Mistakes in real life cannot be repaired. If you say something awful to a loved one, you cannot take it back. In my experience, sometimes it feels like anything you say is just a pile on to the previous words. As if new words could repair the old. The same […]
Going back to the chapter on GENERATION IDEAS, we find solutions to the problem of a dry well. It reminds me of the techniques Julia Cameron talks about in her books, The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write. In them, she has loads of exercises to break through writer’s […]
Everybody wants stakes. A big red slab of stake. A juicy tender cut of stake. And today’s exercise from Mr Bell asks us to ask ourselves What are the stakes in the novel? I remember attending a poetry / story slam event in NYC. I had a couple of […]
I read something interesting the other day. “Titles are the lens through which we read a story.” It makes a lot of sense. A title can enhance or reverse our understanding of a story. It’s like labels. If you see two people arguing and fighting and kicking each other, it […]
The next exercises in the chapter all revolve around the first. You essentially pick it apart. Kind of odd, if you ask me. Like scratching something off your back, and inspecting it. Well, here is it. First, a look at story world. How well do you do it? Are […]
I’m being silly with the title. But here is why: James Scott Bell tells us in chapter four his thoughts on beginnings. They must check a series of elements. The story hooks the reader, usually with motion (which I thought a nice touch). The reader bonds with the lead. The […]
Who doesn’t like pyramids? Mr Bell always wanted one named after him, so in his plot book he did just that. He asks writers to put their unsunken lines and hooks through another test: PPP. Does the story inspire passion? Does the story have potential? Will the writing […]
In chapter three we find a quote from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. These Hollywood producers are shooting the breeze, coming up with movie pitches, when one of them say, “That isn’t an idea, it’s an notion. If we put some money into it, then maybe we can turn it into a […]