HERE I WILL SLIP AND SLIDE USEFUL TOOLS FOR WRITING — UPDATED: 11:11 AM, 26 Sept 2020
Motivation:
- Tell stories of transformation (how did you change?)
- Write about topics that fuel emotions (what upsets you, what politics, what news)
- Great fears (of yours and of others)
- Deep secrets (of yours and of others)
Plotting:
- LOCK system (Lead, Objective, Conflict, Knockout)
- ARM scenes (Action, Reaction, More action)
- Three acts (Who? Bang! Settle.)
- 2 doors of no return (end of act i, act ii)
Openings:
- Hook, line, sinker (or grab, hold, drag)
- Openings start with a disturbance to the normal (somnambulic) world, usually ignored
- Openings end when the lead goes through the first door of no return
Characters:
- Characters change from outside-in, or from inside-out (following: self-image, core beliefs, values, dominant attitudes, opinions)
- They need to want something (usually to change)
- Should feel something specific at all times (spoken or unspoken) generally an invigorating feeling or a defeating one
- Jean Valjean vs Inspector Javert (honest good vs true evil, it’s still adult to write black and white)
Setting:
- Remote, unfinished suburb — to paint unsupervised abandon
- Underneath a beach peer — to paint drug troll
- Different taxi’s around the world — to paint distanced intimacy
Description:
- Use the right word
- Less is more
- Write to create experiences of the world around
- Literary fiction feeds on the texture and mood of description
Dialogue:
- Best is snappy, witty
- Who talks the same as another?
P.S.:
- After finishing the next novel, go through the checklist (appendix) at the end of James Scott Bell’s book and successfully tick all the boxes — if only for fun
