THE UNSEEN on sale, 99 cents for Kindle!

By noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra Sokoloff)

For everyone who got Kindles for Christmas, or anyone who’s planning to read in bed until the New Year, my parapsychology thriller The Unseen is on sale this week for just 99 cents for Kindle. So if you’re looking for a cheap thrill…. 🙂

The Unseen is fiction, but there’s a lot of reality woven in, in history and location.

I have a posse of mystery writer friends (I should say goddesses!): Margaret Maron, Sarah Shaber, Diane Chamberlain, Katy Munger, Mary Kay Andrews and Brynn Bonner. Several times a year we go on retreat to the beach or the mountains or some generally fantastic place. We work all day long by ourselves and then convene at night to drink wine and brainstorm on any problem that any one of us is having (and of course, compare page counts!).

And one of our favorite retreats is the Artist in Residence program at the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines, NC.

Weymouth is an amazing place – a 9000 sq. foot mansion on 1200 acres (including several formal gardens and a 9-hole golf course) that’s really three houses melded together. It was what they called a “Yankee Playtime Plantation” in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the fox hunting lodge of coal magnate James Boyd. James Boyd’s grandson James rebelled against the family business to become – what else? – a novelist. Boyd wrote historical novels, and his editor was the great Maxwell Perkins (“Editor of Genius”), and in the 1920’s and 30’s Weymouth became a Southern party venue for the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and Thomas Wolfe. That literary aura pervades the house, especially the library, with all its photos and portraits of the writers who have stayed at the house.
It’s a fantastic place to write – pages just fly.

It’s also notoriously haunted.

When you write ghost stories, PLACE is hugely important – it’s got to be absolutely a character in the book, just as much as the human characters are.
And The Unseen is a haunted house story – two psychology professors take a group of psychically gifted students into a house with a history of poltergeist manifestations, to replicate a controversial experiment from the 1960’s. I was inspired by the real-life, world famous ESP testing and poltergeist investigations that took place at the Duke University parapsychology lab, headed by Dr. J.B. Rhine.



Zenercards

You probably recognize those cards, which were used in laboratory tests to determine through statistical analysis whether ESP really occurs. Two test subjects would sit at a table divided by a screen, and one subject, the sender, would flip through a deck of 25 cards, concentrating on one card at a time, while the receiver would write down her or his guesses about what that card was.
Pure chance is 20% right, so any score significantly above chance was considered to be an indicator of some psychic ability. And if you want to try it for yourself, here’s an online version of the test!
As the daughter of scientists, I was always completely fascinated by the idea of testing something as spooky cool as ESP in a laboratory setting. But what really hooked me about the history of the Rhine lab was that in the sixties, the researchers started doing field research of haunted houses and poltergeists.
Poltergeists!
I know what a ghost is, kind of, but a poltergeist is such an elusive – creature. Is it the random sexual energy of an adolescent gone wild? Is it a particularly noisy and mischievous ghost? Is it an otherworldly entity? Or is it just a teenager faking spooky effects for attention?
The mystery of it has always fascinated me.
Now, I truly believe that when you commit to a story, the universe opens up all kinds of fantastic opportunities to you. And I started writing THE UNSEEN at the same time that our group had its first trip to Weymouth. In fact, we came down to the house on the very day that my characters were moving into THEIR haunted house.
(I’m telling you, writing is a little scary. More than a little scary, in this case…)
Some of us had some truly spooky encounters in that place. Every time I turned around there was knocking on the walls (the pipes in the kitchen), weird manifestations (a ghostly team of horses trotting by with a buggy on the road outside) and rooms that were just too creepy to go into after dark. One night I had to go all the way back upstairs, across the upstairs hall and around to the front stairs to get to a room I wanted to go to because I was too freaked out to cross the Great Room in the dark. And another one of us had the classic “Night Hag” visitation: she woke up feeling that someone or something was sitting on her chest. Brrrrr…..
One prevalent theory of hauntings is that a haunting is an imprint of a violent or strong emotion that lingers in a place like an echo or recording. I’ve always liked that explanation.
Well, this house was imprinted, all right, but far beyond what I had expected.
Because besides the requisite spooky things… that house was downright sexy. There’s no other way to say it. Seriously – hot.
I had ridiculously, I mean – embarrassingly – erotic dreams every night. There were rooms I walked into that made my knees go completely weak. The house, the gardens, even the golf course, just vibrated with sex.
Now, maybe that was just the imprint of creativity – the whole mansion is constantly inhabited by writers and musicians, and as we all know, creativity is a turn-on.
But also, consider the history. As I said – Weymouth was a “Yankee Playtime Plantation”. Rich people used that house specifically to party – in the Roaring Twenties, no less. (Think THE GREAT GATSBY!). God only knows how many trysts, even orgies, went on. So could sex imprint on a place, just as violence or trauma is supposed to be able to imprint?
It makes sense to me.
That sexual dynamic surprised the hell out of me, but it completely worked with my main character’s back story – she’s a young California psychology professor who impulsively flees to North Carolina after she catches her fiancé cheating on her. (Actually, she dreams her fiancé is cheating on her, in exactly the scenario that she catches him in later.) So her wound is a specifically sexual one, and one of her great weaknesses is that she’s vulnerable to being sexually manipulated.
Add to that that the most prevalent explanation of a poltergeist is that it’s hormones run amok: that the projected sexual energy of an adolescent or young adult can randomly cause objects to move or break.
So of course I went with it. It wasn’t anything to do with my outline, but California girl that I am, how can I not go with the obvious flow?
I think it adds a great dimension to the story, in a way I never could have anticipated, and I’m pleased to have been true to the – um, spirit – of poltergeists.
So first, I’m always interested in hearing your ghost and psychic experiences. Come on, I know you have them. And then of course, there’s the “How far will you go to research?” question! Do you all take this to the same extremes I do?

Via: Alexandra Sokoloff

    

Buy the Latest, Get the First

By JD Rhoades
Polis Books is running a very nifty giveaway for the upcoming release of my latest Jack Keller Novel, DEVILS AND DUST, as well as Dave White’s new one, NOT EVEN PAST. Here’s how it works:

1) Purchase DEVILS AND DUST by J.D. Rhoades in hardcover or ebook, or NOT EVEN PAST by Dave White in paperback or ebook.
2) Email your confirmation to info@polisbooks.com. Include your preferred e-reading device.
3) Enjoy your FREE copy of THE DEVIL’S RIGHT HAND by J.D. Rhoades or WHEN ONE MAN DIES by Dave White!
Find out where to buy the books here:
DEVILS AND DUST
http://www.polisbooks.com/books/devils-and-dust/
NOT EVEN PAST
http://www.polisbooks.com/books/not-even-past/

Via: J.D. Rhoades

    

Top Ten Christmas Movies

By noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra Sokoloff)

To me, the best thing about Christmas, besides champagne, is Christmas movies. And you all know how I love lists, so here it is, the Top Ten Holiday Movie List.

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

A non-escapist fantasy that puts you through the emotional wringer only to emerge the feel-good – that’s, feel GOOD – film of all time.

Used to show it to my gang kids in prison school – it remains one of the all-time highlights of my life to see those kids start out whining that I was showing them a black and white film and then watch them fall under this movie’s spell. Oh man, did they GET it.

HOLIDAY

George Cukor directing a Donald Ogden Stewart & Sidney Buchman adaptation of a Philip Barry play starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Anything else you need to know?

PHILADELPHIA STORY

See above, plus Jimmy Stewart, and the brilliant and under-known Ruth Hussey (“Oh, I just photograph well.”) and Virginia Weidler as the weirdest little sister on the planet (“I did it. I did it ALL.”) Not a holiday movie, per se, but if you’re looking for cheer…

HOLIDAY INN

The ultimate escapist fantasy. Yes, let me make a living doing 12 live shows a year, simultaneously keeping two men at my beck and call, one who sings, one who dances. Where do I sign? Best line: “But I do love you, Jim. I love everybody.” Best song: “Be Careful, It’s My Heart”. Best dance – Fred and the firecrackers. Best cat-fight moment: Marjorie Reynolds trying to look contented with Bing Crosby while Fred is dancing up a storm with Virginia Dale. (But be sure to get the one with the appalling Lincoln’s birthday sequence edited out…)

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER

Best Christmas musical soundtrack there is – one great song after another – only the whole thing makes me cry so hard I generally end up avoiding it.

FAWLTY TOWERS

BBC series written by and starring John Cleese and Connie Booth, with Cleese as the most incompetent innkeeper in the history of innkeeping. The entire series is genius, every single episode – not exactly holiday themed, either, but guaranteed healer of depression and all other ills. Be prepared to laugh until you’re sick.

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS

My brother turned the fam onto AB FAB and now it just wouldn’t be a holiday without Patsy and Eddy and Saffy. Sin is in, sweetie.

GODSPELL and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR

Okay, so I’m not technically a Christian or anything, but I can see God in those two shows.

So what movies mean Christmas, or the equivalent, to YOU?

Have a wonderful holiday!!!

– Alex

Via: Alexandra Sokoloff

    

Christmas Music For People Who Hate Christmas Music

By JD Rhoades
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Christmas is a time that brings people together. At least that’s the theory. In reality, there’s one thing that can often lead to stress and disharmony at this time of year.

I’m talking, of course, about Christmas music.
Some people love it, some people hate it. Even in my own family, there’s a sharp divide. I enjoy Christmas music (only if played after Thanksgiving, of course), while my daughter regards it as only slightly less agonizing than bamboo shoots under the fingernails. (Her reaction when I mentioned I was including her in this column: “Great, now everyone in town will hate me, too.”)
Part of the problem I think some people have with Christmas music is the repetitiveness of the standard Yuletide catalog. Even though I’m a fan, I confess that after about the 50th different rendition of “Do You Hear What I Hear” or “Little Drummer Boy,” I start to grow weary. So the secret is to change it up. Listen to something a little more off the beaten track. Songs like:
Bob Dylan, “Must Be Santa.” Yes, folks, Dylan did a Christmas album. It’s called “Christmas in the Heart,” and it’s one of the stranger things you’ll hear anywhere. The album’s single, with accompanying video, sounds like a polka version of this staple of elementary school Christmas programs, rendered in Dylan’s signature croak.
The video features a house full of revelers, with Dylan wandering in and out of the frame with his long hair in his face, looking like a crazed street person. The whole thing culminates in a fight that ends with someone crashing through a window. It has to be heard (and seen) to be believed.

The Eagles’ rendition of the old classic “Please Come Home For Christmas” has become a standard on rock radio for the holiday season. But check out Charles Brown’s 1960 original. All due respect to Mr. Don Henley and the other Eagles, but Brown’s version is way more soulful and wistful than theirs could ever be, especially on the lines “My baby’s gone, I have no friends/to wish me greetings once again.” If you’re missing someone at Christmas, this is the song for you.

Robert Earl Keen, “Merry Christmas From the Family.” This redneck holiday anthem has it all: alcohol (“Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk/at our Christmas party”); family tension (“Little Sister brought her new boyfriend/he was a Mexican”); followed by acceptance (“We didn’t know what to think about him/till he sang ‘Feliz Navidad’”).
It has the inevitable mishaps (“When they plugged their motorhome in/they blew our Christmas lights”), followed by resolution and family togetherness (“Cousin David knew just what went wrong/So we all waited out on our front lawn/He threw the breaker and the lights came on/And we sang ‘Silent Night.’”) Bring tears to your eyes, don’t it?

;
The Waitresses, “Christmas Wrapping.” This minor hit by one of the forgotten bands of the ’80s tells the story of a single girl in the city, frazzled by a tough year and a series of missed connections with a “most interesting” guy. The narrator decides to spend her Christmas relaxing alone (“I just need to catch my breath/Christmas by myself this year”).
Well, you can see where this is heading: toward a coincidental last-minute meeting (“You mean you forgot cranberries too?”) with the aforementioned guy, and a “very happy ending.” It’s a charming little romantic comedy, told in a concise five minutes, with a killer horn break.

New York “Beer Metal” band Guyz Nite wrote and performed a song that’s a tribute to the greatest Christmas movie ever made: “Die Hard.” The song of the same name tracks the original story from the beginning (“Remember when we first met John McLain?/Argyle picked him up from the plane”) and follows it up to the triumphant refrain, where the band joyfully carols the movie’s signature line: “Yippie-Ky-Yaaay, mother-[bad word]!” Actually, you might not want to play this one for Grandma.

Hallelujah, everybody say cheese, and Merry Christmas from the family, to all those who keep it.

Via: J.D. Rhoades

    

Nanowrimo Now What? Lessons from Musical Theater

By noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra Sokoloff)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I know, it’s Panic Sunday, four days to Christmas, and nobody is writing this week except me, right?

Well, but here’s a little exercise you could do to hone your story structure skills and get into the holiday spirit at the same time.

Last week I went to see Wicked and was reminded once again that the best training I ever got for writing novels, and screenplays, was my musical theater background (acting, directing, choreography).

Looking at musical theater is an excellent way to learn how to present key story elements like Inner and Outer Desire, Into the Special World, the Hero/ine’s Plan, the Antagonist’s Plan, Character Arc, Gathering the Team – virtually any important story element you can name. Musical theater knows to give those key elements the attention and import they deserve. What musicals do to achieve that is put those story elements into song and production numbers. They become setpiece scenes to music. And you know how I’m always encouraging you all to SPELL THINGS OUT? Well, there no better way to spell things out than in song. The audience is so entertained they don’t know you’re spoon-feeding them the plot.

Yes, I know, you can’t put songs on the page. But – you can most certainly learn from the energy and exuberance of songs and production numbers, and find your own ways of getting that same energy and exuberance onto the page in a narrative version of production design, theme, emotion and chemistry between characters, tone, mood, revelation – everything that good songs do.

So in the spirit of the holidays, how about finding 90 minutes to screen The Nightmare Before Christmas? We’ll take a look at the songs in that piece one by one and identify the key story element, or elements, that each song is dramatizing.

• Overture –

(An Overture does what an opening image or credits sequence does: it establishes mood, tone, theme and expectation. In this film the Overture ends with the Opening Image shot of the circle of trees in the woods that turns out to be a portal to all the different holidays. An important set up and a visual depiction of the premise of the entire movie, really.

• “This is Halloween” – The Nightmare Before Christmas cast/ choir

The opening number is big production number, as befits a musical, which sets up THE ORDINARY WORLD of Halloween Town, and almost all the principle characters (except Santa Claus).

• “Jack’s Lament” – Jack

Nothing is better than musical theater for externalizing character’s needs, desires, plans and wishes. But there’s often more to a Desire song than that.

As I am always saying, a great deal of what creates dramatic conflict and character arc comes from the conflict between a hero/ine’s Inner and Outer Desire. For MOST characters, what they think they want is not what they actually need, and during the journey of the story, they will come to realize that they are WRONG about what they want. This musical is a strong example of that storytelling principle in action. “Jack’s Lament” is a Desire or Want or Wish song; he’s tired of doing the same thing every year (basically, he puts on Halloween) and feels there’s something missing. He is going to seize on Christmas as the answer to that desire, when very soon we realize that what he really needs is Sally. Jack’s Character Arc has to do with realizing that very thing himself, as well as realizing that he’s good at what he does, he’s supposed to be the Pumpkin King, and thus finding new excitement in his life and life’s work.

A Desire song is very, very often a “Careful what you wish for” moment. It certainly is, here!

• “What’s This?” – Jack

Here we have a song of Jack exploring the Special World, after he’s gone through the door to Christmastown (The Passageway to the Special World – which is also the Opening Image of the film: the circle of trees in the woods, with each tree having a door to a different holiday. This passageway scene has elements of C.S. Lewis’s The Mageician’s Son, The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, and probably a whole slew of other classics I’m not thinking about.)

• “Town Meeting Song” – Jack and Citizens

Here is a GATHERING THE TEAM song; Jack calls a town meeting to try to explain Christmas to the Halloween people, and rally them around this exciting new idea. Unfortunately, the team doesn’t get it.

So Jack’s first PLAN is to figure out Christmas so he can rally Halloween Town behind a new and exciting celebration, but the more he studies it, the more it eludes him.

• “Jack’s Obsession” – Jack and Citizens

A musical depiction of the HERO’S PLAN and OBSESSIVE ACTIONS (Obsessive and/or Immoral Actions and Crossing the Line are key elements of Act II, part 2).

• “Kidnap The Sandy Claws” – Lock, Shock, and Barrel

A PLAN song: in this case it’s Jack’s Plan, but carried out by these three villainous henchmen, which turns it more into a Villain’s Plan without making us completely hate Jack. However, Jack has definitely Crossed the Line with this plan, as illustrated by the song, which should cause some recoil in the audience!

This song is also a SIDEKICK song; one of the perennial delights of musical theater, which often, as here, employs the RULE OF THREE (even the names of the characters, Lock, Shock and Barrel, are a classic Rule Of Three pattern: same, same, different. In straight musical theater this is often a tap dance song; tap epitomizes playful exuberance and some comic slyness as well.)

(Of course one of the most wonderful examples of the Allies’ Song or Sidekick Song
and the Rule of Three is the three choruses of “If I Only Had a Brain/Heart/Nerve) in The Wizard of Oz, which also serves as the Gathering the Team Sequence.)

• “Making Christmas” – The Nightmare Before Christmas cast:

This is the production number that dramatizes the Storming the Castle scene; Jack Storms The Castle (Christmas Town) by reindeer and sleigh, and proceeds to terrify the sleeping citizens of Christmas Town by delivering horrifying and in some cases, vicious presents.

• “Oogie Boogie’s Song” – Oogie Boogie

Meanwhile back in Halloween Town we get a classic Villain’s Plan song: main villain Oogie Boogie is going to torture Santa Claus. This is a down and dirty New Orleans- style song, which musical theater loves, especially as a musical style for the villain. It undercuts the villainy by making it seem sexy and appealing and danceable, which in a children’s film takes the edge off the scariness of this monster.

• “Sally’s Song” – Sally

The love interest’s DESIRE SONG comes quite late in the film, but her desire for Jack has not only been clear from the beginning, it’s actually been the emotional core of the whole film. We get completely behind Sally’s Desire at the same time that we’re getting more and more uneasy about Jack’s Desire. Here her Desire song is actually used as a Black Moment or All Is Lost scene for her, too; she does not believe at this moment that she’ll ever be with Jack (which makes us WANT that for her even more.)

• “Poor Jack” – Jack

Jack’s All Is Lost Moment comes as he has been shot down from the sky by the police of Christmastown, and has fallen onto a cross in the cemetery. He sings as he hangs from the cross that he has failed utterly at his attempt to take over Christmas. But in the middle of the despair of this song, he also finds a Revelation: that he is good at exactly what he does, and he becomes excited about planning for the next Halloween. He races off with a New Plan, to save Santa Claus and restore him to Christmastown before it’s too late. He Storms The Castle again, this time Oogie Boogie’s castle, to fight Oogie and rescue Santa Claus and Sally in the Final Battle.

• “Finale” – Jack, Sally, Citizens of Halloween Town

Besides the production number of the finale (in which Halloween Town citizens frolic in the snow that Santa has sent as a gesture of forgiveness), Jack and Sally’s final love song at the end is a REPRISE, another favorite trick of musical theater. A Reprise is a great way to show Character Arc and a change in the hero/ine’s core philosophy or life outlook, as the second or third version of the song changes in lyrics and tone/mood (often with key changes from minor to major) to show progression. The love song is the same as Sally’s lament in Act II:2, but the words change from “Some things will never be” to “Some things are meant to be”. Of course, this and the kiss out on the frozen wave under the moon show us their NEW WAY OF LIFE: happily in love.

The point I’m trying to make here is that whether or not you’re using music, song and dance in a story, you can learn volumes about creating emotionally effective scenes from looking at how musical theater handles key story elements. Take a favorite musical and watch it with that idea in mind. I think you’ll be amazed.

So today, I’d like to brainstorm other great examples of Key Story Elements in song. I’ll start it off:

PLAN songs: “Follow the Yellow Brick Road/We’re Off to See the Wizard” in The Wizard of Oz. “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” in Oklahoma (hey, I’m always saying, dating is a Plan.) “Don’t Rain On My Parade” from Funny Girl. “Tevye’s Dream” – Fiddler on the Roof.

Interestingly, “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King is a PLAN song: Simba’s Plan at the moment is just to have a good time (like Prince Hal in Henry V). Of course, we know that Plan is not going to save the Kingdom from Scar! We want Simba to get his act together and do the responsible thing. I would also say “Luck Be A Lady” from Guys and Dolls is not just a Desire song but also a Plan song; often songs fulfill several story element functions.

Oh, and let’s not forget dark PLAN songs! One of my favorites is the duet between Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett: “Have a Little Priest”. Their PLAN is for Sweeney Todd to butcher people in his upstairs barber chair, and send the bodies down for Mrs. Lovett to bake into her pies, thereby fulfilling both their Desires: ST’s for revenge on humanity (especially the Judge) and Mrs. Lovett’s: to have a thriving pie shop and get closer to Sweeney Todd.

DESIRE songs:

Too many to even name! – there’s at least one in every musical. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” (My Fair Lady), “Reflection” (from Mulan – also a great Inner/Outer Desire song)”. “Corner of the Sky” (Pippin). “If I Were A Rich Man”. “I’m The Greatest Star” from Funny Girl. . .

When you have a character cluster such as the three oldest sisters in Fiddler on the Roof, they will almost always sing the Desire song as a group number as in “Matchmaker” (again, also, the Rule of Three). The male soldiers of Mulan (one set of her allies) express their own desires in “A Girl Worth Fighting For”.

It’s also very effective to use a group number to express a group Desire: as in “God I Hope I Get It”, in A Chorus Line. Every single one of those auditioning dancers wants the same thing: the job.

Sometimes instead of or along with a DESIRE song, the Hero/ine has an I AM song, in which s/he expresses a belief or philosophy that will be challenged during the course of the musical. A great, hilarious recent example: “I Believe” from The Book of Mormon.

I AM songs also can be, and often are: WE ARE songs: ensemble numbers in which a town or a group sings together about a group philosophy. “This is Halloween”, from Nightmare, is one of those, and there are some great ones throughout musical theater: “When You’re a Jet” and “America”, from West Side Story (which expresses battling philosophies within the culture and the song), and “Tradition”, from Fiddler on the Roof, also “Officer Krupke” from West Side Story, which is simultaneously a “We Are” song, a comic male specialty number, and a searing statement of the societal FORCES OF OPPOSITION in the story.

VILLAIN’S PLAN:

Scar’s song in The Lion King: a production number that climaxes Act One. We see exactly what will happen to the animal kingdom if Simba doesn’t get his act together and defeat Scar.

The Villain’s Plan song also expresses our FEAR of what will happen, and concurrent HOPE – that the Hero/ine will prevent this dire vision from happening.

I want to point out that very often in musicals and especially in film musicals and animation, the Villain does NOT have a song; he or she will express the plan in words and action, not music. Except in the rare case like Sweeney Todd, music tends to undercut the impact of the villainy – you wouldn’t want to see the Wicked Witch of the West burst into song, now, would you? The fact is that absence of music is suspect and scary, as Shakespeare said so eloquently:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
(The Merchant of Venice, 5.1.91-7)

However, as we see in Nightmare Before Christmas, having a scary villain sing can make him or her less threatening to children, which is an important consideration.

Also, secondary villains are often given the songs so you can have a vicarious musical delight in the evil, before the real evil kicks in. Herod’s flashy honky-tonk song in Jesus Christ Superstar is a good example.

TRAINING SEQUENCE songs:

“I’ll Make a Man Out Of You” – from Mulan. Some great irony, there, as the song also expresses the hero’s philosophical flaw as well as the theme of the movie.

MENTOR SONGS

This is also a kind of training sequence song. “On the Right Track” from Pippin (also could be read as a Temptation Song) “True to Your Heart”, from Mulan, “Hakuna Matata”, from The Lion King, Aunt Eller’s “The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends” in Oklahoma! “Bear Necessities” from Jungle Book is both an I Am song and a Mentor song. Most of the songs in the first half of Godspell are Training/Mentor songs, as befitting one of the ultimate Mentor stories.

The TRIUMPH or BREAKTHROUGH song:

“The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly In The Plain.” “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead”. This number is often at an Act Climax or Midpoint.

The Triumph can be and often is the realization or reciprocation of love: “I Could Have Danced All Night”, “If I Were A Bell” (from “Guys and Dolls”), “Now I Have Everything”, from Fiddler.

ALLLIES’ SONGS and SIDEKICK SONGS.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a very streamlined story, so subplots are sparse, but in full-length musicals some of the best numbers are ALLLIES’ SONGS and SIDEKICK SONGS. Allies’ Songs very often, if not almost always, express the Ally’s Desire, and are often a comic counterpoint to the hero or heroine AND also the hero/heroine love relationship (Ado Annie and Will in Oklahoma!) These songs are also often character dances such as tap, hip hop, regional dances. modern, swing, salsa, samba, tango, etc.).

I have to add that my absolute favorite kind of musical theater song is the SPECIALTY DANCE NUMBER, a group of usually five to seven women in a song and dance showstopper like the ones Bob Fosse is so famous for: numbers like Steam Heat, Big Spender, Mein Herr, He Had It Coming. At the moment I can’t think of any equivalent in film; it’s much easier to find specialty showstoppers with a small group of men, the classic tap numbers you see time and again both on stage and in film and the breathtaking gang numbers of West Side Story, but I wanted to bring the female equivalent up as an example of subversive female empowerment.

Okay, I could go on and on, but I’d like to hear some examples from you guys! And by the way, I’ve made up a lot of those names for songs and dance numbers, so I’d love to hear other names for them.

– Alex

=====================================================

All the information on this blog and more, including full story structure breakdowns of various movies, is available in my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workbooks. Any format, just $3.99 and $2.99.


– Amazon US

– Amazon UK

– Amaxon DE

– Amazon FR

– Amazon ES

– Amazon IT

If you’re a romance writer, or have a strong love plot or subplot in your novel or script, then Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks II is an expanded version of the first workbook with a special emphasis on love stories.

– Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

– Amazon US

– Barnes & Noble/Nook

– Amazon UK

– Amazon DE

Via: Alexandra Sokoloff

    

An Appreciation of Stephen Colbert, aka “Stephen Colbert”

By JD Rhoades
The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

You know, I’m really going to miss “Stephen Colbert.”

I realize that comedian and writer Stephen Colbert, creator and star of TV’s “The Colbert Report,” will still be with us, as David Letterman’s replacement on CBS’s “The Late Show.” But I fear that “Stephen Colbert,” the bloviating, self-important, clueless conservative pundit Colbert-the-comedian plays on his late night show, will be gone forever when the show ends its run this Thursday.
(In classic “Colbert” fashion, the supposed reason for the show’s ending is that its host has “won television” and to continue would just be “running up the score.”)
I confess that, when the “Colbert” character got his own time slot, a spinoff from John Stewart’s now-essential “The Daily Show,” I had my doubts. I thought basing an entire half hour, four times a week, on a single character, would be a one-joke premise that would quickly run out of steam. Eventually, I thought, Colbert would have to break character.
Boy, was I ever wrong. On the very first show, Colbert coined a word that would soon find its way into the actual dictionary: “truthiness.” Webster’s dictionary now defines truthiness as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts of facts known to be true.”
When he introduced the concept as part of his regular segment called “The Word,” Colbert promised, “Some of you may not trust your gut, yet. But, with my help, you will. The truthiness is, anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news ‘at’ you.” It was absolutely perfect satire, summing up in a single made-up word the anti-intellectual, facts-are-what-my-gut-says-they-are attitude that permeates so much of American culture, politics and journalism. “Truthiness” caught on so fast that Merriam-Webster named it the 2006 “Word of the Year.”
Colbert followed up with some of the most brilliant on-screen pranks ever committed to video. Like his “438-part series, Better Know a District,” in which “Colbert” interviewed a congressman or congresswoman from some district, always referred to as “The Fightin’ [district number]!” He would then proceed, with a totally straight face, to tie the hapless lawmaker in such verbal knots that eventually Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel began warning members of the Democratic Caucus not to go on the show (a prohibition which Pelosi later lifted).
Then there was the time when Colbert discovered that the Hungarian government was holding an online poll to name a bridge over the Danube River. “Colbert” urged his followers (aka “The Colbert Nation”) to go online and vote to name the bridge after him.
After 17 million votes were cast for “Colbert” (7 million more than there are actual people in Hungary), Hungarian Ambassador András Simonyi appeared on “The Colbert Report” and announced that “Colbert” had won the vote, but unfortunately could not have the bridge named after him because he was (1) not fluent in Hungarian; and (2) not dead. He then gave “Colbert” a consolation prize of a 10,000 forint bill (about fifty bucks American) — which “Colbert” promptly tried to use as a bribe.
Colbert didn’t even break character when he was invited to be the featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was attended by President George W. Bush and the first lady, as well as a variety of other VIPs. “Colbert,” in the guise of a glowing tribute, delivered one of the most scathing critiques ever delivered to a sitting president’s face.
“There are some polls out there,” he said, “saying that this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in ‘reality.’ And reality has a well-known liberal bias.” He went on to say of Bush that: “You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday.”
He didn’t spare the members of the press corps for their lazy acceptance of everything that came out of the Bush White House: “Over the last five years you people were so good, over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, and the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out.”
It was brave, and brilliant, and boy, did it make some people angry, even as it made many more laugh. That, my friends, is the purpose of great satire.

Can Colbert the comedian deliver the same bite and sting to a mainstream late night talk show on stodgy old CBS? I have my doubts. But then again, I’ve learned not to bet against him. RIP “Stephen Colbert.” Long live Stephen Colbert, America’s greatest living satirist.

Via: J.D. Rhoades

    

Rewriting: Something has to happen

By noreply@blogger.com (Alexandra Sokoloff)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

For those of you who are into the rewriting process, now, I want to do a few posts on some key elements of Act I.

Of all the many things I love about e books, I may love this feature the most: sampling. I’m a voracious browser and when I want something to read, unless I know exactly the book I want, I’ll often go through a few dozen first chapters of a few dozen books in a row to find something that grabs me.

This is a fantastic exercise when you’re struggling with a first chapter of your own.

I read through a bunch of first chapters last night, a couple dozen books at least, and it was pretty shocking how few of them grabbed me enough for me to want to keep reading.

Now, I’m not saying these books are badly written. The prose is fine, really. I’m just like everyone – there are very few books out there (proportionately) that I’m actually going to take the time to read. I like certain things in a book and if they’re not there, I’ll move on. Nothing wrong with that AT ALL – the wonderful thing about books is that there ARE books that deliver the exact or almost exact experience we’re looking for. So of course we look for those over less satisfying ones. I’m perfectly aware that just as many people discard MY books after the first few pages because I’M not delivering the experience they’re looking for. I’m certainly not for everyone’s tastes.

But there was something I was noticing in book after book that I started and then discarded last night that was just a structural error that could so easily have been fixed to – I think – increase the number of people who would want to keep reading. It’s pretty simple, really.

I couldn’t figure out what the book was about.

Or why I should care, either.

What was missing in the first ten, or twenty, pages I was reading was the INCITING INCIDENT (or the term I prefer – CALL TO ADVENTURE).

The Inciting Incident is basically the action that starts the story. The corpse hits the floor and begins a murder investigation, the hero gets his first glimpse of the love interest in a love story, a boy receives an invitation to a school for wizards in a fantasy. (More discussion on this key story element coming up this week.)

SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN, IMMEDIATELY, that gives us an idea of WHAT THE STORY IS ABOUT.

You can do this to some extent by setting mood, tone, genre, hope and fear, and an immediate external problem, but there is something about that first action that lets us know, at least subconsciously: “Oh, I get it. That teenage girl was murdered and that cop is going to find the killer.” “Oh, I get it. There’s a shark out there off the coast eating tourists and that police chief is going to have to get rid of it somehow.”

And once we know that, we can relax. It is a very disorienting and irritating thing not to know where a story is going.

Which means in general you should get to your INCITING INCIDENT and CALL TO ADVENTURE as soon as possible. Especially if you are a new writer, you cannot afford to hold this back. And I would argue it’s critical to get it out there if your book is or has any chance of being an e book, too, because it’s just so easy to go on to the next e book on your reader.

Genre fiction is popular because we go in knowing pretty much what the story is going to be about. The kid is kidnapped and the detective has to get him back. The house is haunted and the new residents are going to have to fight to survive. But setting your book in a certain genre does not always guarantee that the reader is going to know what the story is going to be about (as evidenced by what I was reading last night.)

So I’m suggesting – find a way to get that critical inciting incident into the first few pages or at the very least, strongly hint at it right up front.

Reading a bunch of first chapters in a row points out a lot of common errors, actually. So here’s a brief list.

1. Inexperienced writers almost inevitably START THEIR STORIES IN THE WRONG PLACE.

Now, please, please remember – I am not talking about first drafts, here. As far as I’m concerned, all a first draft has to do is get to “The End”. It doesn’t have to be polished. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you. Screenwriter and novelist Derek Haas refers to his first pass of a story as “the vomit draft”. And that’s what Nano is about. Exactly. Just get it all out – you’ll make sense of it later.

BUT – when you’ve gotten to the end, you will probably want to start your story 20, 30, 50 pages later than you do. And this is partly why:

For some reason newer writers think they have to tell the whole back story in the first ten pages. Back story is not story. So –

2. NEVER MIND THE FUCKING BACKSTORY!!!!!

With almost no exceptions, you should start your book with an actual scene, in which your main character (or villain, if that’s who you start with) is caught up in action. You should put that scene down on the page as if the reader is watching a movie – or more specifically, CAUGHT UP in a movie. The reader should not just be watching the action, but feeling the sweat, smelling the salt air, feeling the roiling of their stomach as they step into whatever unknown.

We don’t need to know who this person is, yet. Let them keep secrets. Make the reader wonder – curiosity is a big hook. What we need to do is get inside the character’s skin.

Here are two tips:

3. IDENTIFY THE SENSATION AND EXPERIENCE YOU WANT TO EVOKE IN YOUR READER – AND THEN MAKE SURE YOU’RE EVOKING IT.

I cannot possibly stress this enough. We read novels to have an EXPERIENCE. Make yourself a list of your favorite books and identify what EXPERIENCE those books gives you. Sex, terror, absolute power, the crazy wonderfulness of falling in love? What is the particular rollercoaster that that book (or movie) is? Identify that in your favorite stories and BE SPECIFIC. Then do the same for your own story.

Now that you know what the experience is that you want to create, start to look at great examples of books and films that successfully create that experience FOR YOU. Make that Top Ten list!

4. USE ALL SIX SENSES.

A great exercise is to make sure that every three pages you’ve covered specific details of what you want the reader to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and sense. All six categories, every three pages.

5. SHOW, DON’T TELL.

This is one of those notes that always annoys me until I have to read 15 pages of “telling”. Then I realize it’s the essence of storytelling. If your character has a conflict with her brother, then let’s see the two of them fighting – don’t give me a family history and Freudian analysis.

6. DETAIL THE INTERNAL DRIVES OF YOUR CHARACTER AND SET THE GENRE.

You don’t need to detail the family tree or when they moved to whatever house they’re living in or their great love for their first stuffed animal.

What we need to know their DESIRE and WHAT IS BLOCKING THEM. We need to feel HOPE AND FEAR for them. We need to get a sense of the GENRE, a strong sense of MOOD and TONE, and a hint of THEME.

So while you’re writing your brains out today, take a few minutes to ask yourself these key questions:

Do you know where your inciting incident is? Is it soon enough? Honestly?

Do we KNOW where your story is going by page ten of your book?

Can you maybe do a little rearranging to make sure this happens, before you move on?

And for more discussion and examples of all of these terms, see.Elements of Act One.

– Alex

=====================================================

The writing workbooks based on this blog, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are available for just $3.99 and $2.99.


– Amazon US

– Amazon UK

– Amaxon DE

– Amazon FR

– Amazon ES

– Amazon IT

If you’re a romance writer, or have a strong love plot or subplot in your novel or script, then Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks II is an expanded version of the first workbook with a special emphasis on love stories, and more full story breakdowns.

– Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

– Amazon US

– Barnes & Noble/Nook

– Amazon UK

– Amazon DE

Via: Alexandra Sokoloff