Dane Cobain's Blog, page 42

The D. C. Hook Hypothesis: A Riff on Writing

Trust me, the title of this blog makes it sound a lot more intellectual than it currently is. Basically, I have a lot of ideas about stuff, and quite often they occur when I’m half asleep and lying in bed.

As a side note, my most recent notes suggested that there is, in fact, a god, but that no religion has successfully figured out the identity of that god. That pisses the real god off, which is why we have pointless holy wars and people killing other people in the name of their respective gods. Don’t steal that, by the way, because I might write a story about it.

But I digress, because today I want to talk about the D. C. Hook hypothesis, a revolutionary new approach to writing that somebody else has probably already come up with.

 

The D. C. Hook Hypothesis

 

The basic premise is this: Characters + Hook = Story Line.

Let me explain. Your characters are your characters, the dramatis personae who take centre stage in your writing. The hook, meanwhile, is that unique special something that makes your story unique – for example, the hook behind the popular movie The Butterfly Effect is the exploration of the theory it takes its name from. When you’ve got strong characters and a strong hook, the story line writes itself – the entire piece of work can be around the way that your characters respond to and interact with that hook.

The interesting thing about the C+H=SL equation is that it can be scaled up and down, as needed. You can apply it to each of your chapters, for example, as well as for the overall book. It can even be applied to a series – the series itself must have an overall hook, and then each book in the series should have a separate hook of its own.

 

Red Dwarf

 

So let’s take a step back for a sec and take a look at some of the writers who’ve successfully used the technique. I’m going to use the cult TV show Red Dwarf as an example, to show you how there’s a hook for the show, for each series and for each episode:

Hierarchy
Hook (Red Dwarf)


Series
The last man alive is drifting through space on a space ship


Series
Series VIII: The resurrection of the ship’s crew


Episode
Cassandra: The crew meets a fortune-telling computer

In fact, the funny thing is that in the case of almost every good movie that was followed by a bad sequel, it’s because they failed to use the hook approach correctly. You simply can’t use the same hook for two movies if you expect people to see the second film and to enjoy it more than the first one.

 

Donie Darko

 

For example, if you’ve ever seen the second Donnie Darko movie, you’ll know that they tried to use the same ‘weird space shit‘ hook that they used the first time around. Unfortunately, they also lost their major character, and so they were stuck without the two major contributing factors towards a decent story line.

The same thing happened with The Butterfly Effect II – they tried to use the same hook that they used in the first film, and it failed spectacularly. And consider the Final Destination and Paranormal Activity series – sure, they may be successful, but is there anything to mark each of the films in those series apart?

You’re damn right there isn’t, because they all rely on the same hook, and while there are different characters in each of the movies, they’re so two-dimensional that when you combine the characters with the hook, you end up with a virtually identical story line for each movie.

 

Star Wars

 

Now, I’d love to say that there’s some grand ending to this article, but truth be told, there isn’t – all I can say is that I hope that I’ve successfully applied the hook approach to my own writing. Otherwise, who’s going to read my books?

In No Rest for the Wicked, which is due for release through Booktrope any day now, I used the oldest hook in the book – the battle between good and evil. Yeah, I know, I know – it’s been overdone. But it works really fucking well in the right hands – just look at Star Wars:

Hierarchy
Hook (Star Wars)


Series
The battle between good and evil


Trilogy
Original trilogy: Family ties versus loyalty to good/evil


Movie
A New Hope: Luke sets out to find his fortune

Maybe good versus evil isn’t such a bad hook after all…

The post The D. C. Hook Hypothesis: A Riff on Writing appeared first on DaneCobain.com.

No Rest for the Wicked: Cover Wars, Giveaways, Launch Party, and Birthday Lolz!

Hi, folks! Exciting news for you today – I wanted to let you know about the online launch party for No Rest for the Wicked, my debut novella. It’s being released on Thursday June 11th, my birthday, and so I’m sure you can see where this is going!

I’ll be posting an event from 2 PM – 9 PM GMT, in which a whole host of fun stuff will be happening. Let’s start with the Cover Wars – a bunch of authors and designers have submitted their covers, and they’ll be pitted off against each other in a public vote to determine which cover is the best – the winning cover will win a $10 Amazon gift voucher for both the author and the designer.

 

Dane Cobain – No Rest for the Wicked Cover

 

On top of that, I’ll be doing a bunch of giveaways – not necessarily of the book, because I want you to buy that, but of all sorts of other cool stuff that you might not be able to find anywhere else. I’ll also be doing some live poetry to keep you entertained, sharing snippets, and posting a few videos here and there to help you to learn more about the book.

After that, on Friday June 19th, there’s going to be a physical launch party here in High Wycombe, at the Arts4Every1 Centre. We’ve got all sorts of cool stuff planned for that as well, so keep your browser pointed to DaneCobain.com to hear about the latest news, as and when it happens!

The post No Rest for the Wicked: Cover Wars, Giveaways, Launch Party, and Birthday Lolz! appeared first on DaneCobain.com.

The LinkedIn Pulse Round-Up!

Hi, folks! This week, I wanted to highlight some of the articles that I’ve been putting out on LinkedIn – you can expect a mixture of how-tos and opinion pieces, as well as a couple of articles which were featured within the social media category and went a little bit crazy!

Here are the articles that I’ve released as of the time of writing:

Five Top Tips for Contacting Journalists


Five Twitter Tools You Can’t Afford to be Without
The Five Most Annoying Social Media Faux Pas
The Top Ten Business Books for the Online Era
Kids of the Future Won’t Need Phones
Lessons I Learned Live-Tweeting #CIMTIGQT
Marketing Lessons from SocialBookshelves.com
Even Escorts Are Using WhatsApp Now
When Content Marketing Gets Cool
Marketing Lessons from Oscar Wilde
Stop Wasting Your Money and Start Running Facebook Advertisements
Social Paranoia: How Brands and Consumers Can Fight Fear in a Connected World
How to create an all-star profile on LinkedIn
The Eleven Types of LinkedIn Contact
Why we all need to rant about something, sometimes…
Timing is Definitely Key
When did social networking become such big news?
How Booktrope’s Community Publishing Model is About to Take the Big Five Down
On Social, No-One Knows That You’re a Person

 

LinkedIn Pulse

 

Hopefully you’re curiosity is piqued and you fancy taking a look at one or two of them – who knows? They might even come in handy!

If you’d like to stay up-to-date with new articles as and when I write and release them, be sure to send me a connection request. Don’t worry – I don’t bite!

The post The LinkedIn Pulse Round-Up! appeared first on DaneCobain.com.

Win an Amazon Voucher with the Social Paranoia survey!

Hi, folks! I have some big news for you – today, I officially start work on Social Paranoia, an upcoming non-fiction book that I’m working on which will take a look at social networking and the ways in which it affects us as brands and consumers.

As part of that, I’m asking people to fill out a research survey about their social networking habits, which will provide me with some of the information that I need to write the book. But that’s not all!

I’m also combining the survey with a competition, and so if you fill out the survey, you can leave your e-mail address behind so that I can contact you if you’re the winner. There are three £10 Amazon vouchers available, and I can convert them into your local currency, too!

You can view the survey here – please do take the time to fill it out and to share it with your friends so that they can enter too. And if you want to stay up-to-date with Social Paranoia, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn or to follow me on Facebook and Twitter. I’ll see you soon!

The post Win an Amazon Voucher with the Social Paranoia survey! appeared first on DaneCobain.com.

Pegasus IV

Three million milliseconds from earth, the supply ship Pegasus IV is in a hell of a lot of trouble.

Captain Joe Brown sits uneasily in his flight chair. Supplies are low. Morale is low. Fuel is low. And Captain Joe Brown is feeling pretty fucking low, too.

Must be that goddamn recording.

****

“M’aidez, m’aidez – come in ground control, this is Pegasus IV. Repeat, this is Pegasus IV. Come in, please.”

****

Captain Joe Brown is the last living thing this side of Alpha Centuri.

****

Every single atom of matter in the universe is the result of an infinite number of equations, the laws of cause and effect in motion – everything happens for a reason, but there’s not always a thought process behind it.

And so life wiped itself out, without meaning to. Chemicals from factories, mass deforestation, poisonous fumes from cars and even the methane farts from herds of cows, bred for fast food chains on vast swatches of ‘reclaimed’ land. The catalyst of our inevitable destruction, big gaps in the ozone layer which hit a point of singularity, after which the gradual heating of the earth snowballed rapidly. In just eleven days, global temperature averages rose by 110 degrees, enough to melt the ice caps and to start the slow boil of the seas.

Nothing could survive that, not even the cockroaches. The laws of cause and effect in motion.

****

Three million milliseconds from earth, the supply ship Pegasus IV orbits the shell of a once-blue planet.

Captain Joe Brown is still in his flight chair. He’s singing All You Need is Love, but love won’t help him now. Love won’t save you when there’s nothing left to love.

Supplies are low. Morale is low. Food is low. And most alarming of all, oxygen is low, too.

Captain Joe Brown has nothing better to do than to wait until it’s all over.

****

Three million milliseconds from earth; two million milliseconds from earth; one million milliseconds from earth, the supply ship Pegasus IV.

Four hundred thousand.

Three hundred thousand.

Two hundred thousand.

One hundred thousand.

****

The universe is quiet again, at last.

The post Pegasus IV appeared first on DaneCobain.com.