Stevenson’s Jekyll/Hyde, Stoker’s Dracula (supposedly based on the real-life Vlad the Impaler), and various depictions of Jack the Ripper were strong precursors. We are fascinated by the idea of pure evil in a human being. And because of Harris, the serial killer has become an iconic modern monster, like a vampire or werewolf or zombie (maybe replacing the pretty much defunct mummy!).
Because with Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, Harris did a completely brilliant thing. In the 1970’s Special Agents Robert Ressler and John Douglas of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit (now called the Behavioral Analysis Unit) began a series of interviews with incarcerated serial killers to see what made these men tick and hopefully develop strategies for catching them. The agents, along with Professor Ann W. Burgess, compiled their findings into a textbook and started to train agents as profilers. This new department got a lot of press and media attention and a large number of authors jumped all over that research. But judging by the books that resulted, very, very few of those authors seem to have actually readthose interviews.
Thomas Harris, though, took the same research that was available to everyone, and used a combination of absolutely precise fact and police procedure and a haunting mythological symbolism to create those first two books, Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs (and then Hannibal sort of went off the rails, if you ask me…). The result was two of the best horror/police procedural blend novels ever written. The killers Jame Gumb (Buffalo Bill) and Francis Dolarhyde were both more and less than human. And Lecter, of course, is a mythic archetype of the evil genius.
And then everyone jumped on the bandwagon and there are now hundreds of Lecters-lite, if you will.
I love Harris’s first two books for their mythic resonance. But I have a real problem with the way most authors portray serial killers because it’s so incredibly dishonest. They romanticize and poeticize serial killers – portraying them as evil geniuses that play elaborate cat and mouse games with detectives and law enforcement agencies. Yeah, right. These men are not geniuses. They don’t leave poems at crime scenes or arrange their victim’s bodies in tableaux corresponding to scenes of great art or literature. They are vicious rapists who brutalize their victims because the agony of those victims gets the killer off, and a large number of them continue to have sex with the corpses of their victims because they are that addicted to absolute control and possession.
That’s evil.
But the serial killer subgenre as a whole has perpetrated a very unrealistic view of what these monsters really are. Most authors who write about serial killers don’t show the sexual correlation. They skirt around the issue of rape.
The very worst ones write torture porn - sexualizing the violence, fetishizing women’s bodies, sexualizing the torture of women (conveniently ignoring the fact that many of these killers rape and torture and kill men and children as well) and basically avoid portraying the pure horror of what these men actually do.
I’m sure some authors (not the last group) have an honest desire to create an exploration of mythic evil to rival Harris’s books. I get that. But the fact is, most authors (and screenwriters and filmmakers) who write about serial killers are dishonestly romanticizing them and leaving out the unmitigated, repellent malevolence of these men.
Thomas Harris managed to do everything those other authors/books do not: he portrayed mythic evil without sexualizing violence, and mythologized his killers without leaving out their malevolence.
Let’s dig in to how he managed it.
As I talked about here, I will not be posting full story breakdowns on the blog anymore – I’m asking that you join my free Story Structure Extras list to get the story breakdowns.
If you haven’t joined the list, you can do it here, and get a full breakdown of The Wizard of Oz. Then I'll mail the Silence breakdown in segments as I work through it.
- Alex
April 12, 2015
Huntress Moon and Blood Moon $1.99 - today only!
HUNTRESS MOON and BLOOD MOON are Kindle Daily Deals, $1.99 today only on Amazon US!
Both books are still just £1 each on Amazon UK for the entire month of April, leading up to the release of Book 3, COLD MOON. Fantastic deals - please share!
Buy on Amazon US: $1.99 Buy on Amazon US: $1.99
Buy on Amazon UK: £1.00 Buy on Amazon UK: £1.00
Pre-order on Amazon UK
Pre-order on Amazon US
The Huntress/FBI Thrillers
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
FBI Special Agent Roarke is closing in on a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who was present at each scene of a years-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers… a female serial.
His hunt for her will take him across three states, and force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
-------
Book 1 of Thriller Award-winning author Alexandra Sokoloff’s Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, became a #1 Amazon mystery/thriller bestseller and was nominated for a Thriller Award for Best E Book Original Novel. The series has now been picked up by Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint. The highly anticipated Book 3, Cold Moon, will release on May 5.
Told in continuous, serial format like True Detective and The Killing, and utilizing the intricate psychological/forensic procedure of Criminal Minds, the Huntress series sets a cast of complex FBI investigators in pursuit of an unforgettable female suspect who has been called “a female Dexter.” The story combines nail-biting suspense and a twisting mystery plot with deadly erotic tension, and has garnered hundreds of rave reviews from readers who find themselves sympathizing with its haunted male lead and unexpectedly empathizing with its highly unusual killer.
For thousands of years women have been the victims. Isn’t it time someone turned the tables?
Both books are still just £1 each on Amazon UK for the entire month of April, leading up to the release of Book 3, COLD MOON. Fantastic deals - please share!
Buy on Amazon US: $1.99 Buy on Amazon US: $1.99
Buy on Amazon UK: £1.00 Buy on Amazon UK: £1.00
Pre-order on Amazon UK
Pre-order on Amazon US
The Huntress/FBI Thrillers
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
FBI Special Agent Roarke is closing in on a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who was present at each scene of a years-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers… a female serial.
His hunt for her will take him across three states, and force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
-------
Book 1 of Thriller Award-winning author Alexandra Sokoloff’s Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, became a #1 Amazon mystery/thriller bestseller and was nominated for a Thriller Award for Best E Book Original Novel. The series has now been picked up by Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint. The highly anticipated Book 3, Cold Moon, will release on May 5.
Told in continuous, serial format like True Detective and The Killing, and utilizing the intricate psychological/forensic procedure of Criminal Minds, the Huntress series sets a cast of complex FBI investigators in pursuit of an unforgettable female suspect who has been called “a female Dexter.” The story combines nail-biting suspense and a twisting mystery plot with deadly erotic tension, and has garnered hundreds of rave reviews from readers who find themselves sympathizing with its haunted male lead and unexpectedly empathizing with its highly unusual killer.
For thousands of years women have been the victims. Isn’t it time someone turned the tables?
April 10, 2015
House of Cards, S.3: Just tell me what they WANT
Like so many of you, I’m sure, Craig and I binge-watched Season 1 and 2 of House of Cards, ripping through each season as soon as they came out, in no more than two days each. Especially since Season 2 was even better than Season 1, we were waiting with bated breath for Season 3, ready to watch the whole thing in a weekend. Finally, the day arrived. We settled down in front of a fire, with the cat and Pop Chips, and prepared to be riveted.And…
It never got off the ground.
We let whole days go by between episodes. We watched other shows (Boardwalk Empire, love it! And may I say, a 1000% better character and performance for Paul Sparks in Boardwalk than in HOC 3), and other movies (Drop is so tense I spent pretty much the whole movie balled up in the corner of the couch).
Don’t get me wrong. I would watch Kevin Spacey sleeping, and I would watch HOC just for the way Robin Wright walks and holds herself and gets out of a car. I’m not about to give up on it.
But it does give me an excellent opportunity to rant about something I’m always telling you all here, and in the workbooks, and in workshops.
Because Season 3 makes a beginner’s mistake that is really quite shocking for such an accomplished show.
We don’t know what Frank Underwood WANTS.
Remember, the INCITING INCIDENT (or CALL TO ADVENTURE) starts a DESIRE in the protagonist, and they make a PLAN and gather ALLIES, either consciously or subconsciously, to go after that desire.
(If you need a refresher on internal and external desire, go here).
For Seasons 1 & 2, Frank and Claire want to be President (that is, they want Frank to be President and they both will rule). Very clear. They’re willing to do anything to get it. And the guilty pleasure of the show is that we know we shouldn’t want that for them, but we do anyway.
Well, in Season 3, they have become President. So now what do they want?
Okay, Frank wants to get re-elected, yeah. But why? He’s not exactly reveling in the power that he has. He’s certainly not driven in the way he was in Seasons 1 and 2. He just doesn’t seem to want it that much.
And yeah, he wants to pass and implement his America Works program. He may be a little bit more enthusiastic about that than wanting to be re-elected, actually. But why does he want it? In order to leave a legacy, his biographer says. But do we feel that? More importantly, do we want it FOR him, or want him NOT to get it? Aren’t you a little perplexed about why Frank wants AmWorks, and not at all sure why you should care?
This is why I am always saying - You have to tell your reader/audience what your main character (s) wants, and just as importantly, you have to make sure that WE WANT IT FOR THEM.
Or, just as effectively, you have make sure that we actively DON’T want them to get whatever it is.
Now as always, you may not agree with me. Maybe you were riveted by House of Cards, Season 3. Maybe you can even tell me exactly why we should care whether or not Frank gets AmWorks, or whether or not Claire gets to be Ambassador, or whatever it is SHE wants (to actually be President, I’m assuming…)
I wish you would!
But it’s absolutely fine if you disagree. Remember, there’s no accounting for taste! The point is, HOC 3 is not working for me, and I have analyzed exactly what it is that’s going wrong for me and made a mental note never to let that happen in my own work. That’s practicing my craft, and that’s what I’m always encouraging you all to do.
So, HOC fans - what do YOU think? I'd love to be told off on this one!
- Alex
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're in the UK - Amazon.uk has dropped the price of HUNTRESS MOON and BLOOD MOON to just £1 each for the entire month of April, leading up to the release of Book 3, COLD MOON. Fantastic deal!
(And yes, that's a sneak peek at the COLD MOON cover - not finished, yet!)
Buy on Amazon UK £1.00 Buy on Amazon UK £1.00
Buy on Amazon US: $3.99 Buy on Amazon US: $3.99
Pre-order on Amazon UK
Pre-order on Amazon US
April 2, 2015
£1 Sale!!! HUNTRESS MOON and BLOOD MOON discounted at Amazon.uk for April
Amazon.uk has dropped the price of HUNTRESS MOON and BLOOD MOON to just £1 each for the entire month of April, leading up to the release of Book 3, COLD MOON. Fantastic deal!
(And yes, that's a sneak peek at the COLD MOON cover - not finished, yet!)
Buy on Amazon UK £1.00 Buy on Amazon UK £1.00
Buy on Amazon US: $3.99 Buy on Amazon US: $3.99
Pre-order on Amazon UK
Pre-order on Amazon US
The Huntress/FBI Thrillers
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
FBI Special Agent Roarke is closing in on a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who was present at each scene of a years-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers… a female serial.
His hunt for her will take him across three states, and force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
-------
Book 1 of Thriller Award-winning author Alexandra Sokoloff’s Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, became a #1 Amazon mystery/thriller bestseller and was nominated for a Thriller Award for Best E Book Original Novel. The series has now been picked up by Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint. The highly anticipated Book 3, Cold Moon, will release on May 5.
Told in continuous, serial format like True Detective and The Killing, and utilizing the intricate psychological/forensic procedure of Criminal Minds, the Huntress series sets a cast of complex FBI investigators in pursuit of an unforgettable female suspect who has been called “a female Dexter.” The story combines nail-biting suspense and a twisting mystery plot with deadly erotic tension, and has garnered hundreds of rave reviews from readers who find themselves sympathizing with its haunted male lead and unexpectedly empathizing with its highly unusual killer.
For thousands of years women have been the victims. Isn’t it time someone turned the tables?
(And yes, that's a sneak peek at the COLD MOON cover - not finished, yet!)
Buy on Amazon UK £1.00 Buy on Amazon UK £1.00
Buy on Amazon US: $3.99 Buy on Amazon US: $3.99
Pre-order on Amazon UK
Pre-order on Amazon US
The Huntress/FBI Thrillers
Special Agent Matthew Roarke thought he knew what evil was. He was wrong.
FBI Special Agent Roarke is closing in on a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who was present at each scene of a years-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers… a female serial.
His hunt for her will take him across three states, and force him to question everything he knows about evil and justice.
-------
Book 1 of Thriller Award-winning author Alexandra Sokoloff’s Huntress/FBI Thrillers, Huntress Moon, became a #1 Amazon mystery/thriller bestseller and was nominated for a Thriller Award for Best E Book Original Novel. The series has now been picked up by Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint. The highly anticipated Book 3, Cold Moon, will release on May 5.
Told in continuous, serial format like True Detective and The Killing, and utilizing the intricate psychological/forensic procedure of Criminal Minds, the Huntress series sets a cast of complex FBI investigators in pursuit of an unforgettable female suspect who has been called “a female Dexter.” The story combines nail-biting suspense and a twisting mystery plot with deadly erotic tension, and has garnered hundreds of rave reviews from readers who find themselves sympathizing with its haunted male lead and unexpectedly empathizing with its highly unusual killer.
For thousands of years women have been the victims. Isn’t it time someone turned the tables?
March 29, 2015
Revised Story Elements Checklist
Just a quick note to let you all know - I've revised the Story Elements Checklist for the new Story Structure textbook, and I'm sending it out to my Story Structure Extras mailing list this week. If you haven't signed up for this free subscription list, you can do it here:
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(This is a new list and is NOT the same as receiving the blog by email or RSS feed. You must opt in with your email address to receive Story Structure Extras.)
Happy Spring!
- Alex
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(This is a new list and is NOT the same as receiving the blog by email or RSS feed. You must opt in with your email address to receive Story Structure Extras.)
Happy Spring!
- Alex
