http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/ Are you a published writer? Or are you looking to get published? We are here to help. We have some wonderful people who volunteered their time and their talents to help you with your quest in this field. These seminars are free and are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Stop by today. en Mon, 20 May 2013 03:59:40 GMT vBulletin 10 http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/images/styles/coffee/misc/rss.png http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/ http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/showthread.php?t=28933&goto=newpost Sat, 04 May 2013 02:36:54 GMT *OTHER ELEMENTS* Film begins with an IMAGE Next you need MOMENTUM and FOCUS. Each scene leads to the next. A cause and effect relationship. ... OTHER ELEMENTS
Film begins with an IMAGE

Next you need MOMENTUM and FOCUS. Each scene leads to the next. A cause and effect relationship. Every scene advances the action, bringing the story closer to the climax.

ACTION POINTS. DRAMATIC EVENTS THAT CAUSE A REACITON AND DRIVE THE STORY FORWARD.

BARRIERS. Character tries something that doesn’t work. This action causes the character to change direction.

COMPLICATION. Action point that doesn’t pay off directly.

REVERSAL. Action point that changes the story 180degrees physically or emotionally for plot, action or character.

COHESIVENESS. Unity of your art form. All words reuse and draw upon similar images to reinforce the theme.

FORESHADOWING AND PAYOFF. Visual clues or diagolgues. Think of it as a key compontent in character development. See it it mysteries, suspense and comedy.

MOTIF. Recurring image. Rhythim or sound used to dimentionalize story line and add texture to the theme.

REPETION AND CONTRACT. Images , dialogue, character trists, sound, used to keep the idea focused on an idea.

Don’t get hung up on pages and rules. All stories have a life of their Own.

Now you have a basic structure. Now what?

Nothing works without CHARACTER. Character development is essntial to a story.

Go back to your storyboard. Look at the character. Beyond the stick figure. Who is it? What do they look like? Why are they here? Descibe the character- physically and emotionally. Try to keep as vivid and visual as possible.



3D CHARACTERIZATION

3D characters are made up of thoughts, actions, and emotions.

Thinking: Characters philosophy and attitues.
Philosophy- character has to believe in something, that belief affects their actions.

Attitude. The way they look at life. Their attitudes have an effect on the actions they take, on the way they react to other characters.

Actions- A character’s actions and the decisions that lead to those actions.
Aciton is two parts. The decision to act, the act itself.

The moment of decision is what we need to make tha action work. We see actions, but must really see the moment when the decision is made to make the character work, to add depth to the characterization.

Main characters drive the action. Action must drive the story forward. Even if the character starts passive, the character at some point no longer allows the story to act upon him but must act upon the story.

Emotion – the emotional make up of the character as well as emotional responses.
Characters emotional life defines them and their emotional responses define this definition. Extraordinary situations bring out extraordinary emotional responses. This is the emotional response to the action.

Transformational Arc- characters become transformed in the process of living out the story. In romances they are transformed by love.

GO BACK TO YOUR STORYBOARD. LOOK AT THE CHARACTER, BEYOND YOUR STICK FIGURE. What is he or she saying? Why? What is the subtext? How do their words illuminate who they are? Try to keep it as vivid and visual as possible. Under the storyboard write a few lines of dialogue that goes with the visualization in that frame.



DIALOGUE.
You need to have an ear to write dialogue. You can train yourself to hear rhythm and special patterns.

What is good dialogue?
Its like music with a beat, a rhythm, and melody. It tends to be short and spare. It’s like a tennis match between players. It conveys conflict, attitudes, and intentions. It reveals character rather than telling about character.
You can speak it easily because of its rythms.

Good dialogue also has Subtext. What character is saying beneath the lines.

What is bad dialogue?
It’s stilted, wooden, hard to speak. All characters sound alike and not like real people. It tells the subtext, by spelling out every thought and action. It simplifies people instead of revealing their complexity.

How do you make it good?
Lay out the structure of the scene. Analzye the subject and intention. What is the dialgue intended to do?

Listen to people aroud you. Easedrop shamelessly!

Translate real words into dialogue using rhythm, pacing, timing.

People speak in phrases, not always full sentences. There’s energy and life to good dialgue.

Read it aloud.

It represents the attutude of characters. Develop your voice, nuances and attitude.

Ask yourself if you’ve defined your character through rhythms, character, vocabulary, accent, length of sentences. Did your dialogue create conflict? Does it contain subtext? Can I tell who this character is? Are my characters differentiated by their dialogue?

NOW LOOK AT YOUR FILMSTIP. LOOK AT THE WORDS. MAKE IT COME ALIVE BY CONSIDERING THE FOLLOWING POINT.

ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE WRITING. Give writing energy, life, enthusiasm and verve, passion and pacing, and stay true to the emotion.

FINALLY, FINISH THE MINI SCENE YOUR STORY BOARD IS CREATING. What happened by your tree? ]]> Seminars / Free Classes Meg Lacey http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/showthread.php?t=28933 http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/showthread.php?t=28932&goto=newpost Sat, 04 May 2013 02:26:30 GMT *WRITING THE FILM STRIP IN YOUR HEAD- Meg Lacey* To really visualize you must: observe, look at everything, write down what you see, hear, feel,... WRITING THE FILM STRIP IN YOUR HEAD- Meg Lacey

To really visualize you must: observe, look at everything, write down what you see, hear, feel, taste and smell.

The mind thinks in images and pictures. I see everything in terms of movement. For example, when I think of movement, I don’t hear it first, I see it. I see the rhythm as it moves through the air, the way the air parts of the music can walk toward me. I see music as an image that evokes a response or an emotion—then I hear it, feel it, and embrace it with the rest of my senses.

Because my educational and professional back ground is all visual, from theatre to TV and film, I had to learn to write the words on the paper. So I came at novel writing from a whole other point of view.

With my first novel, my critique partners would say, “What happens in this part?” I’d launch into an elaborate description of the action, the movement, the character response and their expression. Then I’d hear, “Duh! Put that on the paper!”

So I’d start there and then had to build the emotion, which is the heart of the romance novel around it. Approaching word this way does two things for me:

• It guantees that I write a faster paced novel, one with dialogue as a core.
• It provides vivid, image-provaking visualizations of locations, people and their actions.

Let’s try an exercise. Look at these letters.
YELLOW ELEPHANT

What do they say to you? Do you see a Y or E or L or L or W—what did you see?
How big was it?
What color yellow?
Was it wearing a hat?
How about toenail polish?

My yellow elephant is wearing purple toenail polish and has a nosebleed. How about yours?



Take a piece of paper and draw 4 big boxes on the page. Leave space under each box to write words. This is your story board for your film strip.

Now let’s take these words and fill in the first box
SEE A TREE
What kind of tree is it? What shape? Big or little?
Shape of branches, of leaves?
What is the season? How can you tell?
Where is it located? What’s around it?
How does it look against the background?
Does it cast a Shadow?

Tell us about your tree.

Now you have the first frame in your film strip. You have visualized or created an image. Put that tree in the first box. Don’t worry if you can’t draw, do a stick figure. What’s important is what YOU are seeing. You know what is in your mind, and you can use words to tell the audience.

Now you have this first frame in front of you. Use as many adjectives to describe the tree, the setting, the mood you intend to portray. Take the next 30 seconds and write the words under your first box.

When you speak of film, you speak of pictures, of images, but you are really speaking of ACTION. Because only through action does a character reveal themselves, and does a plot evolve from a basic idea into a full blown realization.

As novelists our job is to evoke emphathetic emotion through our portrayal of people and the unfolding of events. How do we involve the reader and evoke emotion? We show, instead of tell. Telling makes you an observer. Showing makes you a participant.

What does Show suggest? Action—something happens. Something takes a visual form. That something might only be a character picking his nose, but it is action that reveals character.

As writers, it’s not just the words, it’s the image the words create that powers the writing. It’s the image your words create in the readers mind that makes your story or characters stand out.

How do we get to that point? It starts in your mind. We are always thinking in terms of action.
Action = Visualization
Action = Character

Go back to your tree. Let’s take it further. Are there any animals aorund? How about people? If so, what are they doing?
Put that tree and characters in the second storyboard frame (box) Take 30 seconds and come up with as many adjectives and verbs to describe the characters, the action and the atmosphere.



All this visualization stuff is well and good, but you can’t do nothing but that and have a product that makes sense, can you? Probably not. What do you need to start pulling it together?

STRUCTURE

Remember, we’re thinking like a film strip, visualizing and writing our story board. So let’s think about film structure. I use this structure to write my novels because it gives me a framework and allows me to improvise in it.

Films are written in 3 act structures, same as most plays. Beginning, Middle and End. The structure is adapted for other mediums, such as an hour long TV show might have 7 acts because of commercials, a half hour sitcom might have 4, but the basic structure holds true, it’s just broken differently.

This structure is the spine of your novel, or script. The structure is for your core, or basic plot with subplots weaving in and around them.
Feature films are generally 110 to 120 pages.

Pg. 1-15 is generally your set up. This gives the vital info to start the story. Not all the info, just enough to set us on the path and give us the style of the story.

Pg. 15-30 is generally oyur fist turning point. Turneong points help a story change directions, new events unfold, new decisions are made, etc.

Pg/ 75-85 is genearlly the second truing point. Generally start of Act Two through the novel

Pg. 110-12o is the climzx. End of story, moment when the question is resolved. It’s the big finish.

Resolution is generally 1-5 pages from the end. Wraps up as to say good night. Say it tight, clean and fast.

In between tese key ponts are the many Beats of other little moments that keep adding layer upon layter to plot and character and keep moving it thru the rising and falling action to the climax.

A Beat is a single dramatic moment or single dramatic event. Single beats placed together create a scene. The beats of the scene create the beats of each act, beats of each act creates a story.

How does this translate to a novel? Let’s say yor novel has 200 pages.
The set up is 1-20-25.
First turning point, beginning of act one is pg. 25-50.
Midpoint – halway thru novel. Have somehting big happen here to avoid a sagging middle.

Pg. 90-135 is the second turning point and start of act two

Page 175-190 is the climax and act three

Pg. 190-200 is the resolution.

BUT you need more Elements to make the story and your storyboard work. To bring it to life, to visualize it.
*******
Tell us about your story’s structure. ]]> Seminars / Free Classes Meg Lacey http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/board/showthread.php?t=28932