September Giveaway: Bundle of eBooks
Every month, Typescript posts a new giveaway, with recipients chosen at random on the 15th of each month. Submit your name and email in the comments below and you’ll be automatically placed in the drawing. Please only submit once; if you’re chosen, you’ll be contacted for your shipping address.
If you have a book or product you’d like to see featured in a future giveaway, feel free to contact me.
Like Tania Hershman (Typescript’s March Giveaway), I had the pleasure of meeting Cynthia last November at a writer’s retreat in France. Her penchant for creativity amazed me, and I was in awe of the fact that she had been traveling and writing for close to a year. A writer, an artist, a creativity coach, but most importantly, a confidante and friend, Cynthia has been a source of motivation for my writing and my life. Celebrating ten years of creative coaching, the goal of her company, Original Impulse, is to “help you bring your original impulse to light.”
Whether you’re new to the craft and wondering how to get started or an old pro feeling the familiar pangs of writer’s block, Unleash Your Writing is a great source for writers at every stage of the writing game. Cynthia uses a five-element formula that helps you get started immediately, no matter what the subject matter, to help the words flow.
Know how to get started on a project, but having trouble finishing? Cross the Finish Line! will help you overcome those obstacles and guide you to completion.
Up for grabs are two ebooks: Unleash Your Writing and Cross the Finish Line! To learn more about both Cynthia, her business, and her incredible creative travels, check out Original Impulse and Journey Juju.
Also be sure to check out Cynthia’s Original Impulse Back to School Special (ends September 3) and get the tools you need to design your own writing curriculum!
Congratulations to Becky, recipient of Typescript’s September giveaway!
Writing Challenge Roundup: August
In place of this week’s Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript is now offering Writing Challenge Roundups, a compilation posted the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of August and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
Soap Opera 101: The Art of Storytelling
Soap operas may be known as your grandmother’s afternoon indulgence, but there’s more than meets the eye when considering its longevity. The first television soap opera aired in the early 1950s after evolving from its origins as a radio series. Since then, the industry has sustained itself by fresh settings, an ever-growing cast of characters, and evolving plots. In short: it’s a work of fiction that has lasted for decades.
Soap operas understand the basics of storytelling: setting (distinct places), characters (well-developed characters to whom viewers can relate) and driving plot (A, B, and C storylines) are all interconnected to create a cohesive, sustainable whole that has the viewer returning time and again. In fiction, it’s important to operate with the same basics in order for the reader to become invested in your story.
Setting
Setting is an important piece of a story because it can be viewed as an extension of those already-crafted characters who might inhabit it. In soap operas, this especially rings true, as not only does plot unfold in the setting, but it helps us understand the characters who frequent the location.
Take, for example, General Hospital, wherein the hospital is, quite obviously, one of the main settings. Not only do emergencies take place there (plot), but it sets the scene for those who might naturally belong — namely doctors, nurses, and patients (characters) — while they also experience love, family, and friendship (secondary plot).
In fiction, setting is just as important as your plot and characters, and it’s often said that setting can become a character itself. What does it mean for your story to take place on a ranch, on an island, in a diner? What does that say about the characters who work, vacation, or frequent that specific location? What do these details mean for your plot?
Setting matters, as it helps us further understand the characters while moving the plot forward.
Characters
The vixen. The villain. The all-American guy or the girl-next-door. The lawyer. The cop. The bartender or the rebel teenager. The rich family and the suburbanites; the small business owners, the fashion designers, the doctors.
These stereotypes and simple labels are the basis of most soap opera characters before they are spun and woven into something more complex and three-dimensional. Soap opera characters are successful because they have layers, and those layers are the reasons why viewers feel some sense of connection and sympathy towards them, why we keep returning to find out what they’re up to. Characters have a rich history that comes from day-after-day of storytelling; flaws and mistakes make them relatable, while their experiences offer depth.
In fiction, you unfortunately don’t have the luxury of years to create your compelling characters; what you do have, however, are paragraphs and pages. As viewers, you get to see the transformation. As readers, we can have that same development and progression throughout the course of the novel or story as we get to know them. What are your characters’ likes, dislikes? What flaws do they have and what are their strengths? Where do they come from and why do they act the way they do? How does your protagonist change and grow?
We may not be able to see your characters on a screen, but they should come alive on the page.
Plot
Soap operas typically air five days a week throughout the year, offering time for the viewer to become invested in the characters and familiar with the settings. However, in order to keep the attention of the viewers, plot has to be heavily considered. Whether the action is driving the plot with some catastrophe, disaster, or emergency (such as in a sweeps period) or the characters are having a simple exchange, each day — each conversation, action — is planned out with the primary goal of moving the plot forward.
While soap operas generally have no set time-frame, in fiction, the goal is to keep the plot moving in order to reach some sort of final conclusion with the close of a book. Just like soap opera writers have to plan out their storyline, so must you “plot your plot” — or, at the very least, understand it — to create a tight, whole story.
But just what is the plot? Soaps take the very basic themes of good vs. bad, love, family, friendship, betrayal, etc. and create something deeper and original by inserting conflict. Soap operas are known for their elaborate storylines, and often the conflict is heightened for increased suspense and dramatic effect.
While you don’t have to go to those extremes with your story, think about the conflict in your plot: is their tension? Cliffhangers? Is there motivation for the reader to keep turning the page? Are you working towards some type of climax and resolution?
Have you discovered your plot?
Conclusion
So, remind me, you say. How does a soap opera where an evil twin turns up and schemes to steal their sibling’s spouse who is already having an affair with the previously presumed-deceased neighbor relate to fiction again?*
It’s about the story. Soap operas, like fiction, weave the basic elements of plot, character, and setting to create a story that is rich and dynamic. It’s a culmination of (semi) realistic, three-dimensional characters in a purposeful, believable setting that assist in character development and carries the plot forward.
Will your story be the one readers return to time and again?
* If this storyline never occurred on a soap opera, though doubtful, I’m hereby claiming full-rights.
Wednesday Writing Challenge: Movie Quotes
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin to quotes of a movie, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Some of the best movies are similar to a favorite book in that they’re the ones you consistently reach for on the shelf, the ones that stand out in your memory as something special. Maybe this was the first movie you ever saw in a theater. Maybe this movie was one you remember watching over and over as a kid until you could recite every piece of dialogue along with the actors (i.e. Annie, The Karate Kid — I and II). Maybe this movie was one that tugged on heartstrings or had you talking about it the entire ride home. However it became that movie for you, these are the characters you remember as friends, the scenes you recall in vivid detail, and the lines of dialogue that remain with you long after the credits roll.
Films have long been a favorite medium for the entertainment industry because they, like books, are a form of escapism that range in genres to suit a variety of tastes and preferences. From psychological thrillers to dramas, from romances to comedies, movies offer something for everyone. However, take away the special effects, the melodic score, and the visual artistry and you still have the essential components of storytelling: There are protagonists and antagonists, places wherein the action takes place, and themes of good vs. evil, life, death, family, and love. Characters, setting, plot.
Pieces of dialogue can not only tell you a bit about the plot of the movie, but also the characters themselves, and so I opened up this challenge to the Twitter community to ask about their favorite movie quotes. The responses were varied and pretty remarkable, and I want to thank everyone who participated.
Just like books — it’s all in the story.
Challenge: Begin with dialogue and see where it takes you. Already know the movie? Put your own spin on the plot with the quote as the starting point. Using one of the movie quotes offered below, create a new short story or poem.
“Get busy living, or get busy dying”
- The Shawshank Redemption (submitted by Sean)
Andrew Largeman: You’ll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I don’t know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.
– Garden State (submitted by Allison)
Sam: If you can’t laugh at yourself, life is going to seem a whole lot longer than you’d like.
– Garden State (submitted by Allison)
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
- One Week (submitted by Tom )
“They say stars are billions of tons of hot gas. But I think they’re just God’s salt. And He’s just waiting to eat us…”
– Can’t Hardly Wait (submitted by Akirah)
“You’re not going to lose me. You’ve given me a taste for life. I wanna be happy. Sleep in a bed, have roots.”
- Leon/The Professional (submitted by Mike )
Clementine: This is it, Joel. It’s going to be gone soon.
Joel: I know.
Clementine: What do we do?
Joel: Enjoy it.
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (submitted by Carlos)
“Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast. ”
- King Kong, 1933 (submitted by Bryan)
“Yo, ya no soy yo. Por lo menos no soy el mismo yo interior.”
– Diarios de motocicleta (submitted by Ryan)
I am no longer me. At least I am not the same inside.
- The Motorcycle Diaries
Have a favorite movie quote you think will spark inspiration? Feel free to add it to the comments below!
August Giveaway: Get Known Before the Book Deal
Every month, Typescript posts a new giveaway, with recipients chosen at random on the 15th of each month. Submit your name and email in the comments below and you’ll be automatically placed in the drawing. Please only submit once; if you’re chosen, you’ll be contacted for your shipping address.
If you have a book or product you’d like to see featured in a future giveaway, feel free to contact me.
- Christina Katz, “Get Known Before the Book Deal”
That book was there, waiting on the shelves as I scanned the writing section of the bookstore one day last month, looking for something new, something substantial, something that would peak my interest and relate. Flipping briefly through the pages I knew I had found a book that I hadn’t even realized I’d been waiting for — a book that would affirm what I already believed to be true and offer the motivation I needed to keep up with a passion and a dream. I have no doubt that it will offer the same inspiration for you.
Christina Katz’s Get Known Before the Book Deal details the importance of growing a platform as a writer and what it means for your business as an author. From developing your niche out of a passion to growing your platform through social media, this book answers all of your questions — even those you didn’t realize you had — while providing practical advice and encouragement for writers at every stage of the process.
Up for grabs is a signed copy of Get Known Before the Book Deal. To learn more about both Christina Katz and her book, check out her website and be sure to follow her on Twitter.
Note: This giveaway will close and the recipient will be chosen on August 25.
UPDATE: Be sure to check out The Writer Mama’s Back to School Giveaway! Christina is giving away 30 books in 30 days during the month of September. Check out her site to win and “fall in love with books again!”
Congratulations to Nicole, recipient of Typescript’s August giveaway!
Wednesday Writing Challenge: Norman Rockwell
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a series of picture prints, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
One of the reasons why I love creative expression is that it’s incredibly individualistic. It evokes inspiration and an appreciation of beauty, it stirs emotions and sparks conversations; however, each song, piece of writing, or work of art affects people in significantly different ways.
I love these challenges because I’m fascinated by what interpretations writers — word-artists — can come up with. What you bring with you when considering a challenge is just as important as the inspiration that it serves, for the moment’s emotions, thoughts, feelings, and your experiences may play a part in that interpretation. A painting may spark an original idea for one person, while another individual will look at the same painting and go in an entirely different direction, making the possibilities seem endless. One single idea branches off into original stories full of characters, plot, and your own original voice.
Visual art has always sparked the imagination in a way that few other mediums can. Every painting, photograph, sculpture is open to interpretation and tells a story of either the artist, the subject, or the viewer.
What story will you find?
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was a 20th-century painter whose illustrations graced the covers of The Saturday Evening Post for over forty years. These illustrations depicted the life of the modern American, often providing a glimpse into the average, everyday world of family, friends, and lovers and sparking a sense of both sentimentality and familiarity. However, there’s something deeper behind the scenes that Rockwell paints, a story full of depth marked by just one painted moment in time. Who is the girl sitting outside the Principal’s office and what kind of trouble did she get into? What does that little girl see when she looks in the mirror and why is she so eager to grow up? Who is that man standing up, surrounded by people, and what does he have to say?
The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words. What words and stories do these illustrations spark for you?
Challenge: Use one or more of the Norman Rockwell paintings, depicted in the images below, to create a new short story or poem:
Writing Challenge Roundup: July
In place of this week’s Wednesday Writing Challenge, Typescript is now offering Writing Challenge Roundups, a compilation posted the last week of each month. Check out the challenges that were offered during the month of July and feel free to share your work or talk about the challenges in the comments section below.
Wednesday Writing Challenge: Song Lyrics
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin to music lyrics, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
In a similar challenge based on song titles, we talked about how words and music can be a powerful form of creativity for their ability to evoke emotion and create experiences. Music speaks to the same part of our soul from which words stem, delving into a part of ourselves and calling forth sometimes stagnant emotion that can then be poured onto the page. The music you’re listening to can even shape the tone of your writing. A peppy pop ballad can make for an upbeat, feel-good story filled with humor and chaos. A slow ballad can cross boundaries and create melancholy and passion. However, it’s the lyrics that tell the story.
While the music itself can lend to inspiration, often the best lyrics are full of character, setting, and plot of their own, bringing to life a story. Very much like a poem, lyrics have power in their words, with imagery and rhythm guiding the tale. Pay attention when you listen to the radio or browse through the selections on iTunes. Your next story may be waiting in the music.
What song lyrics serve as your inspiration?
Challenge: Take a look at your own collection or use some suggestions below to create a new short story or poem:
I fell asleep on a late night train
I missed my stop and I went round again
Keane, “Try Again”
Before you hit the highway
You better stop for gas
There’s a 50 in the ashtray
In case you run short on cash
Carrie Underwood, “Don’t Forget To Remember Me”
Another glass of Whiskey but it still don’t kill the pain
So he stumbles to the sink and pours it down the drain
Carrie Underwood, “Wasted”
By the light of the moon
She rubs her eyes
Says it’s funny how the night
Can make you blind
Rob Thomas, “Her Diamonds”
Was a long and dark December
When the banks became cathedrals
And the fog
Became God
Coldplay, “Violet Hill”
Hitched a ride to the peaceful side of town
Then proceeded where thieves were no longer found
Collective Soul, “Precious Declaration”
I found God
On the corner of First and Amistad…
All alone
Smoking his last cigarette
The Fray, “You Found Me”
I woke up today in London
As the plane was touching down
And all I could think about was Monday
And maybe I’ll be back around
Three Doors Down, “Landing In London”
Friday night beneath the stars,
in a field behind your yard,
you and I are paintin’ pictures in the sky.
Taylor Swift, “I’m Only Me When I’m With You”
Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face but I can’t recall the name
Green Day, “Whatsername”
I look out of my bedroom window pane
Every day, but the view just stays the same
Guster, “C’mon”
Wednesday Writing Challenge: Word Play III
Typescript posts a new challenge each Wednesday to encourage creativity and inspire conversation. Feel free to talk about the challenge or share your writing results in the comments section below by leaving an excerpt and/or a link to your own site or blog.
The spark of inspiration can be found anywhere you choose to look. From a title of a song to a sketch found on a napkin, from an overheard conversation to a jumble of words, these stories are waiting to be discovered and told.
Who knew that a jumble of words could provide such inspiration? That such a combination could spark creativity, begin a story? Two months ago, I discovered well over 300 spam comments infiltrating my blog folder, containing strings of words that attempted to sell the latest dietary supplement with links to unknown sites. However, after skimming through these, I discovered that, upon a closer reading, there was really a sense of poetry in the combination of words, hidden inspiration in what seemed to be an incoherent passage.
What emerged was the Wednesday Writing Challenge: Word Play, where writers had a bit of fun and let their imaginations wander, sparking creativity, igniting something magical…
After a second round of this particular challenge with Word Play II, we’re back for another try. What inspiration will you find this time?
One of the most fascinating aspects of writing is the ability to manipulate words and language to convey your intended meaning. Words have so many meanings within their own definitions, and coupling them with others can produce something not entirely expected but altogether magical. There are a thousand ways to describe an object, person, or place, and so, too, are there thousands of stories just waiting to be plucked out of the imagination and put to paper. Sometimes all we need to create that initial spark of inspiration is a word (or three)…
Challenge: Use one of the following couplings of words to create a new story or poem
(Note: many of these have had minor alterations to make a little bit more sense):
That represents breath
Distance from errors
Named the sometimes hostile
Fetch some light streamed
Mind every watch
Swore the roses
Faded photograph had preserved
Courtly adieu slowed
She held ash
The misfortune stream
Cornered animal turn sympathetic
Better they are strangers
Bring the wind
Their two further doubts
The whole business was unlikely
After dinner dining
Mentioned seeing and crowds
Sometimes worked live musician
Charms promises for history
Recognize the recognized
She has his expression
What interesting combinations of words can you add to the fold?
Confessions of a Would-Be Writer
I have a confession to make…
I haven’t touched my novel since December. Haven’t written a word, haven’t read it through in a (seemingly futile) attempt to get back into that mindset, haven’t even opened up the document.
But I think about it. Nearly every single day the characters are there, residing in the recesses of my mind.
I’ve stalled. Writer’s fatigue, writer’s block…Whatever you want to call it, I’m admittedly stuck.
I’d been working on this novel for a number of years, though I keep hitting roadblocks with it, unsure of how to navigate the prose. Sometimes I put it away for days, weeks, months. Last year, I barely touched it at all.
I constantly ask myself why continue with it if it seems like such a burden, if the writing just isn’t coming? And I hem and I haw and I consider nixing the whole thing and then continue to make excuses.
The truth is, I love it. There’s a story in me that wants to be told, rising from a part of me, part of my imagination, that I can’t explain, yet it’s yearning to be put into words. That’s why I love it, that’s why I write it.
Only, I haven’t been writing it.
Although I tried time and again, I just couldn’t seem to find the story anymore.
And that was exactly the problem: I had the characters, I had the setting, but I didn’t know where the story was going in terms of plot. Instead of trusting my intuition, instead of letting my characters lead me, I began to panic. And in that panic, I began to plan.
I have another confession to make…
I am not a planner.
At least, not when it comes to writing. Part of the joy in writing, for me, is the discovery, the anticipation of where the characters will lead you and what you will find.
So when I panicked and started to outline, I knew that I was in trouble. A thousand and one possibilities flew through my mind, pieces of scenes being written that didn’t seem to have a context. I crossed out and deleted scenarios, copied and pasted bits of dialogue, wrote character profiles and drew timelines. None of it felt right, and in that process, I became overwhelmed.
So I stalled. Then I stopped completely.
And I stuck all of those materials in a folder on the desktop and didn’t open it again for months.
It has been my inspiration and my Achilles’ heel. I love it and I dread it all in the same breath; I’m excited and I’m scared.
Of what, exactly, I keep trying to ask myself. Of a few words down on paper? A few characters typed on the screen?
Of not having a direction. Of having my characters suspended, indefinitely, in a time and a place with nothing to move them forward. I’m afraid of not knowing where it’s going to go next.
But that’s part of the excitement, I’ve realized, and why I’ve suddenly become inspired to open up that document folder and rediscover that small town on the harbor, the rambunctious and curious little girl for whom I have such affection, and the story that surrounds both.
Sound advice says to just keep writing, to put the words to paper without worrying about the finished product. The idea is to start somewhere and keep writing. There’s a magic in words, in writing, in the story. If you keep writing, keep going, you’ll always end up somewhere.
So that’s exactly what I’m doing…Simply writing — without an outline, without preconceived ideas, without interruption. The magic is in the making, in the telling, in the trusting.
I’ve begun to have faith in the story within me again, and I have hope that we’ll both end up somewhere.
What problems have you encountered as a writer? Do you have any similar experiences? How do you combat these concerns?
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