Alexandra Sokoloff's Blog, page 34

So what is a Sequence, really?

I got a great question in the comments a couple of weeks ago and wanted to expand on it in a post.

I don't completely understand what a sequence is. I can tell you its climax will have a setpiece, will deliver on the premise, will be a genre scene, has a beginning, middle, and end, there are eight of them in a movie . . . But I don't understand EXACTLY what is a sequence. I understand an Act, I understand a scene. Can you help me understand the difference between sequence and scene (besides that a sequence is series of scenes)?

Well, I think I know exactly what is confusing you about sequences, and the reason is because it's confusing.

The confusion is because we're talking about two different kinds of sequences.

1. When I talk about the "Eight Sequence Structure", that's a term very specific to movies (that I think is useful to understand and work with when writing novels). See full explanation here:

BUT --

2. The term "sequence"actually is more often used to mean something different, which is - "a collection of scenes focused on a single central action (and sometimes taking place in the same location, in real time) with a beginning, middle and end."

Really, when I'm talking about the eight sequences of a movie, a better term would be SEGMENT. Because Sequence One, or Segment One, of a movie might be just one SEQUENCE, as I defined in #2 above, but more often it will be composed of two or three SEQUENCES as defined in #2.

For example, Sequence One (or Segment One) of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which you could call the South America sequence, or the Cave sequence, is also a complete SEQUENCE unto itself. It is composed of several scenes all focused on one central action (stealing the gold idol), taking place in approximately the same location and in a discrete time frame. (That is, there is unity of time, space and action, which I really should do a whole other post about, but if you're not familiar with this concept, check out what Aristotle had to say about it.) There's the approach to the cave, finding the cave, the perils inside the cave, the snatching of the idol, the escape from the cave, the reversal that rival Belloq and the warriors take the idol away from Indy, and the escape from the warriors and departure in the plane. It's all continuous action with one particular goal (that turns to simple survival in the end.) (My breakdown is here ).

But more often what is called Sequence One of a movie (or book), that is, the first segment, will not be as unified and cohesive as that; instead of being one unified sequence as in the example from Raiders above, it will ramble through different scenes you could loosely call the SET UP, which will usually end with a twist or revelation that will take the action in another direction.

In fact, I would start calling the eight sequences eight SEGMENTS here for clarity, but it's never a good idea to mess around with such an entrenched vocabulary. I'm just going to have to be more clear about it in subsequent posts.

There are very few movies or books in which each of the eight Sequences (or Segments) are actually discrete sequences, too, but some come close (usually classic movies, which tended to have more defined sequences partly because they were shot almost entirely on sets. A set goes a long way toward imposing unity of action.).

For example, Four Weddings and a Funeral has very clear sequences, with each Act actually marked off by the wedding invitation cards announcing the bride and groom of each wedding (as you look more critically at films, you'll see that filmmakers LOVE to find that kind of visual act curtain; you see it at work in all kinds of movies: The Sting, Chinatown, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Professional, Collateral – and that's just off the top of my head.) In Four Weddings each quarter of the movie (Act 1, Act 2:1, Act 2:2, Act 3) takes place at a different wedding, and each wedding is divided into the same basic parts: The wedding itself, the reception, then the love plot between Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell as they leave the reception to go tryst. This is a great structural pattern to follow because it's so like real life. The wedding is a completely different experience than the reception/party that follows the wedding, and the party after the party is even better, a lot of the time. Although sometimes not.

You'll see that three-part pattern happens twice, in Act One and Act II:1, then Act II:2 is divided into a wedding and a reception, then a funeral and its aftermath, and then Act III is divided into pre-wedding, the interrupted wedding, and the aftermath (and the wonderful wrap-up in the closing credits).

It's great if you can find that clear of a structure in your own story, but YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE THAT PRECISE! Please don't kill yourself trying to find a perfect mathematical structure for your story; we writers have enough OCD issues already. However, as you get more attuned to how other storytellers use sequences, you will find that especially when you do rewrites, you will be able to craft scenes into more coherent sequences that give more of a flow and urgency to your story. And the idea of the eight-sequence structure can help you find the logical breaking points for sequences.

If you're struggling with the idea of sequences, in either sense of the word, my suggestion as always is to take several of your favorite movies and watch them specifically looking for how the filmmakers are using sequences. You'll soon catch on to how sequences keep the action flowing and the interest high, and that will keep you on the lookout for ways to combine more of your scenes into sequences.

I hope that's a little more clear, but if it's not, I'm happy to answer questions about it and discuss more examples.

- Alex

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If you're looking for examples of the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure in action, I strongly recommend that you watch at least one and much better, three of the films I break down in the workbooks, following along with my notes.

I do full breakdowns of Chinatown, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Romancing the Stone, and The Mist, and act breakdowns of You've Got Mail, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Raiders of the Lost Ark in Screenwriting Tricks For Authors.

I do full breakdowns of The Proposal, Groundhog Day, Sense and Sensibility, Romancing the Stone, Leap Year, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, While You Were Sleeping and New in Town in Writing Love.


=====================================================

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)




- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

- Amazon/Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amazon DE

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Rage Against the Night

One of the things no one ever tells you about being an author is that people ask you to write short stories. Anthology editors, other authors, publishers, blogmates. To which my usual response is - Are you KIDDING ME? Do you KNOW how hard it is to write a short story?

But the thing I've discovered about short stories is that, just like novels, and unlike screenplays, once you get through the hell of writing them -- I mean, once those stories exist —— they're forever, and they have value. You can even donate them to worthy causes, hopefully to do some good.

Well, some good is what's needed, here.

I know I have some horror readers and writers here. Others of you are - not. So I want to introduce you to someone that anyone in the horror community knows, and everyone else should know.

Rocky Wood is the current president of the Horror Writers Association, and the author of Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished, Stephen King: The Non-Fiction, Stephen King: A Literary Companion, and Horrors: Great Stories of Fear and Their Creators.

Rocky is a born New Zealander, current Australian, and believe me, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe have nothing on him. They so very seldom make men like this anymore, it's tragic. If there's any point of cloning at all it should be to make more of these.

First of all, there's that accent. But that's just window dressing, really.

He is charming in the way that the most charismatic movie stars I've met, and I've met a few, are charming. He is totally present and focused in exactly the moment he is in, and on the person or group he is with. He has an aura that is sexy and smart and just beyond what you see in the real world.

You are drawn to the accent and his intensity, first, and the charisma, and then you very quickly start to realize that this is a wonderful person. An exceptional person. That whatever you thought you were rushing off to do can wait, possibly forever, because you really need to be right here and just find out who this person is.

A purely good person.

All right, here comes the hard part. And if you're not sitting down, maybe you should, because when I say hard, I mean hard.

Rocky was diagnosed last year with ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig's disease, or Motor Neurone disease. It is an evil, insidious thing. It paralyzes the body entire while the mind remains fully functioning. There is at present no cure.

The news of this, this year, made me want to take whatever pills that would get me out of this life as fast as I could exit it. It made me wonder what was the point of anything at all.

Horrible things happen to good people all the time. No one can tell me that there is not actual evil in the world.

But this is one of those – THE PERSON WHO LEAST DESERVES THIS SCOURGE – events.

So what is anyone to make of something like this?

Believe it or not, I'm not going to be dark about it. I had that phase a while ago. I've moved on, to two basic thoughts. Which actually might be in opposition, but here they are anyway.

1. The perfect cure can happen instantly, tomorrow, this afternoon, this second. Miracles happen. Not consistently, but they happen. As I wrote in THE PRICE, and as I believe (on good days): "If one miracle has ever happened in the world, why not this one, for you?"

2. Another, and possibly the more important point is that: this world is only illusion. What you feel, what you can touch, right now, it's only illusion. There is a better state we pass on to, which to me is—pure energy. Without the heaviness of a body. Without the agony of what people do to each other on the earth plane.

Don't get me wrong, I love my body, it gives me great pleasure, and I'm happy to know that it gives other people great pleasure. But it's so very heavy. I have to think that there is a lighter kind of existence, and that it's a much better existence. I do enough yoga to believe that, with every cell and neuron in me.

And if this is true, there is something beyond the horror of a fatal disease. Anything that is what the Hindus call Moksha: liberation, release from the earth plane, is ultimately a blessing.

But since we're still on this plane, and these things have real world consequences, a bunch of Rocky's friends, who happen to be pretty incredibly great writers, have contributed a passel of short stories to a collection called RAGE AGAINST THE NIGHT, edited by Shane Jiraiya Cummings, with short stories by some of my all-time favorite dark writers: Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub, F. Paul Wilson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Sarah Langan, Scott Nicholson, and many more. My story, The Edge of Seventeen, is reprinted in the book, too. You may be especially interested in a story by Stephen King, which details a deal with the devil that Rocky would never make: passing this kind of illness on to another human being.

The price is $3.99, and all proceeds go to buying Rocky an eye gaze machine, a miraculous device that allows which allows the severely physically impaired to communicate via eye movements.

Rocky has already made arrangements to pass the machine on to another family that needs it, because that's the kind of man he is.

No one knows what will happen tomorrow. I may drop dead long before Rocky does. Any one of us could. What I do know is that anyone who has not known this man is the poorer for it. I hope this post will go a small way toward correcting that.

Thank you for reading.

- Alex

RAGE AGAINST THE NIGHT:

E book now available for $3.99 from:

- Amazon (Kindle)

- Smashwords (multi-format ebook)

- Amazon.uk

In the coming weeks, the anthology will be available at all good online retailers, and the print version will be available this month (January).

Synopsis:

Under the onslaught of supernatural evil, the acts of good people can seem insignificant, but a courageous few stand apart. These brave men and women stand up to the darkness, stare it right in the eye, and give it the finger. These are the stories of those who rage against the night, stories of triumph, sacrifice, and bravery in the face of overwhelming evil.


Table of Contents (in order of appearance):

· The Gunner's Love Song—Joe McKinney

· Keeping Watch—Nate Kenyon

· Like Part of the Family—Jonathan Maberry

· The Edge of Seventeen—Alexandra Sokoloff

· The View from the Top—Bev Vincent

· Afterward, There Will Be a Hallway—Gary A. Braunbeck

· Following Marla—John R. Little

· Magic Numbers—Gene O'Neill

· Tail the Barney—Stephen M. Irwin

· The Nightmare Dimension—David Conyers

· Roadside Memorials—Joseph Nassise

· Dat Tay Vao—F. Paul Wilson

· Constitution—Scott Nicholson

· Mr. Aickman's Air Rifle—Peter Straub

· Agatha's Ghost—Ramsey Campbell

· Blue Heeler—Weston Ochse

· Sarah's Visions—Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

· More Than Words—David Niall Wilson

· Chillers—Lisa Morton

· Changed—Nancy Holder

· Dead Air—Gary Kemble

· Two Fish to Feed the Masses—Daniel G. Keohane

· Fenstad's End—Sarah Langan

· Fair Extension—Stephen King

· Rocky Wood, Skeleton Killer—Jeff Strand

Edited by Shane Jiraiya Cummings.

New Year's Resolutions/Writing One Day at a Time

I was going to do another post on rewriting today, but WHO AM I KIDDING? No one in the free world has a brain cell left after last week. The powers that be, bless them, decided that we need an extra day of holiday today, which means no one is doing anything whatsoever of use.

So pass me the champagne and chocolate, while I continue my British crime TV binge. I've worked my way through – well, I started with THE WALKING DEAD, not British but created by Frank Darabont, brilliant, then moved on to SURVIVORS, SHERLOCK (God, WHY do I always fall for the crazy ones?) and am now catching up on WIRE IN THE BLOOD, with a short detour into Robson Green starring in a younger crazy detective incarnation: TOUCHING EVIL.

Amazingly, I have not had any nightmares, though there have been a few apocalyptic settings in my recent dream life.

Anyway, the New Year. Writing. All that.

One good thing is about writing a blog is that it makes one – well, me, anyway – more inclined to make public resolutions. I'm not actually sure how useful a list ever is. When it comes down to it, we all have kind of the same resolutions every year. Basically. Write more books and be a better person, right?

But this year I wanted to do a list, mostly because 2011 was so hard it's amazing just that I survived it.

I complain about the abject agony of writing all the time, but this year writing has been lifesaving, just to have one familiar thing to do every day, in the face of what, bluntly, has been a lot of death. My father, a beloved aunt, my cat of 19 years, and the fatal illness of a cherished friend. Not fun. In many ways, maybe in spite of appearances, I've been pretty effectively shut down.

But things are getting better. I'm feeling that I could move beyond survival to actually enjoying myself again.

So resolutions make sense, because they imply there IS a future, at least until the world ends next December. JUST KIDDING.

First, the standard ones:

Working out. This is one I don't have to worry about. Exercise has been periodically too much of an obsession; I'm one who more often needs to say, "You don't REALLY need to take that two-hour Boot Camp class today." I know if I don't work out every day I become a rabid animal within 48 hours; it's my version of antidepressants. But these days I'm more balanced about it. I take mostly dance classes, which is the way I most like to move and it's so easy it's never a big deal to get myself to class to do it. So dance four or five times a week and one killer ab/ass class on top of that, not as much fun as dancing but the results are so immediate and visual, it's addictive. No, I mean, it's good.

Eating. Pretty good about this, too. I don't eat too much, I eat mostly the right things, I know how to combine proteins, and I don't keep anything like ice cream or Cheetos or macadamia nuts in the house, period. One thing here - I am going to try to eat more Superfoods next year – why not, right? Salmon, blueberries, pomegranates, almonds, yams, dark greens; I love all that stuff anyway.

Getting out more. Well, with my conference schedule this year I don't have to worry about a social life, even though I have the typical author problem of feast or famine in this department. You live like a hermit while you're writing, and party till you drop at the conferences. These days I'm mostly paid to go, a big perk of the job. But I am resolved to say yes more than no to social events.

Giving more. I am grateful to be feeling financially stable, and am glad to plug my favorite charities at the beginning of the year: Children of the Night, Kiva, Equality Now, Equality California. And don't forget Wikipedia – you KNOW you use it.

- Children of the Night - Rescues teenagers from prostitution.
- Kiva You can pledge $25 or more as a microloan to small businesswomen in developing countries, the loan will be paid back and you can loan again to someone else.
- Equality Now Ending violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world.
- Equality California - Advocates for civil and legal rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Californians.

Writing more? Not possible without brain meltdown.

My problem here is not that I'm not writing enough, but that I have too many concurrent projects. But I had a really productive December and am on track to finish my latest paranormal by my deadline at the end of January, which will make me less frantic about my contractual obligations. And I am closing in on finishing the thriller that I've been working on this year, sometimes just a few minutes a day, in between all the death. But five minutes a day for a year equals a book.

Did you catch that? I'll say it again. Five minutes of writing a day for a year equals a book.

Which is what I really wanted to write about today, because I don't think it's said often enough that you CAN write a novel (or a script, or a TV pilot....) in whatever time you have. Even if that's only five minutes a day. If you have kids, if you have the day job from hell, if you are clinically depressed – whatever is going on in your life, if you have five minutes a day, as long as you write EVERY DAY, to the best of your ability, you can write a novel that way.

I don't know if I've posted this here before, but I wrote my first novel, The Harrowing, by writing just five minutes per day.

My day job was screenwriting, at the time, and yes, it was a writing job, but it had turned into the day job from hell.

But fury is a wonderful motivator and at the end of the day, every day, I was so pissed off at the producers I was working for that I would make myself write five minutes a day on the novel EVERY NIGHT, just out of spite.



Okay, the trick to this is – that if you write five minutes a day, you will write more than five minutes a day, sometimes a whole hell of a lot more than five minutes a day most days. But it's the first five minutes that are the hardest. And that often ended up happening. Sometimes I was so tired that all I could manage was a sentence, but I would sit down at my desk and write that one sentence. But some days I'd tell myself all I needed to write was a sentence, and I'd end up writing three pages.

It's just like the first five minutes of exercise, something I learned a long time ago. As long as I can drag myself to class and endure that first five minutes of the workout, and I give myself permission to leave after five minutes if I want to, I will generally take the whole hour and a half class, and usually end up loving it. (There are these wonderful things called endorphins, you see, and they kick in after a certain amount of exposure to pain...)

The trick to writing, and exercise, is – it is STARTING that is hard.

I have been writing professionally for . . . well, never mind how many years. But even after all those many years—every single day, I have to trick myself into writing. I will do anything – scrub toilets, clean the cat box, do my taxes, do my mother's taxes – rather than sit down to write. It's absurd. I mean, what's so hard about writing, besides everything?

But I know this just like I know it about exercise. If you can just start, and commit to just that five minutes, those five minutes will turn into ten, and those ten minutes will turn into pages, and one page a day for a year is a book.

Think about it.

Or better yet, write for five minutes, right now. Then pass the champagne and chocolate.

Happy New Year, everyone!

- Alex

=====================================================

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)




- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

- Amazon/Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amazon DE

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E books for your Kindle!

Did you get that Kindle Fire for Christmas?

If you're in the mood for something spooky (hey, I know it's the holidays, but I just watched thirteen episodes of The Walking Dead back to back. Not all of us are in the Miracle on 34th Street mood)...

THE HARROWING, THE PRICE, and BOOK OF SHADOWS are now available as e books in various territories.

(Remember, you don't need a Kindle; you can download a free Kindle reader to your PC or Mac or i pad or phone).

For more information about all the books, and links to order, see below.

And Merry Merry Happy Happy everything to all!

- Alex


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BOOK OF SHADOWS

Synopsis:

Homicide detective Adam Garrett is already a rising star in the Boston police department when he and his cynical partner, Carl Landauer, catch a horrifying case that could make their careers: the ritualistic murder of a wealthy college girl that appears to have Satanic elements.

The partners make a quick arrest when all evidence points to another student, a troubled musician in a Goth band who was either dating or stalking the murdered girl. But Garrett's case is turned upside down when beautiful, mysterious Tanith Cabarrus, a practicing witch from nearby Salem, walks into the homicide bureau and insists that the real perpetrator is still at large. Tanith claims to have had psychic visions that the killer has ritually sacrificed other teenagers in his attempts to summon a powerful, ancient demon.

All Garrett's beliefs about the nature of reality will be tested as he is forced to team up with a woman he is fiercely attracted to but cannot trust, in a race to uncover a psychotic killer before he strikes again.

Reviews:

"A wonderfully dark thriller with amazing is-it-isn't-it suspense all the way to the end. Highly recommended."---Lee Child

"Compelling, frightening and exceptionally well-written, Book of Shadows is destined to become another hit for acclaimed horror and suspense writer Sokoloff. The incredibly tense plot and mysterious characters will keep readers up late at night, jumping at every sound, and turning the pages until they've devoured the book." --- Romantic Times Book Reviews, 4 1/2 stars

"Sokoloff successfully melds a classic murder-mystery/whodunit with supernatural occult undertones." --- Library Journal

"The discovery in a landfill of the mutilated corpse of Erin Carmody, the 18-year-old daughter of a prominent Boston businessman, presents homicide detective Adam Garrett with a particularly sensitive case. Marks on the body suggest the killer was conducting Satanic rituals. When Adam and his partner, Carl Landauer, question the prime suspect, Jason Moncrief, a college friend of Erin's, Jason chants the name of the demon Choronzon, then assaults Carl. Despite what appears to be an open-and-shut case, Adam can't discount the claim that Jason is innocent made by Tanith Cabarrus, an attractive witch who comes to police headquarters to report that she dreamed of other murders—and who believes that supernatural forces are behind the slaughter. As usual, Sokoloff (The Unseen) does a good job keeping the reader guessing whether a supernatural agency is really at work." - Publishers Weekly

(Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

BOOK OF SHADOWS is now available on as an e book in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain: just £2.14 on Amazon.uk, and €2.99 on Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and Amazon.es.

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THE HARROWING

Synopsis:

Baird College's Mendenhall echoes with the footsteps of the last home-bound students heading off for Thanksgiving break, and Robin Stone swears she can feel the creepy, hundred-year-old residence hall breathe a sigh of relief for its long-awaited solitude. Or perhaps it's only gathering itself for the coming weekend.

As a massive storm dumps rain on the isolated campus, four other lonely students reveal themselves: Patrick, a handsome jock; Lisa, a manipulative tease; Cain, a brooding musician; and finally Martin, a scholarly eccentric. Each has forsaken a long weekend at home for their own secret reasons.

The five unlikely companions establish a tentative rapport, but they soon become aware of a sixth presence disturbing the ominous silence that pervades the building. Are they the victims of a simple college prank taken way too far, or is the unusual energy evidence of something genuine---and intent on using the five students for its own terrifying ends? It's only Thursday afternoon, and they have three long days and dark nights before the rest of the world returns to find out what's become of them. But for now it's just the darkness keeping company with five students nobody wants and no one will miss.

Reviews:

'Absolutely gripping...It is easy to imagine this as a film...Once started, you won't want to stop reading'
---London Times

"Poltergeist meets The Breakfast Club as five college students tangle with an ancient evil presence. Plenty of sexual tension... quick pace and engaging plot."
--- Kirkus Reviews

'Sokoloff's debut novel is an eerie ghost story that captivates readers from page one. The author creates an element of suspense that builds until the chillingly believable conclusion."'
--Romantic Times

What better thing could strangers isolated in a big, near-deserted building while a raging storm takes out the electricity and compels the use of flickering candles possibly discover than an ancient, charred Ouija board? The previously unacquainted in question are five students sitting out Thanksgiving weekend in a 100-year-old residence hall. And that Ouija board turns wicked, of course, when it manifests a ghost named Zachary, who turns the place into a chaotic battleground for the forces of evil versus cosmic goodness and light. What seemed a sick joke one of the five was playing on the others has morphed into a situation in which no one can be trusted. Sokoloff sustains pace and suspense while encouraging the reader to identify with Robin, a young woman from a poor, alcohol-ravaged family, who yearns for acceptance. Will she get it from the all-American jock she lusts for; the slutty tease; the quiet, intellectual rabbi's son; and the brooding musician who are her companions for this scary ordeal? Good, engrossing fun.
--- Booklist, Whitney Scott
(Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved)

"The Harrowing is a real page-turner, a first novel of unusual promise."
---Ira Levin

"The Harrowing is a find: fast, original, and genuinely creepy."
---F. Paul Wilson,

"Alexandra Sokoloff conjures up a demon older than time and humanity and yet rooted in modern psychology. She brings all her skills as a screenwriter to a tale of supernatural terror as swift as a film."
---Ramsey Campbell

"Sokoloff's debut novel is a furiously paced, deftly plotted joy, bursting at the seams with disquieting imagery and carrying a disturbingly dark undercurrent. It gave me a nightmareÂ…and that's rare."
---Tim Lebbon


THE HARROWING is now available on as an e book, just $ 2.99 on Kindle, and €2.99 on Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and Amazon.es.
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THE PRICE

Boston District Attorney Will Sullivan dreams of becoming the next governor of Massachusetts. With his beautiful wife, Joanna, and adorable daughter, Sydney, Will seems destined for greatness…until Sydney becomes seriously ill. Now both parents resolve to do anything to save their daughter's life.

But in the twilight world of Briarwood Medical Center, nothing is as it seems. Patients on the brink of death are not only surviving but thriving, while others wither away…and the recoveries all revolve around the ministerings of a mysterious counselor, who takes an unsettling interest in Joanna. When Sydney's health miraculously improves, Will suspects that Joanna has made a terrible bargain to save their child. Now Will must face a powerful, unknown evil before he loses... everything.

Reviews:

"Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre."
—The New York Times Book Review

"A heartbreakingly eerie page turner…"
—Library Journal

"Sokoloff is simply amazing"
—Bookreporter.com

"A sublime second novel . . . Her gooseflesh-inducing imagery jumps right off the pages, and her rich, graceful prose calls to mind names like King, Saul, and Levin."
—Dark Scribe Magazine

"A medical thriller of the highest order... a stunning, riveting journey into terror and suspense."—Michael Palmer

"Beyond stunning. It is harrowing in the true sense of real art." —Ken Bruen

"A psychological rollercoaster that keeps the reader on edge with bone-chilling thrills throughout. I couldn't put it down." —Heather Graham

THE PRICE is now available on as an e book, just $ 2.99 on Kindle, and €2.99 on Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and Amazon.es.

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THE SPACE BETWEEN

Sixteen-year old Anna Sullivan is having terrible dreams of a massacre at her school. Anna's father is a mentally unstable veteran, her mother vanished when Anna was five, and Anna might just chalk the dreams up to a reflection of her crazy waking life — except that Tyler Marsh, the most popular guy at the school and Anna's secret crush, is having the exact same dream.

Despite the gulf between them in social status, Anna and Tyler connect, first in the dream and then in reality. As the dreams reveal more, with clues from the school social structure, quantum physics, probability, and Anna's own past, Anna becomes convinced that they are being shown the future so they can prevent the shooting…

If they can survive the shooter — and the dream.

Based on the short story "The Edge of Seventeen," winner of the ITW Thriller award.


"Filled with vivid images, mystery, and a strong atmosphere of danger... Sokoloff interlaces psychological elements, quantum physics and the idea of multiple dimensions and parallel universes into her storyline; this definitely adds something different and original from other teen horror novels in the market today. Highly recommended."
-- Seattle Post Intelligencer


THE PRICE is available on as an e book, just $ 2.99 on Kindle, £2.14 on Amazon.uk, and €2.99 on Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and Amazon.es.

Amazon/Kindle
Amazon UK
Amazon DE
Free in Kindle lending library!

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Rewriting: Expanding on Key Story Elements

There's a saying in Hollywood that "If you have six great scenes, you have a movie." Well, very often these six great scenes are off that list I gave you of the Key Story Elements. It makes sense, doesn't it? Scenes like The Call To Adventure and Crossing the Threshold are magical moments: they change the world of the main character for all time, and as storytellers we want our readers or audiences to experience that profound, soul-shattering change right along with the character. These are numinous events, and we crave scenes that are worthy of them.

And I think it's useful to study the more blatant examples — the way these scenes are depicted in fantasies like Harry Potter and The Wizard of Oz — so you get the full-on, literally magical experience of a Call To Adventure or Crossing the Threshold scene first, and then start looking for more subtle variations in less fantastical stories.

Just as filmmakers consciously design some of these key story scenes for maximum emotional and visual impact, we as novelists can be doing the same thing on the page for our readers — making the most of critical scenes such as ESTABLISHING THE HERO/INE'S GHOST, THE CALL TO ADVENTURE, CROSSING THE THRESHOLD, ESTABLISHING THE PLAN, and so on.

So a very effective rewriting pass is to take a look at all of your key scenes and see if you're doing those moments justice.

In the next few posts I want to look more closely at a few of those key story elements (and that's key to ALL genres) and detail some examples of how filmmakers create these beats as setpiece scenes.

And of course, these key scenes are very often used as act climaxes or sequence climaxes — we'll talk about which elements are generally used as which act climaxes.

Let's start at the very beginning.

OPENING IMAGE

In a film you have an opening image by default, whether you put any planning into it or not. It's the first thing you see in the film. But good filmmakers will very consciously design that opening image to establish all kinds of things about the story: mood, tone, location, and especially theme. There can be more than just one image or shot at work, too; sometimes it's more like a whole opening scene.

Well, novelists, instead of (or in addition to) killing yourselves trying to concoct a great first line which will just as likely annoy a reader into throwing your book against the wall as make them keep reading, how about giving some thought to what your opening scene looks like? It takes a lot of the pressure off that first page anxiety — because you're focused on conveying a powerful image that will intrigue and entice the reader into the book.

What do we see? How does it make us feel? How might it even be a miniature code of what the whole story is about?

Take a look at a few of the films on your master list and see what they do with the opening image. Again, bear in mind that the opening image may be more of an opening scene — and the key image may not be the very first thing we see. For example, in Casino, the film starts with DeNiro walking out to his car, with narration over. Then as he gets in, the car explodes in flame — and the credits sequence begins, the visual underneath which is a long, long take on a cut-out of a man falling slowly through flame: a descent into hell. That falling through flame, with the blinking neon of the casino all around, would be the opening image, what Scorsese has chosen to fix in the audience's mind — it is exactly what the story is about.

One of my favorite opening images/sequences is the credits scene of The Shining. I don't think there's a creepier opening to be found anywhere in film. It's all aerial camerawork of those vast, foreboding mountains as that tiny little car drives up, up, up toward what turns out to be the Overlook Hotel. It's vertiginous, it's ominous, it emphasizes the utter isolation of the hotel and the circumstances, and somehow, through the music and the visuals and the constant movement, Kubrick establishes a sense of huge, vast, and malevolent natural forces. As a thriller writer (or whatever you want to call me), I am constantly looking for ways to convey all those things — that experience — on the page. Mo Hayder's The Treatment is one of my favorite recent examples … when she focuses on a murder of crows strutting on the grass of a crime scene, evil just rolls off the page, and you start to wonder if you really want to keep reading the book. (It's worth every shudder, but don't say I didn't warn you).

Here's another great film technique to be aware of: The opening image will sometimes —often — set up a location that will return in the final battle scene or in the resolution scene of the story — only at the end there will be a big visual contrast to show how much the hero/ine has changed. A fantastic recent example of this is in the truly lovely animated film How to Train Your Dragon. It opens with a long aerial swoop down into the Viking village. It's dark, torchlit, forbidding … and then smashes into the opening attack by dragons, a scene of chaos and violence. And we hear young protagonist Hiccup's wry narration over it.

In the RESOLUTION, we see the same aerial swoop into the village, but now it's daylight, sunshine, flowers — and instead of attacking, the dragons are flying with their new — well, not owners, but partners: the same Vikings who were fighting them in the beginning. And Hiccup's wry final narration is the same as his opening narration, with only a few key words changed. The whole village has been transformed by Hiccup's personal journey; it's a magnificent visual of not just character arc, but also of the change in philosophy of the whole Viking society.

Here are some more romance-friendly examples:

The opening image of Romancing the Stone is a small, stuffy cabin — which quickly opens up to a classic, gorgeous Western landscape of magnificent buttes in a desert setting; the heroine of the opening scene is a voluptuous buckskin-clad heroine straight from the old bodice-rippers. It's adventure and romance, which the voice-over narration also establishes as comic and tongue-in-cheek. It's a great miniature of the whole story — this is protagonist Joan Wilder's fantasy, which quickly becomes her not-so-appealing reality.

The opening image(s) of Notting Hill is a montage of movie star Anna Scott's career: newspaper headlines, magazine spreads, photo shoots, paparazzi tailing her at premieres and the Oscars. This montage sets up this story's unusual antagonist; it's Anna's fame that is the constant opposition to Will and Anna's love, and the storytellers make that fame concrete and vivid in these images.

The opening image of New in Town is a frozen, wintry landscape, symbolizing the heroine's frozen emotions, and then the first scene shows a group of three women scrapbooking and talking about the fate of the new plant manager, a scene that brings to mind the three Norns, or Fates, of Scandinavian myth.

Now, look, I'm not at all saying that an opening scene has to be visual to work. I had a student in a workshop recently who opened her romantic comedy with a series of dueling press releases. It was hilarious and perfect for her very funny book. As authors we have the luxury of not having to convey things purely visually. I'm just saying, if you're struggling with an opening, this could be a technique that might help you pull it all together. It works wonders for me. And thinking of the opening visually instantly solves the problem that I've become increasingly aware of in the opening chapters of newer writers: they fail to set up the visual in any way, which leaves the reader floundering to figure out where the hell they are. Not an auspicious way to begin, let me tell you.

As human beings, we are primarily visual creatures (and no, I don't just mean men. All of us.). So? Use it.

1. Make a list. Visual or not visual — what are some of your favorite book and movie openings of all time?

2. Now look at your own opening pages. Are they visual? Do we know where we are? Can you make that location, and the things we see in it, thematically meaningful?

- Alex

=====================================================

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

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Rewriting: the Genre Pass

An overview of Rewriting, if you haven't read it yet.

I'm sure you regular readers have already gotten this message, but I'll say it again anyway: whatever genre you are writing in, your JOB as a writer is to deliver the promise of that genre, the EXPERIENCE of it, to your readers/audience: comedy in a comedy, action in an actioner or action thriller, romance and sex in a romance, romance and sex and comedy in a romantic comedy, romance and sex and comedy and action in a romantic comedy/adventure (see ROMANCING THE STONE for an excellent example of delivering all the promises of those genres in one seamless gem of a movie).

So today we're going to talk about the Genre Pass.

Of course, for my money, your first step is always to make a master list – ten movies and books in the genre you're writing that you can look at to see how the master storytellers deliver on the promise in the genre.

A great exercise is to go through a movie or book minute by minute, or page by page, and literally count the genre scenes. List each one and how many minutes, seconds or pages there are between each genre scene or moment. At the end of this exercise you should be able to say with confidence, for example, in GROUNDHOG DAY, there is a laugh-out loud moment every 4 minutes (or however many minutes it is) Seriously. This is a great way to internalize the rhythm of a particular genre.

I must confess, I personally believe that if you're not a comedian right here, right now, you're never going to be a comedian. BUT – if you are not a born comedian but are writing a romantic comedy, and you know need to get more laughs in, this a great way to do that. Other genres are, I believe, more forgiving than comedy and easier to learn how to do.

Another good method is to lay out your story on index cards or Post Its again, and this time use a particular color of card or Post It to signify a comedy (action, sex, suspense) scene. If when you step back and survey your story board and you see a long sequence of scenes with none of that color, that's a good indication that you need to work that sequence and those scenes to layer in genre elements.

The other thing that is essential to look at is how the act and sequence climaxes in a good movie or book are almost always genre scenes. In a love story, these turning points are emotional or sexual. In an action story, they are action scenes, with the essential revelations occurring within the action (Think of the climax of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK – Darth Vader didn't reveal Luke's parenthood to him while they were washing dishes, now, did he?). Even if you don't quite pull off every single act climax and sequence climax as a rip-roaring genre scene, it's not a bad idea to shoot for that, because then at the very least you will know that you have eight scenes that deliver on your genre promise, and that's a really solid foundation for a successful story. And when you get yourself to think specifically in terms of genre scenes, your mind will be automatically looking for other places to insert genre moments.

While we're on Act Climaxes, I just wanted to mention the concept of multiple climaxes (in storytelling; hopefully we're all experts at the other). Some people make themselves crazy looking for the exact scene that is the Act Climax. Well, if it's not obvious, then chances are you've got multiple climaxes, or what I like to call a "rolling climax". ROMANCING THE STONE's Act I climax is a perfect example of several different scenes that fulfill the genre promises of comedy, action, romance and sex, which all work togther to make up the act break – take a look at the discussion here:

And here are some posts to help you with identifying Act Climaxes:

- Identifying Act Climaxes

- Raiders of the Lost Ark - Act Climaxes

The good news here is that – you don't have to get all of this into your first draft! These are rewriting tricks. Write out the bones of your scenes and the story, first, and then start to layer in these genre elements. Take a look at where you might combine two completely different scenes so that you get a big revelation or plot twist inside of a comic or fight scene, or in the middle of sex.

This is the fun part of writing – everything after the first draft is icing. So enjoy!

- Alex

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=====================================================

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)




- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

- Amazon/Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amazon DE

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Nanowrimo Now What? - Rewriting

Okay now, remember, if you just finished your draft on Nov. 30, taking time off from it before you jump into revisions is far more important than anything else I'm going to say here today.

But once you have taken the time off… how the hell do you proceed with the second draft?

Well, first you have to read the first draft. All the way through. Not necessarily in one sitting (if that's even possible to begin with!); I usually do this in chunks of 50 pages or 100 pages a day – anything else makes my brain sore.

(And yes, if you've been paying attention (The Three Act Structure and The Eight Sequence Structure), that would mean I'm either reading one sequence or two sequences a day).

I picked up a tip from some book or article a long time ago about reading for revisions, and I wish I could remember who said it to credit them, because it's great advice. Grab yourself a colored pen or pencil (or all kinds of colors, glitter pens - go wild) and sit down with a stack of freshly printed pages (sorry, it's ungreen, but I can't do a first revision on a screen. I need a hard copy). Then read through and make brief notes where necessary, but DO NOT start rewriting, and PUT THE PEN DOWN as soon as you've made a note. You want to read the first time through for story, not for stupid details that will interrupt your experience of the story as a whole. You want to get the big picture – especially – you want to see if you actually have a book (or film, if that's what you're writing).

If your drafts are anything like mine, there will be large chunks of absolute shit. That's pretty much my definition of what a first draft is. X them out on the spot if you have to, but resist the temptation to stop and rewrite. Well, if you REALLY are hot to write a scene, I guess, okay, but really, unless you are totally, fanatically inspired, it's better just to make brief notes.

When you've finished reading there should - hopefully! - be the feeling that even though you probably still have massive amounts of work yet to do, there is a book there. (I love that feeling…)

Once I've read through the entire thing, I make notes about my impressions, and then usually I will do a re-card (see The Index Card Method). I will have made many scribbled notes on the draft to the effect of "This scene doesn't work here!" In some of my first drafts, whole sections don't work at all. This is my chance to find the right places for things. And, of course, throw stuff out.

I will go through the entire book again – going back and forth between my pages and the cards on my story grid - and see where the story elements fall. There is no script or book I've ever written that didn't benefit from a careful overview once again identifying act breaks, sequence climaxes, and key story elements like: The Call to Adventure; Stating the Theme; identifying the Central Question; Central Action and Plan; Crossing the Threshold; Meeting the Mentor; the Dark Night of the Soul - once the first draft is actually finished. A lot of your outline may have changed, and you will be able to pull your story into line much more effectively if you check your structural elements again and continually be thinking of how you can make those key scenes more significant, more magical.

(For a quick refresher on Story Elements, skip down to #10 at the bottom of this post, and the links at the end for more in-depth discussion.)

Also, be very aware of what your sequences are. If a scene isn't working, but you know you need to have it, it's probably in the wrong sequence, and if you look at your story overall and at what each sequence is doing, you'll probably be able to see immediately where stray scenes need to go. That's why re-carding and re-sequencing is such a great thing to do when you start a revision.

Now, the next steps can be taken in whatever order is useful to you, but here again are the Top Ten Things I Know About Editing.


1. Cut, cut, cut.

When you first start writing, you are reluctant to cut anything. Believe me, I remember. But the truth is, beginning writers very, very, VERY often duplicate scenes, and characters, too. And dialogue, oh man, do inexperienced writers duplicate dialogue! The same things happen over and over again, are said over and over again. It will be less painful for you to cut if you learn to look for and start to recognize when you're duplicating scenes, actions, characters and dialogue. Those are the obvious places to cut and combine.

Some very wise writer (unfortunately I have no idea who) said, "If it occurs to you to cut, do so." This seems harsh and scary, I know. Often I'll flag something in a manuscript as "Could cut", and leave it in my draft for several passes until I finally bite the bullet and get rid of it. So, you know, that's fine. Allow yourself to CONSIDER cutting something, first. No commitment! Then if you do, fine. But once you've considered cutting, you almost always will. It's okay if you bitch about it all the way to the trash file, too - I always do.

2. Find a great critique group.

This is easier said than done, but you NEED a group, or a series of readers, who will commit themselves to making your work the best it can be, just as you commit the same to their work. Editors don't edit the way they used to and publishing houses expect their authors to find friends to do that kind of intensive editing. Really.

3. Do several passes.

Finish your first draft, no matter how rough it is. Then give yourself a break — a week is good, two weeks is better, three weeks is better than that — as time permits. Then read, cut, polish, put in notes. Repeat. And repeat again. Always give yourself time off between reads if you can. The closer your book is to done, the more uncomfortable the unwieldy sections will seem to you, and you will be more and more okay with getting rid of them. Read on for the specific kinds of passes I recommend doing.

4. Whatever your genre is, do a dedicated pass focusing on that crucial genre element.

For a thriller: thrills and suspense. For a mystery: clues and misdirection and suspense. For a comedy: a comedic pass. For a romance: a sex pass. Or "emotional" pass, if you must call it that. For horror… well, you get it.

I write suspense. So after I've written that first agonizing bash-through draft of a book or script, and probably a second or third draft just to make it readable, I will at some point do a dedicated pass just to amp up the suspense, and I highly recommend trying it, because it's amazing how many great ideas you will come up with for suspense scenes (or comic scenes, or romantic scenes) if you are going through your story JUST focused on how to inject and layer in suspense, or horror, or comedy, or romance. It's your JOB to deliver the genre you're writing in. It's worth a dedicated pass to make sure you're giving your readers what they're buying the book for.

5. Know your Three Act Structure.

If something in your story is sagging, it is amazing how quickly you can pull your narrative into line by looking at the scene or sequence you have around page 100 (or whatever page is ¼ way through the book), page 200, (or whatever page is ½ way through the book), page 300 (or whatever page is ¾ through the book) and your climax. Each of those scenes should be huge, pivotal, devastating, game-changing scenes or sequences (even if it's just emotional devastation). Those four points are the tentpoles of your story.

6. Do a dedicated DESIRE LINE pass in which you ask yourself for every scene: "What does this character WANT? Who is opposing her/him in this scene? Who WINS in the scene? What will they do now?"

7. Do a dedicated EMOTIONAL pass, in which you ask yourself in every chapter, every scene, what do I want my readers to FEEL in this moment?

8. Do a dedicated SENSORY pass, in which you make sure you're covering what you want the reader to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and sense.

9. Read your book aloud. All of it. Cover to cover.

I wouldn't recommend doing this with a first draft unless you feel it's very close to the final product, but when you're further along, the best thing I know to do to edit a book — or script — is read it aloud. The whole thing. I know, this takes several days, and you will lose your voice. Get some good cough drops. But there is no better way to find errors — spelling, grammar, continuity, and rhythmic errors. Try it, you'll be amazed.

10. Finally, and this is a big one: steal from film structure to pull your story into dramatic line.

Some of you are already well aware that I've compiled a checklist of story elements that I use both when I'm brainstorming a story on index cards, and again when I'm starting to revise. I find it invaluable to go through my first draft and make sure I'm hitting all of these points, so here it is again, for those just finding this post.


STORY ELEMENTS CHECKLIST

ACT ONE

* Opening image
* Meet the hero or heroine
* Hero/ine's inner and outer desire.
* Hero/ine's problem
* Hero/ine's ghost or wound
* Hero/ine's arc
* Inciting Incident/Call to Adventure
* Meet the antagonist (and/or introduce a mystery, which is what you do when you're going to keep your antagonist hidden to reveal at the end)
* State the theme/what's the story about?
* Allies
* Mentor (possibly. May not have one or may be revealed later in the story).
* Love interest
* Plant/Reveal (or: Setups and Payoffs)
* Hope/Fear (and Stakes)
* Time Clock (possibly. May not have one or may be revealed later in the story)
* Sequence One climax
* Central Question
* Central Story Action
* Plan (Hero/ine's)
* Villain's Plan
* Act One climax

___________________________

ACT TWO


* Crossing the Threshold/ Into the Special World (may occur in Act One)
* Threshold Guardian (maybe)
* Hero/ine's Plan
* Antagonist's Plan
* Training Sequence
* Series of Tests
* Picking up new Allies
* Assembling the Team
* Attacks by the Antagonist (whether or not the Hero/ine recognizes these as being from the antagonist)
* In a detective story, questioning witnesses, lining up and eliminating suspects, following clues.


THE MIDPOINT


* Completely changes the game
* Locks the hero/ine into a situation or action
* Can be a huge revelation
* Can be a huge defeat
* Can be a "now it's personal" loss
* Can be sex at 60 — the lovers finally get together, only to open up a whole new world of problems


______________________________
ACT TWO, PART TWO


* Recalibrating — after the shock or defeat of the game-changer in the Midpoint, the hero/ine must Revamp The Plan and try a New Mode of Attack.
* Escalating Actions/ Obsessive Drive
* Hard Choices and Crossing The Line (immoral actions by the main character to get what s/he wants)
* Loss of Key Allies (possibly because of the hero/ine's obsessive actions, possibly through death or injury by the antagonist).
* A Ticking Clock (can happen anywhere in the story)
* Reversals and Revelations/Twists. (Hmm, that clearly should have its own post, now, shouldn't it?)
* The Long Dark Night of the Soul and/or Visit to Death (aka All Is Lost)

THE SECOND ACT CLIMAX

* Often can be a final revelation before the end game: the knowledge of who the opponent really is
* Answers the Central Question


_______________________________

ACT THREE

The third act is basically the Final Battle and Resolution. It can often be one continuous sequence — the chase and confrontation, or confrontation and chase. There may be a final preparation for battle, or it might be done on the fly. Either here or in the last part of the second act the hero will make a new, FINAL PLAN, based on the new information and revelations of the second act.

The essence of a third act is the final showdown between protagonist and antagonist. It is often divided into two sequences:


1. Getting there (storming the castle)
2. The final battle itself

* Thematic Location — often a visual and literal representation of the Hero/ine's Greatest Nightmare
* The protagonist's character change
* The antagonist's character change (if any)
* Possibly allies' character changes and/or gaining of desire
* Could be one last huge reveal or twist, or series of reveals and twists, or series of final payoffs you've been saving (as in BACK TO THE FUTURE and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE).

* RESOLUTION: A glimpse into the New Way of Life that the hero/ine will be living after this whole ordeal and all s/he's learned from it.

If these story elements are new to you, you'll want to read:


Elements of Act One

Elements of Act Two, Part 1

Elements of Act Two, Part 2

Elements of Act Three

Elements of Act Three: Elevate Your Ending

Elements of Act Three: What Makes a Great Climax?

Act Climaxes and Turning Points

Part 1:

Part 2:

And I'll be posting more about how to do different kinds of passes for particular effect.

- Alex


=====================================================

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

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Nanowrimo Now What?

Okay, so you survived! Or maybe I shouldn't make any assumptions, there.

But for the sake of argument, let's say you survived and now have a rough draft (maybe very, very, very rough draft) of about 50,000 words.

What next?

Well, first of all, did you write to "The End"? Because if not, then you may have survived, but you're not done. You must get through to The End, no matter how rough it is (rough meaning the process AND the pages…). If you did not get to The End, I would strongly urge that you NOT take a break, no matter how tired you are (well, maybe a day). You can slow down your schedule, set a lower per-day word or page count, but do not stop. Write every day, or every other day if that's your schedule, but get the sucker done.

You may end up throwing away most of what you write, but it is a really, really, really bad idea not to get all the way through a story. That is how most books, scripts and probably most all other things in life worth doing are abandoned.

Conversely, if you DID get all the way to "The End", then definitely, take a break. As long a break as possible. You should keep to a writing schedule, start brainstorming the next project, maybe do some random collaging to see what images come up that might lead to something fantastic - but if you have a completed draft, then what you need right now is SPACE from it. You are going to need fresh eyes to do the read-through that is going to take you to the next level, and the only way for you to get those fresh eyes is to leave the story alone for a while.

I am tempted to jump write in and post the blog I am thinking about on a process for reading and revising, but I will resist, at least for today, so that you really absorb what I'm saying.

1. Keep going if you're not done –

OR -

2. Take a good long break if you have a whole first draft, and start thinking about another project.

And in the meantime, I'd love to hear how you all who were Nanoing did.

Me? I had my usual Nano, which is to say I was working on multiple projects, one in a later draft so page counts were useless or impossible, and then the order of two of my contracted books got switched in the middle of the month so I ended up starting TWO first drafts of different projects this month (!!!) but I am MUCH happier with the new order one of those. But I did get a ton of editing done on my new crime thriller, and am loving the new paranormal thriller, and I got final edits for three e books done. And I survived that incredible So Cal windstorm, too. A good month, I'd say.

- Alex

Nanowrimo: the third quarter drop-dead

Home stretch!

Well, theoretically, anyway. But I find that right about now is when people tend to start dropping during Nano. First of all there's, well, Thanksgiving. Which even though it's a holiday, involves family, and family is never conducive to marathon writing. (They don't like to lose us to a book, it's just the truth. It brings up all kinds of feelings of abandonment and inadequacy. So - pretend you're going shopping and go to a cafe to write, that's what they're for.)

But also, let's face it, it's EASY to write a first act. It's new, it's fresh, it's exciting, it's like the first flush of being in love. You're so high you don't stop to think, and that means you don't get in your own way.

It can even be not so hard to get through Act II, part 1 to the Midpoint. But it's that third quarter where things get murky. You feel like you're not getting anywhere. In fact, you have no freaking clue where you are, or why in the hell you're wherever the hell you are to begin with, and you just want to give up and sleep for a week, or eat turkey and chocolate for a week, or all of the above.

I had a friend in movie development who called it "the third-quarter drop dead."

Well, here's an interesting thing. Structurally, this is EXACTLY the point in your story that your hero/ine is feeling those exact same things. In other words, it's the BLACK MOMENT, or ALL IS LOST MOMENT, or the VISIT TO DEATH, which almost always ends up as the climax or just before the climax of Act II.

It's as if we as authors have to work ourselves into the exact same hopeless despair as our characters, as if nothing good will ever come out of this situation and we might as well give up right now - in order to convey that emotion on the page and feel that exhilaration when the character SOLVES the problem and gets that final revelation and makes that final plan.

So if you find yourself in this situation, you might want to review the elements of Act II: Part 2, and take a look at some of these questions to see if they might help you find your way.


ACT II:2

In a 2-hour movie this section starts at about 60 minutes, and ends at about 90 minutes.

In a 400-page book, this section starts at about p. 300 and ends toward the end of the book.

Now, remember, at the end of Act II, part 1, there is a MIDPOINT CLIMAX, which I'll review briefly because it's so important.

In movies the midpoint is usually a big SETPIECE scene, where the filmmakers really show off their expertise with a special effects sequence (as in HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON and HARRY POTTER, 1), or a big action scene (JAWS), or in breathtaking psychological cat-and-mouse dialogue (in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS). It might be a sex scene or a comedy scene, or both in a romantic comedy. Whatever the Midpoint is, it is most likely going to be specific to the promise of the genre.

And I strongly encourage you as authors to pay as much attention to your midpoint as filmmakers do with theirs.


THE MIDPOINT –

- Completely changes the game
- Locks the hero/ine into a situation or action
- Is a point of no return
- Can be a huge revelation
- Can be a huge defeat
- Can be a huge win
- Can be a "now it's personal" loss
- Can be sex at 60 – the lovers finally get together, only to open up a whole new world of problems

(More on MIDPOINT).


Act II, part 2 will almost always have these elements:

* RECALIBRATING– after the shock or defeat of the game-changer in the midpoint, the hero/ine must REVAMP THE PLAN and try a NEW MODE OF ATTACK.

What's the new plan?

* STAKES

A good story will always be clear about the stakes. Characters often speak the stakes aloud. How have the stakes changed? Do we have new hopes or fears about what the protagonist will do and what will happen to him or her?


* ESCALATING ACTIONS/OBSESSIVE DRIVE

Little actions by the hero/ine to get what s/he wants have not cut it, so the actions become bigger and usually more desperate.

Do we see a new level of commitment in the hero/ine?

How are the hero/ine's actions becoming more desperate?

* It's also worth noting that while the hero/ine is generally (but not always!) winning in Act II:1, s/he generally begins to lose in Act II:2. Often this is where everything starts to unravel and spiral out of control.

* INCREASED ATTACKS BY ANTAGONIST

Just as the hero/ine is becoming more desperate to get what s/he wants, the antagonist also has failed to get what s/he wants and becomes more desperate and takes riskier actions.

* HARD CHOICES AND CROSSING THE LINE (IMMORAL ACTIONS by the main character to get what s/he wants)

Do we see the hero/ine crossing the line and doing immoral things to get what s/he wants?

* LOSS OF KEY ALLIES (possibly because of the hero/ine's obsessive actions, possibly through death or injury by the antagonist).

Do any allies walk out on the hero/ine or get killed or injured?

* A TICKING CLOCK (can happen anywhere in the story, or there may not be one.)

* REVERSALS AND REVELATIONS/TWISTS

* THE LONG DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL and/or VISIT TO DEATH (also known as: ALL IS LOST).

There is always a moment in a story where the hero/ine seems to have lost everything, and it is almost always right before the Second Act Climax, or it IS the Second Act Climax.

What is the All Is Lost scene?

* In a romance or romantic comedy, the All Is Lost moment is often a THE LOVER MAKES A STAND scene, where s/he tells the loved one – "Enough of this bullshit waffling, either commit to me or don't, but if you don't, I'm out of here." This can be the hero/ine or the love interest making this stand.

THE SECOND ACT CLIMAX

* Often will be a final revelation before the end game: often the knowledge of who the opponent really is, that will propel the hero/ine into the FINAL BATTLE.

* Often will be another devastating loss, the ALL IS LOST scene. In a mythic structure or Chosen One story or mentor story this is almost ALWAYS where the mentor dies or is otherwise taken out of the action, so the hero/ine must go into the final battle alone.

* Answers the Central Question – and often the answer is "no" – so that the hero/ine again must come up with a whole new plan.

* Often is a SETPIECE.

More discussion on Elements Of Act II:2

And here are the elements and questions for Act Three:

ACT THREE

The third act is basically the Final Battle and Resolution. It can often be one continuous sequence – the chase and confrontation, or confrontation and chase. There may be a final preparation for battle, or it might be done on the fly. Either here or in the last part of the second act the hero will make a new, FINAL PLAN, based on the new information and revelations of the second act.

The essence of a third act is the final showdown between protagonist and antagonist. It is often divided into two sequences:

1. Getting there (Storming the Castle) (Sequence 7).

2. The final battle itself (Sequence 8)

* In addition to the FINAL PLAN, there may be another GATHERING OF THE TEAM, and a brief TRANING SEQUENCE.

• There may well be DEFEATS OF SECONDARY OPPONENTS (each one of which should be given a satisfying end or comeuppance. (This may also happen earlier, in Act II:2).

* Thematic Location - often a visual and literal representation of the Hero/ine's Greatest Nightmare
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* The protagonist's character change
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* The antagonist's character change (if any)

* Possibly ally/allies' character change (s) and/or gaining of desire (s)

* Possibly a huge final reversal or reveal (twist), or even a whole series of payoffs that you've been saving (as in Back to the Future and It's A Wonderful Life)

* RESOLUTION: A glimpse into the New Way of Life that the hero/ine will be living after this whole ordeal and all s/he's learned from it.

• Possibly a sense of coming FULL CIRCLE – returning to the opening image or scene and showing how much things have changed, or how the hero/ine has changed inside, causing her or him to deal with the same place and situation in a whole different way.

* Closing Image

More on Act Three:

Elements of Act Three

What Makes a Great Climax?

Elevate Your Ending


Now, I'd also like to remind everyone that this is a basic, GENERAL list. There are story elements specific to whatever kind of story you're writing, and the best way to get familiar with what those are is to do (or take a look at story breakdowns on three (at least) movies or books that are similar to the KIND of story you're writing.

What KIND Of Story Is It?

I hope that there's something there to get you through that third quarter, but I'll post a few more brainstorming tricks this week.

In the meantime, good luck with the family! I mean, Happy Thanksgiving!

- Alex


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Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)




- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

- Amazon/Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amazon DE

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Nanowrimo: Best writing advice

Okay, this has probably been going on forever and I'm just catching on. But I just discovered that the Amazon pages of my books are continually compiling the most highlighted quotes from my books.

To explain for those of you who might not have an e reader - yet - you can highlight passages of books that you read on your Kindle to refer back to at your leisure. Whether or not you, the reader, know that this information is being compiled online is a different question. Some books you might not want to have those special passages highlighted, if you see what I mean.

But the Big Brother aspect is a different post. This highlighted quotes feature is actually totally EXCELLENT news for me because it means today,instead of a long blog post on what I think is important advice, I can just give you a pithy list of what readers think is the best advice in my Screenwriting Tricks books. and you all know how much I love lists.

So here you go:


Top Ten highlighted quotes from Screenwriting Tricks for Authors.


On LOGLINES/PREMISES --

- The premise sentence should give you a sense of the entire story: the character of the protagonist, the character of the antagonist, the conflict, the setting, the tone, the genre.

- All of these premises contain a defined protagonist, a powerful antagonist, a sense of the setting, conflict and stakes, and a sense of how the action will play out.

- Write a one-sentence premise that contains all these story elements: protagonist, antagonist, conflict, stakes, setting, atmosphere and genre.

On a character's GHOST or WOUND

- We all unconsciously seek out people, events and situations that duplicate our core trauma(s), in the hope of eventually triumphing over the situation that so wounded us.

On CHARACTER ARC:

- The arc of the character is what the character learns during the course of the story, and how s/he changes because of it. It could be said that the arc of a character is almost always about the character realizing that s/he's been obsessed with an outer goal or desire, when what she really needs to be whole, fulfilled, and lovable is _______ (fill in the blank).

On HOPE and FEAR

- Our fear for the character should be the absolute worst case scenario:

- The lesson here is - spend some quality time figuring out how to bring your hero/ine's greatest nightmare to life: in setting, set decoration, characters involved, actions taken. If you know your hero/ine's ghost and greatest fear, then you should be able to come up with a great setting (for the climax/final battle) that will be unique, resonant, and entirely specific to that protagonist (and often to the villain as well.)

On PLAN (and ACT II)


- This continual opposition of the protagonist's and antagonist's plans is the main underlying structure of the second act.

ON CONFLICT/ANTAGONISM

- STACK THE ODDS AGAINST YOUR PROTAGONIST. It's just ingrained in us to love an underdog.

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- Top ten highlighted quotes from Writing Love

- "Every genre has its own game that it's playing with the audience."

- The game in the romance genre is often to show, through the hero and heroine, how we are almost always our own worst enemies in love, and how we throw up all kinds of obstacles in our own paths to keep ourselves from getting what we want.

- A great, emotionally effective technique within the final battle is to have the hero/ine LOSE THE BATTLE TO WIN THE WAR.

- This continual opposition of the protagonist's and antagonist's plans is the main underlying structure of the second act.

- I'm a firm believer that just ASKING the questions will prompt your creative brain to leap into overdrive and come up with the right scenes. Our minds and souls long to be creative, they just need us to stop stalling and get our asses in gear.


- So once you've got your initial plan, you need to be constantly blocking that plan, either with your antagonist, or the hero/ine's own inner conflict, or outside forces beyond her or his control.


- Very often in the second act we will see a battle before the final battle in which the hero/ine fails because of some weakness, so the suspense is even greater when s/he goes into the final battle (climax) in the third act.


- The final battle (climax) is also a chance to PAY OFF ALL YOUR SETUPS AND PLANTS. Very often you will have set up a weakness for your hero/ine. That weakness that has caused him or her to fail repeatedly in previous tests, and in the final battle (climax) the hero/ine's great weakness will be tested.


- "Get the hero up a tree. Throw rocks at him. Get him down."


- After I've finished that grueling, hellish first draft, the fun starts. 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.

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And that happens to be the step I'm on right now, pass after pass after pass. But it's coming together! How's everyone's Nano going?

- Alex

=====================================================

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)

- Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)




- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

- Amazon/Kindle

- Barnes & Noble/Nook

- Amazon UK

- Amazon DE

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