by Alexandra Sokoloff

I’m the only one here, right?   I can feel it.   Every single other person in the Universe is on vacation.    Hah.   That means I can say anything I want.

I’m working this weekend, but it feels like vacation when there’s no one around to bug me.   I love that.   I get my work and play in at the same time.

Okay, so here’s the problem.    I seem to be writing three books at once.   How did that happen?

I’m supposed to know better than that, aren’t I?   Wouldn’t I scathe a student up one side and down the other for not focusing on one project until it was done?

Well, I’m not exactly a student, though – and as a screenwriter I juggled multiple scripts at various stages of development all the time,  I had to, it’s just the job.

But books are different.    They’re so much bigger.   Can you really compare the two?

I think I know how this happened, actually. 

First, I’m in transition.     The Universe in its wisdom has decided to revamp every single aspect of my life in a major, bone-shattering way, and it’s been – special.      So it’s not all that surprising that all that upheaval from all directions would start to reflect itself in my writing life.

Second, I just turned in two projects, one right after the other, my paranormal that comes out this fall and a book I wrote with three fabulous other female authors, four interconnected novellas that make up an – apocalyptic – story of its own.   

And everything always looks different, disorienting, when you are finished, truly finished, with the immense task that writing a book is.

So it’s not so very surprising that I’m not entirely sure which of the three projects I was toying with – before I had to power down and finish these last two – I want to go back to, now.    I don’t even know who I am, anymore – how the hell am I supposed to know what I want to write?

Now, some of this is just rhetorical.   I KNOW which book I have to finish first.   That would be the one that’s almost finished, duh.    It’s unfortunate that I had to leave off on that one at the very worst possible time to leave a book – 3/4s of the way through a first draft, that Slough of Despond where you realize that you never had the slightest bit of talent to begin with, that in fact elves wrote your last four books, along with everything else you’ve ever written, and you might as well go do that other thing that you can’t do because no writer is really equipped to work at anything else, but you better figure something out fast, because your writing career is officially over.

I’m sure none of you has the slightest idea what I’m talking about.  

But yes, that’s where I was, and that’s what I had to face when I picked that book up again.    Sheer, unadulterated panic ensues.  

Now, as I tell my students, as writers we have to push through that section, it is not optional, because it’s exactly the emotional and physical predicament that our CHARACTERS are experiencing at that point of the story… when there is no possible solution to anything in front of them, or us, and we have to have that experience together to get to the final battle.   The process is cleverly, sadistically designed that way as part of the magic of storytelling.

And the truth is, I have hit this wall in every single script I’ve ever written, and all six novels, now, and I have always, every single time, gotten through it.    That’s a pretty damn good track record.  

But it still feels like dying, every single time.

And there are particular elements about this particular book that are making me more nervous even than usual.   First, I’m adapting my own short story as a novel.   So the gremlins are whispering:   This is a short story.   What ever made you think it could be a full length novel?   You’re stuck because THERE IS NO MORE TO WRITE.   Fool.

Also, it’s my first YA.   And it’s way too dark to be a YA.   Oh, I know, everyone says there’s no such thing as too dark for a YA anymore, but trust me, there is a limit, and I am it.

So that’s Book One.   I had 170 pages when I stopped.   Clearly need to finish that one first, but – see above.

Book Two is a huge departure for me.   Agent loves story.    Brilliant group of author friends love story.  It’s something I’ve been thinking of for years but finally figured out how to actually do it.    Okay, it’s a bit of a departure, urban fantasy, I guess is what I have to call it, and suspenseful, but not so dark as usual, but I was wanting to write something not so dark.    Started it back before I had to finish the last two projects and got 85 pages pretty fast.    Went to NY for BEA and researched locations, fabulous trip,  lots of ideas, should be able to jump right in, no problem, right?

Except that this is the first thing ever that I’m writing in first person.   What in hell made me want to do that?   I don’t even READ first person.    Add to that, it keeps feeling like it should be first person present tense.   Aaaaah!!     I am completely paralyzed.    Go back and rewrite it in third?    Push forward but switch to third?    Push forward and try first person present tense?     I’m not paralyzed, I’m comatose.

So, enter Book Three.    Book Three was an idea I was toying with at the same time I was thinking about doing Book Two.    More along my usual – very adult, very dark, half crime thriller, half supernatural, or maybe the characters are just crazy…   there is an emotional core to it that intrigued me, characters that felt already real, but Book Two felt like a Bigger Idea.

Only once I came up for air from the two just-finished projects, I couldn’t get Book Three out of my head.

And you know how it is about that book you left behind, especially when you are struggling with your current project.     I KNOW you know.    A few weeks ago Dusty called it “the bright and shinys”, but let’s be blunt.   It’s the ultimate forbidden fruit.    You know you should be committed to your relationship, and you are, really you are… but….

So I was just toying with it, really, a little harmless brainstorming on the side, and suddenly, WHAM!!!  That whole book is in my head.   Can’t stop thinking about it.    And Book of Shadows has just come out and I’m getting the reviews and the letters and realizing – oh my God, I really am writing a very specific thing and these people who are reading it are expecting that very specific thing – why on earth, when I’m just starting to hit my stride with my particular brand, would I want to suddenly jump track?

My readers would LOVE Book Three, it has everything that they say they read me for.

And it’s in third person.    Unless I make it first person.    Which I might.

So that’s where I am.    Utter chaos.   Confusion.    When I know – I KNOW – that the only possible way to maintain a career as an author, or any kind of writer, is to FINISH WHAT YOU START.

Well, but this last week, the smoke is starting to clear.   I think.   I’m not out of the woods yet, but I have been writing five pages a day on Book One.    Mind you, the book went off on a tangent that when I reread it might belong to a different universe entirely, but it was so fascinating I just had to go with it.    And I was able to remember, barely remember, but remember, that THE FIRST DRAFT IS ALWAYS GOING TO SUCK. It doesn’t have to make any sense.   Whole sequences can be thrown out.   My only job at this point is to get to The End.     Once I reach that happy place known as the Second Draft, I know I can make it happen.   I always do.

And you know what?    I think I needed to have the release of that illicit brainstorming on Book Three to break through my paralysis on Book One.   The utter absurdity of juggling three books took the pressure off all of them.   Maybe even Book One got jealous and stopped playing so hard to get when it felt like it was losing my attention.     Yes, that sounds completely insane, but can YOU explain how writing works?   I thought not.

So now I think I have a plan.   Five pages a day on Book One until The End, no excuses, and after that’s done I can do whatever I want on either of the other two for the rest of the writing day.   I can live with that.

And the moral of the story?     Well, it just goes to prove my number one and only rule of writing.  

WHATEVER WORKS.

Really.   Whatever gets it written, is gold.

So here’s the question, if there’s anyone here.   Have you ever cheated on one of your books?   How’d that work for you?   Humiliating disaster, or creative breakthrough?   Can you have multiple projects going, or are you a True Blue?

Hope everyone’s having a great holiday.   I know I am.

– Alex

PS:  If you’re looking for a little Independence Day spirit, and you haven’t seen it in a while, I just want to remind you of one of the best musical films ever made:  1776.    I think I might have to hunt that one down myself.

For God’s Sake, John, Sit Down!

  Molasses To Rum To Slaves



by Alexandra Sokoloff

I haven’t written a craft post in a long time, it feels like.   Actually, I wonder if craft posts annoy a lot of the Murderati readers.   Sometimes you all seem much more interested in the angst posts.  I like that about this place; it’s better than therapy.   Notheless, I’m all out of angst for the moment and am reverting to craft.

As I’ve posted here before, I’m not one of those readers who feels any obligation to finish a book I’ve started.   In fact, I very often sit down to read with ten or twelve books in front of me, and read the first few chapters of each before I settle on the one to read.    Much like an agent or editor, I’m sure.    If I like the opening, or the plot description, I’ll give it a few chapters.   If not – discard.   On to the next.  

This is a great way to get through that pesky TBR pile, as you can imagine.

Now, this is a useful exercise for authors and aspiring authors, on a whole lot of levels.

First, it really does put you in the shoes, or chair, and mindset, of an editor or agent.  Do you really think an editor or agent, with their hundreds of TBRs a week, is giving anything their full attention (unless it’s an auction, and their job depends on making the right decision about a particular book)?  

Of course they’re not.   They’ll start giving a book their full attention for the very same reasons YOU would – because it’s their genre, it’s a subject or arena that they’re interested in personally, and it’s well-written enough to suck them into the story.   The first two reasons are completely subjective, nothing you can do about that.   The third is completely within your control.

But – it’s important for aspiring authors who are in the midst of the submission process to remember that a lot of book choice is purely, completely subjective.   And if you keep in mind that a lot, in fact most, editors and agents will discard your book simply because it doesn’t appeal to them personally, you can both detach yourself from the trauma of being rejected (which you will be, repeatedly) and understand why you almost always have to make SO many submissions to score an agent and a publishing deal.

This read-and-discard exercise is also good for published authors.   It reminds me that all over the world people are doing the same thing with MY books – I get a few seconds to win them, minutes if I’m lucky, and am just as likely to be discarded as not.   More likely, actually.   For me, it’s a big reminder that my most likely readers are going to be my REPEAT readers – the ones who will give me more than a few cursory seconds, who are actually looking for my books because they already know they like the genre I write in, the characters and story worlds I create, and the themes I explore.   That’s a good thing to remember in a marketing sense, too, I think: Serve your core audience first.

And of course a main reason to do this is to remind yourself what hooks you about a book.   Which is going to be different for different people.   But what hooks YOU is likely to be what hooks the agent and editor you end up with, and subsequently your readers. 

It can be style, it can be suspense, it can be sex, it can be action, it can be narrative voice, it can be a character’s voice… for some people it’s a first line (that would not be me, I couldn’t care less about the first line of a book, and in fact have been known to discard books on the basis of a too-cute or trying-too-hard first line.    I do care about the opening IMAGE.).

But if I’m liking the way a book goes enough to keep going through a chapter or two, I’ll tell you the next thing that is absolutely crucial to keep me reading.

I need to know pretty quickly where the plot is going.  I want to know the author knows, and I want the author one way or another to tell me, so that I know there’s a direction to all this, and I can relax and let the author take me there.    If I don’t get that within the first few chapters, I get uneasy that the author has no idea where the story is going, and I toss the book.   It makes me crazy.

When I teach writing workshops, I find this is one of the hardest things for new writer to grasp.   In fact it is very, very often nearly impossible to get a new writer to describe the overall action of their story in a sentence or two.  Sometimes this is because there IS no driving action, which – in genre fiction, anyway –  is a huge problem.   But sometimes there’s a perfectly clear action of the storyline, the writer just hasn’t realized what it is.   Once they are able to identify it, a whole lot of extraneous scenes often can get cut, or brought into line with the action of the story, creating much more tension and suspense.

So this is why I use movies so much to teach these concepts – first because they’re a more common frame of reference; there are almost always so many more movies that everyone in a room has seen than books that they have read in common.   But also because movies are a stripped-down form of storytelling and it’s easier to remember and identify the main plot actions.

Last week I ended up watching 2012 (okay, so I’m a little behind).

Now, I’m sure in a theater this movie delivered on its primary objective, which was a rollercoaster ride as only Hollywood special effects can provide.   I was watching it primarly because I love apocalypse settings and John Cusack, not necessarily in that order.   But this is a movie I most likely would have walked out on in a theater, I’m definitely not recommending it, just found it a good illustration of some concepts I am always talking about.

I’m not going to be critical (except to say I was shocked and disturbed at some of the overt cruelty that went on in what was supposedly a family movie), because whether we like it or not, there is obviously a MASSIVE worldwide audience for movies that are primarily about delivering pure sensation. Story isn’t important, nor, apparently, is basic logic. As long as people keep buying enough tickets to these movies to make them profitable, it’s the business of Hollywood to keep churning them out.

But even in this rollercoaster ride of special effects and sensations, there was a clear central PLAN for an audience to hook into, a CENTRAL ACTION that drove the story. Without that plan, 2012 really would have been nothing but a chaos of special effects – as a lot of movies these days are.

PLAN and CENTRAL QUESTION (which I’ve talked about before, here and here) are integrally related, and I keep looking for ways to talk about it because this is such an important concept to get.

If you’ve seen this movie (and I know some of you have…), there is a point in the first act where a truly over-the-top Woody Harrelson as an Art Bell-like conspiracy pirate radio commentator rants to protagonist John Cusack about having a map that shows the location of “spaceships” that the government is stocking to abandon planet when the prophesied end of the world commences.

Although Cusack doesn’t believe it at the time, this is the PLANT (sort of camouflaged by the fact that Woody is a nutjob), that gives the audience the idea of what the PLAN OF ACTION will be: Cusack will have to go back for the map in the midst of all the cataclysm, then somehow get his family to these “spaceships” in order for all of them to survive the end of the world.

The PLAN is reiterated, in dialogue, when Cusack gets back to his family and tells his wife basically exactly what I just said above.

And lo and behold, that’s exactly what happens – it’s not only Cusack’s PLAN, but the central action of the story, that can be summed up as a CENTRAL QUESTION: Will Cusack be able to get his family to the spaceships before the world ends? Or put another way, the CENTRAL STORY ACTION: John Cusack must get his family to the spaceships before the world ends.

Note the ticking clock, there, as well. As if the end of the world weren’t enough, the movie also starts a literal “Twenty-nine minutes to the end of the world!” ticking computer clock at, yes, 29 minutes before the end of the movie.

(Remember, I’ve said ticking clocks are dangerous because of the huge cliché factor. We all need to study structure to know what NOT to do, as well. Did I talk about the clock in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, yet? Great example of how to turn a cliche into a legitimate urgency.)

A reader/audience really needs to know what the overall PLAN is, even if they only get in a subconscious way. Otherwise they are left floundering, wondering where the hell all of this is going.

In 2012, even in the midst of all the buildings crumbling and crevasses opening and fires booming and planes crashing, we understand on some level what is going on:

– What does the protagonist want? (OUTER DESIRE) To save his family.

– How is he going to do it? (PLAN) By getting the map from the nutjob and getting his family to the secret spaceships (that aren’t really spaceships).

– What’s standing in his way? (FORCES OF OPPOSITION) About a billion natural disasters as the planet caves in, an evil politician who has put a billion dollar pricetag on tickets for the spaceship, a Russian Mafioso who keeps being in the same place at the same time as Cusack, and sometimes ends up helping, and sometimes ends up hurting. (Was I the only one queased out by the way all the Russian characters were killed off, leaving only the most obnoxious kids on the planet?)

Here’s another example, from a classic movie:

At the end of the first sequence of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (which is arguably two sequences in itself, first the action sequence in the cave in South America, then the university sequence back in the US), Indy has just taught his archeology class when his mentor, Marcus, comes to meet him with a couple of government agents who have a job for him (CALL TO ADVENTURE). The agents explain that Hitler has become obsessed with collecting occult artifacts from all over the world, and is currently trying to find the legendary Lost Ark of the Covenant, which is rumored to make any army in possession of it invincible in battle.

So there’s the MACGUFFIN – the object that everyone wants, and the STAKES – if Hitler’s minions (THE ANTAGONISTS) get this Ark before Indy does, the Nazi army will be invincible.

And then Indy explains his PLAN to find the Ark – his old mentor, Abner Ravenwood, was an expert on the Ark and had an ancient Egyptian medallion on which was inscribed the instructions for using the medallion to find the hidden location of the Ark.

So when Indy packs his bags for Nepal, we understand the entire OVERALL ACTION of the story: Indy is going to find Abner (his mentor) to get the medallion, then use the medallion to find the Ark before Hitler’s minions can get it.

And even though there are lots of twists along the way, that’s really it: the basic action of the story.

The PLAN and CENTRAL QUESTION – or CENTRAL ACTION, if it helps to call it that instead, is almost always set up – and spelled out – by the end of the first act. Can it be later? Well, anything’s possible, but the sooner a reader or audience understands the overall thrust of the story action, the sooner they can relax and let the story take them where it’s going to go. So much of storytelling is about you, the author, reassuring your reader or audience that you know what you’re doing, so they can relax and let you drive.

So here’s a craft exercise, if you want to play along.   For practice take a favorite movie or book (or two or three) and identify the CENTRAL ACTION – describe it in a few sentences.   Then try it with your own story.  

For example, in my new book, BOOK OF SHADOWS, here’s the set up: the protagonist, Homicide detective Adam Garrett, is called on to investigate a murder of a college girl which looks like a Satanic killing.   Garrett and his partner make a quick arrest of a classmate of the girl’s, a troubled Goth musician.   But Garrett is not convinced of the boy’s guilt, and when a practicing witch from nearby Salem insists the boy is innocent and there have been other murders, he is compelled to investigate further.

So the CENTRAL ACTION of the story is Garrett using the witch and her specialized knowledge of magical practices to investigate the murder on his own, all the while knowing that she is using him for her own purposes and may well be involved in the killing.

If you’re working on a story now, at what point in your book does the reader have a clear idea of where the story is going?   If you can’t identify that, is it maybe a good idea to layer that in so the reader will have an idea where the story is going?

And for extra credit – give us some examples of movies or books that didn’t seem to have any central action or plan at all. Those negative examples are sometimes the best way to learn!

Or just tell us today – What hooks YOU about a book?   What will make you toss it across the room and go on to the next?

(And Happy Solstice on Monday, everyone… use the Force.)

– Alex

 by Alexandra Sokoloff

It’s amazing how many ‘Rati have new books out this month.   Oh, right, I guess that’s what we do.

But yes, me too! –  my fourth supernatural thriller from St. Martin’s is out on Tuesday, Book of Shadows, my first novel without “The” in the title, and my favorite book so far. 

 

It’s about a very male, very rational (he thinks)  Boston homicide detective who reluctantly must team up with a very female, very irrational, mysterious (and of course, beautiful) witch from Salem, to solve what he thinks is a Satanic killing – which she insists involves a real demon.

As a lot of you know, my favorite thing as a writer is to walk that “Is it or isn’t it?” line between reality and the supernatural, and I think this may be my finest line yet.   Because this is actually a police procedural, but the question is, “Whatdunit?”  (Thanks, Dusty…)

And I can already tell I’m going to get in trouble with this post, but what the hell.   So to speak.

I have been fascinated with witches and the modern practice of witchcraft for as long as I can remember.   I mean, please, didn’t we all grow up with The Wizard of Oz, not to mention Halloween?  And in a way my book is precisely about that existential question posed by Glinda the Good, in her very first line of the movie:   “Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”

And I don’t mean that just literally, but metaphorically.   Because the whole history of witchcraft seems to me to boil down to the question of whether women are good or bad.   For centuries, during the times of the old earth religions, witches were seen as good: healers, midwives, mystics, helpers, the folk equivalent of doctors.    In the Middle Ages (and I’m sure throughout history, but particularly starting in the Middle Ages), the organized, patriarchal church (and male doctors) tried to stamp out this manifestation of feminine power with the systematic torture and genocide of women in the form of the Inquisition.    Witches were evil, women were evil.

In the 1960’s, when societies were expanding the borders of ordinary consciousness, there was a newfound fascination with the earth religions and an upsurge in the practice of goddess worship, including witchcraft.     I’m sure all of us who grew up in California have known a practicing witch or two in our lives – anyone who’s ever been to the Renaissance Faire as many times as I have probably knows whole covens.

But get outside of California and OH, it’s a different story.   It’s always been hard for me to comprehend he defensiveness that arises in response to the suggestion that God might actually be female, too.   (Um, doesn’t even Genesis (that’s the Bible Genesis, rock stars…) say “God created man in his own image, male and female he created them”… ?)

I mean, I love you guys, you know I do – but you’re only HALF the human equation.

Try referring to God as “She” in, oh, the Bible Belt, for example, though.   Which yes, I do frequently, and I feel that collective internal gasp of horror around me   (And then women, girls, come up to me in private to say, ‘Thank you”).  

Women are just not supposed to have that kind of power.

So in Book of Shadows, I wanted to dive right in and explore some of those things that make some men – and a lot of women – uncomfortable with feminine power, and feminine energy,  and feminine sexuality, and feminine deity – the whole yin of things.    It’s noir, but it’s supernatural noir.    I wanted to take two people who were as different as I could make them on the surface:  male vs. female, rational vs. intuitive, doing vs. being, real world vs.  the unconscious, psychic world – even their cities are opposites:   Boston vs. Salem – and force them to work together and learn that they’re a lot more similar than they seem on the surface.

Actually I think my cop protagonist, while he doesn’t exactly trust this witch, probably with good reason, takes all of the above feminine stuff pretty much in stride, admirably so.   What he’s not so comfortable with is the idea that there might really be something supernatural going on in this troubling case.

One theme I come back to over and over again in my writing is the idea that messing around with the occult, or other dark forces (which you could say about drug abuse, or certain kinds of sex, or abuses of power)  can open doors that let undesirable elements through that aren’t so easy to get rid of.   And that young people are particularly prone to supernatural experimentation – and attack by supernatural predators as well as human ones. That’s definitely something that goes on in the book.   And some of my earliest exposure to that idea was my sixth grade study of the Salem Witch Trials.   (That’s right, isn’t it – we all got the Salem Witch Trials about sixth grade?)

The ambiguity of that situation has always drawn me.    Were the girls who accused the “witches” pawns of land-grabbing villagers?   Bored and frustrated pre-teens seizing the only power they’d ever have by acting out?   High on ergot?   Freaked out – maybe a little possessed – by their experimentation with voodoo under the tutelage of Tituba?     Wouldn’t you just kill to know?

I tried to capture some of that ambiguity in my accused killer, a troubled musician in a Goth band who has taken a little too much of an interest in that very bad real-life magician, Aleister Crowley. 

The research for this one was a real treat, too.   Of course I had a whole backlog of witch stories to draw on, from people I met working at the metaphysical bookstore The Bodhi Tree, in L.A. (and that’s also where I met a lot of grunge teens who were rabid about Crowley),  to attending ceremonies with Craft friends, including witnessing what for me was the real magic of “Calling the Corners”.    I’ve had a love affair with Boston since I set The Price, there – it’s not just layered with American history and an amazing art history as well, but there’s just something deliciously eerie to me about the whole place.   I got to go to Salem on Halloween (think Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras but with more witches, pirates, and Puritans).   And I was incredibly lucky to find a criminalist in the Boston Police Department who gave me an extensive tour of Schroeder Plaza, the department and the crime lab, and answered all kinds of technical questions for me.   It was one of those projects where even though circumstances around me were very complicated at the time, everything I needed for the book fell into my lap – I love it when that happens. 

Almost like… hmm, magic.

You can read the first couple of chapters on my website, (look for the link under “Excerpt”)  and I’ll gladly give away a copy to a randomly drawn commenter today.   (Will post winner here tomorrow).

And my questions for the day are –  What’s your take on witches?   Know any?   Are you familiar with the way witchcraft is actually practiced, or is that whole world completely mysterious to you?   Or do you do the odd spell or two yourself?

– Alex

 

 

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Well, convention season has kicked into high gear.    If one were looking to avoid writing, just for example, one could jet off to – Romantic Times,  Book Expo America, Mayhem in the Midlands, American Library Association,  Thrillerfest,  RWA National…  to mingle, network, party with hundreds of favorite and soon-to be-favorite authors, librarians, booksellers, DLers, 4MAers, MWAers, ITWers, Sisters, and readers.

Authors are strongly advised to go to conventions and festivals to build their careers.  There is no question that the networking is gold.   And except for having to continuously “sparkle”, as Margaret Maron puts it,  it’s so easy to network at these things.  All you have to do is relax and walk around and just run into the people you need to run into. Really, it works. Reviewers, booksellers, your publicist, the author whose incredible book you were reading just the night before, extraordinary friends you haven’t seen in ten years – they’re all there in a very contained space and you will drift into them if you just go with the flow.

Some people call that work.   But what it really is, is magic.   What it is – is Faire Time.

I learned the concept of Faire Time, or Festival Time, over the years of my interestingly misspent youth, hanging out at the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire –a month-long semi-historical recreation of life in an Elizabethan village, except with sex and drugs and overpriced irresistible craftish – stuff.

(Wait, what am I saying?  Of course they had all of that going on in those real Elizabethan villages, too…)

I’ll be lazy.  Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say about festivals:

Among many religions, a feast or festival is a set of celebrations in honour of God or gods.

Hmm, sounds familiar, doesn’t it?   A set of celebrations in honor of gods – and goddesses.   Take a look at the guest of honor lists for any of the above- mentioned conventions.   Gods and goddesses of the mystery/literary world?   You betcha.

What else?

Festivals, of many types, serve to meet specific social needs and duties, as well as to provide entertainment. These times of celebration offer a sense of belonging for religious, social, or geographical groups. Modern festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics seek to inform members of their traditions. In past times, festivals were times when the elderly shared stories and transferred certain knowledge to the next generation. Historic feasts often provided a means for unity among families and for people to find mates.

Now, does that sound like a convention or what?

Maybe it’s that first, religious purpose of festivals but I do notice this unifying principle of “Faire Time” or “Festival Time” in full force at conventions.  There is an element of the sacred about a festival – it is out of the ordinary, out of simple chronological time, out of chronos – into kairos (again, from Wikipedia): “a time in between”, a moment of undetermined period of time in which “something” special happens.

And here’s an interesting bit:

In rhetoric kairos is a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved.

Synchronicity and opportunity happen with such regularity at these convention things that they’re really more the rule than the exception.

It is my absolute conviction that much more important career business gets done at conventions and festivals than anywhere else because it is being done in Faire Time – a suspended moment of opportunity. 

And that is not even mentioning the creative and personal inspiration of being in that state of suspended time with so many passionate worshippers of the book.   By the end of a convention I will always know the next right step to take, professionally and creatively, just as clearly as if it has been spoken to me.   All it takes it to ask the question.

And one of my favorite things about conventions these days is running into aspiring authors who I met and connected with at previous conventions – only to find that they’re now published or about to be.   It reaffirms my whole faith in the process.

As many of you have witnessed, I love the total debauchery of these gatherings, but I’m never unaware of something also sacred under all that revelry.

I’m sure that all of us have stories of improbable connections and synchronicities at festivals, and I’d love to hear them today.

– Alex

by Alexandra Sokoloff

The Matrix is a movie I’ve been thinking about a lot as I work on my new book.   Not just because the story pattern of my book is a Chosen One story – not as blatantly so as The Matrix is, but thera are some crossovers, especially the strong Mentor/Student relationship.

But also, as I’ve written about here recently, I’ve been doing a lot of inner work and exploration, and The Matrix is just overflowing with enlightenment metaphors and imagery from different spiritual traditions.   I screened the film for a workshop I was teaching in Sonoma recently and people were just amazed at how many religious references they could see, once they were actually looking for thematic images.

These days I am very enamored of the idea that what we think of as reality is just a construct designed to enslave us and prevent us from seeing the world as it really is.   And people as they really are.  

(Of course as writers we break through the Matrix every day and create our own realities.)

But I’m also inspired by how The Matrix, a wildly popular sci fi action/adventure thriller, managed to get away with so much spirituality.   The interesting thing is that I don’t think you have to understand the spiritual references to feel that there’s a transcendent and important struggle going on in that film.   The filmmakers were passionately committed to telling a spiritual story, and it plays for millions of people, on many different levels.   Now THAT is something to aspire to.

So since I’m in teaching mode (doing a workshop for First Coast Romance Writers in Jacksonville this weekend…), here’s my first act analysis of The Matrix (which I’ll continue on my own blog next week.)

Genre-wise, The Matrix crosses Sci-fi with Action.   But the KIND of story it is, is a King Arthur, Chosen One, or Messiah story, like Harry Potter (all of them) and Star Wars (the original, and original trilogy) and The Lord of the Rings.

While the question about Harry Potter is:  “Is he good or is he bad?”  – the big question about Neo in the Matrix is – “Is he or is he not The One?”    The question is voiced in the first few lines of the movie:  “Morpheus believes he is The One.”   “Do you?… You don’t, do you?”

———————————————————————————————————————

The Matrix, written and directed by Larry & Andy Wachowski

ACT ONE 

SEQUENCE ONE:   SET UP   (17 min).

OPENING IMAGE – computer code.     This of course is a reference to what The Matrix actually is: a virtual reality program.    (And btw, it’s the intro to the MAIN ANTAGONIST – which is the enslaving Matrix).   (FORCES OF ANTAGONISM).

We hear Trinity and Cypher talking; they are watching someone, and Cypher asks her the question, “Do you think he is The One?”

Trinity has a sudden suspicion the phone is tapped and hangs up.     (We don’t know this right now, but this is a betrayal by the Judas figure Cypher, a secondary villain (FORCES OF ANTAGONISM).

(It may be a little early to say this, but what the hell.   The name “Trinity” of course underlines the trinity that will form of Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity – the archetypal Father, Mother, Son (which later patriarchal religions defeminized, removing the Mother from the equation).  

Cut to: outside a dark building, cops arrive for a bust, but are outranked by three bizarre AGENTS: Smith, Jones and Brown   (FORCES OF ANTAGONISM).  Agent Smith is one of the great screen villains, thanks to this triplet conceit, a fantastically robotic (and demented) performance by Hugo Weaving and some truly inspired costume choices – everything about these guys is a little off, from the spiral cords behind their ears to the impeccable but wrongly placed tie tacs.   We get a sense of the power of this adversary when the street cop says disparagingly about Trinity, “I think my men can handle one little girl,”  and Agent Smith replies –  “Your men are already dead.” 

His words are prophetic:  we cut to the cops bursting in on Trinity, seated in a dark room at a computer – and see her kill all of them with superhuman martial arts moves.    (We’ve see this all-knowing-villain technique of predicting action used with Lecter in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS as well.)

Trinity is a strong, sexy woman, but what makes her instantly relatable is that she is frightened – when Morpheus calls her and says there are agents after her, we can see her fear.   Later in the scene she talks to herself to force herself to keep moving.  That brings a reality and emotion to the action scenes that is often missing in this genre.

Morpheus tells her she needs to focus and get to a phone at a certain location.  (SET UP of phone as portal).

There is a SET PIECE chase:   The agents chasing Trinity through the corridors and stairways of a the dark building, then over the rooftops, again with superhuman moves.  The production design of this scene is thematic –  it looks like the inside of a computer or machine, a visual image of the Matrix.

Trinity gets to the phone booth with the ringing phone and picks up just as the phone booth is hit by a garbage truck driven by Agent Smith.   But Trinity has disappeared from the rubble.    (Phone as PASSAGEWAY to the special world).    The agents say she made it out but it doesn’t matter because the informant is real.    The target is Neo.    (7 min)

Cut to Neo’s apartment.  Neo is asleep in front of numerous computers running a search on computer terrorist Morpheus and The Matrix.  (Important background info which is actually very easily missed; it should have been given a bit more time.)     (This is a THEMATIC INTRO to main character – he’s asleep, and an underlying spiritual theme of the film – as is the point of all mystical traditions, the goal of earthly life is to wake up to reality – ie. enlightenment.).

This opening dialogue with Neo is so thematic it’s worth looking at the whole scene:   I’ve underlined the thematic references.

—————-

From The Matrix, written by Larry & Andy Wachowski

In Neo’s apartment. He is asleep at his computer, with headphones on. On his computer screen, we see he is running a search on a man named Morpheus. Suddenly on his computer screen appear the words ‘Wake up, Neo.’ He sits up, and stares at his computer screen.

Neo : What?

On the computer, now appears ‘The Matrix has you…’

Neo : What the hell?

On the computer, now appears ‘Follow the white rabbit…’

Neo : Follow the white rabbit?

He presses the ‘esc’ key repeatedly, no effect. the computer comes up with one last message : ‘Knock knock, Neo.’ There is a loud knock at his door, and he jumps. He stares at the door, and then back at his computer screen. it’s now blank.

Neo : …..Who is it?

Choi : It’s Choi.

Neo : Yeah…yeah…you’re two hours late.

Choi : I know, it’s her fault.

Choi gestures towards DuJour.

Neo : You got the money?

Choi : Two grand.

Neo :Hold on.

Neo goes into his apartment, shuts the door, and opens a book, takes out a CD rom, and goes back to the door, handing the CD to Choi.

Choi : Hallelujah. You’re my saviour, man. My own personal Jesus Christ.

Neo :You get caught using that…

Choi : Yeah, I know. This never happened, you don’t exist.

Neo : Right.

Choi : Something wrong, man? You look a little whiter than usual.

Neo : My computer….it..you ever have that feeling where you don’t know if you’re awake or still dreaming?

Choi : Mm, all the time. It’s called Mescaline. It’s the only way

to fly. Hey, it sounds to me like you need to unplug, man.

————

The Matrix is all about waking up, about what reality is, and about Neo as the potential savior of the world, which has been enslaved by a virtual reality program.  And escaping.   And going down the rabbit hole.

Well, that above is maybe a four minute scene,  and look how blatant the themes are.    It spells out the entire story.   And yet it works on the surface level as well, an audience isn’t stopping to think, “Oh, there’s a theme, and there’s a theme, and yet another theme.”

(If there’s anything I learned from screenwriting it’s that you can JUST SAY IT.   And it generally works better if you just do.)

The scene ends with Choi inviting Neo to come out with them to a club, and while Neo initially declines because he has to work the next day (SET UP), he sees DuJour has a white rabbit tattoo and he follows them to the club,

As Neo stands alone in a bondage club  (he’s in bondage to the Matrix, right?)  Trinity comes up to him and in a very hot scene leans in to speak the entire dialogue of the scene into his ear.   She seems to know everything about him, great start to a love story.    She says:  “You’re looking for him (Morpheus)”, but really “It’s the question that drives you.”  Neo knows the question: “What is the Matrix?”  She tells him he’s in danger, and they’re coming for him.   (ALLY and LOVE INTEREST).

The club music segues into alarm – Neo wakes is in his own bed.   (THEME:  asleep or awake?  What is reality?)

(12 min)

Cut to software company.     Now we see Neo in his other persona as Thomas Anderson, an office drone.    This is the very ORDINARY WORLD.     He’s late for work and dressed down by his boss in the boss’s office – with noisy window washers outside the plate glass window (PLANT).   More thematic dialogue from the boss – “You’re not special”  (THEME – is he or isn’t he?) .   “It’s time to make a choice.”

Back at his cubicle Neo receives a FedEx package containing a cell phone, which rings. It’s Morpheus.  (And isn’t this every working man’s fantasy – being called out of cubicle world for a special mission?).  Morpheus tells Neo the agents have come for him and, seeming all-seeing, gives him instructions on how to elude them.   He instructs Neo to go out on the window washers’ scaffold.   (PAYOFF of noisy window washers).  Neo is clearly terrified (links him with Trinity, their vulnerability) , but obeys, crawling out on the precarious scaffold…

Then he doesn’t take the final step to get on the girder which would allow him to escape – afraid of falling/taking the jump.   The cell phone falls and Neo whispers, “I can’t do this.”   (THEME, and introduces the character’s FEAR:   He can’t do it.   Which will become our FEAR:   He’s not The One.).

So Neo fails the first TEST, setting up the question of:  “Is he really The One?”   (All right, just pretend it isn’t Keanu Reeves and go with it.)

On the ground floor, Trinity watches the Agents take Neo away.  (17 min)

SEQUENCE TWO:   (18 min.)

(Might as well call this sequence:  The Invitation  – Neo gets two of them, actually, one from Agent Smith, and then another diametrically opposed invite from Morpheus.)

Agents are questioning Neo in an interrogation room.   They have a comically thick file on him.   They know Neo’s real name and hacker alias.  Agent Smith tells him:   “One of these lives doesn’t have a future.” But Agent Smith is willing to cut a deal – Neo’s freedom for his help catching Morpheus.  Neo gives him the finger and demands his phone call.  Agent Smith tells him, “What good is a phone call if you cannot speak?”  Neo’s lips literally fuse together so he can’t talk;  the agents hold him down and release a mechanical bug which crawls into him through his navel.   (Rape image which will be repeated.).

(21 min)

Again, Neo wakes in his own bed, screaming.   His mouth is normal.   (What is real?)   The phone rings – it’s Morpheus again, wanting to set up a meeting.   Morpheus says that the agents have underestimated how important Neo is.   But Morpheus has been looking for Neo his entire life:   Neo is The One.

(Btw – “The One” is a very layered concept, here – “The One” is the literal translation of the old Biblical word for “God”.   It is the plural form of One – ie. “Many in One” or “Us”.  In other words, the implication is that Neo is ALL of us, and his task in this journey, breaking through the Matrix, is our task.)

Trinity, Apoc, and very androgynous Switch pick Neo up under a bridge and hold a gun on him.   When Neo protests, Switch says it’s their way or the highway.   When Neo starts to get out of the car, Trinity asks him to trust her, and he stays.   (Note the waterfall off the underpass in this scene – a birth canal image which will be repeated.   Bridges of course are symbols of transitions).

Trinity scans him in another quasi-rape moment, zaps the bug and pulls it out.    It’s a real bug when she takes it out, but when she throws it out of the car, a mechanical device lands on the pavement.   (REAL?  NOT REAL?)

(24 min)

They take Neo to a crumbling, vacant, Gothic hotel.   In a corridor outside a room, Trinity tells Neo to tell Morpheus the truth – “He knows more than you can possibly imagine.”   (BUILD UP TO CHARACTER).

Neo meets the very charismatic Morpheus in a very Gothic, crumbling room.   (MEETING THE MENTOR).   They sit in two high backed chairs in front of a standing mirror to talk.    Morpheus wears mirrored shades which reflect two Neos – a visual that will be repeated several times.    Alice in Wonderland theme continues as Morpheus says, “You must feel like Alice…. Tumbling down the rabbit hole.”   Morpheus goes on cryptically:   “You want to know what The Matrix is.    The Matrix is everywhere. You are a slave.”    Then he offers Neo a choice of a red pill or a blue pill.    If he takes the red pill, he will go back to his life and believe what he wants to believe.   If he takes the blue one, he will see the truth.   But, Morpheus warns, all he is promising is the truth.   Neo takes the blue pill to continue.   (Great, unique PASSAGEWAY INTO SPECIAL WORLD).   Neo notices the mirror is cracked and reflects two of him.   It looks very much like he is starting to trip, not that I would know anything about it.    When he reaches to touch the glass, the mirror becomes liquid and envelops him, while Morpheus’ group tries to trace him.   (With a steampunk kind of machine powered by a battery).

Thematic – is this really happening or a drug-induced hallucination?

(28 min)

Neo wakes up naked and bald in a podlike tank of goo, connected to tubes.   He unplugs himself and lifts the lid of the pod to look out on a vast, endless hive of pods, all with naked bald humans sleeping inside.   (SETPIECE).   (THEME/IMAGE SYSTEM –  I might be stretching here, but there’s a lotuslike appearance to this whole pod system,  the pods as flower petals, the lotus in muddy water.   Another enlightenment image).   A mechanical insectoid thing darts down and ejects NEO from the pod, dropping him into a watery canal.   Neo sees a bright light descending and is hoisted up into Morpheus’s hovercraft.

This is an image like birth, and also like a reverse baptism – Morpheus of course being throughout a John the Baptist figure proclaiming t
he coming of the Messiah (the One). 

In the hovercraft, Morpheus  (wearing clothing somewhat like dirty sackcloth, a student pointed out) welcomes Neo to the real world.   Neo passes out.   (and a MONTAGE begins… ).

SEQUENCE TWO CLIMAX

Now, this is 31 minutes in and could arguably be called the ACT ONE CLIMAX.   But when Neo wakes up in the life support tank and sees the pods of people, the real reality, it’s climactic, and we might understand that this is the real reality, but we still don’t really have a clue what that means and what the action of the story actually will be.   

So I’m thinking that the next nine minutes, even thought it’s a separate sequence, is all part of a long Act One.

SEQUENCE THREE:

The MONTAGE continues.

MONTAGE – with a lot of Neo passing out between clips.  (THEME: Awake/asleep again).

– As Neo is unconscious, Morpheus tells Trinity “We’ve found him.   He’s the One.”   Trinity doesn’t agree, but says, “I hope you’re right.” (THEME:  Is he or isn’t he?)

– Neo wakes up and finds his muscles being stimulated by electrified acupuncture needles.   He asks why his eyes hurt and Morpheus says he’s never used them.

Neo wakes up in a room of the ship, on a cot.   He pulls an IV out of his arm.   Morpheus comes in and begins to answer his questions.   First tells him that it’s not 1999 but more like 2199, but no one knows for sure.

Morpheus takes him through the ship, introduces him to the rest of the crew (MEETING THE TEAM) – Apoc, Switch, Cypher, Tank, Dozer and Mouse.    Morpheus asks Neo if he wants to know that the Matrix is – and when Neo nods, they strap him into a chair, plug a coaxial cable into the socket in his head, and Neo is suddenly inside a virtual reality program with Morpheus.    Morpheus explains (with images on a TV to illustrate) that the Matrix is a virtual reality program that simulates the world that Neo has been living in.   The real world was destroyed when humans gave birth to Artificial Intelligence and that living consciousness spawned an entire race of intelligent machines.    There was a war between humans and machines which basically destroyed the planet.   The machines had been dependent on solar power and to replace that energy source they have devised a system of extracting energy from humans – essentially using people as batteries, in pod systems like the one Neo woke up in.   New humans are not born, but bred, and dead humans are liquefied to feed the living.   (Shades of Terminator, Soylent Green…)

Morpheus sums up:  “What is The Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world, built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.”   Morpheus holds up a battery to Neo.

(THEMATIC: The Matrix is Maya – the veil of illusion).

Neo freaks out at all this, not wanting to believe – he wants to go back.   He has a panic attack, throws up and passes out.  (This will be important – sets up the desire to escape the truth of reality).

Neo wakes up in his room with Morpheus there.   Neo asks, “I can’t go back, can I?”   Morpheus says no and apologizes for the trauma – usually they would not have “freed a mind” that had reached a certain age.  But then Morpheus tells Neo of the prophecy:   When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth : ‘As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.’ After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return, and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people. That is why there are those of us who have spent our entire _lives_ searching the Matrix, looking for him. I did what I did because…I believe that search is over. “

Morpheus stands and tells Neo to get some sleep – he’ll need it for his training.

40 minutes – ACT ONE CLIMAX

Now we know everything we need to know about what this story is about.  CENTRAL QUESTION:  Will Neo prove himself to be The One who can face off with the agents and destroy the Matrix?

And Morpheus’s PLAN is – to train Neo so that he can take on that mantle and destroy the Matrix.

This extra sequence is a good reminder that story structure is not by any means inflexible – if your story needs another sequence in one of the acts, just do it!   Remember the cardinal rule of storytelling:  WHATEVER WORKS.

And if you’re building a world, in sci fi or fantasy or urban fantasy, you may well want to take an extra sequence to fully set up and explain your story world.    The Matrix does this particularly well – it’s blatant exposition and back story, but with great virtual reality effects and shocking imagery, so it’s very clear without ever being boring.  

Another interesting thing to note about the structure of the Matrix is that the mentor, Morpheus, drives the action for most of the movie.   He’s the one with the PLAN, and calls the shots.   Neo is merely a tool for most of the story – but that means that we are waiting for him to take control and step into the role of The One.   A common pattern, and something to keep in mind when you’re writing a King Arthur and/or mentor story.

Okay, so a few questions.   First of course – any visual and thematic imagery I’ve missed?

But what I really want to know is – writers, do you ever – or always – incorporate spiritual themes into your writing?   And readers, do you gravitate toward books and movies with spiritual themes, regardless of genre?

– Alex

by Alexandra Sokoloff

It’s spring, and love is in the air, at least professionally.   This week I go to Columbus to the Romantic Times Booklovers convention, one of the greatest conferences for me, despite what I write.    The week after I’m teaching a full day workshop again in Jacksonville, Florida (which I will never again be able to think of as anything but Flo Rida) for the First Coast Romance Writers (open to the public).

Because RWA (the Romance Writers of America) is so very, very, VERY good about offering craft and professional sessions to its members, both online and in person at their chapter meetings and specially organized events,  I end up teaching my Screenwriting Tricks For Authors workshops for romance writers more than anyone.   So I’ve started to feel a little guilty about the examples I use in my workshops, which are, well, intense would be the nice word, but homicidal would often fit.

Now, the whole reason I use movie examples to begin with is that most of us have actually SEEN the movies I talk about – it’s an instant frame of reference.   While books are much more hit and miss.   Also, movies are such a compressed form of storytelling that you can look at the structure of a movie much more easily and diagram it (yes, like diagramming a sentence, just don’t ask me to do that).

So even though I’m using Silence of the Lambs and  Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jaws and Presumed Innocent for the romance writers, they all know exactly what I’m talking about.

But sometimes I feel like a fraud at these things because I read so very, very little romance. 

I had several interesting conversations with a debut author during my last workshop, a wonderful, fantasy weekend in Santa Rosa with the Black Diamond RWA chapter.   She asked me if mystery and thriller writers look down on the romance genre and I said, “Well, yeah, I think they (we) do.”    And I don’t think it’s because of the subject matter, actually, although there are those men who say loftily that if there’s a sex scene in a book they just skip right over that.    (Personally I’ve got to wonder about those men – if they’re any good at all in – well, not just bed, but ANYWHERE.)

I ended up saying that it’s because a lot of romance is badly written.    I know, that’s a huge generalization, but wait, I didn’t leave it at that.   I think there are two pretty good reasons for why there’s so much bad romance out there.    In books, that is –the other is a much longer post.)

One reason for badly written romance books is a lot of people aren’t reading them for the writing.   In the same way that men aren’t “reading” Playboy for the articles.    Those of you who don’t ever read romance don’t necessarily realize that quite a lot of it is soft porn.   Sometimes porn porn.   Sometimes way-out-there fetish porn, too, you really have no idea until you get out there exploring a little.   I mean, I grew up in the Bay Area and am no stranger to strange, but even I have been shocked at the – imaginative – content of books I see at RT, for example.

The second reason is the business model of a lot of romance publishing.    Which is a hard sell of titles for one dedicated month, and then on to the next month of titles.   It’s a kind of disposable attitude.    

And as part of that business model, romance authors are expected to write three, six, even nine books a year.    I’m not saying quality can’t happen under those circumstances, some people are just fast.   Allison, for example,  !@# her.   

But in most cases I think it’s a little less likely to get a great book out of that kind of speed.

And maybe, just maybe, love  is a hard thing to write about because it forces us to confront our deepest desires and fears, things we aren’t even conscious of half the time.

But from my point of view that’s exactly what you’re going to have to do to write a romance book that’s going to endure past the one-month business model hard sell.

And if you’re writing a love story into ANY book, you have to do the same thing.    Yes, I am talking about theme again.    Every time we deal with the subject we’re saying something about it, whether we intend to or not.    If there’s no compelling reason for your characters to be together, if there’s no love theme they’re grappling with, grasping for (and overcoming or not), well, you’re diminishing the meaning of love.   Or saying greatness isn’t necessary in that kind of relationship, maybe.   Not very inspiring, is it?   I don’t think so, anyway.

Well, so how can we bring more meaning to the love relationships in our books, whether we’re writing romance or not?

You know my prescription for everything by now.    Make a list.   What are ten love stories or love plots that are meaningful to you?   Or that have been done particularly well, in your opinion?

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Next Stop Wonderland

Notorious

Bridget Jones’ Diary

Notting Hill

When Harry Met Sally

Philadelphia Story

Rebecca

Bringing Up Baby

Much Ado About Nothing

Casablanca

Sleepless in Seattle

(I cheated a little with my list because I’m looking for particular examples for my workshops – my personal list would look somewhat different.)

Now that’s a list of both romantic comedy, which is more along the lines of typical romance, which demands a happily ever after ending, and classic romance, Casablanca and Rebecca, and subplot romance, like Notorious.

 Four Weddings and a Funeral and Philadelphia Story are probably my favorites of that list.

Four Weddings appeals to me on a very personal level because writer Richard Curtis, as is his wont, is not just exploring love relationships between two people, or several sets of two people,  but the group love dynamic of a posse of friends.    In fact, in that movie, the group dynamic is one of the factors keeping the hero, Charlie (Hugh Grant) from settling down to marry – and has kept every single one of the others single, except the one truly married couple in the group, the gay couple who can’t legally marry.    (Wonderful, scathing truth, there).   

That group dynamic has always resonated deeply with me, and I imagine it struck a chord for a lot of people.    Also in terms of high concept the film is great, because most of us have experienced  that totally exhausting year that every single person you know gets married and your entire social calendar revolves around weddings.   I certainly could relate at Hugh Grant groaning as yet another embossed linen envelope arrived in the mail.

But the real beauty of Four Weddings is the underlying theme that there is something magical about a wedding that opens the door to love – not just for the couple involved, but potentially for everyone who attends.   The structure of the film is a round-robin, where at each wedding at least two people find the loves of their loves, and we see that wedding next, or the preparation for a wedding, or at least the deepening of the relationship with a promise of marriage.   This is something I think most of us would like to believe about weddings – that there is an encompassing magic there, a kairos that invites something life-changing.

When Harry Met Sally is an enduring romantic comedy not just because of the great chemistry between Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan and the charming documentary clips of elderly couples talking about how they met and fell in love – but because it explores a strong theme:  Can a man and woman really ever be friends?    And we experience the great treat of watching Billy and Meg both become friends and fall in love.

Next Stop Wonderland and Sleepless in Seattle are examples of the theme of the soulmate – that there is someone out there who is destined for you, and that the Universe will guide you to that person.   Next Stop Wonderland shows two people whose paths cross over and over again, with all kinds of attendant signs that these two people are supposed to be together, but they don’t meet until the last few seconds of the movie.    Sleepless in Seattle explores the same kind of fatedness, and similarly keeps the hero and heroine apart until the end of the movie.   I admit, this kind of thing just turns me inside out – I would love to believe that there is one person who is all that, and that all of life is conspiring to help you find that person.

Notting Hill is an interesting story because there’s no one person who’s the antagonist (even though Alec Baldwin does a charming turn as the movie star boyfriend) – the obstacle to Hugh Grant’s and Julia Roberts’ relationship is her fame, and each sequence explores a different aspect of that celebrity and how it keeps the couple apart.

I love Philadelphia Story, too – it’s an interesting, sophisticated underlying premise, that Cary Grant knows that Katharine Hepburn will never be able to love him fully until she steps off her pedestal and has a roll in the mud.   It’s only after she abandons herself and sleeps with Jimmy Stewart (oh, come on, you know they did), that she is fully human to love Cary.

So how about it, ‘Rati?   What are some love stories or love plots that really do it for you?    What themes have you explored or would like to explore about the meaning or nature of love?   Either in books, or in life…

– Alex



by Alexandra Sokoloff

I am in teaching mode (I know, always, right?) because I am teaching this weekend, at the Black Diamond Romance Writers Retreat in gorgeous Sonoma, California. 

I think the best thing anyone can tell a new writer is that old saying, “Writing is rewriting.”

Before I started writing novels, I worked as a theater director, a Hollywood story analyst, and a screenwriter. All of those jobs have given me some pretty useful perspectives on rewriting and editing. So I’ve put the best things I know into one of those ever-popular Top Ten lists:

1. Cut, cut, cut.

When you first start writing, you are reluctant to cut anything. Believe me, I remember. But the truth is, beginning writers very, very, VERY often duplicate scenes, and characters, too. And dialogue, oh man, do inexperienced writers duplicate dialogue! The same things happen over and over again, are said over and over again. It will be less painful for you to cut if you learn to look for and start to recognize when you’re duplicating scenes, actions, characters and dialogue. Those are the obvious places to cut and combine.

Some very wise writer (unfortunately I have no idea who) said, “If it occurs to you to cut, do so.” This seems harsh and scary, I know. Often I’ll flag something in a manuscript as “Could cut”, and leave it in my draft for several passes until I finally bite the bullet and get rid of it. So, you know, that’s fine. Allow yourself to CONSIDER cutting something, first. No commitment! Then if you do, fine. But once you’ve considered cutting, you almost always will.

2. Read your book aloud. All of it. Cover to cover.

The best thing I know to do to edit a book — or script — is read it aloud. The whole thing. I know, this takes several days, and you will lose your voice. Get some good cough drops. But there is no better way to find errors — spelling, grammar, continuity, and rhythmic errors. Try it, you’ll be amazed.

3. Find a great critique group.

This is easier said than done, but you NEED a group, or a series of readers, who will commit themselves to making your work the best it can be, just as you commit the same to their work. Editors don’t edit the way they used to and publishing houses expect their authors to find friends to do that kind of intensive editing. Really.

4. Do several passes.

Finish your first draft, no matter how rough it is. Then give yourself a break — a week is good, two weeks is better, three weeks is better than that — as time permits. Then read, cut, polish, put in notes. Repeat. And repeat again. Always give yourself time off between reads if you can. The closer your book is to done, the more uncomfortable the unwieldy sections will seem to you, and you will be more and more okay with getting rid of them. Read on for the specific kinds of passes I recommend doing.

5. Whatever your genre is, do a dedicated pass focusing on that crucial genre element.

For a thriller: thrills and suspense. For a mystery: clues and misdirection and suspense. For a comedy: a comedic pass. For a romance: a sex pass. Or “emotional” pass, if you must call it that. For horror… well, you get it.

I write suspense. So after I’ve written that first agonizing bash-through draft of a book or script, and probably a second or third draft just to make it readable, I will at some point do a dedicated pass just to amp up the suspense, and I highly recommend trying it, because it’s amazing how many great ideas you will come up with for suspense scenes (or comic scenes, or romantic scenes) if you are going through your story JUST focused on how to inject and layer in suspense, or horror, or comedy, or romance. It’s your JOB to deliver the genre you’re writing in. It’s worth a dedicated pass to make sure you’re giving your readers what they’re buying the book for.

6. Know your Three Act Structure.

If something in your story is sagging, it is amazing how quickly you can pull your narrative into line by looking at the scene or sequence you have around page 100 (or whatever page is ¼ way through the book), page 200, (or whatever page is ½ way through the book), page 300 (or whatever page is ¾ through the book) and your climax. Each of those scenes should be huge, pivotal, devastating, game-changing scenes or sequences (even if it’s just emotional devastation). Those four points are the tentpoles of your story.

7. Do a dedicated DESIRE LINE pass in which you ask yourself for every scene: “What does this character WANT? Who is opposing her/him in this scene? Who WINS in the scene? What will they do now?”

8. Do a dedicated EMOTIONAL pass, in which you ask yourself in every chapter, every scene, what do I want my readers to FEEL in this moment?

9. Do a dedicated SENSORY pass, in which you make sure you’re covering what you want the reader to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and sense.

10. Finally, and this is a big one: steal from film structure to pull your story into dramatic line.

Some of you are already well aware that I’ve compiled a checklist of story elements that I use both when I’m brainstorming a story on index cards, and again when I’m starting to revise. I find it invaluable to go through my first draft and make sure I’m hitting all of these points, so here it is again.

STORY ELEMENTS CHECKLIST

ACT ONE

* Opening image
* Meet the hero or heroine
* Hero/ine’s inner and outer desire.
* Hero/ine’s arc
* Hero/ine’s ghost or wound
* Inciting Incident/Call to Adventure
* Meet the antagonist (and/or introduce a mystery, which is what you do when you’re going to keep your antagonist hidden to reveal at the end)
* State the theme/what’s the story about?
* Allies
* Mentor (possibly. May not have one or may be revealed later in the story).
* Love interest
* Plant/Reveal (or: Setups and Payoffs)
* Hope/Fear (and Stakes)
* Time Clock (possibly. May not have one or may be revealed later in the story)
* Sequence One climax
* Central Question
* Act One climax

___________________________

ACT TWO

* Crossing the Threshold/ Into the Special World (may occur in Act One)
* Threshold Guardian (maybe)
* Hero/ine’s Plan
* Antagonist’s Plan
* Training Sequence
* Series of Tests
* Picking up new Allies
* Assembling the Team
* Attacks by the Antagonist (whether or not the Hero/ine recognizes these as being from the antagonist)
* In a detective story, questioning witnesses, lining up and eliminating suspects, following clues.

THE MIDPOINT

* Completely changes the game
* Locks the hero/ine into a situation or action
* Can be a huge revelation
* Can be a huge defeat
* Can be a “now it’s personal” loss
* Can be sex at 60 — the lovers finally get together, only to open up a whole new world of problems

______________________________
ACT TWO, PART TWO

* Recalibrating — after the shock or defeat of the game-changer in the Midpoint, the hero/ine must Revamp The Plan and try a New Mode of Attack.
* Escalating Actions/ Obsessive Drive
* Hard Choices and Crossing The Line (immoral actions by the main character to get what s/he wants)
* Loss of Key Allies (possibly because of the hero/ine’s
obsessive actions, possibly through death or injury by the antagonist).
* A Ticking Clock (can happen anywhere in the story)
* Reversals and Revelations/Twists. (Hmm, that clearly should have its own post, now, shouldn’t it?)
* The Long Dark Night of the Soul and/or Visit to Death (aka All Is Lost)

THE SECOND ACT CLIMAX

* Often can be a final revelation before the end game: the knowledge of who the opponent really is
* Answers the Central Question

_______________________________

ACT THREE

The third act is basically the Final Battle and Resolution. It can often be one continuous sequence — the chase and confrontation, or confrontation and chase. There may be a final preparation for battle, or it might be done on the fly. Either here or in the last part of the second act the hero will make a new, FINAL PLAN, based on the new information and revelations of the second act.

The essence of a third act is the final showdown between protagonist and antagonist. It is often divided into two sequences:

1. Getting there (storming the castle)
2. The final battle itself

* Thematic Location — often a visual and literal representation of the Hero/ine’s Greatest Nightmare
* The protagonist’s character change
* The antagonist’s character change (if any)
* Possibly allies’ character changes and/or gaining of desire
* Could be one last huge reveal or twist, or series of reveals and twists, or series of final payoffs you’ve been saving (as in BACK TO THE FUTURE and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE).

* RESOLUTION: 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.

———————

So, anyone have a top few rewriting tricks for me (and my class?)  I’m always looking!

– Alex

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Stephen was talking about theme yesterday and I seized on the topic like a drowning Leo diCaprio dogpaddling in the middle of the broken pieces of the Titanic –

Well, maybe I’m exaggerating just a little.  I’ve actually been thinking about this this week.

I’d just like to say up front that I’m not here to DEFINE theme, today…

Oh, is that cheating?  

Well, okay, if you insist.  Theme is what the story is about.   On a deeper level than the plot details.   The big meaning.   Usually a moral meaning.

Hmm.    See why I don’t want to define it?

Well, how about defining by example?

I’ve heard, often, “Huck Finn is about the inhumanity of racism.”  

Uh… I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s too soft and vague.   

Also have heard a lot that the theme of Romeo and Juliet is “Great love defies even death.”    Except that – in the end, they’re dead, right?   So how exactly is the love defying death?   Risking death and losing, maybe.   Inspiring people after death, maybe.

Okay, how about this?  “A man is never truly alone who has friends” is a great statement of the theme of  It’s A Wonderful Life.   (And stated overtly in the end of that movie.)

The trouble is,  I personally think it’s closer to the soul of that movie to say that it’s the little, ordinary actions we do every day that add up to true heroism.

So defining theme has always seemed like a slippery process to me.   Different people can pull vastly different interpretations of the theme of a story from the same story.    And even if you can cleverly distill the meaning of a story into one sentence… admit it, you’re not REALLY covering everything that the story is about, are you?

I think it’s more useful to think of theme as layers of meaning.    To not think of theme as a sentence, but as a whole image system.

And that’s where it gets really fun to start working with theme – when it’s not just some pedantic sentence, but a whole world of interrelated meanings, that resonate on levels that you’re not even aware of, sometimes, but that stay with you and bring you back to certain stories over and over and over again.

(Think of some of the dreams you have – maybe – where there will be double and triple puns, visual and verbal).

There are all kinds of ways to work theme into a story.   The most obvious is the PLOT.    Every plot is also a statement of theme.

It’s A Wonderful Life is a great, great example of plot reflecting theme.    George Bailey’s desire in the beginning of the film is to be a hero, to do big, important things.    Throughout the story, that desire seems to be thwarted at every turn by the ordinariness of his life.    And yet, every single encounter George Bailey has is an example of a small, ordinary goodness, a right choice that George makes, that in the end, when we and he see the town as it would have been if he had never existed, lets us understand that it IS those little things that make for true heroism.

In our own genre, Presumed Innocent is an interesting book for plot reflecting theme.   I love how that book (and the very good film made of it) depicts the horrifying randomness of the legal system – that justice can turn on the assignment of a judge, on the outcome of a political race, on the loyalties of a witness – or on the very, very clever defendant himself.   To me it’s a brilliant exploration of what justice really is, or isn’t, or can never be.

And here’s a brilliant example of a plot twist conveying theme:  with Lecter’s escape, The Silence of the Lambs drives home the point that we can win a battle with evil, but never the entire war.

DIALOGUE is another way to reflect theme.

I watched the beginning of The Matrix this week and was very amused to note this blatantly thematic dialogue.   I’ve underlined all the thematic references:

—————-

From The Matrix, written by Larry & Andy Wachowski

In Neo’s apartment. He is asleep at his computer, with headphones on. On his computer screen, we see he is running a search on a man named Morpheus. Suddenly on his computer screen appear the words ‘Wake up, Neo.’ He sits up, and stares at his computer screen.

Neo : What?

On the computer, now appears ‘The Matrix has you…’

Neo : What the hell?

On the computer, now appears ‘Follow the white rabbit…’

Neo : Follow the white rabbit?

He presses the ‘esc’ key repeatedly, no effect. the computer comes up with one last message : ‘Knock knock, Neo.’ There is a loud knock at his door, and he jumps. He stares at the door, and then back at his computer screen. it’s now blank.

Neo : …..Who is it?

Choi : It’s Choi.

Neo : Yeah…yeah…you’re two hours late.

Choi : I know, it’s her fault.

Choi gestures towards DuJour.

Neo : You got the money?

Choi : Two grand.

Neo :Hold on.

Neo goes into his apartment, shuts the door, and opens a book, takes out a CD rom, and goes back to the door, handing the CD to Choi.

Choi : Hallelujah. You’re my saviour, man. My own personal Jesus Christ.

Neo :You get caught using that…

Choi : Yeah, I know. This never happened, you don’t exist.

Neo : Right.

Choi : Something wrong, man? You look a little whiter than usual.

Neo : My computer….it..you ever have that feeling where you don’t know if you’re awake or still dreaming?

Choi : Mm, all the time. It’s called Mescaline. It’s the only way

to fly. Hey, it sounds to me like you need to unplug, man.

————

The Matrix is all about waking up, about what reality is, and about Neo as the potential savior of the world, which has been enslaved by a virtual reality program.  And escaping.   And going down the rabbit hole.

Well, that above is maybe a four minute scene,  and look how blatant the themes are.    It spells out the entire story.   And yet it works on the surface level as well, an audience isn’t stopping to think, “Oh, there’s a theme, and there’s a theme, and yet another theme.”

(If there’s anything I learned from screenwriting it’s that you can JUST SAY IT.   And it generally works better if you just do.)

Another hugely effective and important way to convey theme is through VISUAL STORYTELLING.    Whether you’re writing a book or a film, it’s useful to do specific passes through your story,  thinking of yourself as a production designer whose specific function is to create the look of the story – AND – reflect the themes of the story in those visuals.

Nobody does image systems better than Thomas Harris.   The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon are serial killer novels, but Harris elevates that overworked genre to art, in no small part due to his image systems.

In Silence, Harris borrows heavily from myth and especially fairy tales, choosing elements that create a deeper meaning for his plots, and achieves the sense of a mythic battle between good and evil.   You’ve got the labyrinth/Minotaur. You’ve got a monster in a cage, a troll holding a girl in a pit (and that girl is a princess, remember – her mother is American royalty, a senator). You’ve got a twist on the “lowly peasant boy rescues the princess with the help of supernatural allies” fairy tale – Clarice is the lowly peasant who enlists the help of (one might also say apprentices to) Lecter’s wizardlike perceptions to rescue the princess. You have a twisted wizard in his cave who is trying to turn himself into a woman.

There’s a theme running through Silence of monstrousness.   Before Harris got all Freudian with Lecter,  to the detriment of the character, IMO, he presented this character as a living embodiment of evil – an aberration of nature, right down to the six fingers on his left hand.   In fact, Harris virtually created the Serial Killer as Monster.   

So to reflect this inhumanness (and also just creep us out)  Harris works the animal imagery,  especially insect imagery, with the moths, the spiders and mice in the storage unit, and the entomologists with their insect collections in the museum, the theme of change, larva to butterfly.

In Red Dragon Harris also works the animal imagery to powerful effect. The killer is not a mere man, he’s a beast. When he’s born he’s compared to a bat because of his cleft palate. He kills on a moon cycle, like a werewolf. He uses his grandmother’s false teeth, like a vampire. And let’s not forget – he’s trying to turn into a dragon.

LOCATION is another huge, huge factor in conveying theme.   Places have specific meanings, or you the author can create a specific meaning for a place.    I’ve said this before, but basements are used so often in horror stories because basements symbolize our subconscious, and all the fears and childhood damage that we hide from ourselves.     Characters’ houses or apartments reflect themselves.    The way you describe a city gives it a particular meaning – you can emphasize particular qualities that help you tell your story.

So how do you create a visual/thematic image system in your books?

Well, start by becoming more conscious of what thematic systems authors are working with in books and films that YOU love.    As I am always saying – make yourself a list (ten is good) of books and films that have particularly effective image systems.    Then reread and rewatch some of your favorites, paying close attention to how theme is conveyed, in plot, in dialogue, in visuals, in location.

What I do when I start a project, along with outlining, is to keep a list of thematic words that convey what my story is about, to me. For The Harrowing it was words like: Creation, chaos, abyss, fire, forsaken, shattered, shattering, portal, door, gateway, vessel, empty, void, rage, fury, cast off, forgotten, abandoned, alone, rejected, neglected, shards, discarded… pages and pages like that.

For The Price – bargain, price, deal, winter, ice, buried, dormant, resurrection, apple, temptation, tree, garden, labyrinth, Sleeping Beauty, castle, queen, princess, prince, king, wish, grant, deal, contract, task, hell, purgatory, descent, mirror, Rumpelstiltskin, spiral…

Some words I’ll have from the very beginning because they’re part of my own thematic DNA. But as the word lists grow, so does my understanding of the inherent themes of each particular story.

Do you see how that might start to work? Not only do you get a sense of how the story can look to convey your themes, but you also have a growing list of specific words that you can work with in your prose and dialogue so that you’re constantly hitting those themes on different levels.

At the same time that I’m doing my word lists, I start a collage book, and try to spend some time every week flipping through magazines and pulling photos that resonate with my story. I find Vogue, the Italian fashion mags, Vanity Fair, Premiere, Rolling Stone and of course, National Geographic, particularly good for me. I tape those photos together in a blank artists’ sketchbook (I use tape so I can move the photos around when I feel like it. If you’re more – well, if you’re neater than I am, you can also use plastic sleeves in a three-ring binder).   Brett has talked about doing a slideshow of images he captures on his laptop.   It’s another way of growing an image system. Also, it doesn’t feel like writing so you think you’re getting away with something.

Also, know your world myths and fairy tales! Why make up your own backstory and characters when you can tap into universally powerful archetypes? Remember, there’s no new story under the sun, so being conscious of your antecedents can help you bring out the archetypal power of the characters and themes you’re working with.   

So of course my questions today are: 

What are some books and films that to you have particularly striking thematic image systems? What are some of your favorite images to work with?    What are some ways of conveying theme that I’ve left out?

– Alex

————————————————–

For those who have been patiently (hah)  waiting for the Screenwriting Tricks For Authors workbook to come out on Kindle for Mac, it’s now available (no Kindle required, just your own Mac).

————————————————
Also, I’m going to be teaching a couple of in-person workshops in April and May, on both coasts, since I’m nothing if not bicoastal.

April 9-11   I’m at the Black Diamond Romance Writers April Retreat in Santa Rosa, CA:

Sponsor: Black Diamond RWA

Location: A 4000+-sq.-ft. residence on 62 acres in Santa Rosa, CA

Fee: For Day-Trippers: Members: $60, Non-Members, $75; for Multi-Day Participants: Members: $80, Non-Members $100

Date: (For Day Trippers) Saturday, April 10, 2010, includes lunch, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

OR (Multi-day Participants ) April 9–11, 2010, includes meals, small group time with presenter, & overnight accommodations if available.

For more information: 
————————————————

Then May 8  I’ll be in Jacksonville, Florida, for a  

Full Day Master Class: Screenwriting Tricks for Novelists
 
Saturday May 8, 9AM – 4PM, Arlington Congregational Church‎
431 University Blvd North
Jacksonville, FL 32211
 
For more information:

Hope to see/meet some of you there!

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I am not at Left Coast Crime this weekend, even though it would have been a no-brainer, L.A. and all.   

There was a time – like, yesterday – I would never have missed a conference.   Conferences are the social reward of being an author, cleverly disguised as essential career business.   I love them.   They are always exactly what I need in the moment.

But tempting as it is, and much as I am missing everyone, I don’t regret it.   I don’t want to take even a few days away from my writing right now.   More than that, I don’t want to pull myself out of writing mode, and conference mode is really different from writing mode. 

It’s been an exceptionally hard year for me, as it has for so many of the ‘Rati, and I think for many, many, many of our extended community.   And the whole rest of the world.

So I don’t have a lot of energy to split my focus, right now.   And I am so excited and grateful to HAVE a book I want to write again.

I tried this whole thing a little differently this time.    I always wait for inspiration to help me choose a project.    Well, “waiting” isn’t exactly the word, because it’s a more active process than that, deliberately throwing myself open to receive ideas, journaling, making lists as I’ve talked about before, foraging widely in subject matter that draws me.  

But this year I’ve been working a 12-step recovery program, Al Anon, for people who have been affected by other people’s drinking (which would be, let’s face it, everyone, right?).  One of the pillars of that program is releasing your own need to control everything under the sun and learning to first trust, and then gradually fully rely on a Higher Power of your own understanding.  (And for the record, the first thing I do when I buy one of the daily meditation books or any other of the literature, is go through and cross out any mentions of “He” in regard to a Higher Power.  Or add my own genders randomly.)

So this time, as I was finishing  Shifters, my Harlequin Nocturne book that comes out in October, and getting that gnawing restless feeling…   What next?   What am I going to write next?   I realized that if I am really committed to this spiritual path, this decision is like every other in my life – I needed to turn it over to my Higher Power.   And ask:   “What do YOU want me to write?”

(How you phrase the question in these communications is important, I’ve found.   It’s not “What should I write next?”    but “What would you have me write?”)

So every day, I’ve been asking, in prayer, meditation, in the car, lying awake at night – “What do YOU want me to write?

This question had actually become more and more desperate, especially once I’d finished the first draft of the current book.   Because I didn’t seem to be getting any answers.  

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been a professional writer for most of my adult life and I actually have a backlog of perfectly great, pretty developed story ideas that would take me much more than the rest of my lifetime to write.    But that isn’t the point.   I don’t want to be out there on my own writing, any more.   I want to be aligned with what the Universe wants from me.

But with no obvious answers forthcoming, I went into doubt.  I started to feel not just confused, but completely blocked about what book to write next.    I started obsessing about the need to give my agent some proposals (like, yesterday).   And I worked on ideas, carded them, did all the right things – all the while being less and less trusting of myself to make the right decision.    So over and over and OVER every day, for weeks, maybe months, I kept asking (in prayer, meditation, in the car, lying awake at night) – “What do YOU want me to write?”  “PLEASE tell me what to write.”    “I really NEED to know what to write, here…”

Then, week before last, I had the opportunity to go on retreat with some of my best writer friends.  

I’ve written about this before, my posse of mystery writer friends (I should say goddesses, really) I hang out with in Raleigh: Margaret Maron, Sarah Shaber, Diane Chamberlain, Katy Munger, Mary Kay Andrews and Brynn Bonner.   I was stunned when they asked me to join this group – my first book had just come out and I felt like such an amateur, comparatively.    I’d been reading Margaret for years and it was really like getting an invitation from the queen. 

We’re more a regular lunch group than a critique group, but several times a year we go on retreat to the beach or the mountains or some generally fantastic place – that’s how I came to stay in the haunted mansion in Southern Pines that I used for the model of my haunted house in THE UNSEEN. We get together in the morning to set goals for the day and help each other with story problems, work all day long by ourselves and then convene at night to have dinner and brainstorm on any new problem that anyone’s having.   And of course there are walks on the beach, field trips to cemeteries and nearby historical districts….

This trip we went to Mary Kay’s beach cottage on Tybee Island, off the Georgia coast near Savannah, which is the same charming, funky cottage she wrote about in her book SAVANNAH BREEZE.  Photos here.   And I almost didn’t go because there is so much else in turmoil in my life, but then I thought, no, “I will go, and I will come back with my story.   I have to.”

So we’re down at the beach, and a few days go by and I am still floundering, although it feels a lot better to flounder at the beach, somehow.   But on the third day, at our breakfast session, I was telling everyone all about my several story ideas, and I swear, Mary Kay just channeled God.   She got really intense, scary intense, and asked me bluntly, over and over again,   “What do you WANT this book to be?    What do you want it to do for you?   You have to ask for what you WANT.”  

Which is, always, the hardest thing for me to do.

And I opened my mouth and started telling them about a third book that I hadn’t even told them about because I hadn’t even figured out how to do it yet, and as I was telling them about it I was realizing that I have been, for weeks, getting the most clear signs about this book.  EVERYTHING, everywhere.    For every time I have asked this question the answer has been right in my face, in my inbox, on my shelves, appliquéd on the clothes I wear every day, in songs I hear, all right in my face.  

But I still hadn’t gotten it, so the Universe finally took pity on me and gave me the most direct answer to my question I could possibly have asked for, unambiguous, unequivocal.

So I am here today to say,  “Ask”.    Whatever it is.   Ask and wait for the answer.   The Universe is so patient, and so wants you to get whatever it is you need, that it will stay right there with you through pain and confusion and doubt and turmoil until you are ready to hear the answers you need.

I would love to know, today, if and how any of you consult with the universe or your own higher powers, in whatever areas of your life you do.

And of course, reports from LCC from all those attending!

– Alex



by Alexandra Sokoloff

Two weeks ago, as part of my own “What the @#$% am I going to write next?” ramblings, I posted about making random lists of basically everything in the known universe that appeals to me and looking through those lists for patterns.

One thing I’ve learned about myself as a writer, partly by making lists! is that my favorite stories of all are fairy tales and myths – which are often interchangeable, although story structuralists Christopher Vogler and John Truby make good arguments that stories with mythic structure and stories with fairy tale structure have their own rules and formulas.

And indeed, the couple of stories that are beginning to take shape in my head have tons of fairy tale elements.   This, at least is familiar territory to me, exciting territory.

When I respond deeply to a movie or book, no matter how realistic and modern it seems on the surface, chances are it’s going to have a fairy tale structure.    

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, RED DRAGON, THE EXORCIST, THE GODFATHER, A WRINKLE IN TIME, STAR WARS, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, THE TREATMENT (Mo Hayder) – every single one of them is a fairy tale.   And fairy tales have their own structural rules that just work for me.

I know JT and Cornelia have blatantly (my favorite approach) used fairy tales in at least a few of their books.

Anyone who wants a quick lesson on the fairy tale structure in action,  should go out and rent PAN’S LABYRINTH.   Wonderful, heartbreaking film, one of the best in years.

That movie has a blatant fairy tale structure, and as in so many fairy tales, the heroine is told by her mentor and ally the faun that she must perform three tasks to save the underworld kingdom and reclaim her place as the princess of that world (and thus escape her horrifying reality in 1944 Spain.)  

The three-task structure is SO useful and successful because it tells the audience exactly what they’re in for.   Audiences (and readers – but especially audiences) need to know that things will come to an end eventually, otherwise they get restless and worried that they will never get out of that theater.   I’m not kidding.    And a reader, particularly a promiscuous reader like me, will bail on a book if it doesn’t seem to be escalating and progressing at a good clip.   But with a three-task structure, the audience is, at least subconsciously, mentally ticking off each task as it is completed, and that gives a satisfying sense of progress toward a resolution.  

Plus once you’ve set a three-task structure, you can then play with expectation, as Del Toro did in PAN’S LABYRINTH, and have the heroine FAIL at one of the tasks, say, the second task, and provide a great moment of defeat, a huge reversal and surprise, that in this case was completely emotionally wrenching because of the heroine’s very dire real-life situation.

Another classic fairy tale structure is the three-brother or three-sister structure.   You know, as in The White Cat, or The Boy Who Had to Learn Fear, or Cinderella.    In this structure there is one task that is the goal, and we watch all three siblings attempt it, but it’s always the youngest and ostensibly weakest sibling that gets it right.

Another Rule Of Three fairy tale structure deals with the three magical allies.   THE WIZARD OF OZ has this – Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion;  the animated classic SLEEPING BEAUTY – fairy godmothers Flora, Fauna and Merriwether; HARRY POTTER, obviously, with the three magical mentors Dumbledore, MacGonegal and Hagrid; A WRINKLE IN TIME – the “witches”: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs Which; and STAR WARS – R2D2, C3P0, Han Solo (Okay, there’s four, Chewbacca, but he’s so joined at the hip to Han that they’re really one entity.).   Magical allies give gifts, and they provide substructure for stories by each having their moment or moments of aiding the hero/ine.

I must point out that you DO NOT have to be writing a fantasy to use any of these structural techniques.   They all can work just as well in the most grittily realistic story.   Just look at THE GODFATHER, the most classic modern example I know of the three-brother structure.   There’s the old king, the Godfather; the two older brothers, Sonny, with his lethal temper, and Fredo, with his weak womanizing; and the youngest brother, Michael, who is the outsider in the family: college-educated, Americanized, kept apart from the family business, and thought of as the weakest.   And throughout the story we see this unlikely younger brother ascend to his father’s throne (even though it’s about the last thing we want.)

You can see the three-brother structure working loosely in MYSTIC RIVER, with the three friends who are all cursed by a horrific childhood event that inextricably binds their fates together.  Lehane even uses a fairy tale analogy in the tale:  “The Boy Who Was Captured By Wolves,” and the fairy-tale resonances in that book and film contribute to its haunting power.

THE DEERHUNTER is another three-brother structure, that opens with another huge fairy tale story element: a curse.  The whole first sequence is a wedding, complete with unwanted guest (the Green Beret who won’t talk to the three friends about Vietnam), and at the height of the merrymaking the bride and groom drink from the same cup and spill wine on the bride’s gown, thus bringing on the curse for all three friends.

THE DEERHUNTER also utilizes another classic structure technique, also common in fairy tales:   The Promise.   In the first act, when the friends are on the mountain, hunting, on their last day before three of them are shipped off to Vietnam, Nick asks Michael to make sure that he doesn’t leave him over in Vietnam.   Even if he dies, he wants to return home.   “Promise me, Mike,” he says.  “You gotta promise me you won’t leave me over there.”

You KNOW when you get a promise scene that the story is going to be about that friend keeping the promise.   It’s an anchor to the action of the story – one of those spell-it-out moments that lets an audience subconsciously relax, because they understand what the story is going to be about – and they know the WRITER knows what the story is about, too.   That’s a comfortable feeling.   You have to let your audience/reader know that you know what your story is about.

The point is, if you really look closely at stories on your list, you might just find a similar meta-structure at work that will help you shape your own story. 

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m seeing a therapist who is heavily on the Jung side (or at least is canny enough to understand that that’s about the only way he’s going to get through to me), so he’s been having me read a lot of fairy tale analyses: there is some hugely great stuff out there.   THE MAIDEN KING, by Robert Bly and Marion Woodman;  WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES; Clarissa Pinkola Estes; IRON JOHN, Robert Bly (not at all the squishy male power book I had always assumed it was); and Marie-Louise Von Franz has a classic series on fairy tales that I am looking forward to.

(I’m with Cornelia, though – steer away from Bettelheim).

But the best of all is to just read the tales themselves – Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book and the other colors in that world fairy tale set are wonderful, bloody, and have fantastic, evocative illustrations.

So of course today I am looking for examples – of your own books and your favorite books with fairy tale elements or structure.   And of course – your own favorite fairy tales!

– Alex

Screenwriting Tricks For Authors