StoryTelling – Page 6 – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

Linda Seger’s “Making a Good Script Great”

Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great is one of two books I recently picked up on scriptwriting/screenwriting because…well, basically because I like to learn, and learn I did. There are more pages dogeared, highlighted, and marked up than there are pages untouched.

Begin with the concept that storytelling is storytelling is storytelling and it doesn’t matter the medium because regardless of medium you want a strong, visceral reaction from your audience/reader.

Now recognize that any medium will touch on all aspects of getting that strong, visceral reaction to some degree; a character is a character is a character, a scene is a scene is a scene, dialogue is dialogue is dialogue.

Go one more to specific mediums emphasize specific aspects more than others due to that medium’s limitations. Literature can handle 1st Person POV handily, script/screenwriting not so much.

Recognize that and the next item is to learn ways to fake 1st Person POV in a medium designed for 3rd Person Limited/Omniscient POV.

And if you stop there and say to yourself, “But I don’t have to do that when I write a book” you’re missing out on an incredible learning opportunity. Sure, you may never have to do that in a book but learning how to do it and – more importantly – how to work with such a constraint gives you the flexibility to use that technique, parts of that techniques, concepts from that technique, modify it, et cetera, to make your own non-script/screenwriting work sing.

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Hallowe’en Treat – Authors Reading Ghost Stories

I and several other authors were asked to contribute to a video ghost anthology.

First, whoa! I love that kind of validation. Someone wants me to contribute my work to something? I repeat, whoa!

And what a crew!

From The Shadow’s Project Limited: They want you to be terrified on this cold autumn night because it is HALLOWEEN!

Seventeen of the world’s best writers and journalists from around the world come together for one night only to tell their Halloween stories to bring fright and delight to Halloween 2021. If you are not terrified by the end of the video you are braver than I. But I want you to be filled with fear to celebrate this wonderfully fun event,.

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
00:19 – Dan Tynan
03:50 – Joanne Paulson
11:49 – Dawn De Braal
16.46 – Cori Nevruz
20:20 – Dylan Brody
40:27 – Matt Adcock
46:18 – Jeremy Herriges
53:46 – Joseph Carrabis (my contribution’s from The Shaman)
01:00:05 – Terry Melia
01:05:08 – A.B. Neilly
01:10:26 – David Pipe
01:15:16 -J.E. Branham
01:21:37 – Amit Bhanot
01:28:08 – Tasha Brown
01:33:38 – G. Quinn Rogers
01:38:44 – A.C. Merkel
01:44:03 – Elaine Marie Carnegie
01:50:04 – Outro

CONTACT THE WRITERS ON TWITTER
Terry Melia
Dan Tynan
Joanne Paulson
Dawn Debraal
Cori Nevruz
Dylan Brody
Matt Adcock
Joseph Carrabis
Elaine Marie Carnegie
A.C. Merkel
Jeremy Herriges
Tasha Brown
G Quinn Rogers
David Pipe
A.B. Neilly

Watch it on YouTube or below:

(and let us know what you think)

Why It Works for Me – Mark Hayes’ “The Strange and the Wonderful”

The Why It Works for Me series are my opportunity to share with others particular pieces of writing which stand out (to me) and why (as in “this piece of writing taught me something about writing, encouraged me to be a better writer, engaged me, captivated me, educated me, …”).

As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s one thing to know something is good, it’s a better thing (in my opinion) to know why it’s good and then be able to copy what’s good about it, to learn from it so you can be as good and (hopefully) better.

This time out, Mark Hayes’ “The Strange and the Wonderful” in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 7.

The 3x Rule

Note: This material originally appeared on a marketing site and dealt with branding. People who know what they’re doing recognize all branding is an application of neuroscience, hence neuromarketing (which may have been a part of neuroscience at one point and now is a buzzword and poorly degraded from its original).
I’m resurrecting it for a friend who’s curious about The 3x Rule.
The 3x Rule has broad applications – everything from education to marketing to branding to military training and for the purposes of writing, creating memorable characters. You can use The 3x Rule to have your children, partners, peers, et cetera, remember to do something when they need to do it.
I use the The 3x Rule rule in my writing to lock characters and scenes into reader memory.
Enjoy!

The 3x Rule has six elements:

Memory
Touch
Mirrors
Words
Sentences
Voice

Let’s explore each element separately then put them together.

Toing and Froing

We’re going to build on elements from Using One-Line Summaries to Write Better Stories and Flashback as Story Frame to deal with another story challenge that often leads editors and publishers to stop reading and reject a story: Toing and Froing (To-ing and Fro-ing), something I first wrote about in Quit Stage Directing.

Simply put, Toing and Froing occurs when the writer/author has their characters move around or do things for no real story purpose; there’s no character development, no character revelation, the atmosphere doesn’t change, no plot elements are furthered or revealed, the movement is irrelevant to any established or impending plot points, the movement is unnecessary to the dialogue, et cetera.

The end result is weak writing, exposition, narration, and lots of uninteresting things happening just to fill the page. Most writers/authors fall down on “movement is unnecessary to the dialogue.” They’ll have two or more characters talking and feel the characters should be doing something while they talk.

The desire to have characters do something while talking is good, the execution is usually poor, and now we’re dealing with attribution via action which I’ll cover in another post.

Eating my own dogfood
I’m currently editing Cicatrix, a work-in-progress last picked up and put down in late Feb 2019.

What follows is the ninth scene in the story. I’ll share the scene’s original form first with brightly colored “Problems” buttons after each weak paragraph. Click on the “Problems” buttons for examples of that paragraph’s problems. Next I’ll share share a rewrite with brightly colored “Solutions” buttons. Click on the “Solutions” buttons for explanations of why the rewrite is better.

PS) this is more for my edification than yours. Feel free to disagree. Please make sure you explain your disagreement and offer suggestions for improvement. Always happy to learn, me.