Creative Writing

[CREATIVE WRITING]

SCREENWRITING
1.  Screenwriting cheat sheet.  h/t Bill Myers.

2.   A List of screenplays.  Always good to have some successful examples.
3.   15 Screenwriting Tips from one of the greats, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.
4.   A couple of helpful books on writing fiction from Blake Snyder.  One is Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, Blake Snyder, 2005.  The other is Save the Cat: Strikes Back! More Trouble for Screenwriters to Get Into . . . And Out of, Blake Snyder, 2009.  These came recommended by author, Bill Myers.
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[FICTION]

DIALOGUE
1.  Dialogue Dynamics, The Write It Series, Tristi Pinkston, 2012.
2.  Dialogue Generator.
3.  7 Tools of Dialogue.  Not bad.
4.  More dialogue help.
5.  Writing Your First Novel, by Sara.

6.  Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, John Truby, 2008. h  Because of this presentation.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQWiWQ54qp0.  Capture and lead human focus.  The video that follows is excellent, too, titled, “The Real Secret of Confidence and Limiting Beliefs,” September 20, 2022.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqmUBrgnEHg.

PLOT
1.  The Plot Skeleton, Angela Hunt, 2013.
2.  Plot Generator.
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DESCRIPTION
1.  Writing Description for novels and short stories.
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CHARACTER
1.  Use a dominant feature of a character to introduce him.  In rhetoric, this is called metonym.  A scene that opens with a cane leaning against the wall close the front door infers something about who lives there or who has visited or who used to live there.  Check out this video, 10 Things Character Entrances Can Teach You About Narrative

 

2.  Great “Character Flaw” chart, paired by opposites.
3.  From a member of a forum I subscribe to (February 3, 2017):

Bulletproof protagonists/antagonists are boring and predictable.

CHARACTER FLAWS
1. Prejudice.
2. Fear of (heights, water, fire, open spaces….)
3. Secret. (e.g. indiscretion or failure/crime/betrayal in past).
4. Blind spot/assumption (e.g. a priest would never…)
5. Weakness/predilection (e.g. red-headed bombshells)
6. Addiction (drugs, gambling, etc.)
7. Disability.
8. Inability (e.g., computer-illiterate).
9. Belief in/devotion to…
10. Irresistible attraction to/passion for…
11. Love of…(family, children, alma mater, etc.)

Vulnerabilities. I’m sure you can come up with more. What’s important is that the adversary on the other side of the equation (whether protagonist or antagonist) can discover their nemesis’ weakness and exploit it to manipulate them to their advantage.

If someone knew everything about YOU, they would have a very good chance of maneuvering you into a compromised position, blocking some action that you had in mind, etc.

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SCENES
1.  21 writing prompts for setting a scene in your novel.
2.  and other prompts.
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A FICTION-WRITING MUSE OR TWO: JUST IN CASE.
1.  Mike Shreeve: Start Writing.
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WRITING STYLES
FUNNY: Make your writing funny.

 

Who? What? Where? Why? and How?

ARCHETYPES
A know-it-all
The loveable loser
The bad boss
The neurotic
The airhead
These are all stock characters found in Artes Comedia.
Find the flaw, like greed, and play it up. Or play opposites against each other, where the smartest guy in the room does the stupidest thing or the dufus outwits the brainiac we tend to laugh because we didn’t see that coming. Secret to humor is surprise. The surprise or the incongruity of humor says we laugh at things that seem out of place or that run up against our expectations. A frog dating a pig. A lizard selling pianos, a nun disco dancing, a cat disco dancing, actually a baby, a nun, or a cat doing pretty much anything is funny.

Draw connections with a mind-map. Start small. Pick a word: say, pickle. And draw your known connections to them: eating first pickle, sandwiches, lunch, going to the store, baking with grandma. Shift from observation to imagination. Try going from “What is” to “What if?”

Comedy revolves around things that irritate us, frustrate, or humiliate us. “Everything is funny as long as it happens to somebody else.” –Will Rogers

Rule of 3 or Zig, Zig, Zag.” Expected pattern is “Zig, zig.” Then flip it, “Zag!”

A rabbi, a priest, and a coconut walk into a bar, called the last rites.

A rabbi, a priest, and a coconut walk into a disco tech. Words with a “k” sounds are considered comical, like “comedy” and “considered” “crickets” and “coconut.” Humor is subjective. Comedy is trial and error. Find the flaw, discover the details, insert incongruities, incorporate “k” sounding words, and remember the most important rule–

This was recommended as funny.

Stephen King Writing Tips

Thanks to Bill Myers.

SILENT COMEDY

h/t Jason Kottke

CONTEMPORARY CREATIVE MODELS
1.  Recommended by Bill Myers.
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WRITE SONGS
1. Songwriting.
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“Vivid Writing,” Ann Handley, 2019.