[authorme] PUBLISHING NEW WRITERS, FEBRUARY, 2005
- From: "Bruce Cook, AuthorMe.com" <cookcomm@xxxxxxx>
- To: authorme@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 05:48:57 -0800 (PST)
You are receiving this periodical because you marked a
request on a website in the www.Author-Me.com group.
If for any reason you'd rather not receive this
periodical, simply write an email to
PublishingNewWriters@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and write the words
"no more" in the subject box. Thank you.
In this issue...
CONTEST ADVICE FOR SCREENPLAY WRITERS, by Lynne
Pembroke
KNOW THYSELF - FOR THOSE WHO WAN TO WRITE, by Ken
Mulholland
THE BASICS: CHARCTERIZATION, by Sandy Tritt
Please rate this Ezine at the Cumuli Ezine Finder.
http://www.cumuli.com/ezines/ra79672.rate
Note: This issue is sent as plain text due to current
problems with the global email system. For an html
View, go to
http://www.author-me.com/newsletters/current.htm
Start monitoring our RSS feed with frequent updates on
manuscripts posted at Authorme. To use this service,
download a free rss reader (for example, from
http://www.feedreader.com) and link to
http:www.authr-me.com/rssfeed.xml
============================================================
CONTEST ADVICE FOR SCREENPLAY WRITERS, by Lynne
Pembroke
Article Summary/Headline: Help to the writer by a
judge of several major TV script and screenplay
contests. Advice and tips on preparing a script
before entering a contest.
Introduction
There are many screenplay contests available to the
aspiring screenwriter. These contests can be a good
avenue to getting one's work noticed and/or make a
sale. So, it's important to make certain that you have
written your screenplay to the best of your ability
and according to industry standards.
The most important thing to do for any aspiring
screenwriter is to first learn the basic techniques of
screenwriting before sitting down to write one. I
come across many hopeful writers who think that all it
takes to write a script is a good story idea and a lot
of explosive special effects. While a good story is
important, with or without the special effects,
writing that story using proper industry standards is
equally important. (Please visit
http://www.coverscript.com/education.html -- Tips for
Screenwriters link for further information.)
There are specific techniques to the craft of
screenwriting involving everything from act structure
to proper screenplay format, which must be followed.
It's difficult to write engaging characters, focused
plots and entertaining screenplays without having a
solid framework in which to bring it all to life.
Before any money is spent submitting your work to a
screenwriting contest, it would behoove the writer to
first educate himself in the "tools of the trade".
There are many, many screenwriting books available as
well as workshops and seminars, both online and in
live classroom situations. My advice is to take
advantage of them. Then, armed with the basics,
write, write and then write some more.
Then before submitting your work to any screenplay
competition have it copyrighted and WGA registered.
(United States Copyright office:
http://www.loc.gov/copyright Writers Guild of
America: http://www.wga.org/).
Advice and Suggestions
I am a judge for many contests and as such, have read
thousands of TV scripts and screenplays. I can assure
you that the winners are chosen because their
screenplays or TV scripts contain great stories and
are written to industry standards. Therefore, putting
your best foot forward is a must. Below are some
pointers to keep in mind before you submit your
screenplay.
· If your purpose is to "break into the business",
make certain that the script contest you enter offers
meetings with agents and/or producers as part of the
prize for winning and not just cash prizes. Of course,
if it is just the extra cash you're after, then go for
it!
· Make certain, before you write that entry fee check
and send in your material, that the screenplay contest
or TV script competition is a reputable one and indeed
has, in the past, delivered to its winners what it
promised in its promotion.
· Presentation of your screenplay does count so make
certain your screenplay follows the accepted industry
standards. This not only includes using the proper
screenplay format but also such things as a typo-free
screenplay and the correct binding.
· Keep in mind that the industry professionals who
sponsor some of these film and TV competitions do so
in order to find good producible material, hopefully
for lower rather than higher budgets. Therefore,
entering a screenplay in a genre with a story that
screams "high budget" lessens the writer's chances of
winning. This means that
(1) Sci-fi special effects stories taking place on
purple planets populated with giant, paisley-skinned,
seven-armed, Plasmanian Wooglegorps who magically
float through the air using anti-gravity belts or
(2) a 1920's Period Piece necessitating Model-T's,
Zoot suits and flappers or
(3) an action/adventure story that has the bad guys
blown to smithereens, along with their Lear jet, over
the ocean, followed by a high-tech nuclear submarine
underwater search and rescue mission while the oil
slicked water burns out of control, may not be the
best way to go.
· Make certain that your story is told visually. Film
is a visual medium.
· Make sure you don't have "on the nose" dialogue or
too much dialogue and that all the dialogue sounds
natural.
· Check to make sure that your characters are
interesting, engaging and have good character arcs.
Nothing worse than having an unlikable hero, a
wishy-washy bad guy, or a protagonist who starts out
angry at the world and by the end of the story is
still angry at the world having learned and changed
nothing in his nature.
Conclusion
Once you've gone through your screenplay and are
satisfied with it, have it read by someone else. After
all, your story is intended for a movie-going audience
so honest opinions from friends and family members
will give you a feel for that audience reaction.
Then do yourself a favor and have your screenplay read
by an industry professional that has experience and
good credentials in the area of script analysis. A
writer can become too close to his work and not be
able to "see the forest for the trees". It is to your
advantage to have any possible format, story,
character, dialogue and structure flaws found and
corrected before it is submitted to a movie or TV
script contest.
While there is never any guarantee your screenplay or
TV script will be a winner, writing one to the best of
your ability and which meets industry standards is a
must, as the competition is fierce.
I wish you great success in your present and future
story-telling adventures.
Lynne Pembroke
Coverscript.com
URL: http://www.coverscript.com
============================================================
KNOW THYSELF - FOR THOSE WHO WAN TO WRITE
by Ken Mulholland
Know thyself. What does that mean and why should you
investigate such a premise? Well, if you want to write
about whatever you have in mind, it might not be a bad
idea to find a beginning at the beginning. And that
is?
You.
You, the individual. The only person that can ever be
you.
You are inimitable, unique. There can never be another
you. Every thought, every action, every written word
that you pen is yours. So how do you 'Know Thyself'?
Here are two simple ways of seeing yourself as all the
world sees you, and you do not.
First off, you must grasp this truth. What you see and
what you perceive of yourself is not what all others
see and perceive of you; at least not in the physical
sense. When you speak, you hear your voice as a
familiar, everyday kind of voice; a voice that you
have become used to over all your life. Your ears are
tuned to your particular voice, and you are accustomed
to the sound of it. But when you hear it back through,
say, an answer phone recorded message, you are
surprised and sometimes even shocked, because mostly
you have never heard it as others always do.
Now, what do others see of the physical you? They see
you as you seldom, if ever, see yourself. That's
right. You rarely ever see yourself as all others:
mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, child
or friend do.
Why is that? Because you only see your own reflection.
Through all your life, what you envision as your own
image is reflected through a mirror, and it is untrue.
What everyone else sees is the other you, the reverse
of what you see.
To get the effect, stand facing a mirror with your
brother or mother or whoever you know well. Look at
their image. Yes it's slightly different to the way
you normally see such a familiar face, and what you
see of them in the mirror is what they see of
themselves all the time, but as they look at you and
see your reflection the same thing happens, they see a
different you to the one they are used to, and yet
that is the image you have always been familiar with.
So what?
So my point is this. You go through your life knowing
how you feel on the inside; all those hidden emotions
that you keep to yourself, all those secret thoughts
and fancies, desires, hopes, motivating forces belong
solely to you, and unless you care to share them no
one else will ever know they exist inside your head.
Now writing mainly is a solitary pursuit. Solitary,
but not lonely. How could it be when your mind is at
work, dealing with characters; people, animals, whole
cultures, tiny communities, cities, countries and so
forth. When you are deep within the realm of writing
you are delving inside your self, conjuring up all
manner of tales, of emotions, of actions both
beautiful and violent; you are entering the perilous
world of names where once it was considered far too
dangerous to ever tell one's own name to a stranger,
lest they use it to gain some advantage of power
against you.
And the names of things do have a power of their own.
As J.R.R.Tolkien so wisely indicated, the names of
things such as grass and sky and tree and leaf, the
colours, red of blood and fire, green of sea and
forest, leap out and renew themselves in the eyes and
minds of those who still can visualize them, who still
have the inner consciousness to revisit the things
that once were so fabulous, before we began to take
them for granted, before we lost the ability to 'see'
those things for what they really are, and not what
others would have them become: mundane, tedious,
plain, uninspiring, boring.
And even those words have power, the power to create a
world where imagination lies defeated, and all has
become stagnant and stale. And again, so what?
So, if you choose to write, you enter that perilous
realm at your own risk; for not only will you
encounter all the dangers, joys, disappointments and
sorrows that inhabit such a realm, you will also
encounter another peril that dwells not on the inside
but on the outside of all your flights of fancy.
You will be tempted to write as secretly as you can,
for fear that others will see and know, and in the
seeing and knowing, will react in a way that sets you
apart as someone slightly oddball.
"I should write a book one day." How many times has
that been said? How many people that said it actually
went on to do exactly that?
"She can't be a writer. She doesn't even look like
one." How many times has that been said. I wouldn't
have a clue, but I bet it's been thought a million
times.
And the only way to break through to them that You can
and do write, is to get on with it. Make a beginning
and see it through. Get that first work into print.
Note the reaction when you finally have an article
published.
"Always knew he had it in him, doesn't look like a
writer though." What does a writer look like? After
all, we know what doctors are supposed to look like,
and nurses and policemen and plumbers. But if you
strip them naked, apart from having a lot of shivery
people or an all out... Well, best we not go there.
You do get my drift though?
Writers might have a vague identity with some fellow
in a garret, scratching away at a parchment with his
quill or some prim young woman, carefully rounding out
the flowing script of her heart-throbbing romance in a
corner of her cottage, but by and large, writers come
in all shapes and sizes, strongly now in both genders,
with a dazzling array of subject matter and styles.
Yet there is that persistent stereotype that dogs
those who profess to write. It appears that only
"other people" write, never You.
And yet You know yourself from the inside. You know
what you want to do, no matter whether you're the
local dog-catcher, that shivering, naked plumber, or
the kid fresh into high school.
A writer by the name of Hendrik Willem Van Loon once
said, 'Don't make the mistake of looking too eagerly
for the so-called "soul" of the artist. He, or she,
may have one, but you won't find it very different
from the souls of the rest of us.
The Psychology of the artist is always a very fruitful
subject of discussion among people who could not draw
a line or invent a tune if they tried unto the end of
their days.
The really good artist is likely to be a very simple
fellow who is much too occupied with the work he is
doing to worry about the psychological substructure of
his immortal soul.'
In other words, You. While others are busy deciding
who could or could not be a writer, You, if you would
Know Thyself, must put that aside and make haste in
your work.
Life is too short to wait. Every moment is another
thought, another experience. And that must all come
from the inner You.
The one others cannot tell is there. Until You show it
to them. They may refuse to see it, attempt to ignore
it or snigger at your efforts. You must not allow that
to deter you.
Know Thyself. Know the ability that you have. It will
only fail You, if You fail it. Write! Do it!
============================================================
THE BASICS: CHARACTERIZATION
by Sandy Tritt
http://tritt.wirefire.com
A story wouldn?t be a story unless it happened to
somebody. And that somebody?and all the other
somebodies in the novel?are the characters. A good
novel?even an action-based, plot-driven novel?must
have carefully conceived characters who are able to
withstand the demands of the story and who are able to
change in some way. I have devoted Section 3 to
developing characters, so I?ll only touch on the
basics here.
The protagonist is the main character in
the story. He or she is the character the reader
should identify with, or, at least, empathize with.
The protagonist?and every other character who is
integral to the plot?should have a character
statement. This is one sentence that says what, more
than anything else in the world, this character wants.
Examples of character statements:
· Mike is determined to become President of the
United States.
· Susan wants to marry Mike.
· Harmond wants to survive, to return to Kansas
and marry his high school sweetheart.
· More than anything in the world, Kerry wants
to be a movie star.
· Jenny wants to be a good mom, to be there for
her kids, to give them the love and attention they
need to grow into happy and successful adults.
Of course, in order for a story to be a
story, there must be something that is preventing the
protagonist from accomplishing his character
statement?something he must overcome in order to
achieve his greatest desire. This inter-relates with
plot, where the three basic struggles are
man-against-man, man-against-nature, and
man-against-himself.
The character conflict identifies what it
is that your character must overcome in order to
accomplish his character statement. Examples of
struggle statements are:
· Mike?s second cousin also wants to be
President, and will do anything to defeat Mike.
· Mike is already engaged to Sally, who insists
Susan is a tramp.
· Harmond is lodged in a crevice near Victoria
Falls, alone.
· Kerry lives 3000 miles from Hollywood and his
parents refuse to move.
· Jenny is an alcoholic.
Giving life to a character is one of the
most rewarding parts of being a writer. It is also one
of the most difficult. Too many times in fiction, we
witness the ?cardboard? or one-dimensional character.
Real characters, those we can visualize and root for
and love, aren?t created with the snap of a finger.
Instead, they develop over time, over many hours spent
together. Surely, writing is a spiritual endeavor. The
closest any of us will ever mimic God is by our desire
to create another human. But when we do, we find out
something that God discovered years ago: once you
breathe life into a being, he takes on a life of his
own
(from Section 2, Workbook)
Want more great tips and techniques? Our Inspiration
for Writers Tips and Techniques Workbook is now
available. Expanded tips, more topics, reproducible
worksheets, exercises to practice what you learn and
much more--check it out! Free shipping anywhere in the
United States.
(c) copyright 2002 by Sandy Tritt. All rights
reserved, except for those listed here. October be
reproduced for educational purposes (such as for
writer's workshops), as long as this copyright notice
and the url: http://tritt.wirefire.com are distributed
with the pages. For use in conferences or other uses
not mentioned here, please contact Sandy Tritt at
tritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for permission and additional
resources at no or limited charge.
Keep writing!
Sandy Tritt
Inspiration for Writers tritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Keep writing!
Sandy Tritt
tritt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sandy's website:
http://tritt.wirefire.com
============================================================
Publishing New Writers, February, 2005 (No. 602)
Publisher: Bruce L. Cook, P.O. Box 451, Dundee, IL
60118 USA.
Submissions and comments to cookcomm@xxxxxxxx Links
are welcome. To receive monthly e-mail copies of this
periodical, go to:
www.Author-Me.com/member.html
To review our archive of past issues, go to
www.Author-Me.com/newslist.htm.
AuthorMe.com is dedicated to the memory of David C.
Cook III
Visit our sister websites...
www.AuthorMe.com
www.AuthorMark.com
www.Cookcom.net
Other related posts:
- » [authorme] PUBLISHING NEW WRITERS, FEBRUARY, 2005
