Saturday, April 6, 2024
Your Own Writing Phrase Book . . . or why it's good to steal from better writers!
Saturday, March 2, 2024
One Measly Hour Per Week . . . or the Easiest way to become an Author!
So you wanna be an author.
Great!
But you don't have the time to become an author.
Single sad Indian tear rolling down upon they cheek.
Or maybe you're just lazy.
Fine.
Or maybe you have absolutely no idea what to actually write about.
That's okay, too.
Because I'm going to let you in on a quick little secret: anybody can write a book, no matter who you are, and no matter how busy or lazy you are.
The #1 surefire easiest way to become an author is to . . . (drumroll please) . . . write a blog!
And it doesn't even matter if anyone reads your blog posts because that part is completely irrelevant.
What does matter is that you write it consistently.
Pick something you love or are interested in and write about it.
Conspiracy theories . . . gardening . . . lifting weights . . . doesn't matter!
So long as you are passionate and knowledgeable about it.
The sole requirement is that you must set aside one hour per week to write.
That's it!
The average person types 40 words per minute.
That's 2,400 words per hour.
Obviously you won't be writing at that speed continuously, so we'll cut it down to less than half, resulting in 1,000 words in one hour.
If you spend one hour per week writing a blog consisting of 1,000 words, with each of your blog posts possessing a common subject that ties them together, then after one year you will have a 52,000+ word book ready for publishing!
I say 52,000 PLUS because almost certainly you will write more than 1,000 words during many of your weekly writing sessions across an entire year.
I've done this myself with my book 'On Writing Well' which is a collection of my writing advice blogs, though because I also write plenty of other books, I only have the time to post one blog per month.
But you will bump up that frequency to once per week since you do no other writing.
One measly hour per week.
1,000+ words per hour.
52 weeks a year.
Equals a 52,000+ word book.
Now just gather all of your blog posts at the end of the year, arrange them however you see fit, then go the cheapest and easiest route and publish them at no cost to you through someone like Draft2Digital.
Draft2Digital, by the way, is fantastic and far superior to Amazon KDP, in my humble opinion. Amazon KDP is more restrictive to authors, especially its KDP Select program that locks your ebooks into exclusivity with Amazon for 90 days at a time if you choose to enroll your books, meaning you cannot offer them for sale anywhere else or Amazon will block your book if not ban your account if they find out you violated their terms of service.
Draft2Digital, on the other hand, is not exclusive, as well they provide you a plethora of affiliate publishers upon publishing (Barns & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Tolino, Vivlio, Smashwords, Gardners . . . as well as Libraries such as through OverDrive, Odilo, Bibliotheca, Baker & Taylor, Hoopla, BorrowBox, Palace Marketplace . . . subscription services similar to Amazon KDP Select's Kindle Unlimited such as Everand and Kobo Plus . . . and yes, even Amazon itself).
The great thing about publishing through Draft2Digital is that upon publishing your book you simply checkmark any of the boxes of their affiliate publishers and Draft2Digital does all of the submission work for you through its affiliates! The one drawback is that Draft2Digital has no cover creator, but this is easily remedied by using other methods such as Canva, which you need to pay for but is definitely well worth the cost.
With this tried-and-true method anyone can write and publish one book per year for the rest of their life with little effort involved because their book practically writes itself as they blog.
The easiest place to start is writing about your favorite hobby.
Do you love poetry?
Write one poem per week for a total of 52 poems to publish at the end of one year!
Do you love cooking?
Post a recipe blog once per week and after one years' time, voilĂ , you now have a cookbook!
I could go on and on but you get the point.
It doesn't matter how busy or lazy you are. So long as you have one measly hour per week to write about something you're passionate about, you too can easily become an author without even breaking a sweat.
Good luck!
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Holy Hollywood, Batman! . . . or breaking down the general screenplay plot formula
Since some of you are aspiring screenwriters, and because I like to change the pace of these writing blogs every now and again, let's talk screenplays for a moment, shall we?
A typical modern Hollywood screenplay ranges from 90 pages to 120 pages.
1 page of screenplay = 1 minute of screen time.
There are 24 plot points, or major events, in a movie.
Thus each plot point averages 5 pages.
ACT 1: Six Plot Points = 30 pages/minutes long
ACT 2: Twelve Plot Points = 60 pages/minutes long
ACT 3: Six Plot Points = 30 pages/minutes long
In movies there is something that’s colloquially known as the “10 minute rule”. The idea is that after 10 minutes the viewer will generally have a good idea of whether they’ll enjoy the rest of the movie or not and wish to continue watching or abandon it for another one.
The reason it’s called the 10 minute rule is because that’s when the protagonist usually receives their first inkling of the events (a.k.a. the Inciting Incident) that are about to unfold: 10 minutes in.
Usually the 10-minute mark falls conveniently on a point where something exciting or dangerous or intriguing happens and will convince the audience to keep watching in order to find out what happens next.
This important moment of interest, which is meant to evoke immediate viewer curiosity, is also why a plethora of movies open with a prologue-esque action scene (almost always without the protagonist but about the protagonist; for example in Horror movies the 'monster' attacking an innocent victim so we can get a taste of what the ignorant protagonist will later be up against) while relaying a bit of backstory interwoven with a hint of the story’s impending central conflict, and usually consisting of somewhere around 3 to 7 minutes of runtime.
Most commonly the Inciting Incident takes place in movies as either plot point 2 or plot point 3 to ensure it either ends or begins the 10 minute rule of audience interest, though understand the Inciting Incident can take place in any position of plot points 1 thru 3 and this all depends upon your particular story and how you wish to tell it as well if you include a prologue scene.
So how does this all break down?
Each half of an Act is 3 plot points, with the "third" plot point of that half of an Act being its culmination. Think of these 'series of three' plot points as mini-movies that are all interconnected yet each possessing a climax of its own and you get the point.
Typically . . .
The first half of Act 1 culminates with the Inciting Incident.
The second half of Act 1 culminates with the Key Event.
The first half of Act 2A culminates with the Pinch Point.
The second half of Act 2A culminates with the Midpoint.
The first half of Act 2B culminates with the Punch Point.
The second half of Act 2B culminates with the Anchor Point & Rubicon.
The first half of Act 3 culminates with the Highest Stakes Achieved.
The second half of Act 3 culminates with the Climax & Resolution.
*Please note that variables exist, such as the placement of the Rubicon (which typically happens immediately after Act 2B's Anchor Point but not always); my Stomping Kittens companion piece, 'The Great Fiction Cheat Sheet', goes into detail on this specific point with examples, as well explains the important differences between the Inciting Incident and the Key Event in greater depth), or the Act 3 Climax happening sooner so that the aftermath of the Resolution can have more focus applied (all depending upon your particular story), but in general these are the average placements of the general screenplay plot point culminations.
Saturday, January 6, 2024
Dicey Trix . . . or Yet Another 1d6 Creative Writing Method
A simple 1d6 (one six-sided die) is all you really need to spice up the creativity of your writing, because you ask it a Yes or No question then roll for result:
1. No, and...
2. No
3. No, but...
4. Yes, but...
5. Yes
6. Yes, and...
For example, let’s say you are a private detective investigating a murder scene and you’re searching for clues about the killer’s identity, so you ask the question, “Do I discover any clues about the killer?” Then you roll your trusty 1d6 for the Yes or No answer:
1. No, and...
The answer is “No” with an added negative twist; you don’t find any clues about the killer, and you realize the bumbling rookie police officer who arrived before you mucked up the crime scene while haphazardly taping it off and scaring away any potential witnesses.
2. No
The answer is a simple default “No” without any added twists or factors; you don’t find any clues about the killer at the crime scene.
3. No, but...
The answer is “No” with an added positive twist; you don’t find any clues about the killer, but you do discover a potential witness lurking nearby.
4. Yes, but...
The answer is “Yes” with an added negative twist; you find a clue about the killer, but it might have been tampered with or could be a possible red herring planted to lead you on a wild goose chase.
5. Yes
The answer is a simple default “Yes” without any added twists or factors; you find a clue about the killer at the crime scene.
6. Yes, and…
The answer is “Yes” with an added positive twist; you find a clue about the killer, and it narrows down the list of suspects to a specific age or race or gender.
You can use this fantastic method of sparking unexpected creativity for practically any situation while writing on the fly. Just pause, ask a Yes or No question, then roll for result!
Your Own Writing Phrase Book . . . or why it's good to steal from better writers!
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