Writing a Story/Book Part II and Over 100 Posts!

I'm back...a bit late with the next part to my post on how to write a book or story.  Oh, and this will be my 101st post!  YAY!

Okay, remember in the last post, that somewhat irrelevant web I embedded?

Yup!  That's the one!

Well, in the previous post, the To DO's was your main story idea.  In this case, my spaghetti monster is in the middle, right?

That dude!

Heck, our spaghetti monster looks exactly like our web so if you look at its legs.  It's just like the main concepts of the story.

If you look at the top web, The Appointments, Shopping, Others...etc.  Those are main plot points that we wrote about last week.  They could be a chapter or two but in general for me, they are a chapter.

Let's review:   Story Idea

1. Main character is a boy/girl
2. they go to the store and buy groceries
3. walking through hot items session of the store, the spaghetti bubbles
4. inspects closer and see the noodles waggle and trying to communicate
5. shocked and curious, they buy the spaghetti and takes it home
6. spaghetti comes home and is left in the hot sun where it proceeds to melt and spread all over counter
7. takes over counter -- > then home  -- > then houses on block
8. main character feel responsible and looks for solution
9. walking by a shop, there is a sign for food eating contest
10. after contest, main character talks to contestants and convinces them that that was only the first round of the contest.  Next round is in a suburban neighborhood.  They'll know when they see it
11. then stops by a homeless shelter and does the same thing
12. Rallies all the eaters and they go to town on Spaghetti Monster
13. They chow down and the city is saved and well fed
14. Ending: All is right in the world again except for a stray meatball! (* Sequal idea )

So, you can guesstimate that this story will have 14 chapters or parts to it.  When I look at that list, I would think about combing the first few major points in the story, so 1-6 look promising for the first chapter or the first two chapters.  I feel that grouping those main points help guide me as far as starting and setting up a chapter.  Sometimes I combine the ideas to make a chapters.  The different colors indicate how I would group the ideas as chapters.  Now, our 14 chapter book just condensed into a 5 chapter story.

Granted, you may decide you want to change something as you write and that's fine!  When I write, I know ideas morph or new ideas get implanted (by the spaghetti monster) randomly but that's all part of the process.

Now you have the main outline of your story ready to go!

Well...sort of.  We're missing a few elements that help make a story:     SETTING!

Okay, not quite the setting I or the readers had in mind but NOW YOU KNOW!

Now, you have to consider a few other elements in order to make this chapter complete.  Who is your audience, what genre are you writing, what age bracket, tone, language, etc.  I don't spend a whole lot of time vacillating on all these things but it's in the back of my mind as I'm writing and changes as I go along.

...Nope, but getting warmer!

Some people actually do this part first but for me, it depends.  It depends because I have all these ideas for a story - maybe a few pages into writing what this story is about - when an idea comes to mind that changes the whole theme, tone and genre and your story just morphs or deviates from the original concept.  The key thing to making sure your story isn't all over the place is to reevaluate your Story Ideas List you made preiously.

All those elements help you determine your setting.  If I'm writing for YA and it's set in a suburb, I'd make sure my characters are in their teens, talk and act appropriately for the age and genre as well as think about where they are living and going.  Like here:

Like here!  A mall.  A bit stereotypical but still some place you'll find teens.  Am I wrong..?

There are a lot of things to consider but you'll innately know what type of setting once you figure out your audience so just go with the flow.  If worse comes to worse, get have a friend or someone close - a family member or someone who you know will be brutally honest - that will read your writing and they'll tell you straight up, "I don't think a mermaid belongs in your urban spaghetti monster story."  Not only that, when you have an editor, they'll tell you what needs to be tossed out.

I hope this installment helps!

Feel free to ask questions if you have any and Good Luck!

Movie: The Fall (2006)

'The Fall, directed by Tarsem Singh is set in a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s L.A..  An injured stuntman begins to tell a little girl with a broken arm a fantastic story about 5 mythical heroes.  Roy fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale unfolds.'  

This shining jewel of a movie is still stunningly beautiful after all these years. It came out in 2006 and took Singh four years to complete, compiling stock footage from over 20 different countries. 

This movie has great story telling and is visually captivating.  The characters are lovable and fallible to a fault and make you laugh and cry with them as the adventure advances. Roy, the stunts man played by Pace is injured during a stunt and his love leaves him for another. Heartbroken, Roy wallows in his sorrows in the hospital in the middle of no where and befriends a little girl, Alexandria - Catinca Untaru, with a broken arm. Roy asks Alexandria to get morphine pills, not only to dull his pain but to end his painful existence. In order to entice Alexandria to do his bidding, he tell her stories, not unlike Scheherazade, ending the story at an engaging moment only to continue the following day when he can get more pills from Alexandria.  

The story is rather sad in respects to love and loss and also letting go and healing.  Roy, broken both physically and emotionally has given up on life and relies on little Alexandria to give him the tools he needs to end his woeful existence. Alexandria, youthful, innocent and naïve, believes anything that Roy tells her and wants to try and help her new friend that is injured. At the end, Alexandria proves to be enough of a friend to help Roy get past his gloomy outlook in life and try to keep living. 

When Roy tells the story, there are scenes where they break that 4th wall, sometimes in crucial moments to remind the watcher, this isn't just some epic movie we are watching but a visualization of the little girls vast imagination. It was a really cute device to refocus on who this story is really meant for add a bit of levity to what would have been a serious moment. This bit may be over done at times in many movies since 2006 but breaking the 4th wall in this manner even predates Drunken History, so it was a fresh and novel idea. 

The costumes are stunning and the imagery on screen are so memorable, you can't help but stare in awe for the 1 hour and 57 minutes it's on screen.  The fall takes you on a journey within the confines of a recovery hospital but entraps you on a singular island in the middle of the ocean, a vast dessert, a myriad of mazes, isolated palaces and gets you lost in breath taking architecture.

The main characters are played by Lee Pace (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hobbit, the Soldier Boy) and Catinca Untaru.  These two are absolutely magical together as the wounded actor and imaginative little girl. Pace is an excellent actor but the Untaru is extremely expressive and sincere in her role that this movie would not be the same without her charming performance.  

 'The Fall' is a fantastic with a little adventure story that sweeps the viewer to the far ends of the earth with a hopeful outlook on chance meetings and getting back up that horse after a huge spill.