Review Of Grammarly, Its Strength And Weaknesses

Have you ever tried Grammarly? I'd always wanted to but since Grammarly Inc. hasn't released a free-to-try version (at least, not that I know of) I haven't had the opportunity.

That's why, a couple of weeks ago when someone from Grammarly contacted me and asked if I'd like a temporary account, I jumped at the chance!

Having played around with the service more than I should--it's so easy to procrastinate doing actual writing--I'd like to discuss what I think are Grammarly's strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

Paper types

Grammarly can be set to various levels of sensitivity (Grammarly calls them 'paper types') depending on the kind of writing you would like to evaluate: General, Business, Academic, Technical, Creative and Casual.

For instance, when I used the Academic type to analyze text the program flagged contractions such as "isn't" as being in error, but when I used the Casual type it didn't. I thought that was a nice feature.

Plagiarism

Also, I found Grammarly remarkably capable when it came to finding parts of text that were taken from documents already on the internet. If you are a teacher and you want an easy way of checking papers for plagiarism, I would recommend you look into using this program.

Ease of use

In general, I found Grammarly remarkably easy to use. I was able to use the program to evaluate various kinds of text as well as check the text for plagiarism and, at the end, print out a concise, easy-to-read report, and all without having to Google anything to find out how to do it.

Weaknesses

Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the perceived strengths and weaknesses of a program are dependent on the point of view of the reviewer. In other words, here's what I thought, but your mileage may vary.

Art isn't algorithmic

Writing, at its core, is art. Art that most of us are hoping will entertain others and that we'll be able to sell--one day. But writing, really great writing, often violates grammatical constraints. The writer knowingly, intentionally disregards various grammatical conventions because he, or she, wishes to produce a certain effect.

Stephen King, On Writing

For instance, here's a paragraph from Stephen King's book, On Writing:

And what about those critiques, by the way? How valuable are they? Not very, in my experience, sorry. A lot of them are maddeningly vague. I love the feeling of Peter's story, someone may say. It had something . . . a sense of I don't know . . . there's a loving kind of you know . . . I can't exactly describe it . . .

Grammarly went into conniptions when I fed it this! (And, in case anyone's wondering, I set the paper type to 'casual'.) The program found 34 issues with this one paragraph and gave it a score of 39 out of 100.

Obviously, Mr. King's paragraph is perfectly fine.

Let's not stop there, though. Here are the paragraphs that immediately follow the one above (the text contains adult language):

Other writing-seminar gemmies include I felt like the tone thing was just kind of you know; The character of Polly seemed pretty much stereotypical; I loved the imagery because I could see what he was talking about more or less perfectly.

And, instead of pelting these babbling idiots with their own freshly toasted marshmallows, everyone else sitting around the fire is often nodding and smiling and looking solemnly thoughtful. In too many cases the teachers and writers in residence are nodding, smiling, and looking solemnly thoughtful right along with them. It seems to occur to few of the attendees that if you have a feeling you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class.

Non-specific critiques won't help when you sit down to your second draft, and may hurt. Certainly none of the comments above touch on the language of your piece, or its narrative sense; these comments are just wind, offering no factual input at all.

Again, I wouldn't change a thing about the above paragraphs, but here's what Grammarly says:

- 1 mistake made when comparing two or more things.
- 2 mistakes made concerning punctuation within a sentence.
- 1 mistake with spelling.

4 issues were found yielding a score of 64 out of 100.

Here is a screenshot of the report Grammarly generated:

Chuck Wendig, Terribleminds

But let's not stop there. Chuck Wendig recently wrote yet another amazingly awesome blog post on the art and craft of writing. Chuck writes:

The power of withholding is key to telling a good story.

When describing something, withholding description allows for the audience to do work, to fill in the gaps, to bring something to the table and be a collaborator (at least in spirit) to the work. Further, by withholding description, you do not overwhelm with needless illustrative information. (Do we need to know what every lamp and sidetable and fingernail and skin tag look like? No we do not.) Pull back. Leave room. Do not overwhelm.

When creating characters, withholding aspects of that character (but teasing the existence of those aspects) gives us a sense of wanting to know more, more, more. A character with unrevealed secrets or stories interests us: we’re the kids at Christmas morning tearing through a pile of presents hoping to get to the big reveal at the end (a new bike! a BB gun! a Barbie dream home! a Turkish scimitar with which to behead thine enemies!).

I think these paragraphs are written beautifully, I wouldn't change a thing. Let's see if Grammarly agrees with me.

Grammary says that the above paragraphs contain:

- 1 mistake made when using articles, and how articles relate to nouns.
- 1 confusing modifier.
- 1 mistake concerning punctuation within a sentence.
- 2 spelling errors.
- 2 mistakes regarding capitalization.

In all, 7 issues were found and the text received a score of 65 out of 100. Here's a screenshot of the .pdf report generated:

Summary

I've provided the examples, above, so that you can draw your own conclusions. Whether grammarly is for you depends, by and large, on what kind of thing you write.

If I was writing an academic paper, I think I would find Grammarly a helpful tool. On the other hand ...

Well, let me put it this way. Chuck Wendig's writing sometimes seems like verbal jazz, his metaphors, the way he uses profanity and bizarre analogies to create an image in the reader's mind (often not entirely a pleasant one!).

Chuck Wendig's writing is fresh, often surprising and always interesting. I think the same is true for Stephen King. Programs like Grammarly have trouble with this kind of writing--the kind of writing many of us aspire to--but that's not surprising. There is no formula for art.

As I mentioned at the start, Grammarly isn't free. A monthly subscription will cost you $29.95 a month, but that goes down as low as $11.66 a month if you pay for a year in advance ($139.95 for the year).

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If money wasn't a factor, I would seriously consider subscribing to Grammarly. True, when I'm zinging creatively Grammarly will give me some flack, but it also can catch the few times I do something silly. Yes, of course I'm going to send my work off to a line editor/copy editor before I publish, but still. It's nice to send off copy that is as good as one can make it.

Other articles you might like:

- Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week Selling His Backlist
- How To Be A More Productive Writer: Use A Voice Recorder
- Writing And The Monomyth, Part Three

Other articles about Grammarly:

- Grammarly, revisited (The Economist)
- Review: Grammarly app (Emphasis)

Photo credit: "8/52 - mr & mrs 85" by PhotKing ♛ under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week Selling His Backlist

Joe Konrath Makes $15k A Week On His Backlist Titles

In Backlist Then And Now Joe Konrath writes:

These past two years have been interesting, because I really haven't had a new IP of my own.

Of the last six novels I've written, five have been collaborations, and one was sci-fi under a pen name. No new stand-alones, either under JA Konrath or Jack Kilborn, and no new solo novels in my series.

And yet I'm making $15k a week.

How Joe Did It

Joe attributes his financial health to a combination of the following:

- Getting his rights returned
- Free promotions
- Paid advertising

Whatever Joe has been doing, it's paid off big! And not just in dollars.

In the ten years I was legacy published, I made about $450k. In the four years I've self-published, I've made over 1.1 million dollars.

The higher royalty rate, the control I have, and the very little self-promo I've had to do while self-publishing means I've never been happier as an author.

I'm very lucky. I get to write for a living. And I get to do it on my terms.

As nice as the money is, the peace of mind is even better.

I encourage you all to read Joe Konrath's original article, he talks at length about the early years of his career as a writer and the events surrounding his decision to put his work up for sale on Amazon.

I'm curious, how many of you were, at least partly, inspired by Joe, his words or his example? I was.

Other articles you might like:

- How To Be A More Productive Writer: Use A Voice Recorder
- Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking
- Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction

Photo credit: "Week #6 "Leap" [6of52]" by Camera Eye Photography under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Be A More Productive Writer: Use A Voice Recorder

Elisabeth S. Craig, one of my favorite bloggers and authors, recently mentioned Katie Ganshert's post, The Secret To Writing Fast And Furious.

Katie Ganshert Used A Voice Recorder To Write Over 8,000 Words A Day

Just how fast are we talking? Katie writes:

Over the past three days, I wrote 25,000 words. By far the most I’ve ever written in so short a span.

While Katie mentions that several factors contributed to her burst of speed what she credits most is using a voice recorder. She writes:

When it comes to producing a massive output of words, this is my secret weapon.

Why?

Because I find the blank page incredibly intimidating. It is so hard for me to sit at the computer and create something out of nothing.

Walking on the treadmill and talking into a voice recorder, however, is easy-peasy.

So that’s how I started each day.

I spoke the scenes.

The beautiful thing about this method is that it completely silences the dreaded internal editor.

There’s no back space. There’s no flashing cursor. There’s no blank page. There’s no critical little man sitting on your shoulder, reading each sentence while tutting and shaking his head.

On a side note, Katie Ganshert's novel looks fantastic. Supernatural teens and Ouija boards, what's not to love?

Useing A Voice Recorder To Increase Your Daily Word Count

Elizabeth Craig, author of several mystery series, tried using dictation to increase her daily word count by speaking into a recorder when she couldn't be near a keyboard. Although Elizabeth didn't write 8,000 words a day she did add 1,000 words to her normal daily word count.

So what's Elizabeth's verdict? She writes:

I don’t use this method every day. But I’ve found that if I use it several times a week, it’s really pumped up my word count. Interestingly enough, I tend to make minor corrections (stronger verbs, better diction) when I type in the dictation…so I guess, in a way, I’m editing as I go when I use this method.

I use a free app that I downloaded on my phone. My phone is always with me (moms are the world’s emergency contacts), so I’ve always got my voice recorder with me. (Voice Recording as a Writing Tool)

I'm definitely going to try this. A friend gave me a recorder for Christmas last year, it's time I put it to good use!

Have you ever used a voice recorder, or voice recognition software, to write? Was it difficult to get used to speaking the words instead of writing them?

Other articles you might like:

- Writing And The Monomyth, Part Three
- Writers Beware of Authariam
- Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months

Photo credit: "Misty and Daisy" by Stewart Black under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writing And The Monomyth, Part Three

9. The Reward

As I mentioned in Part 2 of Writing And The Monomyth, the basic structure of the monomyth is that of a quest. The hero wants something and he wants it so much he gives up his ordinary life and goes in search of it. Everything, all the trials and tribulations the hero and his companions endure, have led to this point: the reward. Christopher Vogler writes:

With the crisis of the Ordeal passed, heroes now experience the consequences of surviving death. With the dragon that dwelt in the Inmost Cave slain or vanquished, they seize the sword of victory and lay claim to their Reward. (Stage Nine: Reward)

This is a time for celebration, even if it only lasts for a moment. It is an important milestone. 

A note on pacing

When I first read The Writer's Journey it puzzled me that the hero gets his reward about 65% of the way through the second act. I had always thought the hero would get his reward after the climax which generally comes 90 to 99% of the way through the story. For example, Blake Snyder and Michael Hauge's systems are like this.

I'll have more to say about this in another post.

10. The Road Back

Christopher Vogler condenses five of Joseph Campbell's stages (Refusal of the Return, The Magic Flight, Rescue from Within, Crossing the Threshold and Return) into one: The Road Back.

For those keeping track of the act structure, this takes us from Act Two into Act Three. The hero returns from the special world of the adventure grasping the elixir of life.  Vogler writes:

Often heroes are motivated to hit The Road Back when the forces they have defied in the Ordeal now rally and strike back at them. If the elixir was stolen from the central forces rather than given freely, there may be dangerous repercussions.

Setbacks/Complications and higher stakes

The hero often suffers setbacks on the road home. Perhaps his mentor dies, or perhaps he has failed the ordeal, he may temporarily turn from his quest and need to talk to someone to get him back on track, just like what happened at the beginning when he received a call to adventure.

The hero often encounters tests again, but things have escalated. When the hero first came into the special world he was playing for much lower stakes, he was practicing, getting accustomed to his new surroundings, making friends and probably a few enemies. Yes, it was potentially lethal practise, but practise nevertheless.

The hero and his band are no longer playing war games, they're going to war. People that were the hero's enemy become his allies--perhaps his grouchy, unwilling allies, but allies nevertheless. People he thought were his friends betray him.

11. Resurrection

This is where the climax occurs. The hero goes head-to-head against the antagonistic force, whatever that is, and either wins or fails. Christopher Vogler writes:

At the simplest level, the Resurrection may just be a hero facing death one last time in an ordeal, battle, or showdown. It's often the final, decisive confrontation with the villain or Shadow.

But the difference between this and previous meetings with death is that the danger is usually on the broadest scale of the entire story. The threat is not just to the hero, but to the whole world. In other words, the stakes are at their highest.

Now the villain doesn't just threaten the hero's life and the life of his companions, now he threatens the lives of the hero's family back home, the lives of his entire tribe.

Major setback/Dark night of the soul/All is lost

Often, before the Climax, there will be an all is lost moment where the hero's grand plan for bringing down the villain unravels, his powers are ripped from him and he is plopped in a dark slimy pit of despair. But the hero will find a way out and there will be a showdown between him and the villain/antagonist. Whether the hero wins or loses is up to you and the kind of story you want to write.

12. Return With The Elixir

Christopher Vogler writes:

The most popular story design seems to be the circular or closed form, in which the narrative returns to its starting point. In this structure you might bring the hero literally full circle back to the location or world where she started. Perhaps the Return is circular in a visual or metaphoric way, with a replay of an initial image, or the repetition of a line of dialogue or situation from Act One. This is one way of tying up loose ends and making a story feel complete. The image or phases may have acquired a new meaning now that the hero has completed the journey.The original statement of the theme may be re-evaluated at the Return. Many musical compositions return to an initial theme to rephrase it at the ending.

Aftermath/Denouement

Show how the hero's life has been changed as well as the lives of his allies. For instance, in Erin Brockovich, at the end of the movie she has her own office and receives a huge, life changing, bonus for her work.

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There is SO much more that can be said about the stages of the monomyth, and I do plan to return to this soon. I'm working on an outline that incorporates the various systems (Blake Snyder, Michael Hauge, Christopher Vogler, etc.) into one. Or at least that's the goal!

Do you use the monomyth to help structure your writing?

Other articles you might like:

- Writers Beware of Authariam
- Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months
- Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence

Photo credit: "She Was Completely Transparent With Me" by Randy Son Of Robert under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writers Beware of Authariam

Writers Beware Of Autharium

It seems like this is the time of year for scams targeting writers. Passive Guy, aka David Vandagriff, recently wrote a blog post warning writers against Autharium, "a new British site that makes it easy for indie authors to publish and distribute their work".

Passive Guy writes:

By distributing your book through Authariam, you are giving Authariam exclusive world-wide ebook rights to your book for the full term of the author’s copyright, which PG is informed is the author’s life plus 70 years under British copyright law. British law governs this contract.

You can remove your book from Authariam, but Authariam still owns world-wide rights.

Yikes!

The Digital Reader: Authariam Grabs ALL Rights Including Audiobook, Movies, ANY Digital Content

The Digital Reader picked up on the story soon after Passive Guy blogged about it and warned that, the way their contract was written,

Not only does Autharium demand an exclusive, their definition of digital form is so broad that it arguably includes subsidiary rights like audiobook, movies, and really any digital content.

 Also,

Autharium can legally sell the audiobook rights out from under the author, and the same goes for the movie rights. Hell, that site could sell the movie rights to their entire catalog for 10 pounds and a job offer, and it would be completely legal.

Run away from this company!

Other articles you might like:

- Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months
- Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence
- Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining

Photo credit: "Close up of a dragonfly on a Lotus Flower Bud on green background - IMG_7149" by Bahman Farzad under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan: Edit A Novel In Four Months

Chuck Wendig's Plan To Edit A Novel In Four Months

I wrote about Chuck's post before, but only about the first couple of paragraphs because what he wrote there blew my mind: Editing is writing.

If you're looking at the screen blankly thinking, "Yeah. So?" then I applaud you. That held me back for a long time.

Caveat

Of course writing new words matters, but here's how I look at it. It's not new words per day that matters, it's new words per year. I can't sell three novels and miscellaneous short stories a year if I don't write 250,000 or so words in a year.

Write and edit.

Okay. Enough said. Moving on.

Writing vs Storytelling

These are the twin pillars of writing and, yes, the analogy of pillars breaks down because unlike the Grecian pillars I imagined when I wrote the above, writing and storytelling intermingle like rum on a Bundt cake.

As Chuck Wendig mentions, writing is "technical and objective" while storytelling is "far more subjective and instinct-driven".

For instance, I had a friend in my university days who--though he couldn't write an essay to save his life--could spin funny, absurd and altogether spellbinding tales. I worried about him, though, since the majority of his stories began with, "I was out at the bar the other night". It was his version of "Once upon a time".

My storytelling friend had an innate understanding, in intuitive grasp, of the elements of story. But, since we're writers, that's only half the picture.

Writing problems

Here's what I mean by writing problems: an unreflective disregard of grammar. For instance, comma confusion, talking about the barber's convention rather than the barbers' convention. And so on.

Of course many of the greats spurned grammatical conventions regularly, but they knew them. Either explicitly or, like storytelling for my friend, it was in their bones. Their prose satisfied the ultimate grammatical directive: Be clear.

Garbled language can't help anyone express a thought. For instance, using "bakers" when you mean "baker's"--a mistake I know I've made a time or three (thank all-things-good for copy editors!)--never makes prose clearer.

Storytelling problems

Storytelling, on the other hand, is more about the flow and structure of a story. For instance, when you read about Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet or Michael Hauge's Screenplay Structure, or--something I've been writing about lately--the stages of the monomyth, we're in the realm of storytelling.

Get The Story First Then Write It

Before you pick up your pen to write a novel it helps (the writing will be faster and less angst-fraught) to have a good grasp of the story.

Think of it this way. When I open my mouth to say something I like to know, beforehand, exactly what I want to say. When I don't, things can get messy, and I suspect that's not just true for me.

Draft Zero

But life's not always like that. I find that, just like I'm not always 100% sure exactly what I'm going to say, I don't always know what story I want to write when I sit down to write it. (For instance, someone once asked me whether I thought it was a good idea for writers to keep a pet. It was an interesting question but one I don't have a settled view on; still, it was interesting to discuss it. To, as we sometimes say, "hash it out".)

Perhaps I'll have an idea, an image or two, a premise. Perhaps I'll have a vague idea how it all ends. Then I'll put my butt in a chair and write.

The first draft will probably be only 2/3 or even 1/2 the length of the book, but that's okay. These are my initial ideas. They're still growing, changing. The story is evolving.

After that initial draft (or, as Kim Neville says, draft zero) I'll have a much better idea of what my story is. I'll know how it begins (although this will probably change over the next few drafts), I'll know how it ends (this also will likely change but not as radically) as well as all the story points in between.

Detailed outline

Now I can sit down again, rip the whole thing apart, and write (hopefully) a good, clean, draft. One that, when finished, I can send out to my beta readers.

My first draft (or zero draft) is all about grabbing the story out of thin air--birthing the ideas on paper (and WOW, is that messy).

Then I do a good, detailed, outline of what I have, rearranging things as needed. Sometimes I end up scrapping much of the first/zero draft, but that's okay. It's main purpose is to birth the story.

The next draft

The second draft is more about writing. Now I know, more-or-less, what the story is. Sure things can still change, but not as much. Now I know exactly where I'm headed and how I'm going to get there. I've got my roadmap.

Before I send my baby out to my beta readers I give her a bath, dress her up and try to teach her some manners. That means checking the spelling, the grammar and reading my manuscript aloud.

Chuck Wendig's post is chalked full of great advise, I heartily recommend it. One of the best things about it are all the links he shares to his previous posts on editing.

Chuck Wendig's Editing Plan

This is the thing I've been meaning to get to, that the build up was really for. Chuck's handy-dandy editing plan. (cue trumpets)

You have just finished the first draft of your novel; perhaps you followed Chuck Wendig's plan for how to write a novel in a year. Here's what you do:

1. Edit 5 days a week.
2. For each of those 5 days, edit 5 pages.

That's it. You can do more than that. Chances are you'll have to junk parts of it and re-write others but the goal is to edit 5 pages a day.

Chuck estimates that, if you hold to this plan, it will take 3 to 4 months to edit an 80,000 word manuscript.

All together, this writing-editing plan will get you a finished novel in about a year and a half. If you stick to it!

Not bad. Not bad at all.

What do you think of Chuck Wendig's plan for completing a novel in a year and a half? Would you try this?

Other links you might like:

- Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence
- Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining
- Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar
- Writing Resources

Photo credit: "Home Base" by flossyflotsam under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Chuck Wendig's Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence

Chuck Wendig has issued another Flash Fiction Challenge, but he's mixing it up!

The Challenge

This time the challenge is to generate 10 or so random sentences from this random sentence generator and use one in a story of up to 1,000 words.

Be sure to let everyone know what your random sentence was!

When you're done, post it on your webspace and leave a link in a comment to Chuck's post: Flash Fiction Challenge: Choose Your Random Sentence. Your tale must be finished and the link posted by Friday, March 15th, noon EST.

Fun With Randomness

Get ready for crazy, nonsensical, sentences. It's great! Here are some of the ones I generated:

Can the year nose?
The hook objects to the war. (A pacifist Captain Hook?)
The teenager lurks next to the centered chestnut.
How can the touch flash? (Someone faster than Flash Gordon?)
The exciting weapon revolts behind the inventor.

When I saw the last sentence all sorts of light bulbs went off. First thought: An ancient scientist turns away from his latest creation, but as he does it becomes self-aware and attempts to escape.

Or something.

What sentence(s) did you generate?

Other links you might like:

- Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining
- Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar
- Beware Alibi Publishing, John Scalzi Warns: "This is the worst book contract I have ever encountered"

Photo link: "_IGP5461 | 70" by Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix) under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Stephen King Talks About Doctor Sleep, Winnebagos & A Movie Prequel To The Shining

I just came across this interview of Stephen King on the subject of Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. It's very good. King seems relaxed and happy to chat.

In addition to discussing his upcoming book, Doctor Sleep (due out this September 24th), King discusses the possibility of a movie prequel to The Shining.

King's Goal For Doctor Sleep: To Scare The S-t Out Of You!

At one point the interviewer, Anthony Breznican over at EW.com, asks Stephen King how will he know if Doctor Sleep was successful. King replies:

Basically, the idea of the story was to try and scare the s–t out of people. [Laughs.] I said to myself, ‘Let me see if I can go and do that again.’ There’ve been a couple of books that haven’t really been that way. 11/22/63 was a lot of fun to write and a lot of people read it and seemed to like it, but it’s not what you’d call a balls to the wall scary story. The same was true of Under the Dome. I wanted to go back to that real creepy scary stuff. We’ll see if it works. I like the book, or I wouldn’t have ever wanted to publish it.

RVing: "... the perfect way to travel around America and be unobtrusive if you were really some sort of awful creature"

About the villains, The True Knot, "a kind of nomadic group of people who masquerade as Winnebago-riding old timers but feed off people who have psychic energy" King says:

Driving back and forth from Maine to Florida, which I do twice a year, I’m always seeing all these recreational vehicles — the bounders in the Winnebagos. I always think to myself, ‘Who is in those things?’ You pass them a thousand times at rest stops. They’re always the ones wearing the shirts that say ‘God Does Not Deduct From a Lifespan Time Spent Fishing.’ They’re always lined up at the McDonald’s, slowing the whole line down. And I always thought to myself, ‘There’s something really sinister about those people because they’re so unobtrusive, yet so pervasive.’ I just wanted to use that. It would be the perfect way to travel around America and be unobtrusive if you were really some sort of awful creature.

King also reminds readers that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the book not the movie:

But one of the things – and I’m not sure if this is going to be a problem for readers or not – is that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the novel. It’s not a sequel to the Kubrick film. At the end of the Kubrick film, the Overlook is still there. It just kind of freezes. But at the end of the book, it burns down.

Will There Be A Movie Prequel To The Shining?

AB: There has recently been talk of a movie prequel to The Shining. It’s based on material cut from your novel, about the early history of the Overlook. Warner Bros, which made Kubrick’s film, has been exploring whether there’s another movie in it. How do you feel about that?

SK: There’s a real question about whether or not they have the rights to ‘Before the Play,’ which was the prologue cut from the book — because the epilogue to the book was called ‘After the Play.’ So they were bookends, and there was really scary stuff in that prologue that wouldn’t make a bad movie. Am I eager to see that happen? No I am not. And there’s some real question about what rights Warner Bros. does still have. The Shining is such an old book now that the copyright comes back to me. Arguably, the film rights lapse — so we’ll see. We’re looking into that. I’m not saying I would put a stop to the project, because I’m sort of a nice guy. When I was a kid, my mother said, ‘Stephen if you were a girl, you’d always be pregnant.’ I have a tendency to let people develop things. I’m always curious to see what will happen. But you know what? I would be just as happy if it didn’t happen.

Stephen King World: Disney World Meets Hotel California

Stephen King ends by saying that if there were a Stephen King World akin to Disney World "people would only go on the rides … once."

It's a great interview, I highly recommend it to King fans, and anyone wanting a peek behind the curtain: Stephen King unearths origin of 'The Shining' sequel 'Doctor Sleep' -- EXCLUSIVE.

Other articles you might like:

- Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar
- Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been
- The Writer's Journey: Writer As Hero

Photo credit: Doctor Sleep cover, StephenKing.com

Handy Guides To Avoiding Mistakes In Grammar

I don't usually blog about grammar--I'll leave that to the professionals--but today I came across these guides that I thought were well written and easy to understand.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

The first guide to grammar is called Avoiding Common Grammar Mistakes and was written for students at George Mason University. Here is a sample:

Comma splices
A comma splice is where a comma is used to join two independent clauses which should be separated by a period. An independent clause can stand on its own as a sentence. Do not simply use a comma everywhere a reader would pause.

Subject/pronoun disagreement
There are two types of subject/pronoun disagreement, shifts in number and shifts in person.

Shifts in number
This phrase means the shifting between singular and plural in the same sentence. Be consistent.

Shifts in person
This error occurs when the person shifts within the sentence from first to second person, from second to third person, etc.

Its/it's
"Its" is the possessive form of "it." "It's" is the contraction of "it is." They are not interchangeable.

.  .  .  .

Dropped commas around clauses
Place commas around words, phrases, or clauses that interrupt a sentence. Do not use commas around restrictive clauses, which provide essential information about the subject of the sentence.

Interrupting clause
This clause or phrase interrupts a sentence, such as "however." Place a comma on either side of the interrupting clause.

Restrictive clause
This clause or phrase provides essential information about the subject of the sentence. Without this clause or phrase, the meaning of the sentence changes.

Non-restrictive clause
This clause or phrase modifies the subject of the sentence but does not change the meaning of the sentence if left out.

Here are a few examples of restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.

Grammatical, Mechanical & Stylistic Problems And How To Fix Them

This handy-dandy guide to English grammar was compiled by Professor David Beach:

Who/whom
Use "who" when it can be replaced by a subject proper noun, and "whom" when it can be replaced by an object proper noun.

John kissed Mary. John = subject, Mary = object Whom did John kiss? Who kissed Mary?

Dmitri gave the book to Phyllis. To whom did Dmitri give the book? Who gave the book to Phyllis?

I've been testing out Grammarly and I'm curious whether any of you have used the program. If so, did you find it useful?

What was the most useful grammar tip you've ever received?

Other articles you might like:

- Beware Alibi Publishing, John Scalzi Warns: "This is the worst book contract I have ever encountered"
- Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking
- Stephen King Board On Jeopardy Tonight (March 5, 2013)

Photo credit: "jack johnson:while we wait (sleep through the static)" by visualpanic under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Beware Alibi Publishing, John Scalzi Warns: "This is the worst book contract I have ever encountered"

In John Scalzi's latest blog post, A Contract From Alibi, he writes that Alibi's contract terms are so heinous he wouldn't recommend them to his worst enemy.

John Scalzi: Do Not Sign With Alibi

At least, do not sign the their standard, boilerplate contract. Scalzi writes:

I want to be clear: I can say, without reservation, that this is the worst book contract I have ever personally encountered. Not only would I never sign it — which should be obvious at this point — I can’t imagine why anyone whose forebrain has not been staved in by an errant bowling ball would ever sign it. Indeed, if my worst enemy in the world was presented with it and had a pen poised to scratch his signature on it, I would smack the pen out of his hand and say to him, “I hate you, but I don’t hate you this much.”

Alibi is a digital imprint of the Random House Publishing Group.

In his article John Scalzi steps through some of the more egregious sections of the contract and, colorfully and with wit, tells authors why they should run, not walk, away from this company.

John Scalzi is best known for writing science fiction, for which "he won the John W. Campbell Award (2006) and has been nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel (2006, 2008, 2009). (Amazon Author's Page)"

If you're thinking about submitting work to any of the new digital imprints (Loveswept, Alibi, Hydra, Flirt) A Contract From Alibi is a must read. Heck, even if you're not thinking about submitting to them, it's good to know what to look out for in the industry.

Thanks to Dean Wesley Smith for blogging about this. Here is a link to Dean's post: Another Bad Publishing Contract.

Other articles you might like:

- Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking
- Moby Dick And Amazon One Star Reviews

Photo credit: "Dream" by seyed mostafa zamani under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Amanda Palmer's TED Talk: The Art Of Asking

I just watched Amanda Palmer's TED Talk, The Art of Asking (I've embedded it below): Wow!

Amanda Palmer is an exceptional speaker; it was one of the most moving talks I've seen. Although Neil Gaiman, her husband, is biased I loved his reaction:

I am so proud of her. Really: I've never been happier than when I watched her get a standing ovation, and watching this video go viral is an absolute joy.

.  .  .  .

The people who came up and congratulated her over the next few days were people you've heard of, the ones who make the world different.

And when someone came up to me that afternoon and said "You must be Mr Palmer", I said, Yes, I supposed I must be, and I beamed like a madman.

Watch the speech.

Yes, watch the speech if you haven't already. Or even if you have!

The Art of Asking

I need to watch The Art of Asking a few more times; I'd love to read the transcript as well. Asking is something I have trouble with, I hear those shouts of, "Get a job!" too.

Writers kid and say, "If I didn't write I'd have to get a real job!" Perhaps it sometimes doesn't feel like work because we're doing something we love, or because anything you can do in your pajamas can't really be work.

But that's not the way to look at it.

Watch Amanda Palmer's TED talk. She's not just talking about the art of asking she's talking about a new way of thinking about the relationship--and it is a relationship--between artists and patrons.

What did you think of Amanda Palmer's TED Talk? What did you think about Amanda letting anyone download her music and trusting that her patrons will leave a donation?

Other articles you might like:

- Stephen King Board On Jeopardy Tonight (March 5, 2013)
- Cometdocs: A Good Tool For Writers?
- Moby Dick And Amazon One Star Reviews

Photo credit: "Regardless of how silly I look,I adore this photo." by Zawezome under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Stephen King Board On Jeopardy Tonight (March 5, 2013)

This just popped into my mailbox. From Stephen King's official newsletter:

Tonight's episode of Jeopardy will feature a complete board of questions related to Stephen and his body of work. Be sure to tune in, and visit ourMultimedia section later this week.

Clickhere to find your local channel and time

I gave up TV a few months ago, but that's something I wish I could see!

Cometdocs: A Good Tool For Writers?

Ever had to convert one kind of a file into another? If your experience was anything like mine it wasn't painless.

Recently a website that provides free online file conversion and storage, Cometdocs, contacted me about doing a review of their product so I asked C.G. Cameron, writer and techie extraordinaire, to help me out. Here's the bottom line:

The restrictions on the free account aren’t too tight, and the paid accounts show where their funding comes from, which I find reassuring. (I don’t trust places where I can’t see what’s in it for them.) This looks like a usable business model and a useful service.

Sounds good to me! (By the way, neither C.G. Cameron nor myself have any affiliation with Cometdocs. I was provided with access to their service for the purpose of this review but that is the full extent of my involvement with them.)

Here is C.G.'s review:

C.G. Cameron's Review Of Cometdocs

Cometdocs is a place on the web which lets you store and/or convert your files for free (with limitations). Or in tech-speak, it’s a cloud storage service that also offers file conversions.

In their words:

Cometdocs (is) a fully free (no ads) document management web tool which lets users:

1. Convert their files between 30 possible file formats
2. Store files online
3. Share them with friends privately or publicly – with full control over
privacy and sharing settings
4. Transfer large files to others easily and effectively.

If you’ve ever lost the original of a paper and desperately needed to get the sole version you still have on pdf back into an editable format, you know it can be a challenge.

If you don’t set up an account and just use Cometdocs anonymously (aside from giving them an email address), they deliver your conversion via an emailed link, saying “Link will be valid for 24 hours, after which all data will be deleted from our servers.” If you set up an account, you can have it held for longer.

How it works:

Click the + and add your file to the clipboard. Wait while it uploads. Click on the task you want, Convert, Transfer, Store or Host, and drag the file into the box. Then choose the next option (in the case of Convert you have a choice of any Office product, plus TXT, most graphic formats, plus DXF, ODS, etc. Then enter your email address and they send you a link to download the converted file.

So I tested Cometdocs with the most complicated document I had available, written in three languages. The original was created on a friend’s PC in Word. My Mac has the same English and some of the Tibetan fonts installed, but not the Chinese font he uses although it has the default Microsoft Chinese fonts. He sent me the original Word and the pdf he’d created, and I used Cometdocs to convert the pdf back into MS Word and then compared the results.

Original PC Word document on my Mac:

The Chinese came up on my Mac as gibberish, and some of the diacriticals were missing on the Tibetan. Over all I could read the English and some of the Tibetan. The pecha boxing came through a mess, as usual. Word’s page margins don’t move well between Macs and PCs. Definitely it was not adequate for anything except extracting the English from the document.

Cometdocs Word document after converting the pdf

Cometdocs recognized most of the Chinese and displayed it using the installed Windows Chinese font. Cometdocs missed several characters, but showed more than half successfully. Probably if the pdf had used the standard Microsoft font Cometdocs would have recognized more. Cometdocs completely failed to recognize the Tibetan. Not at all surprising. It also didn’t catch all the diacriticals in the English, so a capital U with umlaut came up as < instead, and a capital U with a line across the top came up as U umlaut. But it did catch the italics and the punctuation and mostly got the right font in the English as well. It did a good job on the pecha boxing, better than the straight migrated version.

It was a difficult test and I was impressed with the results.

But that’s not all. There’s also the cloud storage.

Transfer lets you send a file to a friend by storing it on Cometdocs’ servers and they’ll send a link to the friend so they can download it. Handy if you have a home video you want to share.

You can also share your files publicly, somewhat like Flickr does photos, or list them as Shared or Private. It’s cloud storage space but without file type restrictions like Google Docs has.

For someone without easy access to their own web server space, this could be very handy.

What you get with a free account

Free users can do:

- 3 conversions weekly per IP address
- 100 MB worth of daily file transfers per IP
- transfer and host links are valid for 24h

Free registered accounts can do much more including control sharing visibility and store up to 1GB of documents. And you can pay either $9.99 a month for Premium or $19.99 a month for Pro access to convert more files and store more files. The restrictions on the free account aren’t too tight, and the paid accounts show where their funding comes from, which I find reassuring. (I don’t trust places where I can’t see what’s in it for them.) This looks like a usable business model and a useful service.

C.G. Cameron (@jazz2midnight) is a web developer and writer, living in Vancouver, Canada.

Thanks C.G.!

How much of your time is spent trying to get technology to work as opposed to actually writing?

Other articles you might like:

- Moby Dick And Amazon One Star Reviews
- The Writer's Journey: Writer As Hero
- Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been

Photo credit: "It's all in your mind" by

Moby Dick And Amazon One Star Reviews

What would I do without The Passive Voice Blog? I shudder to think! Passive Guy (aka David P. Vandagriff) tweets the best, most interesting stories.

Stories such as ...

Did you know Moby Dick--a treasure of world literature--has garnered many one star reviews on Amazon?

The following is from bibliokept: Selections From One-Star Amazon Reviews of Melville's Moby-Dick, thanks to Passive Guy for the link. (By the way, I found the original reviews on Amazon.com and expanded the quotations used for the article.)

One Star Reviews Of Herman Melville's Moby Dick

 
Title: Incredible story. What a lousy writer. Name: A Customer
4 of 22 people found the following review helpful

When I think of anyone being FORCED to read this novel (poor students, whereever you are) I want to fall on a harpoon. Ray Bradbury, who wrote the screenplay for this novel, (a la Gregory Peck) couldn't even finish the damn thing! He too just read bits of it ...  He recognized it's inner greatness, its actual grandeur absolutely mired in prose that makes you want to gnaw your foot off...

Title: Moby Dick: a tiresome book, Name: A Customer
1 of 16 people found the following review helpful

Moby Dick, was a horrible waiste of time. Along with its wordy paragraphs, it also talked about uninteresting issues. It is also to long, and you don't hear of them encountering the whale until the end of the book. Heres a good idea, after you read this book, go buy a vile of arsenic, drink it and you will be much happier. The only monster was the book itself. It leaves you with that, "I hate myself" feeling you get after accidentally destroying a major city with a hydrogen bomb or something, anyways, do not read it!

Title: Have trouble getting to sleep at night? Get this! 
Name: A Customer
9 of 38 people found the following review helpful  

[I]f your looking for a good book, dont read this, you will only become agitated. Such was the case with me. I am quite the fan of stories which involve man eating sea creatures, such as Jaws. Moby Dick is nothing compared to such classics, I fear.

In fact, it is boring with a capital B. What is the whales motivation? You dont know. There is no suspense, and I find the idea of people hunting whales offensive. 

Title:A tired old tale - Save the damn whales already!!!,
Name: Gracie Lou Freebush
2 of 21 people found the following review helpful  

This book is HORRIBLE! Classic, my eye! I would love to know what's so great about this book. I have seen better writing in a Hallmark card! Boring! Give me a good ole copy of Elvis and Me! A true story that really tugs at your heart strings! I sleep with that one under my pillow!

Ray Bradbury's Comments On Moby Dick

Since Moby Dick is undeniably a classic of world literature, these are deeply satisfying reviews for any author who has gotten a one star review on Amazon! Though, I should note, what the anonymous commenter says about Ray Bradbury seems to be true, though Mr. Bradbury's remark may have been due more to pique than honesty. The following is from the Wikipedia on the 1956 film Ray Bradbury collaborated on.

During a meeting to discuss the screenplay, Ray Bradbury informed John Huston that regarding Melville's novel, he had "never been able to read the damned thing". According to the biography The Bradbury Chronicles, there was much tension and anger between the two men during the making of the film, allegedly due to Huston's bullying attitude and attempts to tell Bradbury how to do his job, despite Bradbury being an accomplished writer. (Moby Dick (1956 film))

What Critics Initially Thought Of Moby Dick: Not Much

Initially Moby Dick had a rocky reception in America. It was not love at first sight. Although Melville considered Moby Dick his magnum opus the work received scathing reviews when it was first published.

He [Melville] considered Moby-Dick to be his magnum opus, but he was shocked and bewildered at the scathing reviews it received. Instead of bringing him the literary acclaim which he sought, this masterwork started a slide toward literary obscurity in his lifetime. This was partially because the book was first published in England, and the American literary establishment took note of what the English critics said, especially when these critics were attached to the more prestigious journals. Many critics praised it for its unique style, interesting characters, and poetic language, but others agreed with a critic with the highly regarded London Athenaeum, who described it as:

"[A]n ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed."

One problem was that publisher Peter Bentley botched the English edition, most significantly in omitting the epilogue. For this reason, many of the critics faulted the book, what little they could grasp of it, on purely formal grounds, e.g., how the tale could have been told if no one survived to tell it. The generally bad reviews from across the ocean made American readers skittish about picking up the tome. (Moby-Dick)

I wanted, for the sake of balance, to include 5 Star reviews of a horrible book but it seems easier to agree on what constitutes great literature than what constitutes drivel.

Any author who has received a one star review on Amazon--and I would hazard to say that practically all published authors have--take heart! You're in excellent company.

Have you ever thrown a book across the room on frustration? What book was the worst book you've ever read? What was the thing you disliked most about it?

Other articles you might like:

- The Writer's Journey: Writer As Hero
- Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been
- Writing And The Monomyth, Part Two

Photo credit: "A Storm of Swords" by flossyflotsam under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

The Writer's Journey: Writer As Hero

I'm in the middle of writing a series on the monomyth so I couldn't resist sharing this inspirational series of blogs about the writer as hero by Martina Boone (@MartinaABoone).

The Writer's Journey: Writer As Hero

Martina, rather than writing about the hero's journey per se, talks about the journey writers travel every time we tell a tale. She writes:

[T]he other day while I was on the phone with the brilliant Angela Ackerman ... I had a revelation. The journey the hero takes in our manuscripts is essentially the same journey many of us take as writers. (The Heroic Journey of Every Writer: Part One)

So here it is, a journey where the writer is the hero and his (or her) quest is to write a story. Martina writes:

THE ORDINARY WORLD

Here we are, bumbling through our careers and family lives, vaguely uneasy and unfulfilled but maybe not even aware that there's a void inside us, a gaping wound. Why haven't we written yet? It could be that we tried and failed, or that we had to get on with the business of making a living, or raising kids, or maybe we have a family who has always dismissed writing as a pointless pursuit—something everyone wants to try but only a chosen few achieve. Implying, of course, that we're not good enough. So we shelve our illicit hopes, paint on a smile, and get on with our lives not realizing that something inside is tugging us in a different direction than the path we are still trudging down.

THE CALL TO ADVENTURE

But then . . . Then we have a dream, or read a book, or see a movie, or witness an event that shakes us. Something stirs inside us, an elusive wisp of an idea scented with adventure. It begins to rise and pull us with it, beckoning us to come along, to put our own spin on the wheel of inspiration.

REFUSAL OF THE CALL

Of course we refuse. We're human. We're afraid. We don't have time, we don't have money, we don’t have the knowledge to pursue something as overwhelming as writing an actual book.

Or maybe we don't refuse. Maybe we take those first tentative stops, only to hear someone else, someone who means well, who doesn't want to see us hurt or disillusioned, make the refusal for us. For our own good. Because really, the idea of writing for publication is absurd, and we shouldn't have any expectations.

Martina goes on to recount a writer's trials and tribulations, his or her conflicts, as he or she travels through each stage of the monomyth; above, I've just given you the first three.

Here are the links to Martina Boone's articles (there are two in the series):

The Heroic Journey of Every Writer: Part One
The Heroic Journey of Every Writer: Part Two

Before I end this article, here is a link that's just too good not to pass on (thanks Martina!): Plotting Made Easy--The Complications Worksheet.

By the way, Martina has a wonderfully informative blog (Adventures In YA and Children's Publishing).

Other articles you might like:

- Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been
- Writing And The Monomyth, Part Two
- How To Communicate Setting: Establishing Shots

Photo credit: "bridging knowledge to health" by paul bica under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been

Hugo Gernsback And The Future That Might Have Been

One of my favorite short stories is The Gernsback Continuum, by William Gibson. It's about a future envisioned in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, a future filled with flying cars and robot maids (think: The Jetsons).

That future never materialized, but it's fun to think, "What if ..." What if you had your very own jet pack and could fly to work? (Just imagine that traffic jam). What if we could have robots clean the house, cook our food and manage our social media?

Hugo Gernsback embodied this future that almost was. He published the first science fiction magazine. In fact ...

[Hugo Gernsback's] contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, he is sometimes popularly called "The Father of Science Fiction". In his honor, the annual Science Fiction Achievement awards are named the "Hugos". (Hugo Gernsback)

Today I had wanted to publish the third installment of my monomyth series but life intervened. Thankfully, Arthur sent me an Infographic on predictions about the future. Apparently us writerly types have done fairly well when it came to predicting the future! Take a look.

Future Predictions Timeline

Writing And The Monomyth, Part Two

Writing And The Monomyth Continued

Yesterday I began writing about what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth (see Writing And The Monomyth), although I drew more from Christopher Vogler's version of the myth than Campbell's.

Today I want to pick up where I left off and examine the final seven or so steps. (update: I only made it to the midpoint, so I'll attempt to finish off tomorrow.)

6. Tests, Allies and Enemies

The hero has just crossed the threshold from the ordinary world and has landed, probably with a few bumps and bruises, in the special world. In a screenplay this plot point would also mark the beginning of the second act. 

Blake Snyder in Save The Cat! make the point that the Special World should be as different as possible from the Ordinary World (for instance, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Miss Congeniality). If the Ordinary World is the thesis then the Special World is the Antithesis.

Something BIG needs to happen to propel the hero (because I'm talking about the monomyth it feels natural to talk about heroes and villains rather than protagonists and antagonists) from the Ordinary World into the Special World.

The hero must enter the Special World of the adventure willingly, he can't be tricked or abducted, it must be an intentional act.

B Story

Blake Snyder makes the point that this is also the place where we start the "B Story", a subplot that, in some way, is the antithesis, the opposite, of the "A Story", the main plot. In Legally Blond this is where Elle Woods (played by Reese Witherspoon) meets Paulette (played by Jennifer Coolidge) in the beauty shop. Paulette--big and showy--stands in stark contrast to Elle's other, more reserved, friends.

The B Story is often a love story, one that echos the theme.

Fun and Games

As our hero meets some of the people in the special world and gains a few allies, makes a few enemies, we can relax a little. We can have a bit of fun as we get to know our new friends and become adapted to the strange new world

If there is a 'feel good' part of the story, it comes out here.

7. Approach to the Inmost Cave

We have almost reached the middle of the story. The hero must now become serious and prepare for the ordeal ahead of him. If your hero has a love interest there's time for one last love scene before facing the ordeal awaiting him. This is a good way, too, of making the stakes clear.

In preparation for the ordeal, the hero might try to 'think like the antagonist', to get inside his mind.

However your hero does it, he's going to have to prepare for the ordeal. Even if he is blindsided by the danger he needs to make a conscious decision that he will confront the antagonistic force, whatever it is.

At this point perhaps the hero reorganizes his party, perhaps he makes alliances with his enemies. As he gets closer to the ordeal the pressure builds and the mettle of his traveling companions--as well as his own--will be tested.

As the hero approaches the inmost cave he is beset with obstacles. Common obstacles are illusions--perhaps illusions created by threshold guardians--ominous warnings, impossible tests (I always think of the Kobayashi Maru in this context!), and so forth.

8. The Ordeal

We have reached the middle of the story and are in the midst of Act Two. The hero will confront the antagonistic force working against him and either appear to win big or lose big. Neither of these, though, will be a complete victory/defeat.

Michael Hauge calls this "the point of no return". The hero is now completely committed, there is no going back to the Ordinary World except by finishing the journey.

For instance, in The Firm at the midpoint Mitch McDeere is given a choice: go into witness protection and live in fear of being killed by the mob or spend the rest of his life in prison. Whatever happens his life has been irrevocably changed.

What needs to happen at the midpoint:

- A false peek (it all seems to go right for the hero) or a false collapse (everything seems to go wrong).

- The stakes are raised. The midpoint needs to change the whole dynamic of the story. Fun and games are over, now things become much more serious, much more intense.

The midpoint is a place of transformation, of death and resurrection.  Either here at The Midpoint or, later, on The Road Back, there is often a death, either a literal one--for instance, the hero's mentor dies--or a symbolic one. Someone could tell a story about death or, this is Blake Snyder's suggestion, show a dead flower. But there should be a hint of death, a reminder of the price the hero has had to pay for his victory.

#  #  #

Well! It seems, once again, I've underestimated how many words this would take to explain. I'm going to leave off at the midpoint--it seemed appropriate--and I'll pick up this discussion again tomorrow.

Can you think of a movie, a movie you liked, that does not follow the structure of the monomyth?

Other articles you might like:

- How To Communicate Setting: Establishing Shots
- Exposing The Bestseller: Money Can Buy Fame
- How To Edit: Kill Your Darlings

Photo link: "the army" by linh.ngan under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Communicate Setting: Establishing Shots

C.S. Lakin has written another brilliant post, this time about establishing setting, and she starts off by making an excellent point: 

[A] novel is not a visual experience unless you make it one. ... [W]ith novels, you always want to try and show a scene through the POV character's eyes and colored by her emotions, state of mind, way of thinking.

How do you do this? With the equivalent of an establishing shot.

Create An Establishing Shot

This is from Wikipedia:

An establishing shot in filmmaking and television production sets up, or establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects.[1] It is generally a long- or extreme-long shot at the beginning of a scene indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place. (Establishing Shot)

C.S. Lakin gives an example from Le Carré's book The Constant Gardener that I include, below, but I'll first give you one from Dean Koontz's What The Night Knows. Yes, I know, that's quite a difference in both authors and genres, but read this paragraph and tell me if you don't think it's a great establishing shot.

Dean Koontz, What The Night Knows

The state hospital stood on a hill, silhouetted against a gray and sodden sky. The September light appeared to strop a razor's edge along each skein of rain.

"... to strop a razor's edge along each skein of rain." I like that, the image of a razor, of a razor in motion, controlled motion, being sharpened, getting ready.  Dean Koontz continues:

A procession of eighty-foot purple beeches separated the inbound and the outbound lanes of the approach road. Their limbs overhung the car and collected the rain to redistribute it in thick drizzles that rapped against the windshield.

The thump of the wipers matched the slow, heavy rhythm of John Calvino's heart. He did not play the radio. The only sounds were the engine, the windshield wipers, the rain, the swish of tires turning on wet pavement, and a memory of the screams of dying women.

I'd say that sets the scene effectively. "Their limbs", "slow, heavy rhythm of John Calvino's heart", "memory of the screams of dying women". Yes, okay, it lacks some of the pure poetry of Le Carré, but, come on, that is Le Carré. He gives writers inferiority complexes.

John Le Carré, The Constant Gardener

Here's the passage C.S. Lakin quoted, and it is truly epic:

The mountain stood black against the darkening sky, and the sky was a mess of racing cloud, perverse island winds and February rain. The snake road was strewn with pebbles and red mud from the sodden hillside. Sometimes it became a tunnel of overhanging pine branches and sometimes it was a precipice with a free fall to the steaming Mediterranean a thousand feet below. He would make a turn and for no reason the sea would rise in a wall in front of him, only to fall back into the abyss as he made another. But no matter how many times he turned, the rain came straight at him, and when it struck the windscreen he felt the jeep wince under him like an old horse no longer fit for heavy pulling.  

Wow. Even just the first sentence makes me want to take a deep breath of the crisp damp air and look for my umbrella.

C.S. Lakin writes:

Look at some of the words he [Le Carré] uses: black, darkening (his quest to find answers is getting that way), perverse (that too), winds, rain, snake, sodden, tunnel, precipice . . . I don’t need to go on—you get the point. The Establishing Shot in this scene was no doubt chosen to work as a metaphor, as the reader has been watching Justin Quayle going through a similar emotional roller coaster, rising and falling into an abyss, turning one way then another, but getting nowhere fast. His task to find answers feels like he’s prodding “an old horse no longer fit for heavy pulling.” And the weight he is carrying is heavy. Powerful, right?

That’s all Le Carré needs to start the scene, and from there we move on to other camera shots revealing important plot points leading to a high moment in his scene. I won’t tell you what that is; you can read it for yourself, and I hope you do. Few writers handle words as masterfully and deliberately as does Le Carré, and he’s a great author to study for cinematic structure.

This week I'm going to do as C.S. Lakin suggests and look at the scenes in my work in progress to see whether I succeed in establishing the scene before I start in with dialogue.

All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from C.S. Lakin's article Establishing Shots That Reveal Character.

Other articles you might like:

- Writing And The Monomyth
- Steven Pressfield Gives Writers A Pep Talk In A "Get Off Your Duff And Start Writing!" Kind Of Way
- A Pep Talk

Photo credit: "A fish's view of NYC skyscrapers" by kevin dooley under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Writing And The Monomyth

Let's get back to talking about writing, the butt-in-chair stuff.

The Monomyth

Just as all philosophy is a footnote to Plato, all plots are variations of the monomyth. Perhaps, in writing circles, the best known version of the myth is the one popularized by Christopher Vogler in his wonderful book, The Writer's Journey.

I believe that every writer has internalized his or her own particular version of the monomyth. This is the structure that organizes our stories.

Each of our individual monoymths is going to be different because each writer is unique. We each have a different perspective on life and the world and this is going to show itself in our work.

What follows is my version of the monomyth. This version is no better than anyone else's (and hopefully no worse!) and I present it here more as an exercise for myself to make my implicit understanding of story structure explicit. If something I write resonates with you then I invite you to use it and if something doesn't then ignore it, it's not for you.

The Stages of the Monomyth

1. The ordinary world

Here we see the hero (the hero can be a male or female) in the ordinary world. This is the life he is used to. For instance, at the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope we see Luke working on his Uncle's farm.

SHOW the hero in the ordinary world. Take this as an opportunity to show what the hero is good at. What is he comfortable with? What is he terrible at? What are his hopes and dreams?

2. Call to adventure

A force crashes into the heroes ordinary world. Something happens, something changes. Perhaps a herald/messenger comes with news that the hero's great uncle has passed away and left him a mansion. Perhaps a malfunctioning droid shows him pictures of a pretty girl pleading for help.

3. Refusal of the call

The hero doesn't always refuse the call to adventure, but at the very least he has to consider what answering the call would mean. What would he have to give up? What might he gain?

4. Meeting the mentor

If the hero refuses the call to adventure the mentor can help spell out the stakes for him and motivate him to explore the strange new world that awaaits those few brave enough to attempt the journey. Even if the hero is eager to be off, the mentor can provide him with advice, or perhaps equipment, or--if it's a fantasy--a magical charm or three.

Often the mentor travels with the hero as a helper. Nearly always the mentor dies or leaves the party before the climax of the story, leaving the hero on his own to meet the final test alone.

Think of Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid or Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope. The mentor knows more about the special world where the adventure will take place (e.g., the world beyond Luke's home planet of Tatooine; knowledge of The Force).

5. Entering the special world 

Before the hero leaves the ordinary world he often has to pass a test given by a threshold guardian. He doesn't quite pass the test, or he does but he makes the guardian angry, and is tossed into the belly of a whale, or trash compactor, or otherwise left for dead.

In any case, something happens to the hero such that he is swallowed into the unknown and begins--perhaps grudgingly--to adapt to the ways of the special world.

The special world is the land of adventure. There are different rules here, different social norms, different dangers. What the hero was good at he is no longer and what the hero couldn't do before now becomes possible.

After entering the special world the hero goes through a period of adjustment. Think about Luke when he goes into the Mos Eisley Cantina with Obi Wan Kenobi and the wonderful strangeness of the customers, the setting.

Have you ever used the monomyth to help structure your stories? Is there another structure you use? If so, please share!

Update: The discussion of the monomyth is continued here: Writing And The Monomyth, Part 2.

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- Pixar: 22 Ways To Tell A Great Story
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Photo credit: "let's type" by |vvaldzen| under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.