Let Tarantino do Tarantino… Please!

Smokin' Aces Ain't Special...I can’t help it… Nobody does an impression of better than Tarantino himself. Many have tried… Many have failed. To me, the director that USED to come closest to beating Tarantino at his own game was . At least Guy threw enough of his own soul up there to make it a little different… That is until Madonna came into the mix.

But yeah, I’m talkin’ about . This post seems to go along with my recent posts about CHARACTER since I think both the script and the resulting film missed the boat in this area.

I remember talking about a movie set in Tahoe many many years ago… And, when he talked about it, his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and his machine gun explanation sucked you right in to the point where you were sayin’ “I can’t wait to see that movie!”

Which is WHY, on Friday night, I went to see it.

Why… After reading the , would I go see ? Because !

And just like MILLIONS of would be movie-goers, I plunked down my $10 on Friday, hoping that the machine gun explanation would somehow outperform the script.

And it did…

Just not enough.

I guess what really disappointed me the most was going back to his roots… Yeah, that’s right. BLOOD, GUTS, BULLETS & OCTANE is a movie probably most, if not all of you have never seen before… It was Joe’s first flick. The flick that got him out of , California… The flick that all his friends helped him on… A little 16mm beauty that introduced to the world.

SMOKIN’ ACES is in fact, BLOOD, GUTS, BULLETS & OCTANE on steroids… Pretty much the same movie but on a larger budget and scale… Don’t get me wrong… I loved BGB&O. It was a super-impressive 16mm Indie film made for something like $7500. The story was pretty damn good too with a nice twist at the end. It’s easy to see why BGB&O launched Joe’s career. Hell, I even bought the DVD.

Unfortunately, SA does almost the EXACT same thing here… Larger scale but to ME, almost the same movie. That bothers me because Joe can write… When it comes to dialogue, he’s got a very talented ear and zooms right along with some great back and forth dialogue… In some cases, BETTER than QT. His recent interviews attempt to dispel the idea that he has been influenced by Tarantino in any way but I can’t help feeling that there definitely IS some of QT’s influence… Much more so than Mamet or the Coen Brothers… Come on Joe, if you don’t want the comparisons, you gotta make a slightly different flick. In other words, there’s just no signature… No one element that you can tap into and say to yourself, “Smokin’ Joe did that.”

Not that anyone gives a shit and I won’t even give a shit after I write this… But I just feel LET DOWN. Joe is one of the guys that is supposed to get us back to THAT PLACE… That place where movies are special again. The worst part about it? It could have been done with just a little better screenwriting here and there. Unfortunately, the huge action sequences just didn’t put me BACK INTO the story. Sure they were visual. Sure they had comic effect but how much is enough? Had I not been taken out of the story, no problem…

As for being taken out of the story… It didn’t take long… And, while I hope not to SPOIL it for anyone, here’s the premise… Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel (played by ) is a Vegas showman turned gangster who’s got to turn rat or go to jail. When the head honcho of the Mafia finds out he’s turning rat, he puts out a million dollar bounty on Israel that inspires a bunch of hitmen and two hitwomen to get on board.

The problems?

The main problem I had was maintaining my suspension of disbelief… I’m pretty liberal at suspending my disbelief… So much so that when a movie just doesn’t allow me to keep on doing it, something’s definitely wrong.

The first problem I had was with the hitmen and hitwomen… These are supposed to be the best in the business yet only one really shined in that area — TO ME. The others were more like lower-level trash squads that you might hire to do a drive-by for a couple of grand. Unfortunately, the short diversion into the world of Smokin’ Aces just wasn’t enough for me to change my mindset about how professional assassins normally look and behave when it comes to the movies… What can I say? I’m old. will do that to you.

The second problem I had was that there was really nobody for me to root for. No real protagonist. They kind of use Ryan Reynolds’ character (Richard Messner) to portray the Protagonist but it’s too little too late. At no time did I care about any of these characters… Not one. To me, this is Screenwriting 101! Maybe a little less action and a little more character development could have gone a long way toward keeping me in the story… Maybe? Fuck yeah.

That’s NOT to say that the acting wasn’t good. It was. In fact, it’s the actors that totally make SMOKIN’ ACES. If it wasn’t for the acting, I would have had a much harder time sitting through it. As it was, I was ready and waiting to jump out of my theater seat by the time the film was over and I’m one of those audience members that watches the entire rolling of credits. Everybody does an outstanding job with what they’ve got to work with… My major complaint however, is that I just didn’t feel that this film was a film for grownups. LOL. Here you’ve got an R rated flick but with the feel of KID all over it i.e., who the hell was it made for? Interesting since over at Joe’s blog he says that supposedly lots of kids who purchased tickets to EPIC, turned right around and snuck in to SA.

I ain’t buyin’ it… That definitely didn’t happen where I saw the film.

All I can say is that this script GOES BACK to an earlier post, The script’s dialogue was enough to get some pretty oustanding talent on board but it also goes to show you that you still need a solid structure along with some great characters to keep people in the seats.

Should you see it? Sure, why not? There’s definitely SHITTIER movies out there but if you’re a screenwriter and can’t help watching a movie from THAT perspective, don’t be surprised if what happened to ME, happens to YOU. On the other hand, if I was 17, didn’t know a fuckin’ thing about screenwriting, it probably would have been an awesome experience. Funny how that works…

Unfortunately, I heard a lot of dissatisfied banter as I stood in line waiting to get out of the theater… A few younger people enjoyed it but a lot of the older audiences just weren’t buying it. We shall see if the magic ticket-buying demographic can save it… I heard it only cost about $25 Mil to make so it only needs about three more half-way decent weekends of box office… LOL.

We shall see but please Joe… Next time, MAKE IT SPECIAL!

Unk

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January 29, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized

29 Comments 

Depth-charging clarification…

Desire, Goal, and Motivation 

EDIT:  Khid brings up a good question in the comments section of this post:

“What’s the difference between Desire, Motivation, and Goal? These seem to change for me during the course of writing, and I feel like I’m doing something incorrect.”

Let me attempt to tackle DESIRE first…

As far as I’m concerned, it’s your Protagonist’s DESIRE that powers the overall story you’re trying to write. Without a strong desire from your Protagonist, YOU GOT NOTHIN’.

Desire is pretty simple… It’s what your Protagonist or any other character in your screenplay, WANTS. It’s that DESIRE/WANT that drives the story through to the end because your characters WANT something and they create action in their attempts to get what they want i.e., their desire or their OUTER GOAL.

One reason you might be a little confused is because THERE ARE NO RULES. Some movies depict their Protagonists with a very CLEAR and DESISIVE desire/want. In other movies, the Protagonist’s desire/want is NOT so clear cut and in fact, their desire/want changes throughout the story…

Having said that…

Your Protagonist should have yet another desire/want… This desire/want is not so cut and dried… This desire/want is UNDER THE SURFACE… This is the desire/want that your Protagonist might not even be totally aware of but it too is driving him or her just as strongly as the tangible desire/want. This is the INNER GOAL i.e., the transformation character arc that your Protagonist should make by the end of his or her journey.

If this seems confusing, it could just be the way you’re looking at it… Some writers tackle GOAL as the tangible outer goal that the Protagonist achieves by the end of the story and DESIRE is the inner goal or transformational character arc that the Protagonist achieves by the end of the story. I say, configure these however they work best for you in whatever way is EASIEST for you to get off your ass and write. LOL.

GOAL

See above. LOL. Seriously, goal is probably the easiest of the these three to figure out… If you want to keep it simple, just think of your Protagonist’s goal as that overall tangible THING he or she wants to achieve by the end of the story. In fact, this may be the best way to START out writing but as your writing continues, try to absorb the idea that it’s all just a matter of semantics in that somebody explains it one way and somebody else explains it a different way… There seems to be no universal rule here and even if there were, I’d be right there with an axe to chop it down.

I think if you take these elements of story and simply try to see how they interact together and relate, that is probably the best way to go so that as you further your screenwriting education, whatever new information you take on doesn’t necessarily cause you to get HUNG UP on details… Many of us need to know this kind of information as RULES because we’ve been bred to FOLLOW THE FUCKING RULES. LOL.

Ouch.

Okay… Cool. But this isn’t the military… This is the ONE TIME in your life where you are GOD. You do what you want. If it doesn’t work; CHANGE IT. Keep changing it till it does work. None of the stuff that I write about here on the blog should ever be taken as a fucking RULE of writing. I would rather think of it as a foundation of information required to write a legible story and once you’ve mastered the foundation, it’s time to start forging your very own paths to greatness.

Ah… Motivation. Motivation can be elusive because once again, there are no rules! Are you sick of me telling you that yet? Sorry, but I’m not done. Not by a long shot. But motivation is where YOU, the screenwriter come in. I’m actually glad Khid asked about all these elements but wow… Motivation is a major problem with spec scripts these days…

Why?

Because the Protagonist’s motivation just isn’t STRONG ENOUGH! Writers should be taking a hard look at their Protagonist’s motivation and then quite possibly CRANK it up a few notches.

Let’s go back to GOAL. What is your Protagonist’s goal? If this goal is weak, then guess what? Your Protagonist’s motivation is going to be just as weak if not weaker. When that happens, you take us out of the story because we’re immediately asking ourselves, “Who gives a shit?”

Let’s go back to DESIRE. If your Protagonist’s desire is to simply to obtain a brand new Harley by the end of the story, WHO CARES? Is getting a Harley really that compelling? Nope. You’ve got to make that desire and goal compelling. It can’t just be some passing want… Some flavor of the month… It’s got to be an ISOLATED CRITICAL COMPONENT that your Protagonist DESPARATELY wants. Something that he or she feels he cannot do without. Something that will make sense out of their life. COMPELLING.

On the other hand, a Protagonist might very well see obtaining a Harley and being able to ride around the country for the rest of his or her life as a LIFE GOAL. Having a life goal like this should be very telling to YOU, the screenwriter about this character… A fairly easily obtainable life goal like this would cause a Protagonist to make totally different kinds of decisions than someone who wants to stand up at Thanksgiving, take a look at his or her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and carve a turkey in complete peace as their life goal.

I recently read a script about a young woman who’s compulsion was to obtain a degree from college. YAWN. Now I’m not saying this goal couldn’t have been compelling… I’m sure if done correctly, it could be quite compelling but that’s exactly my point. The screenwriter completely failed to make me (and others) understand what was so fucking imporant about getting that degree. There was no magic job at the end of the rainbow… There was no parent or grandparent who was going to be proud. She already had a good job and made good money. I had to go back and reread the fuckin’ thing to see if I somehow missed the point.

I didn’t. The screenwriter simply failed to make that compulsion IMPORTANT ENOUGH for us to care whether or not the young woman obtained the degree. I can think of a dozen ways right off the top of my head to make that a compelling desire, want, goal. And, had something been there to CLARIFY that compulsion, BAM! You gots MOTIVATION.

And yes, a Protagonist can definitely possess different MOTIVATIONS throughout the story… i.e., the motivation to deal with whatever obstacles you jam in front of him or her however, the supreme or overall motivation should govern the path your Protagonist takes in his or her decision making process when it comes to dealing with the obstacles…

To SUMMARIZE…

Any good screenplay should be about a Protagonist that desparately WANTS SOMETHING. The more of a compulsion this SOMETHING is, the more we, the audience are going to lean forward, climb aboard the vicarious train and take the ride to the end of the tracks…

It’s my own opinion that most successful films seem to contain Protagonists that do in fact have desisive goals to achieve by the end of the movie… i.e., that tangible goal that we can EASILY see that the Protagonist has.

If I were to give anyone advice, I would say that you should definitely make your Protagonist’s goal something clear and desisive so that we can easily see it… That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go deep with your characters however… Once you find that clear, tangible, and desisive goal, now it’s time to explore the transformational character arc of your Protagonist. If you’ve done an extensive bio, this should be a little easier to flesh out.

Once you’ve fleshed it out and understand it yourself, it’s time to dig deep down into that character’s being and make that goal so fucking important and compelling that we can easily understand and NOT QUESTION why he or she wants to achieve it… i.e., it must make sense to us for that character to want that SOMETHING so fucking bad.

You’ve got to take your Protagonist’s compulsion i.e., his or her motivation and somehow translate that to us, the audience… It’s simply not enough for your Protagonist to have that compulsion. We’ve got to somehow understand WHY he or she has that particular compulsion so that once we do understand it, acknowledge it, we can climb aboard for the rest of the ride.

Unk

===

Whoa… TONS of email on depth-charging. So much email that I would rather attempt to clarify what I meant by the posts rather than attempting to reply to each email especially since many of the emails seem to raise similar questions…

1) I think about my character all the time. Why do I need to write a bio?

Uh… I never said you HAD to write a bio… LOL. I don’t CARE if you write a bio. That’s entirely up to you, right? Of course it is…

I will say however, that writing a bio (FOR ME), allows me to bring THINGS about the character in question that I would normally not have – WITHIN REACH… Let me explain… If you simply THINK about your characters, are you REALLY TRULY getting to know them well enough to know how they will handle any given situation you throw at them?

At first glance, you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, I do.”

Cool. If that’s what you think… Go write the way you want… For me, unless I know quite a few things about my characters’ past, I normally come up with the OBVIOUS character decisions… i.e., those character decisions that are quite predictable and translate into BORING.

In other words, without knowing a lot about your characters’ past history, you’re apt to pull a lot of the same types of reactions, decisions, dialogue, etc. between many of your characters… In fact, when I read a screenplay where the characters all sound the same and seem to make similar decisions; it SCREAMS out to me that the writer just doesn’t know his or her characters well enough. That’s about the best way I can explain it…

When you DIG into your characters’ past history, whether you THINK IT or write it, you are bringing up those events that shape people’s lives into WHO they are TODAY. The more history you have on someone, the more your own brain is going to be able to reach for those decisions and reactions that are less cliché… Less predictable. You’re simply taking all those events, traits, etc. that are at the bottom of the drawer and sitting them out on your bed so they are READILY AVAILABLE and trust me, your brain will remember most of them when you really need it… i.e., while you’re writing.

While it’s true that most if not all of the history, traits, backstory events, etc. will never make it into your screenplay, what all this information does very well is to plop everything right out on top with all the usual cliché and predictable stuff that we see so often… Sure, you still have to CHOOSE but at least you have MORE to CHOOSE FROM.

2) I don’t get the Maslow’s thing at all. How do I use it?

Easy… Just see what level your character in question is at just about any point in your story/outline/screenplay and you can immediately get an idea of what immediate need that character is motivated to fulfill next. Once you know the need, you must now construct a way for that character to achieve meeting his or her need WITHIN THE CONTEXT of your story.

3) I don’t get the 3rd goal… What the fuck are you talking about?

Again, this is information that may or may not make it into your screenplay but if you, the writer know what your characters WANT OUT OF LIFE, this helps you guide them to achieve the outer and the inner goals they have in your screenplay. For instance, if Character A’s LIFE GOAL is to just have a little two bedroom house in a neighborhood with a white picket fence by the time they die; they might make different decisions than Character B who wants to be rich and powerful by the time they die. The possibilities are endless here and I honestly believe that once you know your characters’ life goals as well as their more immediate outer and inner goals of your story, that FORCE is going to help guide you through the creation of a multidimensional character.

I mean, how can it hurt? LOL.

No offense to any of the readers that sent me email but much of the email I read seemed as though you simply didn’t want to have to go THOSE EXTRA STEPS of writing.

Well guess what?

You don’t.

Unk

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January 22, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized

10 Comments 

Depth-charging your characters PART 2

Here we go… The meat and potatoes of DEPTH-CHARGING. Before you get all at how extensive this list is — just remember…

THERE ARE NO RULES!

Which means that you can take ALL or PART of this list and do what you will with it. Whatever works for YOU is best. Before I give you the list however, it might be a good time to talk psychology. Whether you like it or not, as a screenwriter, we end up becoming amateur psychologists. Like it or not, we’re dealing with characters on the written page and the sooner you get on board with this, the better your screenplays are going to be.

Unfortunately, all the lists in the world aren’t going to make your characters ON THE PAGE any better unless you understand some very BASIC psychology about human beings. That’s right… You, me… Human beings. I’m at the point in my life (and I’ve been there for quite a long time) where nothing people do really surprises me anymore and once you begin to really truly understand human beings, this will probably begin happening to you as well… Don’t confuse not being surprised anymore by what people do with characters in movies being predictable or not doing anything surprising… These are two different animals but being comfortable with that premise allows you to DEPTH-CHARGE.

I certainly don’t have enough room OR TIME to post a huge insightful cheat sheet on psychology but I can sure as hell point you in the right direction…

ABRAHAM MASLOW

For those of you who have actually taken a psychology class, Maslow is probably not new to you. Many of his theories have been publicly disagreed with and that’s fine… We’re not attempting to BECOME psychologists or psychiatrists… Feel free to argue Maslow’s theory with somebody who gives a shit… LOL.

We’re simply trying to understand the psychological characteristics of human beings and more importantly… The CHARACTERS we write on the pages of our screenplays.

All in all, if I had to create a cheat-sheet to refer to when it comes to CHARACTER PSYCHOLOGY, I can’t think of one better than :

Again, I don’t want to get into a theoretical discussion of his theory… All I can say is that it WORKS for me. If you think it could work for YOU, then read on…

To SUMMARIZE the basic theory, Maslow was basically saying that human beings start out at the bottom of the pyramid and work their way UP the pyramid as they fulfill each need.

Cool.

I don’t care whether or not it’s true… I don’t care whether or not the psychological community agrees with it or not… I don’t care if humans don’t actually follow the theory… What I do care about is that the pyramid works when it comes to creating characters written on the page…

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, maybe you’re read what I’ve said about having your characters constantly climbing up SHIT MOUNTAIN. LOL. Well I look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid as the SHIT MOUNTAIN of LIFE.

This is also where your character’s GOALS come into play… You’ve heard and read about the OUTER and INNER GOAL of your protagonist, right?

The outer goal being that tangible thing that your protagonist needs to achieve by the end of your story… The inner goal is your protagonist’s transformational arc they achieve by the end of your story…

THE THIRD GOAL

Third goal? THIRD GOAL????? Are you fucking crazy, Unk? They didn’t put that in the screenwriting books I bought. What the FUCK are you talkin’ about?

There it is in living color… THE SHIT MOUNTAIN OF LIFE! No matter what your character’s outer or inner goals are, they need to be KICKED in the ass by the Shit Mountain of Life. The Shit Mountain of Life governs the outer and inner goal of your characters. The outer and inner goals are not the end of the rainbow… The end of the rainbow are the character’s LIFE GOAL(S)… The fulfillment of the entire pyramid.

Think of your screenplay as ONE LEG of your character’s LIFE JOURNEY because that’s what it is… It is no more important and NO LESS IMPORTANT than any journey he or she’s made before or after the journey you’ve put your Protagonist through unless he or she DIES by the end of your story and even so… You always STRIVE to make THIS LEG the most EXCITING leg of your Protagonist’s life journey.

Are you thoroughly confused now?

DESTINY

Do your characters believe in destiny? Mine do. Always. Even the characters that do not believe in destiny believe that IS THEIR DESTINY. In other words, what is your character’s purpose for being alive? We know what YOUR purpose is for your character being alive… It’s your story and screenplay but what about the character? Does HE or SHE have a say? If not, WHY NOT?

Sure, we meet people every day of our lives who don’t believe in destiny… They drone on with their lives and that’s cool because hey… We have free will. But remember… The characters in our screenplays are NOT real people and guess what? The audience KNOWS that. LOL. They know that but they STILL come to watch your character’s journey and HOPEFULLY, climb on board for the rest of the ride… i.e., they are CHARACTERS WE WANT TO BE!

There, I said it… It’s true. The audience wants to find a character they can get behind… A character that they can empathize with… A character that carves a path through life for others to follow… Namely, your audience! Destiny or a PURPOSE for being alive… Or, to go back to Maslow’s Hierarchy… Self-actualization as our desire for self-fulfillment to become everything we are capable of becoming. Characters like that are exciting. Characters like that are the kinds of characters we like to watch and remember… Even a character with a WARPED sense of destiny (as long as they have it) can be just as exciting to watch.

Self-actualizing characters normally place higher value on satisfying their ultimate needs. They make tremendous sacrifices to fulfill those needs… Even to the point of DEPRIVING their lower-level needs.

On the other hand, you might have characters in your story that are just struggling to stay alive… Find something to eat… Looking for a job. You can pretty much create a STARTING POINT with any character at some level of the pyramid and go from there.

I like to think of Hitchcock’s films when it comes to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs… It helps me put this entire theory into some kind of perspective… We start out with a character… Let’s say, Roger Thornhill from NORTH BY NORTHWEST… Where does he start out on the pyramid? Hmmm. I’d have to say he starts out on the 4th level since he’s an advertising mogul. He’s got it all at the beginning of the film, doesn’t he? At least HE THINKS he does… LOL. However, as soon as what he does have becomes threatened, he’s all over the pyramid trying to get back to where he started… But at some point, once he realizes that Eve Kendall works for the government, that he’s in love with her… He seems to aspire to greater things doesn’t he? All of a sudden the 4th level is NO LONGER good enough and as he strives to reach the top of the SHIT MOUNTAIN of LIFE, he saves the day.

My point in bringing up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is to simply give you a STARTING POINT of basic SCREENPLAY CHARACTER psychology – not real people… I leave that for others to argue. LOL. Once you realize that your characters possess these needs and strive to achieve them one by one, with the top level of the pyramid more or less guiding the overall journey i.e., a SET OF IDEALS… You can then begin to create multi-dimensional characters that we are gonna fucking love. And remember, it’s just a TOOL.

*NOTE: I should probably let you know that others have changed and adapted Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to include additional levels of NEEDS… Those being:

This creates a slightly different pyramid now but no less important… Remember, you start from the bottom and climb up to different levels… But here’s the actual order starting at number one:

  1. Physiological: air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

  2. Safety: protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

  3. Love/Belonging: work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

  4. Esteem: self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

  5. Cognitive: knowledge, meaning, etc.

  6. Aesthetic: appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.

  7. Self-Actualization: realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

  8. Transcendence: helping others to achieve self actualization.

I personally like to keep it as simple as possible so I like the original five levels… And, one could argue that on the modified pyramid, levels, 5, 6, 7, and 8 could easily fit into the original level 5 — Self-Actualization. So whatever works for you… Go forth and WRITE!

THE DEPTH-CHARGING LIST

By no means exhaustive… Add to the list you already have if you have one and keep adding to it as you come up with more that mean something to YOU. There are no rules!

Before I get any email about the above list… Again, THERE ARE NO RULES! You may or may NOT want to list every item however, I would, at the very minimum, go over the list every so often and AT LEAST ONCE and at least MENTALLY answer the questions/list the traits… Just this ALONE will do wonders for giving your characters dimension.

The idea of the list is to simply allow YOU, the SCREENWRITER to stand in your character’s shoes while you write. Feel the way your character feels. Walk the way your character walks… Talk the way your character talks…

Got it?

BACKSTORY

Finally… When you have WRITER’S BLOCK, always try going back to your characters. Remember the old saying, “THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE” — ? This is true with knowing your characters and getting over writer’s block. You may THINK your writer’s block is about your story… You may THINK your writer’s block is about your lack of plot, twists, turns, etc… And, that may be true to a degree but more than likely, you just don’t know your characters as well as you know yourself… Remember, you need to know your characters BETTER than you know yourself.

When I get writer’s block, I go back to my character’s bio… I’d say at least 50% of the time, doing this is sufficient to get me back to writing… When it’s not however, it’s time to go DEEPER and that’s where backstory comes in…

Let me shout this again from my laptop… This stuff may NEVER make it into your screenplay but it serves to help you develop your characters to the point that you no longer have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to figure out what they’ll do next or what they’ll say next. Having said that, little bits and pieces WILL make it into your screenplay in the form of exposition, dialogue, and most importantly, SUBTEXT.

This list too, is not exhaustive… Take it and add to it for the rest of your life… LOL. How to use it… Easy. Pick something from the list or brainstorm something different from the list and write a short story about the event as it happened to your character… Write it in first person, third person… Whatever trips your trigger. Whatever WORKS.

BACKSTORY LIST

Need I go on? Hopefully, you get the idea… Adding to the list is as easy as watching movies, television shows, reading articles, books, etc… Hell, I’m sure there’s more than a few of us that can actually add our very own events to the list…

The point?

Always go BACK to your characters EVEN when everything tells you it’s SOMETHING ELSE. Give your characters a chance to bail you out… They want to so let ‘em try… Pick something from the list or add something to the list and write a little one to five page short story about the event… What really works for me is to DEFINITELY go over the character’s bio just before writing about a backstory event that occurred in your character’s past… Write the backstory while keeping the bio in mind and just have fun with it. There are no rules.

Last but definitely NOT LEAST… Here’s a that I’ve been working on for years… If I see the words, handsome, attractive, blah, blah, blah; one more time in a character description, I’m gonna turn my lunch over… LOL. Pick SOMETHING from the list that we’ve not been inundated with… PLEASE!

Out for the weekend…

Unk

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January 19, 2007 | Filed Under Characters

17 Comments 

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