I just finished up some documentation for my last gig. 9,700 words; 41 pages; 12.5 hours. That’s 776 words / hour — solidly above my 500 w/h average. I love when it flows. (Yes, as you can tell from the word to page count ratio, it was procedural docs, thus lots of whitespace).
A well edited film works by anticipating your curiosity. Just when you start to wonder, “What happened with Han Solo?” the film cuts from Degobah to the Millennium Falcon. The same mechanism works even within a scene. One character starts to say something shocking. Just as you wonder how the other character takes it, they cut to a close up of that character’s face. It is almost as if the film is wired to the movement of your eyes - flicking between characters as your eyes move around.
Just wrote a short story today for the first time in way too long. Boy did those rusty wheels groan and squeal. But, I got a first draft done. With a little time, love, and oil, I’ll get this thing runnin’ like new. If it turns out well, I’ll post it on the Works (after I chase all the bit-spiders out).
I like to learn by doing rather than by taking classes. I made an exception, though, for Brian McDonald’s story structure class at the Richard Hugo House. In our last class, Brian pointed out that all stories have the same seven parts: “Once upon a time… and every day… until one day… Because of this… and because of this… until finally… and ever since…” Even with the blanks empty - thus creating a story about nothing at all - it’s still a satisfying story. After class, I wandered over to a local Tully’s after class to catch up on some reading and happened across Pop Occulture’s summary of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Campbell’s archetype follows Brian’s structure exactly. From Pop Occulture: [my bits in brackets]
Continue reading "Story structure, Joseph Campbell, and chocolate disasters"
If you dig around the Recommended Reading section of this blog, you’ll find links to two good articles on writers block (43Folders, Screenwriters). Both quote Hemingway’s writing methodology: “Leave some water in the well”. It’s a great idea: stop working when you’re writing your best and it’s easier to start writing next time. You leave the work excited to return. You only face the dreaded Blank Page in the middle of your writing session, fresh from a success. It’s a cool enough idea that I’ve started a little experiment adding this discipline to my work and to life.
Some days, words seem to be stuck in glue. Despite great effort, I just can’t seem to get them arranged with any eloquence. Sentences read like thesaurus safaris. Ideas lean against each other in strange formations resembling Stonehenge: purposefully designed yet incomprehensible.
Today is one of those days. I just spent an hour flogging myself to complete a whopping three paragraphs.
Following up on the last post, I thought of another handy analogy about writing.
Getting back into writing is a bit like hitting a baseball. When you hit the ball, you’re not really sure why you hit it; you just know it felt really good. The next time you’re up, you try to do everything exactly the same - tap the plate on the right corner, shift weight from left to right, tug the cap, shrug the shoulders, two practice swings, and think exactly the same thoughts you had last time. Swing and a miss.
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