Tag Archives: editing

by | August 30, 2012 · 12:57 pm

Writing secret: all you need is CURIOSITY and SURPRISE

 

Whether you write novellas about fierce mermaids, magazine stories for Cosmo (insert your own joke here) or speeches about the Austrian school of economics for the IMF — whatever sort of writer you are, two things matter most.

Not correct grammar and spelling. Those things are assumed.

Not pretty paragraphs and sentences that sing. That’s word gravy, while we’re talking about the main course.

What matters most: making your readers curious, then surprising them.

The kitteh is surprised

Surprise Kitteh is surprised.

This is why the inverted pyramid is a terrible structure for any writer. (Click with your mousity mouse to read Why the Inverted Pyramid must DIE.)

The inverted pyramid grabs a heavy rock and smashes the skull of curiosity. Then it takes that same bloody rock and crushes all hope for any surprises.

How does it achieve this epic level of failure? By giving you the answers before you even know the questions. The payoffs have no setups.

Ways to make your audience curious

Create setups by raising interesting questions (a) about real people where there are (b) high public stakes or (c) high private stakes and (d) serious conflict.

WHAT happened? (mystery)

Debates about the past are about facts, and assigning blame.

  • Who really killed JFK?
  • Did aliens really land at Area 51?
  • What caused the Great Depression?

WHY did it happen? (whydunit)

This is often more interesting than the question of who did it.THE BUTLER ALWAYS DOES IT, so tell us why instead.

How do you CHOOSE between two goods or two evils?

Debates about the present are value choices.

Choosing between good and evil is simple and cartoonish. That’s why its for kids. Truly tough choices are between two good or two evils. Does believing in true justice mean setting a killer free? That sort of stuff. These things are deep. They’ll exercise your head.

What WILL happen? (thriller)

Evil cats are planning on taking over the world. Can they be stopped?

Evil cats are planning on taking over the world. Can they be stopped? Nah.

  • Can we stop these evil cats from taking over the earth BEFORE a giant comet destroys it?
  • What might happen if you brought dinosaurs back to life?
  • Will 5.93 gazillion pounds of TNT make a dead whale disappear from a beach — or will something else happen instead?

WHO will get together — or split up? (romance)

  • Will Matthew McConaughy get together with Kate Hudson already or do we have to suffer through all 120 minutes of this stinker?
  • Why is Tommy Lee Jones in some movie with Meryl Streep about lovey-dovey nonsense?
  • What specific drugs were involved when Hollywood executives decided that Sarah Jessica Parker was some kind of sex symbol? (I’m cheating here and inserting a mystery question about the past into a romance setup, and I should be punished by the Storytelling Gods but, to be completely honest, and to use more commas, which is usually against my religion, I JUST DON’T CARE)

What should you do about the FUTURE?

Debates about the future involve costs versus benefits.

  • As a promising high school athlete, should you let your studies suffer to chase the dream of playing in Major League Baseball, when there’s a greater chance of being hit by a logging truck than being drafted?
  • Should we try to go back to the gold standard, to make Ron Paul all happy as he shuffles off into retirement, or does destroying the global economy kinda put a damper on that whole idea?
  • Next year, should you sell all your possessions to build a zombie-proof bunker in Montana for a zombpocalypse that will never come but is fun to think about — or should you focus on that whole “driving to work and paying the bills” thing?

Ways to surprise your audience

It’s unfair to have things happen for no reason, like Anne Hathaway getting smooshed by a truck in ONE DAY.

Also cheating: letting people off the hook via deus ex machina, which is fancy Latin for “the sidekick shows up at the last minute to shoot the bad guy, right before the hero dies” (every action movie known to man) or “it was all a dream!” (an entire season of DALLAS) or “let’s bring in something we never told you about, then run away” (every sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen on cable).

Surprises shatter expectations and stereotypes. Did you expect the scientist handling the landing of Curiosity on Mars to be a young man rocking a mohawk? No. You expected a stereotypical nerdy McNerd, and bam, that little surprise turned Mohawk NASA man into a national phenom.

mohawk nasa scientist

Didn’t expect a NASA scientist to be cool enough to rock this mohawk, did you? SURPRISE.

A good surprise must reveal something:

  • a secret you hinted at before
  • how a person has changed after suffering and sacrificing
  • a subtle setup that they may have noticed, but will remember (PRESUMED INNOCENT does this better than Anything in the History of Stories)
  • how society has changed after suffering and sacrificing
  • a shocking decision (the hero gets what he wants but rejects it, an unhappy ending to a Hollywood movie OR a happy ending to a French existentialist movie, a romantic comedy that doesn’t feature an put-together and ambitious heroine with a loser man she fixes up)

Related posts:

Writers, we are doing it BACKWARDS

Evil storytelling tricks NO ONE SHOULD KNOW

Why critique groups MUST DIE

The secret truth about writing

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Guy - Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.

Google+

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Filed under 4 Writing Secrets Wednesday, Fiction, Red Pen of Doom, Thrillers and mysteries

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by | July 11, 2012 · 5:05 am

Amateur editors and readers: an achy breaky bad mistakey

Because amateurs — even well-meaning ones, with college degrees in Comparative English Literature or whatever — often create conversations JUST LIKE THIS.

This is why for anything truly important, go with somebody who edits for monies, full time, in that specific field.

Related:

The evil secret to ALL WRITING – editing is everything

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Guy - Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.

Google+

20 Comments

Filed under 4 Writing Secrets Wednesday, Fiction, Red Pen of Doom

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by | May 16, 2012 · 6:43 am

Build your own Writing Monster (Part 2 of Why critique groups MUST DIE)

Conventional wisdom is conventionally wrong.

Nowhere is this more true than in the fields of writing, social media and publicity — three lands where tradition and mythology rule the day.

Those who haven’t read these posts should start here, so they don’t get all Confused, because this is really Part 2 of Why critique groups MUST DIE.

So: if people listen to this silly blog and (a) stop trying to use Twitter to sell books and (b) go all Michael Bay as they blow up old, obsolete critique groups, what should they do instead?

Get a team. Build your own Writing Monster.

Hopefully, better than one of these.

Now, this is the opposite of a critique group, which is typically people who live in the same area, have the same rough skill level and do essentially the same thing, whether it’s writing romances about Men in Kilts, epic fantasies about elves with lightsabers riding dragons or dark mysteries about haunted detectives who are allergic to razors and brush their teeth with bourbon.

That’s not a team. Those are your buddies, your clones.

Successful authors, actors, pro athletes and other public figures have a team full of world-class specialists: publicists to get free ink and airtime, marketers to sell widgets, trainers to make them look good if paparazzi shoot them on a beach in Maui, minions to handle the scheduling and correspondence, editors to edit their words and speechwriters to, I don’t know, write the speeches.

If you want to truly break through and be world-class at whatever you’re trying to do (punk rock, zombie movies, novels about undead orcs and the high school girls who love them), then you must at least PRETEND to do things in a world-class way.

A traditional critique group is like trying to win a Super Bowl against the Green Bay Packers with you as the quarterback and a collection of buddies who play flag football sometimes. If football is a foreign language, try this: the usual critique group is like playing a game of chess with a board full of the same piece: all pawns, all bishops or all knights. You need pawns and rooks, bishops and a queen, knights and a king. You need balance.

And if you’re competing against the best in the world, you can’t do it all yourself. That’s like playing the Super Bowl by yourself, or taking a lonely king into a match against the Bobby Fishers of the world.

Continue reading →

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Filed under 4 Writing Secrets Wednesday, Fiction, Journalism, publicity and scandals, Red Pen of Doom, Speechwriting, The Twitter, the Book of Face and the Series of Tubes

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by | May 9, 2012 · 6:06 am

Stretch your editing muscles

Proofing for boo-boos is easy. Line editing is tougher.

Structural editing is the toughest.

So let’s play around with a little flash fiction from Joey’s contest and see what we can do, first with a standard edit job, then with a different kind of big-picture spitballing.

Original flash fiction entry by Mayumi – 196 words

Stone stairs and the blood of Landstanders foolish enough to raise arms against him disappear beneath Fin’s boots, as every step takes him closer to the top of this tall, windowed tower, and to the girl trapped within.

“Wavewalker!” a guard warns, but he’s silenced by metal tines already streaked red; it’s the same for his partner beside. And up Fin runs, never stopping. His muscles ache, his lungs burn, but the door is just ahead, and suddenly he’s crying her name as his spear splinters the heavy wood:

“Cauda!”

He’s barely broken through when she rushes up, arms thrown around him. And though her eyes are wide and frightened, her voice drifts to him with such gentle love, like the dreamy sway of the coral among which they used to swim. “You came.”

Time is short – more Landstanders are surely already racing to reclaim their princess prize – but still he cups her face, so sea-pale and soft, and kisses her, for fear it will be the last thing he ever does.

He draws back at the taste of tears.

“There’s no way out,” she whispers.

The spear creaks in his fist. “There’s always a way.”

# # #

Comments:

Of all the entries, this one had the most action, which is probably why I liked it. Other stories mostly hinted at action to come, or actions in the past.

Edits: switched to past tense instead of present, fixed various things.

Edited version – 178 words

Blood on the stone stairs disappeared beneath Fin’s boots, every step taking him closer to the top of the tower and the girl trapped within.

A guard’s shout was cut off by a blade already streaked with red. And up Fin ran, never stopping. His muscles ached, his lungs burned, but the door was just ahead, and he cried her name as he spear splintered the heavy wood.

“Cauda!”

He’d barely broken through when she rushed to throw her arms around him. Though her eyes are wide and frightened, her voice drifted to him with such gentle love, like the dreamy sway of the coral among which they used to swim.

“You came,” she said.

Time was short – more soldiers were surely racing to reclaim their princess prize – but he cupped her face, so sea-pale and soft, and kissed her despite the fear it would be the last thing he ever did.

Fin drew back at the taste of her tears.

“There’s no way out,” she whispered.

The spear creaked in his fist.

“There is always a way.”

# # #

So, a typical editing job. Nothing fancy.

I’m more interested in the guts of a piece — short story or stump speech, HBO series or Hollywood blockbuster. What’s the structure, the setups and payoffs? How do things change?

So here’s another flash fiction entry. No line editing here. Let’s look at the bones and spitball some options.

# # #

I’ll never forgot that old, mossy stone porch. Johnny and I used to lie there after the dances, enjoying the smooth coldness of the stone against our sweaty skin, and talk about what we would do with a building like this if it were our home.

“First off,” he would say, “I’d kick all these damned people out!”

He used to love to make me laugh. I thought I couldn’t live without him. We were both 17, and it seemed like the perfect life lay before us. Everything in the world was perfect, if only for a moment.

That, was of course, before the booze took hold of him.

It’s hard to believe, only a few short years later, here I stand looking at that porch, with its glorious white columns, standing tall and proud, with the fadings of Johnny’s fists on my face. Oh how life changes so cruelly.

He will wake up soon, in the E.R., and wonder how he got there. He will yell and call out my name. The nurses will not know that “Jenny” means Jessica, because they will not know that in his drunken confusion he often mistakes his mistress for his wife.

# # #

Nice. I like it. There is a difference between the beginning (Love Story by Taylor Swift) and the end (Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks).

How can we pump up the story without adding Michael Bay explosions, robots fighting and Megan Fox randomly running around in short-shorts?

Most of this piece is either remembering the past or predicting the future. So my first crazy idea is to make it all present tense, because there’s instantly more tension if it’s all happening now.

Let’s strip away the pretty words and look at the bones. Boil it all the way down. Right now, the original gets down to something like, “Wife plans revenge on cheaty McCheater.”

How can we change the structure to something happening now, and make it so memorable that it gets down to a sentence that makes your jaw drop. So, let’s spitball here. (Note: theese are not the words, but story / structure / outline.)

# # #

Jessica loves Johnny SOOOO much that she wants to marry him. They’re on a picnic at this amazing stone tower. It’s romantic, and yeah, she actually bought him a gold band and might ask him tonight, if it feels right. It’s a modern world. She wants to be married, and to him. And he seems super polite and nervous today, like he maybe is thinking the same thing. Her entire life could change tonight. It’s beautiful and perfect.

She’s decided to ask him. Why not? But he beats her to the punch. “Jessica, can we talk about us?”

She says, sort of quietly, “I’d like us to be forever.” But he’s starts talking about some new job, in some other city, and some girl named Jenny who he sort of slept with.

So when he stands up to awkwardly hug her goodbye, she sort of pushes him off the tower.

# # #

Now that can boil down to “You would not BELIEVE what happened last night” headline: Woman pushes cheating lover to his doom — on night she hoped to get engaged

Homework: Take a flash fiction entry — this one or one of the others from Joey’s contest – and spitball story edits. No line editing allowed. THAT IS CHEATING.

Pump up the setups and payoffs. Boost the difference between the beginning and the end. Then get it down to a four word headline that would make people snort coffee through their nose in disbelief.

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Guy - Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.

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by | May 6, 2012 · 10:36 am

Writers and editors: let’s make a deal

For anything Important, you need an editor. I’ve always had editors and wouldn’t think of living without them. The first post on this blog was The evil secret to ALL WRITING – editing is everything – that is not a coincidence.

However, for little things like silly blog posts, it’s eight separate flavors of crazysauce to (a) hire a professional editor, (b) read your blog posts aloud at a flipping critique group or (c) bug your brother / neighbor / best friend to proof blog posts before they go up. (Related post:  Why critique groups MUST DIE)

Also, pro editors / critique groups / friends and family will not have the Keanu Reeves code-monkey skills to hop into the Matrix and wrestle with WordPress.

So: let’s make a deal. A trade.

If you are good at the copy editing and proofing, and want to trade services, hit me in the comments or the Twitter (@speechwriterguy)

It doesn’t have to be “editing silly blog posts in exchange for editing silly blog posts.” I write speeches. For some reason, there aren’t 6.94 bazillion people who do that. If you’re giving a talk to a writing conference or whatever but have never worked with a speechwriter, IT IS USEFUL. A bucket of proofing for a speech is a good trade.

Also, if you are some kind of techno-guru code monkey who can make WordPress do insane tricks, let’s hop on over to Bartertown and make a deal, because the WordPress, it has some bugs that need squashing.

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Guy - Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.

Google+

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Filed under Fiction, Red Pen of Doom, Speechwriting

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by | May 5, 2012 · 6:13 am

Why critique groups MUST DIE

Every writer gets the notion — from college, from movies, from the Series of Tubes — that they should be in a critique group.

This notion is seven separate types of wrong.

It’s time for critique groups to go the way of the rotary phone — to make way for something better, faster and stronger.

Peoples of the interwebs: critique groups are obsolete

A critique group is useful for certain things:

(a) university professors who want students to break into groups and leave him alone for the next 45 minutes,

(b) writers who really, really like to read their work aloud,

(c) literary snobs who like to say silly pretentious things about the work of others, and

(d) happy writers who like to socialize with fellow writers and talk smack about the craft while drinking bourbon.

Sidenote: Yes, your particular critique group is wonderful, and you couldn’t live without it. No worries. I’m not driving to your house with the Anti-Critique Group Secret Police to disband it or anything. Also, your critique group’s amazing bylaws and secret handshakes mitigate all the typical disadvantages of plain old boring critique groups that are not nearly as awesome. 

Reason No. 1: Critique groups take far too much time

During college, sure, you’ve got time to sit in a group, read chapters aloud and debate what Susie really meant by having the protagonist drink a bottle of ketchup in Chapter 2.

Once you graduate from college, get a job, get married, buy a house and have little pookies, THERE IS NO TIME for this type of nonsense. Do I have three hours to drive to somebody’s house, listen to chapters read aloud, then talk about what I remember of those words and drive home? No. I have ten flipping minutes to write silly blog posts.

People who write for monies, full time, do not gather around a table to read their text aloud while fellow writers and editors listen carefully and ponder the words. It does not happen.

Reason No. 2: Editing as a group is dangerous and slow

Anything written by a committee will stink up the joint, right? Writing is a solitary act.

Editing is, too. You write a thing, then you give it to an editor.

Typically, there are different levels of editing: at a newspaper, you ship your text to the city editor, who gives it the first whack and focuses on the big picture. Later, the draft goes to the copy desk for a different type of editing, more of a polish and proofing.

Also, editing it best done on a keyboard, or with a red pen. Not out loud in a social group, where peer pressure and weird dynamics can screw up a draft in two seconds flat.

Reason No. 3: Critique groups can’t handle most things we write today

Short stories and novels. That’s what critique groups are really built to handle.

And they do a bad job on novels. Why? Because reading a novel in tiny chunks every week will (a) take forever and (b) turn the focus onto pretty words rather than structure and story. You need to see the entire airplane before you can say, with authority, whether it’ll fly or not. Peeking at tiny pieces of it all year doesn’t work.

Traditional critique groups are bullocks when it comes to editing blog posts, speeches, opeds, screenplays, newspaper stories, magazine features, obituaries and haikus. That’s right, haikus. YOU CAN’T HANDLE THEM.

Reason No. 4: Because I say so

That’s it.

I could put some bullets beneath here, if you want to make it official. Here you go:

  • Because
  • I
  • Say
  • So.

Let’s invent something new

Now, there is a place for some kind of thing that’s LIKE a critique group, except better, faster and stronger.

Everybody needs an editor. And the more important a thing is, the more you should hire a professional editor who actually does this stuff for a living. But for a whole bunch of things that we write — including silly blog posts — hiring a pro would be a waste of money and time.

So let’s invent a new Writing Monster that’s better, faster and stronger.

Better

The Writing Monster should be flexible, able to handle the editing of any kind of writing, whether it’s a little blog post, a speech, a short story or a screenplay.

It should also expose people to new ideas and new ways of looking at writing, and inspire us to rip the pages out of stupid pretentious books.

And it should expose us to different types of writers and editors, not just fellow writers who have the same exact skills and writerly prejudices.

Faster

The Writer Monster Thing should use this thing we call the Series of Tubes and travel at the speed of light rather than the Speed of Steve’s Subaru as you carpool to Jane’s house for the critique group and hope that she didn’t make that bean salad again.

Stronger

The Writing Monster should be strong and resilient, living in the cloud and forging connections with writers and editors anywhere, like the Borg‘s hive mind collective.

BTW: Resistance is futile.

The Writing Monster will NOT die because Steve moved to Idaho or Jane discovered that she hates Tyler’s novel and, to be honest, his stinking guts.

Also, the Writing Monster will focus more on short, important things like concepts, pitches and structure. Things that take up less than a page. (Kristen the Lamb is onto something with her Concept Critique Group idea.)

The alternative is spending every week for the next year dissecting Steve’s 125,000-word epic about vampire elves with lightsabers riding dinosaurs and Jane’s memoir about growing up on a potato farm in Idaho.

Now, I have the guts of an idea, and a burning desire to blow up critique groups in an explosion that will make Michael Bay jealous. But that’s a post for another day. So: shoot me your crazy ideas in the comment section.

Related posts:

Writing secret: Light as air, strong as whiskey, cheap as dirt

The evil secret to ALL WRITING – editing is everything

Everything they taught us about stories was WRONG

Why every man MUST read a romance – and every woman a thriller

Writers, we are doing it BACKWARDS

Evil storytelling tricks NO ONE SHOULD KNOW

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Guy - Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.

Google+

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Filed under Fiction, Red Pen of Doom

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by | March 29, 2012 · 5:05 am

Seven days, seven categories — this is not a coincidence

Librarians are literary muffins of stud, who I admire. You all rock.

HOWEVER: the Dewey Decimal System is a little too complicated for me. There are a billion places to put books. Also, there are decimal points.

Conan the Librarian

Conan the Librarian is the protector of the Dewey Decimal System, but I am not a fan. Not when seven categories can cover EVERYTHING.

I can fit everything worth writing about into SEVEN categories of awesomesauce.

Seven days of the week, seven categories. This is not happenstance. It is meant to be. As an added bonus, there are no decimal points whatsoever.

Also not a coincidence: these are the seven major categories of this blog. All other things that I post will be sub-categories of the Big Important Things — unless I screwed up and the Gods of Javascript or whatever gave me stupid categories that I cannot change or delete without destroying the series of tubes.

Obviously, the most important shebang is Writing Secret Wednesday, which will get the most reliable posts.

I may happily skip Thursday, because Thor’s Day is a holiday for Swedes like me. You do not offend the god of thunder. But skipping Wednesday would be wrong, wrong, wrong.

If I post on other days of the week, I’ll stick with the proper categories, since my promise to America and the world is that you won’t land on this blog on a Friday only to find some giant random post about the character arcs on Desperate Housewives. (Note: that was what we call a joke. I will never write a word about Desperate Housewives, except for the words I just wrote, which are possibly a mistake, now that the googles will see those words and possibly send Desperate Housewives fans here by mistake. No. Please go away.)

Here you go: seven days, seven categories.

1) SURVIVAL SUNDAY

Because if you’re dead, you can’t read or write anything at all.

This category includes things like zombies, the apocalypse, guns, surviving the zombie apocalypse (with or without guns, your choice), fighting, MMA, jujitsu, krav maga (half because it’s simple, half because it’s brutally effective and half because I like how it sounds, thus giving it an extra half when everything else in the world only gets TWO halves) and doomsday preppers — plus making fun of WATERWORLD, the worst apocalyptic movie ever.

Sample post: Zombie movies are NOT standard horror movies

2) MUSIC VIDEO MONDAY

Because somebody has to play more music videos than MTV.

I often take a red pen to the actual lyrics of these songs, thus disqualifying entire genres (Swedish Death Metal, mumblecore, raging emo shouty-shouty stuff) from being featured on these pages. Because if I can’t understand what the singer is screaming then no, I’m not gonna write about it, even if the supposed lyrics are stuffed into the liner notes of SATAN’S BRIDE EATS YOUR SOUL.

However, it is completely fair game to post interesting music videos without lyrics at all, if people are doing something cool like a Metallica covers using cellos.

Sample post: ELECTRIC AVENUE, as interpreted by the Red Pen of Doom

3) TINSELTOWN TUESDAY

No matter what you write or read, you’re influenced by moving pictures, whether those pictures are (1) on a giant screen in humungous building where 20 cents worth of popcorn costs you $8.95 or (2) on a slightly smaller screen in your former garage, which was the only place in your house big enough to fit the 74” Samsung plasma 3d ultra-HD monstronsity.

We can learn many, many useful things from screenwriters (giant screen) and scriptwriters (Glowing Tube). Hear me know and believe me later in the week: whether you write speeches, novels about zombies or newspaper feature stories, you will be amazed at how useless books about your craft really are. I mean, beyond useless. The toughest thing is structure, not comma splices, compound modifiers and some author’s system that uses 3 x 5 index cards and such. STRUCTURE AND STORYTELLING ARE KING. And the best books on structure and storytelling are from Tinseltown.

So: go buy Blake Snyder’s SAVE THE CAT and Robert McKee’s STORY. Then you’ll know the language I’m speaking on Tuesdays.

Sample post: Everything they taught us about stories was WRONG

4) WRITING SECRETS WEDNESDAY

This is the beating heart and soulful soul of The Red Pen of Doom.

Writing and editing. Speechwriting and storytelling.

Four sample posts, because this stuff is IMPORTANT AND FUN:

The evil secret to ALL WRITING – editing is everything

The Red Pen of Doom guts THE NOTEBOOK

Out of fairness, I destroy my favorite genre: thrillers

Romance novelists are secret, epic army of man boosters

5) RANDOM THURSDAY

Thor’s Day, right? The Norse God of Thunder would say, “Write about whatever you wish.”

That may include random videos of epic fails, or a post about whether or not we should ban Monday, a horrible day, thus giving us all 16.6 percent more weekends. IT IS A PLAN.

Sample post: Vicious alien beast battles round Earth vegetable

6) FRIENDLY FRIDAY

Guest posts. Links to amazing people you should follow on the Twitter.

Shout outs to writers, editors and funny people whose blogs you are required to visit. You know, that sort of thing. Nice posts, packed full of nicetude and friendliness. The series of tubes could use more friendliness, right? Because there is a surplus of grumpy trolls and wannabe Internet Tough Guys.

Sample post: Friendly Friday: Theresa Stevens, Glowing Mystical Being

7) MEDIA STRATEGY SATURDAY

Don’t you agree that social media means boring old mainstream media should curl up in a corner and die already? I mean, nobody needs old radio, TV and newspapers when you have the UNLIMITED POWER of Twitter-Facebook-Pinterest-LinkedIn-BlahBlahBlah.com — plus, as a secret weapon, all the loyal readers of your mom’s blog about knitting sweaters for poodles. You are invincible! Get on the phone today and hire the best architect in NYC  to start the blueprints of your  62,000-square-foot mansion with a movie theater, bowling alley and Olympic pool, because you will sell millions of books / albums / movie tickets once your latest tweet / blog post / promotional idea goes viral.

Yeah. Not so much.

I know a little about journalism, publicity, speechwriting and the whole social media thing. I HAVE DEGREES AND SUCH, and wrote 210+ posts for the NYT’s about.com as their expert on publicity. On certain special Saturdays, I will blow up conventional wisdom into itty bitty pieces, shaking your unshakeable faith in the magic of the series of tubes and making you rethink the whole idea of putting all of your eggs into that virtual basket. Social networking and media are useful, yes. But not all-powerful. Old media is not dead yet, young Skywalker – not yet.

So: this category includes Twitter, the Book of Face, social networking vs. social media (they are different) and all such things.

Also: journalism, publicity and scandals involving people who make FAR TOO MUCH MONEY.

Sample post: 11 brutally useful posts on publicity for writers

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Guy - Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.

Google+

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by | March 23, 2012 · 7:07 am

Friendly Friday: Theresa Stevens, Glowing Mystical Being

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away … I wrote a love letter to editors.

You can read it here: The evil secret to ALL WRITING – editing is everything

And in that post, I called editor Theresa Stevens “a glowing, mystical being.”

Now, it is true that Theresa the Stevens is a professional editor of novels, and her red pen is wickedly sharp.

HOWEVER, you don’t go straight from “editor of novels and former literary agent” to “glowing, mystical being.” It takes a couple of paragraphs to get that far. In fact, these paragraphs:

If you really want to write for monies, and pay the mortgage doing it, you’ve got to go all in with an editor who wields their Red Pen of Doom for monies, too. Not your husband or wife or best friend. Not a coworker. Not a friend who also writes something sort of close to what you’re doing, even if they write for monies. You need somebody who edits for cash.

It’s an achy breaky big mistakey to use a non-pro as your editor. Friends and family may be great readers of books but horrible at editing. Either way, you’ll take what they say far too personally.

Dreams will be crushed. Friendships will fray. Marriages will sour. DO NOT DO THIS.

Even if you’re friends with somebody who writes for a living, and they say sure, they’ll edit you as a favor, that might be OK for one small piece. A short story. Your first shot at a stump speech. But not anything of length. And not as a habit. When you start cashing checks for what you write, stop being a freeloader. Set your friend free. Better yet, don’t lean on the friend too much in the first place. Because they’re your friend. They won’t tell you if you truly stink up the joint.

…

Think about how long it takes a human being to write and rewrite and rewrite a novel and synopsis and query letter. Hundreds of hours. Bazillions. Think about paying yourself minimum wage for those hours. Then close your eyes and imagine there’s a glowing mystical being who, for the price of the complete first and second seasons of The Jersey Shore on DVD, could save yourself hundreds of more hours of pain while making you (a) seem incredibly brilliant and (b) have ten times the shot of not only getting the damn thing published, but making decent money at it.

I’ve been writing for monies for a long time, and I’ve had all kinds of editors. Good ones, average ones — and a few amazing ones. Theresa the Stevens is a treasure of an editor.

So, writers of the world: go to Theresa’s blog to soak up her wisdom, and follow her on the Twitter, because she is funny there.

Bloggity blog goodness: http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @TheresaStevens

Show her that the series of tubes isn’t full of trolls, and that we writers know a good thing — especially a Glowing Mystical Being — when we see it.

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Filed under 6 Friendly Friday, Barons of the Blogosphere, Worthy citizens of the Twitterverse

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by | February 2, 2012 · 7:47 am

Storytelling insights from 3 minutes of glorious film WITH SUBTITLES

Because I am not a pretentious nancypants, I don’t typically watch movies with subtitles. They are in black-and-white, with people smoking French cigarettes while speaking French and watching things happen to other French people FOR NO DAMN REASON.

The only good part is the French cigarettes. I used to smoke Gallouise Blondes, which were smooth and expensive and glorious.

HOWEVER: all that is water under a bridge over the Seine.

We are talking about a different sort of foreign film with subtitles.

  • Bonus No. 1: This film is 3 minutes long instead of three flipping hours.
  • Bonus No. 2: There is hardly any talking, or any need to read the subtitles at all.
  • Bonus No. 3: Most importantly, this little film can teach us all great big lessons about storytelling and structure.

Also, unless you have no soul, it will make drops of water drip from your eyes and scurry down your cheeks.

Here. Watch the clip in high definition. Or low def, it that’s your thing. Whatever floats your boat.

Hokay. All done?

Let’s take it apart and see what makes it tick.

This little film has strong bones. The structure is a roller coaster: things are bad (son is running away), things get even worse (son nearly dies, is paralyzed), then in the climax, things get resolved and the world is forever changed, at least for this family.

The father is not sympathetic at first, right? My first thought was BAD CASTING. But no, that was stupid of me.

The main narrative question is, “Will they get together?” This is a love story, though not a romance starring Men in Kilts and the Lasses Who Love Them.

So if they’re getting together in the end, they must be split apart in the beginning.

Another narrative question is, “How do these people suffer, change and grow?”

The father moves from stern, humorless taskmaster to loving and dedicated. He’s the hero of this little film, because it’s his actions that matter most. The normal thing would be for him to let the doctors do their work, right? But it’s his turn to rebel. He carries his son out of the hospital, out of the wheelchair and back into the world. Rehab isn’t going to be nurses and machines and doctors. It’s going to be father and son, learning to walk again.

And all that suffering and sacrifice pays off. The son also transforms. In the beginning, he’s rebellious and aloof. In the end, he’s loyal and connected to his family.

The mother is a flat character. She suffers, but she doesn’t change. That’s OK. Having two characters go through all this in three minutes is plenty.

This tiny film, which is a flipping COMMERCIAL, moved me far more than bazillion-dollar CGI blockbusters involving dinosaurs, vampires or robots that transform themselves into Chevies.

You can have your $194 million budgets full of special effects and a script written by committee. Give me a story with strong bones and a tiny budget.

Give me people I actually care about, because I don’t give a damn about Shia LaBeuf and Megan Fox or whether the awkward teenage girl gets together with the Sparkly British Vampire or some kid who used to be a Power Ranger.

Give me a story. A story like this.

###

Guy - Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.

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Filed under 3 Tinseltown Tuesday

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by | November 15, 2011 · 7:45 am

Using free ink and airtime to BUST THROUGH

Earned media — free ink and airtime — is worth a lot to reality stars like Snooki, The Situation and Kim Kardashian, who all extended their 15 minutes of fame into millions of dollars.

Ink and airtime are even MORE valuable for people with actual talent.

Yet if you’re trying to make it — as a writer, an actor, a director, rock star, whatever — it’s hard to get the mass media to pay any attention to you at all.

Read the first evil post: The Twitter, is it NOT for selling books

Getting serious ink and airtime is a great way to bust through, boost your name recognition and make a living at doing what you love. Whatever that may be.

If you haven’t read it, get educated with the second evil post: Forget the Twitter: free ink and airtime are your MOST DANGEROUS WEAPONS

So how do people bust through?

Not everybody is placing their faith in the series of tubes and spending their free time on the Twitter, the Book of Face or their personal blog.

Reporters, editors and producers get zillions of press releases and story kits about new authors, new rock bands, new actors and the latest indie movie made for $9,000 by some up-and-coming director.

They get pitched stories all the time. Most of these pitches go nowhere.

You have to hook the reporter or editor.

A hook isn’t about the quality of the product. Not at all.

Craftsmanship matters latter. I know, This is where we cue up Keanu Reeves:

A news hook is something a reporter can tell his editor, in a sentence, why this story is worth spending column inches on.

THREE NEWS HOOKS THAT FAIL

1) This book / movie / rock band is great!

Hype is typical and horrible. The press never buys it, even if you crank up the hype machine to 11.

In the first place: Even if the hype is true, it’s not newsworthy.

In the second place: Hype is never true.

But let’s pretend it’s true just this once. ”Man writes great book / sings glorious song / directs amazing movie” still isn’t something a reporter can pitch to editors.

They know how to pitch “Afghan vet with no arms types novel on Underwood WITH HIS FEET” — because that’s a story, no matter how bad the actual novel may be.

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Filed under 4 Writing Secrets Wednesday, 7 Media Strategy Saturday, Journalism, publicity and scandals, Old Media, which is still Big and Strong, The Twitter, the Book of Face and the Series of Tubes, Viral media math

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