Course Outline:
Finding Your Stories
The best and most fulfilling stories you will ever write are not the
result of market surveys or guesses about what readers read or editors want.
Your best stories will be those drawn from who and what you are, the total
of everything that you have experienced and will experience.
CHAPTER 1. THE WRONG
STUFF
Bad choices, bad advice, cockeyed theories, and other ways to sabotage
a writing career. Things to stop doing.
CHAPTER
2. GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Self discovery, your unique
writing potential, and do you have the courage to write your own stories?
CHAPTER 3.
FINDING YOUR WRITE STUFF
Collecting your "vibes." Discovering the parts of you that will form your
unique writing machine and its fuel.
CHAPTER 4. WHY IS THE WRITE STUFF THE RIGHT STUFF?
The mother of all homework
assignments. Going through the vibes as parts of a story. Collecting and
assembling the parts and fuel to your unique writing machine.
CHAPTER 5. THE MACHINE
Writing what you know, finding out what you know, making more stuff that
you know, focus killers, and a special laxative for removing writer's block.
Part II:
Generating Ideas
"Where
do you get your ideas?" is probably the most common question authors
are asked. Every human is sitting in an ocean of ideas. The trick
is in realizing that and then developing methods to see the ideas, capture
them, allow them to mutate and mature, and then use them.
CHAPTER 1.
THE IDEA BANK
Checking and Saving. Experience as literary treasure,
and the "do you have what
it takes" test.
CHAPTER 2. MAKING IDEA
DEPOSITS
Day-to-day Receipts,
earnings on investments,
loans, and stuffing that mattress.
CHAPTER 3.
LIVING ON THE INTEREST
The ideas will present themselves as needed,
sitting back and trusting the process, reinvestment.
Part III:
What Is A Story?
A
story is a machine of events, conditions, and circumstances, and there is
as much difference between reading and writing as there is between driving
a car and designing and building one. Here we learn the parts of a
story and how they should work together.
CHAPTER 1. PARTS AND ASSEMBLY
What is a story? An overview of the parts of a story
and how they relate to each other. A look at why writers write and readers
read,.
CHAPTER 2.
CHARACTER
What is a story character? What
is characterization? Where do they come from?
CHAPTER
3. CHARACTER
GOALS
The core of every story, what
they are, different kinds, how they function, and that thing called motivation.
CHAPTER 4.
THE SETTING
Where and
when to go, conveying it to yourself and the reader, setting changes
and transitions.
CHAPTER 5. OBSTACLES
It stands between the character and the character's
goal. Story obstacles and obstacles for the hell of it. What does
a story worthy obstacle need to do?
CHAPTER 6.
BUILDUPS
Call it a plot if you want. Character contests
with obstacle. Methods, things to do and to avoid.
CHAPTER 7.
RESOLUTIONS
Character wins or obstacle wins,
stories that fail to resolve, "right" and "wrong" endings, hiding the dessert:
twists.
CHAPTER 8. CHARACTER CHANGE
Who am I? What am I doing here?
What is the story machine designed to do? Is that what your story does?
CHAPTER 9.
WHO IS TELLING THE STORY?
Points-of-view, the different forms
and uses, benefits and dangers, and do not cheat the reader.
CHAPTER 10.
GETTING TENSE
When is the story being told and
why it makes a difference. Things to try, how and why they work, and some
major don'ts.
CHAPTER 11.
OTHER PARTS
Titles, hooks, backfill, bright
and dark moments, plants, story divisions (sentences, paragraphs, scenes,
chapters, volumes), narrative frames and flashbacks, purposes and lessons,
and trailers. What they are, how they work, things to do and things to
avoid.
Part IV:
The Research
"Write
what you know." In this section we learn strategies for researching
settings, occupations, and characters, as well as organizing the information
to enable it to be at your mental fingertips when needed. The
secret is to use real people in real places, regardless of the actual
existence of either.
CHAPTER 1.
GOING THERE
Dangers of not doing the work,
cautions in referring to real places, persons, and events, the
research iceberg and how not to inflict all of your research on the reader.
CHAPTER 2.
REAL PEOPLE
Stories are about people.
How to make them real to yourself, and therefore, real to the reader
CHAPTER 3. LOOK
AT ALL THAT STUFF
What to do with all that research.
The Alphadex, maps & spreadsheets, uses in series, and how to find what
you need when you need it.
Part V:
The Writing
Everyone is born a natural storyteller.
Beginning with being punished for telling lies, embarrassing our elders
with inappropriate words, and scorn from our friends for being different
from them, obstacles get placed in the storytelling path. The final
shot in the head comes in high school and college with the creativity
assassinating research paper. How to get out of your own way and
get the words on the paper.
CHAPTER 1.
HOW TO GET IN YOUR OWN WAY
Looking for snags, writing for the wrong
reasons, beating the muse to death, and the sheer waste of your most valuable
commodity: Time. All manifestations of the fear of writing.
CHAPTER 2. OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF WRITING
Discipline:
What is it? Self doubt and the possibility of making a mistake. Changing
you to enable you to change things.
CHAPTER 3. RIGHT REASONS FOR WRITING RIGHT STUFF
The shape your head is in is up to
you. How to allow your story to capture you. Guaranteeing yourself success
(Sufficient reasons for writing the story).
CHAPTER 4. PICKING A LIFE
When does your machine work best?
How many balls are you juggling? What about maintenance (
exercise, diet, mental exercise, mucho moderation)?
Family, friends, social life, work, and is there anything left over
for the story?
CHAPTER 5. FIRING YOUR
EDITOR ON THE SHOULDER
Judge Not. Until the writing is done, then judge the hell out of
it. If you need more help, get it.
CHAPTER 6. IT'S MAGIC
TIME
Where to start: Idea, character,
background, title, plot? Starting from the story situation.
Characters who want to go their own ways.
Trust the process and unleash your demon.
Part VI:
The Rewriting
The object is to write your story your way and
do the best you can to have the story feel and say what you want in the
way that you want. In this part we learn things to do and not to
do in judging our own efforts, discovering story problems, and repairing
them.
CHAPTER 1.
LETTING IT COOL
Emotional distance necessary to allow judgment to become engaged.
Get Started on the next one. Putting the out-of-body experience to work.
CHAPTER 2. ASSAYING THE ORE
Reading as a reader.
The Cringe Test. The Maximum Cringe Test.
Sparing family and friends the "Whaddya think?" ordeal. Useful and
useless input.
CHAPTER 3. CHECKING THE
PARTS LIST
Checklist: Is it a complete story? Are all the parts there?
CHAPTER 4. CHECKING
PARTS PERFORMANCE
Going through each part, from character to story resolution, to
see if it fits, is clean, and works properly.
CHAPTER 6.
MORE PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
Show and tell, speech tags, echoes,
transitions, jumpy plot lines, POV shifting, story seams, stalls and breakdowns.
CHAPTER 7.
CHICKEN FEATHERS
Ways to sabotage yourself through
cowardice: Distant POV, undeveloped characters, detouring around emotional
situations, avoiding or disguising controversial subjects in hopes of improving
marketability.
CHAPTER 8. LEARNING
& DOING
Leaving the nest.
There's no risk in reading about learning. The learning never stops, but
unless the writing starts and continues, the story will never be realized.