Daily Tao ☯ 6.27.17

By J.T. Ellison

We have such a huge surprise for you later this week I can hardly stand it. But stand it I shall, because time is fleet and in just a couple of days I’ll be sharing some very fun news.

First day home was a good one. Dentist this morning, so I’m all bright and shiny, but the gas always makes me sort of dopey for the rest of the day, so I’ve been handling business stuff and emptying email and prepping for the big Internet vacation that starts Saturday AM.

In wonderful news, my BFF is coming to stay this weekend, and my tiny little writing group will be joining us at the house for a retreat this weekend. I expect tons of words, a few great movies, some scotch and champagne, boatloads of salami and cheese and fruit, and bonding time that is long overdue.

Writer bonding is very important. This group in particular is very small and very intimate, and we keep each other on track to meet our deadlines and push ourselves to new heights. I’m so incredibly blessed to have these women in my life. They are the place I go to celebrate, to cry, to gnash my teeth. We are separated so much of the time––physically, by our genres, by our familial obligations––that having almost everyone together in person will be amazing. (One of our brethren can’t make it. We are crushed and will miss her dreadfully. ☹️)

So no new fiction words, though I did do some editing, and thinking, and bullet journaling, and transcribing of notes for the scenes to come tomorrow. I feel big word counts ahead…

Sweet dreams!

Via: JT Ellison

    

Daily Tao ☯ 6.26.17

By J.T. Ellison

Evening, folks! How’s tricks?

My weekend at ALA was wonderful. I met a ton of awesome librarians, signed a wad of books, had another (!) gorgeous banner on display. I also had a chance to hang with a bunch of Team JT folks and bond with two fabulous authors: AF Brady (THE BLIND) and Kaira Rouda (BEST DAY EVER). Our panel was a blast, and the three of us became tight friends very quickly. There’s really nothing better than finding super smart, super funny women writers to play with. Especially when there is champagne and ice cream bars involved.

But I am so happy to be home. And I don’t have to go anywhere until the RITA Awards at the end of the month. Which means I have four weeks of WRITING ahead of me, and nothing else. I can’t wait.

It’s been a glorious afternoon on the porch. Amy and I had our weekly staff meeting, the kitties are napping in the sun, hummingbirds are zooming about, and I just saw a pair of gold finches who I think might be taking up residence in the “SEE ROCK CITY” birdhouse. It’s rather idyllic here today.

Hope your day was lovely, too.

Via: JT Ellison

    

Blues Creating From Yugoslavia.

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Via: Allison Brennan

    

HUNGER MOON now available for pre-order!

By noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra Sokoloff)

I am very excited to announce that

Hunger Moon

is now available for pre-order. Just $3.99!

Special Agent Matthew Roarke and mass killer Cara Linstrom return in Book 5 of the Huntress/FBI Thrillers.

College rapists better watch their backs….

Out October 24, 2017 in print, ebook and audio: Pre-order here
In the new book, Roarke and his FBI team are forced to confront the new political reality when they are pressured to investigate a series of mysterious threats vowing death to college rapists… while deep in the Arizona wilderness, mass killer Cara Lindstrom is fighting a life-and-death battle of her own.

(It’s always hard to talk about this series without spoilers, so I’ll save the longer synopsis for below! If you’re new to the series, please read in order, starting with Huntress Moon.)
I have to say the book has probably my favorite cover ever. Ray Lundgren also designed the new Stephen King Dark Tower/Gunslinger covers and he perfectly captured the post-apocalyptic feel of this new book.

As always, you’re in for a road trip: the book takes Roarke and Cara (not
together!) to the canyons of Arizona; the wealthy coastal enclave of Santa Barbara; the gorgeous campus of my alma mater, UC Berkeley; the Santa Ynez wine country; and the surreal desert wasteland of the Salton Sea.

And speaking of surreal – there’s the political… roller coaster. Imagine trying to write a realistic contemporary FBI series with all of the current madness going on. (Actually, imagine how hard it is to write ANYTHING with all of the current madness going on. My publishers had to ask me if they could move the book out a month because none of the authors who had deadlines before me had gotten their books in on time. Yeah. That bad.)
So no, I haven’t backed off from writing about the unreality of it all. And you’ll find out what’s been happening with some of the other characters while Roarke was off in the desert in Bitter Moon. It’s – complicated.

Best of all, some college rapists are going to learn that no matter what complicit judges say – they’re not going to get away with it any more.

——————————– SPOILERS —————————————–
Special Agent Matthew Roarke is back from his desert sojurn to head an FBI task force with one mission: to rid society of its worst predators.

But when the skeletal symbols of Santa Muerte, “Lady Death,” mysteriously appear at universities nationwide, threatening death to rapists, Roarke’s team is pressured to investigate. Then a frat boy goes missing in Santa Barbara, and Roarke knows a bloodbath is coming.

Avenging angel Cara Lindstrom is in hiding in the Arizona wilderness, still on her own ruthless quest – until an old enemy comes after both her and the FBI team, forcing her back into Roarke’s orbit. This time, the huntress has become the hunted . . .

Out October 24, 2017 in print, ebook and audio: Pre-order here

Via: Alexandra Sokoloff

    

Sunday Smatterings

By J.T. Ellison

Hello, chickens, Happy Sunday. How are you doing? I write to you from ALA, the conference for America’s literary superheroes: librarians! I haven’t been to this conference before, and I’m delighted to be here. Librarians are my people, and between panels and cocktails and talking about our favorite books, I can tell we’re going to have a lot of fun together before the weekend is over.

Last week, Team JT put the final touches on LIE TO ME, and it’s safely off to the printer. The next time I see those words, I’ll be able to slide my fingers across them as they sit on printed pages. I can’t tell you how much lighter I feel with this book officially out of my hands. The story is no longer mine—now it belongs to you, dear reader. I do hope you enjoy it.

Yesterday we shot the first episode of A WORD ON WORDS Season 3. I can’t tell you who the guest was, but suffice it to say I was beyond thrilled to interview this giant in the publishing sphere. I can’t wait to share this one with you later this summer!

Without further ado, here are the links you came for:

Here’s what happened on the Internets this week:

The Washington Post: kitten nursery saves tiny lives in a city aiming to become ‘no kill’. Talk about bringing a kitty mama to tears. Adopt, adopt, adopt.

The Kill Zone Blog: Empowering History? I always fall on the side of the empowered female heroine. Just sayin’.

Travel + Leisure: This Is the Ultimate Nanny Job Abroad — If You’re Not Afraid of Ghosts. Let’s look at the trade-offs here: beautiful Scottish wilderness. Haunted house. I think I know what I’d choose…

theSkimm. If you don’t read theSkimm, I highly suggest you begin to. Smart, to-the-point news that keeps you informed on the important things, and stuff on the lighter side, too.

The Guardian: Buying houses in cash and selling millions: meet self-publishing’s ‘hidden’ authors. Because there’s room for everyone at the table—even if you fashion the chair yourself.

Bustle: 14 Careers For Readers, Because It Is Possible to Make a Living Off Your Love of Books. Chin up, English majors. There are many opportunities to use your degree that don’t end with “do you need room for cream?”

New York Public Library: Pencils At Dawn! 6 Writers and the Duels They Fought In. I really enjoy the New York Public Library’s Twitter feed (follow them here, if you don’t already). I’m always learning new, fascinating tidbits from them. This article was no exception.

YouTube: Game of Thrones Red Keep in Lego. Perfect for nerds of today and yesteryear (less than a month until Season 7, folks!!! Have you seen the new trailer? #WinterIsHere).

And closer to home:

5 Things I’m Into This Month (June 2017). From my zero-prep lunch to fashionable and comfy sandals, these five things are making me breathe easier.

Click here to read the first three chapters of LIE TO ME. Mwahahahaha. 😈

That’s it from me, darlings. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, stay in the shade, put on plenty of sunscreen, and we’ll talk again soon.

xo,
J.T.

Via: JT Ellison

    

Junowrimo: Elements of Act III

By noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra Sokoloff)

by


ELEMENTS OF ACT THREE


Act Three is generally the final 20 to 30 minutes in a film, or the last 70 to 100 pages in a 400-page novel. The final quarter, and the shortest quarter.


It is often divided into these two major sequences:


1. Getting there (STORMING THE CASTLE)

2. The FINAL BATTLE itself


And it usually contains these elements:


• Either here or in the last part of the second act the hero/ine will make a new, FINAL PLAN, based on the new information and revelation of the second act climax.

• There may be a TICKING CLOCK

• The Hero/ine may REASSEMBLE THE TEAM, and there may be another short TRAINING SEQUENCE and/or GATHERING THE TOOLS sequence

• The team often goes in together, first, and there is a big ENSEMBLE BATTLE

• In this battle, we possibly see the ALLY/ALLIES’ CHARACTER CHANGES and/or gaining of desire

• We also get the DEFEAT OF SECONDARY OPPONENTS

• Then the hero/ine goes into the FINAL BATTLE to face the antagonist alone, MANO A MANO

• The final battle takes place in a THEMATIC LOCATION: often a visual and literal representation of the HERO/INE’S GREATEST NIGHTMARE, and is very often a metaphorical CASTLE. Or a real one! It is also often the antagonist’s home turf.

• We see the protagonist’s character arc

• We may see the antagonist’s character arc, too (but often there is none)

• We get a glimpse of the TRUE NATURE OF THE ANTAGONIST

• Possibly there is a huge FINAL REVERSAL or reveal (twist), or even a whole series of payoffs that you’ve been saving (as in Back to the Future and It’s A Wonderful Life)

• FULL CIRCLE: Not every story uses this, but often the hero/ine returns to a place we saw at the beginning of the story, and we see her or his character growth.

• RESOLUTION: We get a glimpse into the New Way of Life that the hero/ine will be living after this whole ordeal and all s/he’s learned from it

• FINAL BOWS: We need to see all our favorite characters one final time

• CLOSING IMAGE: Which is often a variation of the Opening Image

All right, let’s look at these more closely.


The essence of a third act is the final showdown between protagonist and antagonist.


And sometimes that’s really all there is to it: one final battle between the protagonist and antagonist. In which case some good revelatory twists are probably required!
By the end of the second act, pretty much everything has been set up that we need to know — particularly who the antagonist is, which sometimes we haven’t known, or have been wrong about, until it’s revealed at the second act climax. Of course, sometimes, or maybe often, there is one final reveal about the antagonist that is saved till the very end or nearly the end, as in The Usual Suspects and The Empire Strikes Back and Psycho.


We also very often have gotten a sobering or terrifying glimpse of the TRUE NATURE OF THE ANTAGONIST — a great example of that kind of “nature of the opponent” scene is in Chinatown, in that scene in which Jake is slapping Evelyn and he learns the truth about her father.


There is often a new, FINAL PLAN that the hero/ine makes that takes into account the new information and revelations. As always with a plan, it’s good to spell it out.


There’s a locational aspect to the third act: the final battle will often take place in a completely different setting than the rest of the film or novel. In fact, half of the third act can be, and often is, just getting to the site of the final showdown. One of the most memorable examples of this in movie history is the STORMING THE CASTLE scene in The Wizard of Oz, where, led by an escaped Toto, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion scale the cliff, scope out the vast armies of the witch (“Yo Ee O”) and tussle with three stragglers to steal their uniforms and march in through the drawbridge of the castle with the rest of the army (an example of a PLAN BY ALLIES). The Princess Bride also has a literal Storming the Castle scene, with the Billy Crystal and Carol Kane characters waving our team off shouting, “Have fun storming the castle!”


A sequence like this, and the similar ones in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, can have a lot of the elements we discussed about the first half of the story: a PLAN, ASSEMBLING THE TEAM, ASSEMBLING TOOLS AND DISGUISES, TRAINING OR REHEARSAL.


I’m not just talking about action and fantasy movies, here. You see a truncated version of this team battle plan and storming the castle scene in Notting Hill, when all of Will’s friends pile into the car to help him catch Anna before she leaves.

And of course speed is often a factor — there’s may be a TICKING CLOCK, so our hero/ine has to race to get there in time to – save the innocent victim from the killer, save his or her kidnapped child from the kidnapper, stop the loved one from getting on that plane to Bermuda…


NO. DO NOT WRITE THAT LAST ONE.


Most clichéd film ending ever. Throw in the hero/ine getting stuck in a cab in Manhattan rush hour traffic and you really are risking audiences vomiting in the aisles, or readers, beside their chairs. This is in fact the most despised romantic comedy cliché on every single “Romantic Comedy Clichés” website out there.

But when you think about it, the first two examples are equally clichéd. Sometimes there’s a fine line between clichéd and archetypal. You have to find how to elevate —or deepen — the clichéd to something archetypal.


Even if there’s not a literal castle, almost every story will have a metaphorical Storming the Castle element. The hero/ine usually must infiltrate the antagonist’s hideout, or castle, or lair, and confront the antagonist on his or her own turf, a terrifying and foreign place: think of Buffalo Bill’s basement in Silence of the Lambs, and the basement in Psycho, and the basement in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The castle can be a dragon’s lair (How to Train Your Dragon), or a dream fortress (Inception), or a church (a million romantic comedies).


Putting the final showdown on the villain’s turf means the villain has home-court advantage. The hero/ine has the extra burden of being a fish out of water in unfamiliar territory (mixing a metaphor to make it painfully clear).


I’ve noticed that in most films, there is a TEAM BATTLE first. The allies get to shine in this one: their strengths and weaknesses are tested, PLANTS are paid off, and allies who have been at each other’s throats for the whole story suddenly reconcile and work together. We also often get the DEFEAT OF SECONDARY OPPONENTS (if we’ve come to hate a secondary opponent, we need to see them get their comeuppance in a satisfying way — think of Fanny and Lucy Steele cat fighting each other in Sense and Sensibility, and Belloq, General Strasser, and Major Toht’s faces melting in Raiders of the Lost Ark.


The TEAM BATTLE is generally a big, noisy SETPIECE scene.


And then, almost always, the hero/ine must go in to the FINAL BATTLE to face the antagonist alone, mano a mano.


So if this is the pattern we see over and over again, how can we possibly make it fresh?


Well, of course — look at books and films to see how your favorite storytellers do it.


Silence of the Lambs is a perfect example of elevating the cliché into archetype. The climax takes place in the basement, as it also does in Psycho, and Nightmare on Elm Street. This basement setting is no accident: therapists talk about “basement issues” —which are your worst fears and traumas from childhood — the stuff no one wants to look at, but which we have to look at, and clean out, to be whole.


But Thomas Harris, in the book, and the filmmakers, bringing it to life in the movie, create a basement that is so rich in horrific and revelatory and mythic (really fairy tale) imagery, that we never feel that we’ve seen that scene before. In fact I see new resonances in the set design every time I watch that film… like Mr. Gumb (Buffalo Bill) having a wall of news clippings just exactly like the one in Crawford’s office. That’s a technique that Harris uses that can elevate the clichéd to the archetypal: layering meaning.


But even more than that: Gumb’s basement is Clarice’s GREATEST NIGHTMAREcome to life. Lecter has exposed her deepest trauma, losing the lamb she tried to save from spring slaughter, and now she’s back in that childhood crisis, trying to save Catherine’s life (if you’ll notice, even the visual of Catherine clinging to Mr. Gumb’s fluffy white dog looks very much like a little girl holding a lamb…)


Nightmare on Elm Street takes that clichéd spooky basement scene and gives it a whole new level, literally: the heroine is dreaming that she is following a suspicious sound down into the basement, and then there’s a door that leads to another basement, under the basement. And if you think bad things happen in the basement, what’s going to happen in a sub-basement?


Comedy characters have a different kind of GREATEST NIGHTMARE.

Suppose you’re writing a farce. I would never dare, myself, but if I did, I would go straight to Fawlty Towers to figure out how to do it (and if you haven’t seen this brilliant TV series of John Cleese’s, I envy you the treat you’re in for). Every story in this series shows the quintessentially British Basil Fawlty go from rigid control to total breakdown of order in the side-splitting climax. It is the vast chasm between Basil’s idea of what his life should be and the chaotic reality that he creates for himself over and over again that will have you screaming with laughter.


Another very technical lesson to take from Fawlty Towers —and from any screwball comedy or farce — is how comedies use speed in climax. Just as in other forms of climax, the action speeds up in the end, to create that exhilaration of being out of control — which is the sensation I most love about a great comedy.


In a romance, the Final Battle is often the hero/ine finally overcoming his or her internal blocks and making a DECLARATIONor PROPOSAL to the loved one. And I’ve noticed that a lot of romances do the declaration in a one-two punch, two separate scenes: the recalcitrant lover makes his or her declaration, even does some groveling, apparently to no avail, and only in a later, final scene does the loved one show up with a declaration of his or her own.


An archetypal setting for the Final Battle in romantic comedy is an actual wedding. We’ve seen this scene so often you’d think there’s nothing new you can do with it. But of course a story about love and relationships is likely to end at a wedding.


So again, if you’re writing this kind of story, make your list and look at what great romantic comedies have done to elevate the cliché.


One of my favorite romantic comedies of all time, The Philadelphia Story, uses a classic technique to keep that wedding sequence sparkling: every single one of that large ensemble of characters has her or his own wickedly delightful resolution. Everyone has their moment to shine, and insanely precocious little sister Dinah pretty nearly steals the show (from Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant!!) with her last line: “I did it. I did it all.”


(This is a good lesson for any ensemble story, no matter what genre — all the characters should constantly be competing for the spotlight, just as in any good theater troupe. Make your characters divas and scene-stealers and let them top each other.)


Now, you see a completely different kind of final battle in It’s A Wonderful Life. This is not the classic, “hero confronts villain on villain’s home turf” third act. In fact, Potter is nowhere around in the final confrontation, is he? There’s no showdown, even though we desperately want one.


But the point of that story is that George Bailey has been fighting Potter all along.


There is no big glorious heroic showdown to be had, here, because it’s all the little grueling day-to-day, crazymaking battles that George has had with Potter all his life that have made the difference. And the genius of that film is that it shows in vivid and disturbing detail what would have happened if George had not had that whole lifetime of battles, against Potter and for the town. In the end, even faced with prison, George makes the choice to live to fight another day, and is rewarded with the joy of seeing his town restored.


This is the best example I know of, ever, of a final battle that is thematic — and yet the impact is emotional and visceral. It’s not an intellectual treatise; you live that ending along with George, but also come away with the sense of what true heroism is.


And the wonderful final battle in The King’s Speech is just Colin Firth facing a microphone and delivering a nine-minute radio broadcast. But we’ve seen him fail this moment because of his speech impediment time and time again in SET UPS; and this time the STAKES couldn’t be higher: it’s his first radio broadcast as King, and he has to convince his already war-weary country to support a war against Hitler.

So when you sit down to craft your own third act, try looking at the great third acts of movies and books that are similar to your own story, and see what those authors and filmmakers did to bring out the thematic depth and emotional impact of their stories (We’ll be doing more of that in the next chapter, too.)

RESOLUTION AND NEW WAY OF LIFE

After the final battle is fought and won, we want to get a sense of the NEW LIFE the hero/ine is going to lead now that they’ve been through this incredible journey.

One of the greatest images of a NEW WAY OF LIFE ever put on film is from Romancing the Stone: the yacht parked in the Manhattan street outside Joan Wilder’s building, and Jack standing on deck waiting for her, with those alligator boots on. It’s a complete PAYOFF of his and her DESIRE lines (and the alligator boots are a great light touch that keeps it all from being too sugary), and a clear indication of what their life is going to be like from now on. Would this have worked as well if that yacht were in a harbor? No way. It’s the extravagance and quirkiness of the gesture that makes it so grandly romantic. It never fails to spike my endorphins, and that’s what these endings are all about.

FULL CIRCLE

Not all stories use this technique, but very, very often at the end of the story the hero/ine returns to the setting of the beginning. And often storytellers use a visual contrast in how that setting appears in the beginning and the end, to show the protagonist’s change in character or attitude.

In the beginning of The Godfather, Don Corleone is in his study, sitting behind his desk in a chair that looks like a throne, holding court and deciding the fates of his supplicants. In the final moments of the story, Michael Corleone stands at that same desk with his subordinates kissing his ring: he has become the Godfather. Early on in Act I of Romancing the Stone, pathologically shy Joan Wilder attempts to leave her apartment and is immediately set upon by street vendors, and we see how incapable she is of handling people and life in general. In Act III, she has returned from her adventure a changed woman, and we see her walking down that same street in her full Kathleen Turner goddesslike radiance, waving off those same street vendors both regally and casually.

You don’t have to use this Full Circle technique, but it can work well to bookend a story and depict CHARACTER ARC. Start to look for it in movies and see how often it’s used! And be aware that these mirroring scenes don’t have to be the very first and very last scenes of the story: often the Full Circle moment comes at the beginning of Act III, or at the start of the Final Battle sequence. This method also works to let an audience or reader know we’re heading into the final stretch, which is always both an exciting and comforting thing for an audience.

We’ll talk more about great endings in the next chapter. But first, try a little brainstorming of your own.


> ASSIGNMENT: Take your list of top ten best endings of movies and books, and write down specifically, in detail, what it is about those endings that really does it for you.


> ASSIGNMENT: What is your hero/ine’s greatest nightmare? How can you bring that to life in your final battle scene?

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All the information on this blog and more, including full story structure breakdowns of various movies, is available in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks. e format, just $3.99 and $2.99; print 14.99.


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This new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding six more full story breakdowns.

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Writing Love is a shorter version of the workbook, using examples from love stories, romantic suspense, and romantic comedy – available in e formats for just $2.99.

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Via: Alexandra Sokoloff