According to plot guru, Martha Alderson, plot can be viewed as either a noun or verb. She states: “Plot as noun encompasses every element of a story. Plot as verb allows conscious development of those elements.”
I invite you to visit her blog, and to follow her on Twitter. Her daily Tweets are gems of gold.
Of Plot, Nouns and Verbs… Read More »
I am always amazed how much screen time Bollywood movies donate to establishing and clarifying family relations of the film’s protagonist compared to the nil to absent mention of family connections in American movies.
The protagonist of an American made movie can be undergoing the direst and most despairing of circumstances and the screenplay makes no mention of mother, father, sister, or brother. Often very little time or explanation is given to the ex-spouse or ex-significant other, unless she or he is central to the plot.
Where Bollywood movies perhaps overdramatize the gifts and goodness of family, American theater emphasizes the need to break away and discover who one truly is.
…the writing life… | “Bollywood, The Hijinks of Thrillers, and Definition…” Read More »
What caught my attention in a recent article on author Janet Evanovich, more specifically her asking price for the rights to publish her next 4 novels–$50 million from St. Martin’s Press–were the complaints and criticism concerning the quality of Evanovich’s recent novels launched by many who described themselves as loyal fans.
In toto, most stated that recent installments of her Stephanie Plum Series , the latest installment being, Sizzling Sixteen, had grown flat with the protagonist, Stephanie Plum, growing stagnant and not evolving.
Some even stated that it was clear to them she had been writing with her focus on fulfilling her contract obligation rather than providing fans with an engaging and entertaining story.
This all brings me to the point of where does one, more specifically the writer/author, draw the line between meeting the demands of their contract and providing readers with what they have come to expect and you, as well as they know you can achieve?
Of Contract Negotiations, Cyril Connolly, and Vivekananda… Read More »
I’ve been gone most of the summer, first to Brussels, then to Maui where vacation each year.
As the opening of the new school year approaches I am amazed at how it seems that just yesterday I was bidding a enjoyable and safe travels to fellow parents and their daughters and sons who attend the same school as my children.
Now nearly 2 and half months later I have received the first in a line of requests from the service that provides lunches at the school our youngest child attends the choices of entrées our child desires.
Change, Challenge and Seasons of Growth… Read More »
The economy is languishing.
Concern and doubt fill our emotions if not swarm around us.
For writers this can be either a perilous time or one for heightened creativity.
Those of us who write for money and recognition are asking many questions.
Will I get that agent?
And if so, how?
Will the publishers like my work?
Those whose hopes for the future rest on crafting a book that will make giant sales wonder about the state of publishing.
Where is it going?
And then there are the daily concerns of paying the bills, never mind if one has chosen the road to self-publication as the way to make our work public. To be sure, this route comes with costs also.
But what about just writing?
The Hare and The Tortoise,” Internet Technology, and Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize… Read More »
The decision to write is a brave choice we make each time we bring pen to paper or place our fingers upon the computer keys and type.
To be sure, very few do it. And of those, even less follow their hearts’ desires with an understanding and commitment to see to the end what we have started.
It is one thing to write; yet another to go back over and over working to reshape and polish the initial words we have written. Writing our thoughts, bringing the ideas of our imagination into sentences if but one half the challenge.
Early Drafts, The Journeyman and Our Need for Praise… Read More »
Today, and with my youngest child, I visited The Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, otherwise known as The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels in Belgium.
Immediately upon entering the lower lobby she spied a life drawing class offered free to anyone who wanted to participate.
A model stood posed on a stage in front of the class of around 10.