Arlen Faber and the Hero’s Journey

10. December 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Review · Tags: , ,

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.

Patterns and character behavior based on the hero’s goal structure.

05. December 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Writing · Tags: , ,

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[It should be noted that most of this is derived from work done by Michael Hauge's Screenwriting for Hollywood]. The character types and goals are his, the patterns are something I derived. The patterns are flexible and shouldn’t be considered an exhaustive resource.

The following are the most common external goals:

EG.A) Hero’s goal is to win a competition.
EG.B) Hero’s goal is to win a love.
EG.C) Hero’s goal is stop a disaster.
EG.D) Hero’s goal is to retrieve an item.
EG.E) Hero’s goal is to escape a place.
EG.F) Hero’s goal is to escape a person.

The following are the most common internal goal endpoints:

IG.A) Hero stands up for her authentic self.
IG.B) Hero risks connection with another person.
IG.C) Hero stands up for a principle.

The following are the primary characters

Hero
Antagonist
Lover
Support

EG.A) In the story where the hero’s goal is to win a competition, the antagonist is often the hero’s competition. The lover often has a relation with both the hero and the antagonist, but is in support of the hero. The support character is often a mentor who is a veteran of the competition.

EG.B) In the story where the hero’s goal is to win the love of a person, the antagonist is often a rival for that love and is typically better suited to be the object of affection’s counterpart. The lover is promised to the antagonist in some way, but desire’s the hero’s true essence. The support is typically a friend or equal who encourages the hero to pursue the love interest.

EG.C) In the story where the hero’s goal is to stop a disaster, the antagonist is often behind the disaster or wants it to occur for her own goals. The lover’s interests’ are deeply rooted in the outcome of the disaster and she faces the greatest jeopardy. The support character could easily be a secondary hero in this structure or a mentor.

EG.D) In the story where the hero’s goal is to retrieve an item, the antagonist has the item or also wants to retrieve the item. The lover is deeply connected to the item. The support character often knows the ways to retrieve the item.

EG.E) In the story where the hero’s goal is to escape a place, the antagonist is the captor. The lover is the destination and person most longed for by the hero. The support character often knows means of escape.

EG.F) In the story where the hero’s goal is to escape a person, the antagonist is the captor. The love interest is the healer and often plays the duel role of support. The support is often a reflection to the hero, showing how life away from the captor should be.

IG.A) In the story where the ending theme is ‘standing up for your authentic self’, the hero typically feels inadequate for some reason. The antagonist typically sees this inadequacy and flaunts it. The lover loves the authentic self of the hero. The support pushes for the hero to be her authentic self.

IG.B) In the story where the ending theme is ‘Hero risks connection with another person’, the hero has often suffered some great loss. The antagonist will threaten greater loss and remind the character of his past. The lover will work to uncover the wound and heal the hero. The support represents the good that comes from connecting.

IG.C) In the story where the ending theme is ‘Hero stands up for principle’, the hero often has a strong belief they are unwilling to compromise. The antagonist tries to break that principle down. The lover tests that principle and likely discovers a change in herself. The support could likely be a betrayer and show the failed principle.

Brainstorming map

01. December 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Writing · Tags: , , ,

This is the start of a mind map I’m working on. Its purpose is to help me make sure I’ve covered all the things I feel are important to get a complete story covered. This is a little too verbose for something like a short story, but would be ideal for a shorter novel or screenplay.

It’s not finished yet. One of my goals is to build in the various relationships between one node and another. For example, how does the character’s force of antagonism interact with the character’s fatal flaw? Eventually, I should have a long list of questions to help get the ball rolling. The end goal would be to have some sort of report that resembles a story.

A large mind map showing various areas of story

A large mind map showing various areas of story

Can’t sleep, so I’ll post to the blog

09. October 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: General Wank · Tags: ,

I’m excited about this weekend. I’m spending it in the company of best-selling author David Farland. I’m attending one of his workshops. This one is called “Write that Novel!” which seems pretty much perfect for me. I have totally stalled on War Dogs of Mars’ progress.

This looks like a comprehensive course. I’m going in with my ears open and ready to learn.

I do feel the need to talk about something that relates to my writing and my personal journey as a person. First, I need to say that my personal journey as a human has been greatly enriched by writing. I’ve learned more and experienced more than I think I ever would have had I not made this attempt. Writing has made me more the person I want to be. I’m not complete yet, but I feel like I’m getting there.

Second, I feel like I’ve made some fantastic progress lately. Coming up with new material and putting in a form that actually reads like a story is working. The focus on the Transformational Character Arc has allowed me to write the type of stories I want.

Third, I’ve embraced a sort of writer’s faith. This is a trust you have to build in your process. I wrote a short story recently in one sitting without an outline. Admittedly, the story is a tad cliché, but the fact that I was able to crank out something 5k long without planning is a plus for me.

Fourth, I have come to love the revision process. I faced my fear of grammar and discovered it was a foolish one. Even now I am looking back on the path where that fear passed me by and I realize it was silly and unfounded. So now I dive into my line edits with a completely new attitude. I no longer fear the later stage line edits. In fact, they’ve been a joy.

So I should have “Dream Singer” revised soon and going out the door. Maybe this will be a professional sale? We’ll see.

[writing] Short Story : Dream Singer Awakens

25. September 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Writing · Tags:

Last night I spent the evening completing a short story that has turned into a novelette. I know I’ll have a problem marketing a novelette. I don’t believe I’ll need to redraft this story, but I might need to go through and attempt some serious cuts. However, even if I cut 10-20% of the story, there’s no chance I can get it down to 7.5k.

10-12k is a common story length for me. I’m not sure why most of my stories end up at this length. I also find I’ve been writing my novel in chunks like this as well. I marathon for a while and get about that much done and then have to walk away and do something else for a while. However, I don’t have much trouble composing a flash story.

One of the problems I have probably has to do with the fact that I don’t read a lot of short stories, but a lot of novelettes. Most of my favorite stories run long. The only way I know to fix this is with practice. I need to continue to write more short stories and I need to try to keep them as short as possible.

It feels good to finish a phase of the drafting process though. The second draft is often the hardest for me. Now I have something I can snip and cut away at. I have something I can look at on a line-by-line basis and make choices about. I feel better about the story structure in this one. The transformational character arc has helped to clear up my usually incoherent endings.

I’m starting my next story there. At the arc. At least my planning of the story. What is the one event that could hurt this character the most? What is the one event that will best illustrate to them that their survival system isn’t working? Because I think if I can write my story about one important character and that one important event, I think then I can get the story length down to 4-6k where I want it to be.

Why they call me that, I do not know; for my name is Elisa Day

08. July 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: General Wank · Tags:

Hey, world. I’m not dead. Just real busy. However, that should give me a lot of post about. I just recently attended Apollo Con in Houston. That was a lot of fun. However, I seemed to halt all progress on the novel at that time.

I think that’s partially because I’m reading Dara Marks’ book Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc. All I can say is Wow! Things have gotten a little clearer for me story wise. This is like trying to take a sip of water from a fire hydrant. I’m sure I’ll have to read it again when I finish. It’s a screenwriting book, but I can see how this could be incredibly helpful to anyone writing any type of story. So far, I’m only about a third into it, but I can already see a few glaring holes in my novel that will need repaired.

I’ve also had my daughter for the past month and will have her until mid-July. This has been a welcomed distraction from writing. I can accept not being quite as productive during the summer months for her.

When I complete reading Dara’s book, I’ll do my best to give a more thorough reporting. However, if you’re the type of writer who cares about the mechanics (which I understand isn’t a necessity to be a great writer) than you’ll likely want to add this book to your collection–and obviously, read it as well.

Oh, and when the novel writing does pick back up, I plan to use Twitter to talk through the process. I’m not sure if this would be of interest or help to anyone, but you can follow my struggles at War Dogs of Mars.

[Writing War Dogs of Mars] – the shawn is crazy post

03. June 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Progress is slow going on the novel. That’s normal for me though. The schedule works in waves. My weekends with my daughter tend to be all about my daughter and I clear the headspace of anything unrelated to our activities together. So if there’s any progress on the novel it’s minimal.

The nose goes firmly back on the grindstone tonight. I’ve phase drafted up to chapter three, which is about seven or eight scenes. So far, I love where the story has taken me. This is partly because I’m paying a lot more attention at this stage than I normally do. It’s also because I’ve adopted the strange concept of having an imaginary writing partner.

Oh yes, as crazy as that sounds, it’s working out great. There’s nothing quite like going over a scene and asking what ‘so-and-so’ would do. It also has me thinking outside my normal boundaries, looking for places to take the scene or characters in a new direction, and gives me a strange sense of security—I guess a kind of confidence in the work that’s going down, because somehow what I write seems like something that ‘so-and-so’ would approve of.

The added confidence is a real boost. I know intellectually that there’s no one there in my head but me. I know that I might not even be thinking like the person who I imagine helping me. However, just the practice of stepping outside myself affords me some added comfort about the work.

Additionally, this isn’t going to be the typical military science fiction novel. I’m not certain yet if this is a good or bad thing. I’ve read a lot of military science fiction, and while I have a great deal of respect for the genre and those who write in it, I feel like it’s missing something.

I’m reading John Scalzi’s
Old Man’s War right now and it might actually have that extra Schtuff I’m looking for. I’m not too far into it, but I can tell you I didn’t want to put it down once I started reading last night, which is always a good sign. Plus, I didn’t realize until last night, that if by some miracle someone actually wants to publish my novel, it would most likely end up on the shelf right next to Mr. Scalzi. So far, I’m thinking that would be pretty good for me.

In other writing news, I got another rejection for my short story ‘Burnt Benediction’. I’m sending it right back out tonight.

Additionally, I’ll try to post more of my progress here this month. My posts here have been rare because it’s just too easy to say something quick in Facebook. I’ll quit being so lazy.

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin

18. May 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: General Wank · Tags: , , , ,

Progress on ‘Restless’:

After sitting on ‘Restless’ for a few weeks, I gave it a read this weekend with my critical reviewer’s hat on. Overall, I’m still happy with it. The story is doing what I want it to do.

I decided to cut a few large sections. I cut the entire first scene, which might leave the reader in the dark about some of the main character’s motivations, but in a way that might work out. I also cut out a section of the scene that I initially liked when I wrote it, but upon a cooler reading found it to be an obvious button pusher bordering on melodrama.

With those scenes cut, I gave it another read and then added a very small section to help give the ending a little more believability. My last bit of criticism was the prose. I used so much passive voice that I’m now in the process of writing a whole new draft.

I think I did a good job of capturing the character’s voice in the story, but if you’re going to read a 10k story, it shouldn’t feel like 25k. Additionally, I’ve found with the redraft that I can leave a lot of the description out.

I’m beginning to feel like the part of me who wants to get story down and deal with conflict is completely different than the part of me who wants to write pretty words.
So I think I will always need a prose draft. And that’s ok. It lets me relax a little more when writing my first draft.

Progress on ‘War Dogs of Mars’:

I’m still working on pre-writing. I have a pretty descent looking outline taking shape. I should say outlines, because I build an outline for each POV character. I have four POVs in this story.

I’m taking my time with this phase. I usually don’t. I normally rush to get an outline, knowing it will change while I’m writing. I know this one will change as well, but I’m not really outlining the plot, I’m outlining the various character journeys and how these journeys will change and shape the characters and their relationships.

Fly by the seat of their pants writers probably think that sort of preplanning is crazy, but it does work for me on a certain level. What I’m attempting to do is get myself down to three drafts. The first draft will go to my experts. I’ll take their feedback and make revisions based on their suggestions and then write a new draft [this is more of a cut and paste rewrite].

That’s the draft I’ll likely get a workshop member to read. I might make some changes based on that reader’s feedback and then start the actual redraft. That’s the one I do for prose. I have a plan for the prose in this novel. The separate POVs will all have their own distinct style. Nothing too gimmicky, because honestly, I hate it when the writing isn’t somewhat transparent, but I also hate it when the characters aren’t distinguished in some way through the language and writing. I know, picky bastard, aren’t I?

So I’m making some progress.

Novel Progress

05. May 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: General Wank · Tags: ,

Progress on the novel isn’t quite speeding ahead the way I originally planned. I think part of the problem was trying to find an appropriate voice to get things rolling. My initial attempt was just a little too pretentious. Also, I want to inject a little humor into this novel and starting with the character on some sort of drug induced trip from Earth to Mars wasn’t working. It was cool, but it wasn’t honest. The second attempt was just a real warm up to where I am now. Basically, it was all description and no action. I fixed it by adding a character to have some conflict with. That’s my biggest critique now. I see way too many scenes where a character is presented in isolation and we spend the whole scene or chapter in his or her headspace. My own goal lately has been to get my characters on stage.

One of my best diagnostic tools has been asking the question, “How would X handle this scene?” I’ll finish something and then say, “If John Scalzi wrote this dialogue, what would he do different than me? If Gene Wolfe wrote this bit of description, how would it read? And if I feel there’s something really wrong with something dramatically, I’ll call on my inner Alan Ball. It’s fun and allows me to sort of step outside myself and see the story in a different light.

So I finished the first scene this morning and feel pretty confident. It’s not perfect and there are a few things I’m sure I’ll do to it before I’m finished, but it gives me a great starting place.

Pre-writing Story Questions

30. April 2009 · Comments Off · Categories: General Wank · Tags: ,

Here’s a quick list of pre-writing story questions I’ve come up with based on a lecture given by Tony Daniel at Conestoga.

Story consists of character, plot, and setting. In a general way, describe the character, plot, and setting of this story:

Story problems are a ripple in the status quo. Describe generally the status quo and then describe who or what comes along and causes the ripple and its possible effects.

What will need to be done to reset the status quo?

What is the hero’s problem [How is what caused the ripple personal to the hero]?

What are some ways the hero can act on the problem to make the problem worse and increase her suffering [list at least 20]?

How can the hero deal with the worsened problem in a way that allows her to reset the status quo or what ways can the change in status quo change the character [list at least 20]?

Does the character suffer? Is the suffering both external[jeopardy] and internal[sacrifice]? Explain in a general way how this is so.

Story’s purpose is reader feeling. What feeling are you hoping to convey with this story? What do you hope the reader feels when he or she finishes reading this story?

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