Archive for the ‘plotting’ Category

The Answer Man written and directed by John Hindman

Just some quick thoughts on ‘Answer Man’.

My take on the theme: If you want answers, you better be honest with yourself first.

A lot of this story is about the relationships of sons to their fathers. The sub plot with the alcoholic bookstore owner revolves around his issues with his alcoholic father. Arlan, the main character, is not dealing with his father’s death. Alex, the son of Arlan’s love interest is not dealing well with his father’s disappearance.

So we have feelings of anger and resentment toward the father, feelings of loss, and feelings of uncertainty. So growth comes from resolution with the father.

Atonement with the father is one of the steps in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, or what I sometimes reference as the Monomyth.

This film is a good example of how a section of the Monomyth can serve as a story’s theme or centerpiece.

The following is a pretty good definition from Wikipedia:

“In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity, it does not have to be a male; just someone or something with incredible power”

Two of the fathers in this story are absent, but we do see one of these figures. They hardly seem like god-like, powerful beings, but this is one of the things I often like to point out about character: to the men and boy in this story, the fathers are just that. They are powerful.

Alren Faber’s dead father has the power to keep Arlen from “life”. He holds the power of life and death in his hands. Even though this is a father who is off screen we get a sense that this man was a huge influence in Arlen’s life. Enough that Arlen feels the need to preserve so much of his father’s memories [which is something the father in the story was losing to Alzheimer’s]. So here we see the Mythopotic power of a father who can put life on hold. When this story begins, this is how we find Arlen–attempting to connect with God [another father figure], but bitter at life for interrupting.

Kris’s father has gifted his son with a type of enslavement: alcoholism. This is a much more reflective relationship, in that the same issues the father faces the son faces. This comes out clearly in Kris’s questions to Arlen–is there such a thing as free will or are we predestined? In other words, “Am I destined the follow my father’s path? Is there no other way out? Or is this my life? Can I make my own choices and find my own rewards?” Kris’s issues with his father are the centerpoint of his journey. Unlike Alex or Arlen, Kris is dealing with his issues in the moment, and in a strange way looks to Arlen as an almost father figure. However, he finds disappointment in both fathers, until Arlen redeams himself in the end by doing a huge book signing at Kris’s store and probably saving Kris’s business.

Alex doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but his father is probably one of the most powerful. Alex’s father has managed to freeze time. Alex struggles to understand simple things like days of the week and months, because he’s not been told the truth about his absent father.

One could complain that a lot of these transformational threads aren’t resolved and could claim that they should have been in the film. However, Alex and Kris serve as support characters who do an accurate job of reflecting Arlen’s problems. Generally, in this type of story, it’s assumed that if the main character has resolved his issues, that the others will be resolved as well. Technically, not every character in the story needs a complete resolution. It’s perfectly acceptable that a reflection character continue to have their own problems, as long as they’ve helped the character going through the transformational arch actually transform.

Oh, and overall I really enjoyed this movie. I’d love to get a copy of the screenplay, but haven’t found it yet.

I’m working new hours at work. Earlier hours. It’s kind of nice. I get in before any of the major noise starts up. Let me tell you, there’s nothing as fun as trying to write business analyst code in a cubicle farm. There’s a reason why people who have to think for a living need offices—or at least a way they can close themselves off from the rest of the world. At my next job I will have an office.

I did a lot of research for the novel yesterday. I’m not certain where to stop with the research. I really, really like it. I read once that some authors will use children’s books for research. I’m finding that’s just not adequate for this genre. There’s just a lot more to it. A lot of traditions, protocols, and a pretty advanced command structure.

I’ve put a few words to paper, but so far it’s mostly biography information and some notes on plotting. This weekend I’m shooting for at least a synopsis and perhaps a complete outline. The outline will of course be very liquid at this point, but that’s okay. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to write a phase draft of this book. The phase drafts have worked pretty well on the short stories I’ve written, but I haven’t tried it yet for a longer work. The nice thing about a phase draft is that it’s easy to write the novel to. It’s a moment-by-moment focus and that’s usually easier to face than a big blank page.

I normally start by writing a general synopsis of the story that covers all the big, necessary plotting points. There are lots of these, but I tend to use screen writing points as a guide for the main story line. Subplots are a little freer, but they still have the same sort of structure before hand as well. From this I will write out a ten page synopsis. I revise and rethink the synopsis until I’m generally happy with it. From this I will break the synopsis down into scenes. I’ll play with the scenes until I have what I believe is a pretty good representation of the story. I’ll go through the cards and try to visualize the story as though it were a movie. Once I’m happy with that, I write my phase drafts for each scene.

You pretty much write a scene draft told in present tense in an extremely omniscient point of view. You’re writing for story, so descriptions are minimal, prose is simple, and you avoid actual dialog. It’s a lot like writing a treatment. You want to make sure you capture the surprises and all of the necessary emotional arcs. While writing the phase portions of the draft you want to make sure you’re writing in moment-by-moment chunks. For me this is very important. Once this is done, you now have a phase draft to write from.

Writing from a phase draft is usually pretty easy. I normally go through the phase draft a few times and might even let it rest for a few days before I begin actually writing a story to it. I prepare the phase draft by splitting each moment for each scene into its own paragraph. I change the type to italic and then auto number the phases. I write my actual prose for the novel under the phases. This allows me to take my time and really consider every moment of the story. I even have a set of moment revision notes that I keep with me to go over after each section. This probably sounds really slow to most people, and to a certain extent it is, but it’s what works well for me.

Wow, okay, I hadn’t actually planned to write about my writing method, but there it is for the most part.

Where I learned about the phase draft.

I’ve been keeping up with schedules, notes, and a few things in the Moleskine. I’ve been keeping it as a sort of short hand journal. I opted for the one with lines, but now I’m wishing I’d gone lineless. I’m a big boy, I can write without lines, right? Well, probably not.

I’ve got the main character and a little of the plot worked out for the novel. I’ve got a lot more work to do. I’ve decided not to do too much work on this guy. I think that’s ruined it for me in the past. You do a lot of character work and then it changes in the story. Somehow you’re brain gets the idea that character biographies lie. Well, they do. Outlines lie, biographies lie, and really stories lie until they’re really done—and then they aren’t ever really done. So I’m looking for that balance. I have to keep this guy consistent and interesting, but not so much that none of it is even used in the story. I’ll be working on some of the other characters this week. Next weekend I’m shutting in. Total focus on the initial plotting and synopsis. I’m not completely comfortable with all of the protocol common to my character’s job yet. That will probably require more research, but I have some folks to help out on that.

I’m not certain when I’m going to get around to revising some of my short stories. I think what I might need to do is try to focus on one a week. Maybe I could just work on the rewrites in the morning and during lunch. I’m not sure if that’s going to give me the time I need, but at least it will be progress. I think the next one out the door will be one of my Clarion stories. I wrote one called One-Eyed Jack, but apparently another, much more famous author has a story with this same title. So One-Eyed Jack is going to be Black Dog and The Hunt. It’s first because the changes are simple.

Some of you may know that I retired my WOW character about three months ago. I’ve started a new MMO, but have no intention of playing it as much as I did WOW. I’ve been participating in the BETA for this new game, and I have to say I love it. Perhaps more than WOW. It’s just a little buggy at the moment, but for the most part everything it running smooth. I’ve only logged about four hours, so I don’t have a good feel for all of the mechanics, but it’s been fun at lower levels. I’m going to give myself six hours a week on it. I’m going for extreme casual MMO player mode. I think the game will stay more fun for me this way. And I’ll actually be able to get some real life stuff done.

Not going to any conventions for a few months. I just have too much work to do. ArmadilloCon is this weekend. I’d like to go, but I have my daughter and doubt she’ll be into the whole con scene. I imagine it might be fun for her for about two hours. Instead we’re going to spend some time with my parents and their new little German Shepherd Dog puppy named Sheba. It’s a cute one.

I’ve managed to walk my GSD every night now. We’ve been covering about 2-3 miles a night. I’d like us to get up to 5 and then start running. I miss running. She’s been excellent on the leash. It took about a week of walking to get her leash trained, but now my daughter can walk her. She’s a fantastic dog. It’s amazing how quickly they become a member of the family.

Well, it’s time for me to go and break some things at work to make them better.

–general update

We’ll I didn’t get to my plotting work yesterday, but I did manage to complete the tattoo story draft. I think it’s working. I’ll sit on it a week and then come back to it with all of my pre-drafting notes to see if there’s anything I wanted, but left out.

I have two shorter works I need to work out this week. One of them I’m clear on where I will take it, the other is the shorter one and I still haven’t got a clue what I’m going to do with it. I think it might be basically a revelation story of some kind. Those are normally the easiest to write really short. I’ll probably do a little day dreaming tonight while looking through some artwork and see where it takes me.

–organizing

On a personal note, I’ve been looking at some methods for increasing my personal productivity. One of the things I’ve always tried to do was simplify things. I do that at work all the time. I always look at a project or a process and try to come up with some way to make it easier, cleaner, simple. Bring everything to level 0. There’s something about hitting Tabula Rasa every morning that makes the day easier. Cognitive offloading is the next thing I plan to work on. I’m not certain how easy it’s going to be. I have some plans in place, but I think I’m going to wait until I can read David Allen’s book. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it.

Systems are strange. A lot of times if you try to follow one you end up micromanaging your life. It’s not fun, so after about a month or two you quit. Well, at least that’s been my experience. So a loose system, no better yet, a framework is what I’ve been looking for. I think the old GTD will help with this. At least in the writing and health department anyway.

–the new novel

Research for the new novel is going great. I’d go into more detail, but it’s too early to really talk to anyone about this project. I’m always concerned about talking out a story. Until it’s down in what I like to cal actionable form, I don’t want to even mention it.

Ah! Lofty goals for the day. My daughter is at her mother’s house until this evening so I’m going to attempt to conquer the known writing world in the next twelve hours. I should be able to finish the first draft of the tattoo story. Really, this thing is only about 8k, I have no idea why it has taken so long to write. Then it’s off to the 1.4k short for a local contest. I’ll probably try to get that one plotted this morning in the shower. I’m already thinking it’s going to be a character coming to grips with some inward problem while facing an outside and related problem. Short-short stories are difficult to plot, but there are a few tricks to make it easy. Generally, I focus on a character having some sort of revelation—sometimes it’s about another character and sometimes it’s about the POV character. Or you can focus on one very odd profession set in a fantasy world, and the inherent problems that come with such a profession. This is a trope, of course, but one that I think still works if you focus on the human elements.

Writing has been going slow since my return from ApolloCon. I had a great time there. I got to catch up with a lot of people I haven’t seen in a while. I bought a few books and did get quite a bit of the tattoo story fleshed out. I have a real road map for this one. I’m one of those people who have real issues with plot. I’m not entirely sure why. Because of this weakness I’ve tried to sort of wrangle myself into a plotting corner this time. I’m using the old traditional seven point plot. It’s kind of a tough thing to do when you’re used to writing a more freer story form. However, I’ve been exceptionally happy with the results of this story. It does have most of the more literary elements I like, but still feels like a story (you know, the kind a publisher might actually buy). This weekend is going to involve me doing a lot of writing. My goal is to have a first draft of this by Saturday and something for my readers by Wednesday. This one must be in the mail by the 11^th, so I’m really kind of pushing it.

Also, just found this on dar intrawebs http://doctorhorrible.net/

Plotting. What can be said about plotting? Well, there are entire books and lecture series devoted to plotting. Plotting always seems so artificial to me, but without it I tend to wander. The Problem, I believe, is one of the first things to help bring clarity in the fog. After finishing my rather exhaustive character creation process last night I managed to uncover the problem. I had a vague notion of it from the start, but it wasn’t until I understood the character that I could really define her problem. Now I have a better idea what is needed to make this story a success. The type of story it is no longer evades me.

I’ve been listening to the Odyssey SF/F Writing Workshop Podcasts. They all have something interesting to offer. I often go back to my Clarion West notes and listen to the lectures again. I hear new things in them every time. With all my new short stories I’m focusing on using the Plot Skeleton. Most writers are familiar with this formula:

(1) a character (2) in context (3) with a problem
(4)which the character tries to solve
(5) only to experience unexpected failure
(6) followed by either victory or defeat, leaving a need for (7) validation

I believe Algis Budrys gets credit for this particular flavor.

I tend to develop my stories in that order now. Especially with shorter works. This little jewel really helps one focus on what really needs to be in the story, so at least the basics are covered.

So on the story front; Tattoo (probably not the final title) now has a main character, a few conflict characters, and the main character has an almost insurmountable problem that is in relation to the major aspects of her life. Now I start the fun part. Finding ways for her to solve the problem and ways to crush those attempts with the fantasy devise that I’m using to make this a genre work.

I think I might talk a bit more about what makes something a genre work later.