A Writer's Take...... Archives - Page 43 of 101 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Larry D. Sweazy, Author….Interview (part 2)

Q. What first inspired you to write your stories?

LS. As a kid I played with Hot Wheels cars like a lot of little boys. I liked making up stories about where the cars were going and why. It started there. On the floor as a six year old boy, under the feet of adults, listening to their stories, and to the voices in my head.

Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?

LS. Characters. Always.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?

LS. Yes. Those are the good days. When the world and time disappears. I hope the writing does the same thing for readers.

Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?

LS. My muse has always been my desire to become a better writer.

Q. Tell us about writing westerns.

LS. I have always loved westerns. I grew in the 1960s and there were a lot westerns on television. Bonanza, The Wild, Wild West, The Rifleman,

etc. And we could only get three channels on our little black and white TV in small town in Indiana. Add in that I grew up in a house without a father, those cowboys became my heroes, the good guys who stood up to the bad guys, and showed me who the bad guys were. I needed that. I learned a lot from those westerns.
Time went by, and westerns kind of fell out of favor. Detective stories took over. I grew up and went about my life. After I started writing seriously, an editor asked me to write a mystery short story with a modern-day Texas Ranger as the main character. I’d published in the small press, and this was my first chance to publish professionally in an anthology, Texas Rangers, to be published by Berkley (Penguin Random House). The editor, the venerable Ed Gorman, liked the story, “The Promotion,” and bought it. What I didn’t know was that story was going to be published in a western anthology, not a mystery anthology. And then the magic happened. My first professionally published short story went on to win the WWA (Western Writers of America) Spur Award that year. I was floored. I went to the convention in Spokane, Washington and met a lot of great writers; Elmer Kelton, Don Coldsmith,

Robert Conley, and Loren Estleman to name a few. Westerns felt like home. I knew the stories and the characters, so I started writing westerns in hopes of getting one published. Three years later, my agent, who I met at that first WWA convention, sold the first two books in the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger series. I went on to write six books in that series, and I’m happy to say the series is still gaining readers today, almost ten years after the first book, The Rattlesnake Season, was published.

The demise of the western has long been forecast, but I don’t believe it. Westerns are mortality tales, crime stories, and the only all-American genre we have. Westerns are like jazz, an American contribution to world of literature. Hollywood still makes westerns and they seem surprised when one of them draws a big audience. But I’m not surprised. Western characters are our people. We know their struggles of their stories. All readers ask is that westerns are authentic and honest. And that’s the kind of novels, and stories in general, that I try to write.

The conclusion to this Interview with Larry will appear March 16th.

Did you miss Part 1? Click here
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!   Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory.  March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes.

                                         To receive my posts sign up for my   On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
To Purchase

How To Format A Screenplay

TS. ‘ACTION drives a screenplay, that and plot. DIALOGUE drives a stage play so it better be damn good. In my opinion, if your action is good in a screenplay, the dialogue can be mediocre and often is in blockbusters. If your dialogue is crisp and interesting and helps drive the story, you’ve done a better job than most in Hollywood.’

While you can buy books and software to do the job for you it’s always good to have a grasp of the general spacing standards. The top, bottom and right margins of a screenplay are 1″. The left margin is 1.5″. The extra half-inch of white space to the left of a script page allows for binding with brads, yet still imparts a feeling of vertical balance of the text on the page. The entire document should be single-spaced.

The very first item on the first page should be the words FADE IN:. Note: the first page is never numbered. Subsequent page numbers appear in the upper right hand corner, 0.5″ from the top of the page, flush right to the margin.

Screenplay Elements

Below is a list of items (with definitions) that make up the screenplay format, along with indenting information. Again, screenplay software will automatically format all these elements, but a screenwriter must have a working knowledge of the definitions to know when to use each one.

Scene Heading
Indent: Left: 0.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 6.0″

A scene heading is a one-line description of the location and time of day of a scene, also known as a “slugline.” It should always be in CAPS.

Example: EXT. WRITERS STORE – DAY reveals that the action takes place outside The Writers Store during the daytime.

Subheader
Indent: Left: 0.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 6.0″

When a new scene heading is not necessary, but some distinction needs to be made in the action, you can use a subheader. But be sure to use these sparingly, as a script full of subheaders is generally frowned upon. A good example is when there are a series of quick cuts between two locations, you would use the term INTERCUT and the scene locations.

Action
Indent: Left: 0.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 6.0″

The narrative description of the events of a scene, written in the present tense. Also less commonly known as direction, visual exposition, blackstuff, description or scene direction.

Remember – only things that can be seen and heard should be included in the action.

Character
Indent: Left: 2.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 4.0″

When a character is introduced, his name should be capitalized within the action. For example: The door opens and in walks LIAM, a thirty-something hipster with attitude to spare.

A character’s name is CAPPED and always listed above his lines of dialogue. Minor characters may be listed without names, for example “TAXI DRIVER” or “CUSTOMER.”

Dialogue
Indent: Left: 1.0″ Right: 1.5″ Width: 3.5″

Lines of speech for each character. Dialogue format is used anytime a character is heard speaking, even for off-screen and voice-overs. Normal upper and lower case is used.

Parenthetical
Indent: Left: 1.5″ Right: 2.0″ Width: 2.5″

A parenthetical is direction for the character, that is either attitude or action-oriented. With roots in the playwriting genre, today, parentheticals are used very rarely, and only if absolutely necessary. Why? Two reasons. First, if you need to use a parenthetical to convey what’s going on with your dialogue, then it probably just needs a good re-write. Second, it’s the director’s job to instruct an actor on how to deliver a line, and everyone knows not to encroach on the director’s turf!

Extension
Placed after the character’s name, in parentheses

An abbreviated technical note placed after the character’s name to indicate how the voice will be heard onscreen, for example, if the character is speaking as a voice-over, it would appear as LIAM (V.O.).

Transition
Indent: Left: 4.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 2.0″

Transitions are film editing instructions, and generally only appear in a shooting script. Transition verbiage includes:

CUT TO:
DISSOLVE TO:
SMASH CUT:
QUICK CUT:
FADE TO:

As a spec script writer, you should avoid using a transition unless there is no other way to indicate a story element. For example, you might need to use DISSOLVE TO: to indicate that a large amount of time has passed.

Shot
Indent: Left: 0.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 6.0″

A shot tells the reader the focal point within a scene has changed. Like a transition, there’s rarely a time when a spec screenwriter should insert shot directions. Once again, that’s the director’s job.

Sample of what your page should look like: [Source: The Writer’s Digest]

other related posts by this blogger:

How To Write a Play

How To Format a Play
How To Format a Novel

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory

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How To Format Your Novel

About editing and proofing: I see a lot of self published books and sometimes the formatting is so bad I can hardly read the story. Don’t let this happen to your book. Proof the book, then proof it again, then proof it again, before you publish.

Format: you should give the reader’s eye somewhere to ‘rest’. This means you should have adequate ‘white paper’. If margins are not tight enough and too much text is on the page, it’s exhausting. When paragraphs are too long they also exhaust the reader.

Here is a link https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1482 and a format I use exclusively. Or you can just go to:
1] page layout in your doc
2] margins
3] custom margins and then put in the numbers.
4] Be certain your ‘gutter’ number is 7.0 minimum
My publishing platform offers templates for whatever book size I am going to use. So I download the template and begin writing, from the very beginning, using that. It saves so much time in formatting later. Or if you have been writing a story for awhile, you cut/paste the manuscript onto the template. But you must proof it and edit it.

Each chapter should begin on an odd numbered page. On that page the heading should be consistent; that is, 6 or 7 or 10 spaces down, but consistent. The chapter title should be centered. Don’t be afraid of the even numbered page opposite the new chapter being blank. That’s what your reader expects to see.

The header should be consistent: even-numbered page should have the author’s name and the odd numbered page, the title of the book. The pages leading up to the first chapter should NOT have headers.

Justification: Your ‘alignment’ should be ‘justify’ rather than ‘left’. This gives your document clean crisp edges so it looks more polished. But I frequently find the program will default to ‘justified’ on a line of text that has only a few words and spreads them out inappropriately across the page. When this happens, highlight the text and choose ‘left’ alignment. That will clean it up. There should be NO spacing between paragraphs.

Your copyright ‘Notice’ page: (Always on an even numbered page.) should carry weight. Many amatures list only the year of copyright, Title, ISBN number. Your page should look like this:

Notice (centered)

Copyright (c) 2016 Trisha Sugarek. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written
permission of the Author. Printed in the United States of America. For information contact author at www.writeratplay.com.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the soft cover edition of this book as follows: Sugarek, Trisha, Song of the Yukon, Trisha Sugarek –
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and
any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales in entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1489558206

Cover Design by David White, Illustrator

Song, ‘Swiftly I Go’ by Gary Swindell, Composer
Additional lyrics and poetry by Trisha Sugarek (I believe you should give a credit line to each contributor on the “Notice” page.)

The author should always registering the book with the US Copyright Office $35. Protect yourself!

Questions: I welcome them. You can reach me: click here

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory
March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes.

To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
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Interview with Western & Mystery Writer, Larry D. Sweazy

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.

LS. I have a dedicated office that I’ve worked in for the last seventeen years. It has a desk, books, and comfy places for my dogs (two Rhodesian ridgebacks) to hang out with me. For years, though, I had a little desk in the bedroom, and wrote wherever I could. I’m not sure a space creates any magic, but it can’t hurt to be surrounded by books and dogs…

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)

LS. No, not really. I usually grab a cup of coffee, sit down, and start writing where I left off the day before. That’s boring, but it’s the truth.

Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?

LS. I’ve nearly died twice in my life…third time is a charm has me a little worried.

Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?

LS. I usually write in the morning, first thing. I try to stay as close to the dream state as I can. But when I’m really in a story, I’ll write whenever I get a chance.

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

LS. Just write the story. Don’t worry about agents, or publishing, or getting famous. Just write. You can’t edit a blank page. Quit coming up with excuses. If your dream is to be a writer, then sit down and write only the story that you can write. If what you write sucks, edit it, or delete it, then keep on writing. Writing is a craft. You have to be willing to put in the time into reading and writing over everything else.

Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?

LS. Characters are everything for me. I usually get a glimpse of them at the start of a story, and my curiosity drives me to find out more about them. Most of my characters are wounded in some way, looking for a way to prevail over their current circumstances. Marjorie Trumaine, the main character in my amateur sleuth mystery series, is a North Dakota farm wife with a quadriplegic husband. She’s trying her best not to lose the farm, and the local extension agent encourages her to take a correspondence course in back-of-the-book indexing to make extra money. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) used to offer courses like this to farmers to generate extra income. Anyway, Marjorie’s well read, so when a murder happens close by, the sheriff asks her for help. But she still has to figure out how to run the farm and take care of her husband. She has a lot of challenges to overcome. I also wrote a stand-alone a few years ago about an aging Texas Ranger who gets into a shoot-out with Bonnie and Clyde and loses his right arm. That novel, A Thousand Falling Crows, concerns the character’s fight to go on living regardless of the difficulty of his new circumstance. What a character goes through and how they come out of it shows who they are as far as I’m concerned. We all have our battles. Characters that have something to fight for are a big draw to me.

Don’t miss Part 2 of this fascinating Interview March 9th

Marjorie Trumaine’s latest mystery, SEE ALSO PROOF will be released May 1st.
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory
March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes.

Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!

To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!

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Storytelling…a Cultural Imperative!

What is a cultural imperative? ‘Peoples living within the encompasses of cultures associated with very different ethnicities often imbue radically different moral imperatives, through identification processes carrying across generations. Such cultural imperatives prevalent within one culture may not have any direct equivalent within another culture…’ *

Glaring examples of this are the ethnic groups who, putting themselves at risk for censor or abuse, have insisted on keeping their native language, rituals, and religions alive. ‘one culture may not have any direct equivalent within another culture…’ But the one imperative that has crossed all ethnic and cultural groups is storytelling.

What is this imperative that most people feel….to tell stories? It seems, to me, to be hardwired into our DNA.

We begin at an early age: making up stories (to ourselves) as we play with our dolls or cars. A child has no inhibitions when it comes to weaving a fantastical tale, frequently out loud, as they play.
A mother or father sits at their child’s bedside and makes up stories until they fall asleep.
A comic book writer tells his stories with a few words, facial expressions, and action illustrations.
A poet tells their stories through rhyme, lyric or free verse.
A playwright creates their story so that others can tell it.
Another storyteller sees their stories happening in the far future.
Another goes to the dark side of human nature and writes stories about things that go bump in the night.
A teacher tells a story to enhance the lesson. (I miss you, Miss. O’Connor.)
The novelist weaves a longer tale; taking their characters on adventures, discovering love, suffering defeats, and usually conquering all in the end.
……even gossip could be considered storytelling.

I have worried out loud (and written about it here) that storytelling will die, be a thing of the past. But now I believe that many of us do have that cultural imperative to tell and write down our stories. After all the synonyms for imperative are: involuntary, necessary, nonelective, obligatory, peremptory, required.
I don’t think storytellers can help themselves. We have to tell stories!

* IdentityExploration.com/Culture_Imperatives
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The Tuscan Child ~~ A Review

5 out of 5 quills ~~ The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen

All writers have a voice. A flavor, a timbre. Some good, some not so good. Rhys Bowen has her own unique essence. Like fine wine her words flow across the page effortlessly. The tale of The Tuscan Child journeys between England and Italy. Within this author’s superb writing she captures the staid, stoic, ‘stiff upper lip’ of the English personality and the extravagant, dramatic over-the-top flamboyance of the Italians. It’s perfection.

We travel the countryside of Surrey, England which Bowen has brought to clear and gleaming life. The rolling hills, the hedgerow lanes, the tiny villages, the ancient, cold stone from which most of the great houses were built, centuries ago. In alternate chapters the author thrusts the reader into another fortress-like village, surrounded by olive trees under a hot Tuscany sun, full of the aromas of cooking. The absolute power of the church and the old, archaic Italian families dominates the population. Mixed in with life in the 70’s we travel back in time to the same village in occupied (by Germans) Italy in the 40’s. We hide out with a downed pilot behind enemy lines.

If you know me, as a reviewer, I don’t write spoilers. I don’t fill my review with a synopsis of the story. I prefer to tell you about the writing. It’s always about the

mysteries, best sellers, Rhys Bowen, author — Rhys Bowen, Author

writing. But I will tell you this; Bowen has created two wonderful new protagonists: Sir Hugo Langley, bomber pilot in the RAF and his daughter, Joanna Langley. Their stories separate them by thirty years as the daughter tries to understand a time when the world was at war and her father was fighting for his life.

Released February 20th for sale. Rhys Bowen’s fans can look forward to an exceptional story and superb writing!!

Did you miss my Interview with Rhys? Click here
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory
March: Larry D. Sweazy

Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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Black Orphans…What Did Savannah Do With Them? (Nostalgia-part 7)

In honor of Black History Month I am reposting this story about orphans and an old man. The other day I was out on errands and spied a ‘For Sale/Waterfront’sign . In my neck of the woods that usually means river front and/or marsh land. So I turned around and followed the signs. At the end of the road I found a beautiful home on some acreage. I always like to look at real estate and I am always curious about what ‘water front’ costs. Driving slowly onto the property I began to look for a flyer. Failing that, I slowly rounded their circular driveway heading back out.

I paused at the street as a man, riding a John Deere mower, chased me down and asked if he could show me the house. What luck! I was going to be able to see the beautifully restored plantation house. I never could have imagined the story that awaited me!

It sits on three acres with a six car garage, a guest house, a barn and a doll house. The lawns spill down to a large deck overlooking a tidal creek which feeds out to the Vernon River. The live oak trees are hundreds of years old, Spanish moss dripping from every branch. The deck has been built around an oak even to the point of interrupting the hand railing to accommodate an oak branch eighteen inches thick. (it’s a southern thing; we love our live oaks.)

But it was the owners’ story that I wanted to share.

Dick and Sue bought the working farm and farm house in 1975. Back then, common in those days, the kitchen was outside on a porch so that it wouldn’t add to the summer heat within the house. The house was approximately 1,000 sq. feet compared to its 5,000 sq. ft. now.

Part of the sale was that the new owners must care for a middle-aged black man; the grandson of slaves, for the remainder of his life. That in itself was remarkable but they agreed.
Parker Bell was illiterate, didn’t know how old he was, didn’t know his mother or father’s name. As a child he was raised on the ‘Brown farm‘. At first I found little history referring to a ‘brown farm’ but had heard that this is where young African-American children (orphans) were housed after the civil war and into the early 1900’s. I wondered if the name was an acronym in reference to John Brown, the abolitionist?

But thanks to a friend, who loves this kind of research as much as I do….we found the ‘Brown Farm’ in Savannah, GA., and a census map.

‘Young black children who were orphaned in Savannah from the latter part of the 19th century to 1943 had – for a number of reasons – nowhere to live except Savannah’s penal farm. There the young children were surrounded by such sights as men in shackles laboring in the fields, windows with bars and chain gangs. The kids were not being punished, but it was common practice for them to be taken there.

Savannah Penal Farm

Just Released! A new novel by Trisha Sugarek

Because there was no orphanage for black children, Chatham County black youth were often placed at the old Brown Farm, a 400 acre county penal farm for convicts (located on Montgomery Crossroad near where Lake Meyer is now) where they remained until they reached legal age. The girls were sent to the Chatham County Protective Home, operated by the Savannah Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. This practice went on for years, until Greenbriar Children’s Center was established.’ (Courtesy Greenbrier Children’s Center)

Lori’s mother-in-law, Mamie (now 94 years of age) remembers the Brown Farm. She told us, “When I was a young’un, me and a girl was in a fight, and both of us was sent to the Brown Farm for thirty days. The people in charge there, had us to wash clothes for the boys that were living there. I believe that old brown farm is where Memorial Hospital is now, just off Waters.”

Back to the old man. Parker Bell lived in the guest house and had the run of the property until his death a few years back. The family treated him like a favorite cousin. He didn’t have a social security number and because of his learning disabilities couldn’t work an outside job. But he kept busy cleaning up leaves, mowing grass and helping the children with their horses. Dick and Sue kept their promise and supported Parker Bell, until his death. Dick told me the fascinating story of the night they had a dinner party for twelve. In the middle of the meal, Parker walked into the house and into the candle-lit dining room, proudly holding up a stringer of fish, saying, “Mr. Dickie, I caught us a mess of bass outta that creek.”

My whole adult life I have had my best adventures when I’ve been ‘lost’….and today was no exception. To other writers out there? Our stories are all interwoven as human beings. Your new story could be around the next bend in the road.
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!

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Chuck Lorre…Vanity Blog (The Big Bang Theory)

Chuck Lorre, creator of The Big Bang Theory, (Young Sheldon, Mike & Molly, and Two and a Half Men and numerous movies) has been writing vanity blogs way before the word ‘blog‘ was coined. If you have a ‘pause’ button on your remote, it’s certainly worth a read. It appears at the very end of each episode, after the credits and ‘Coming next week‘ stuff.

VANITY CARD #579

“When I was a little boy I was constantly worried about myself and my family being killed by an atom bomb. Air raid drills and hiding in underground shelters were an almost daily part of my young life. (Remove all pens, pencils and sharp objects from your breast pocket, take off your glasses, look away from the window, find a buddy, hold hands, no talking, walk quickly to the basement, get on your knees, place your head against the wall, wait for the all-clear signal, hope the teacher forgets about the arithmetic test you didn’t study for.) Looking back, it was a ridiculously traumatic way to grow up. But like so many awful things, you got used to it. The fear of instant annihilation was just always there, lurking in the background. Until it wasn’t. Somehow, over time, the inevitability of the mushroom cloud simply went away. Wise and prudent men in our country and others, found a better way to exercise their hatred and fear of each other’s social and economic system. Until now. Now the wise and prudent men are no more, and the unthinkable is back on the table. Death and suffering on an unimaginable scale is once again an option. The low drumbeat of existential dread has returned, and I find myself thinking odd thoughts, like: “I hope someone reminds him that he can’t play golf in a Hazmat suit.”

And now, as if his brilliance couldn’t reach higher heights, there’s spin-off show when Sheldon was a kid living in conservative, Bible-belt, Texas. If you love Sheldon in Big Bang, and we all do, you will adore this nerdy little kid (played by Iain Armitage) who’s smarter than anyone in his ‘little kid orb’. It might take you a show or two to realize the clever, subtle writing in this show when it appears to be so broad and red-neck, but trust me it really is our adored (grown-up) Sheldon as a kid.
My second favorite actor is the Mom, Mary. Played by Zoe Perry you’d swear it was Laurie Metcalf (Sheldon’s grownup Mom) when she was younger. And then there’s Annie Potts. Remember her from Designing Women and Ghost Busters? She’s back as Sheldon’s Memaw (grandmother) and is a riot!!!

But I digress, just a little bit. Chuck Lorre’s vanity cards aka blog: I will never come close to his writing talent. But I can try. I can encourage others to try. And I can simply sit back and enjoy Lorre’s genius just for the sake of genius!
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? December: British writer, J.G. Dow. January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory

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John Lithgow….and His Stories

“…and that’s why we all need stories.” John Lithgow said in a recent talk show interview. He was telling the story of his father reading, to he and his siblings, from a book of short stories. And then years later, as his father lay dying, John Lithgow said he read aloud to him from the very same book.

John tells another story, within his story about reading this book of shorts to his father. He has been on the road with this one-man show for years. Narrating these same stories from this same book. He calls it a trunk show; an old theatre expression. That is, pack up everything at night’s end and move, on down the road, to the next town where he presents this one-night-stand again. He says that he finally wound his way to Broadway and is now performing to sold-out, delighted audiences.

This is why I entreat, beg, admonish, and plead with my readers to tell someone your story (hopefully your children and grandchildren), or write it down in a journal or even publish it. With today’s technology we are losing our oral history. And when this set of grandparents pass away it will all be lost. We all need stories.

“Rarely have I spent so entertaining and touching a night at the theater. The predominant sentiment in Stories by Heart is love.” —Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal

“Superb, illuminating and uplifting. The imagination, Mr. Lithgow wants us to know, is powerful. What could feel more current, more worthwhile in the first days of 2018?” —Jesse Green, The New York Times

This is me telling a story about John Lithgow’s story.
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Improve Your Creative Writing Skills

Adam Durnham shares his article on improving creative writing skills with us.

How to Improve Your Creative Writing Skills
by Contributing Writer, Adam Durnham

Creative pieces are usually meant to entertain, but since readers often want more than mere entertainment, they expect literary pieces to challenge the mind and tickle the imagination. For some, writing or reading literary pieces could also be a form of art therapy.
Though these standards are quite simple, they may put more pressure on writers. The more advanced readers are, the higher the standards they set for the authors’ literary pieces.

Here are four tips that can help people improve their creative writing skills:

Do not underestimate your readers’ ability to understand and imagine

Leave room for your readers to imagine the backstory, the motivation of the characters, and the exposition (the elements that explain the story). You don’t have to reveal all of these in graphic detail all at once. You can give clues or foreshadow some events in the story, but be careful about revealing every element at the start of the piece. Let your readers use their imaginations and formulate theories.

Identify the key points of your story, specifically taking note of the following:

i. What is the main goal of your protagonist? Try to create a protagonist who is interesting or unique in some way.

ii. What are the relevant actions your protagonist takes towards the completion of his or her goal? The protagonist of the story could make conscious decisions that drive and direct the entirety of the story.
iii. What are some unexpected outcomes of the protagonist’s decision(s)?
iv. What are some details related to the literary piece’s setting, tone, and dialogue that can help you reveal the story to the readers?
v. What is the climax of the story?
vi. Will readers find any morals from the story?
vii. How will the story end?
Pay attention to character development
To create realistic, multifaceted characters, it is important to understand and describe characters. To help you develop your characters, consider examining one or more of the following details:
● Name
● Age
● Appearance
● Family and relationships
● Ethnicity
● Drinking habits
● Likes and dislikes
● Strengths and faults
● Illnesses
● Hobbies
● Pets
● Phobias
● Religion
● Job
● Residence
● Sleep patterns
● Nervous gestures
● Secrets
● Memories
● Temperament

Including such details can make it easier to define your characters. They can help you mold your characters, build storylines, and create dialogue. You might want to consider

● Appearance: Create a visual understanding for your readers so that they can vividly imagine what the characters look like.
● Action: Instead of simply listing adjectives to define characters, describe the characters’ actions to tell your readers what the characters do and what they’re like.
● Speech: Don’t kill the story’s momentum by explaining the plot in great detail. Instead, try to reveal the plot through your characters and their dialogue.
● Thought: Show your readers how your characters think. Show them the characters’ hopes, fears, and memories.
Create a great plot
A story plot tells us what happens in the story. Writers establish situations, identify the story’s turning points, and determine the fate of each character.
Plots are the sequence of events arranged by the writer that reveal the story’s emotional, thematic, and dramatic significance. To create a great plot, it is important to understand the following elements of the story:
● Hook: The stirring or gripping problem or event that catches readers’ attention.
● Conflict: A clash between characters and their internal selves, or between different characters, or even between characters and external forces.
● Exposition: The backstory or background information about the characters and how this background information relates to the rest of the story.
● Complication: A problem or set of challenges that the characters face that make it difficult to accomplish their goals.
● Transition: Dialogue, symbols, or images that link one part of the story to another.
● Flashback: Something that occurs in the past, before the current events of the story.
● Climax: The peak of the story.
● Denouement: The story’s falling action or the release of the action that occurs after the climax.
● Resolution: The solution of the external or internal conflict.

Writing can be challenging if you don’t know the techniques. It can be a form of art or art therapy if you come to master it. Techniques and tips can help you build the literary skill you need. Practicing them can give you the experience to produce creative, well-crafted work.

Did you miss my post on how to Format a Novel?
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