More fencing, and by people who know how, filmed by directors bold enough to let the action speak for itself. No more rapid edits and shaky camera - let us see that you trust in your actors!
Linda's Literary Lair! Books for the intelligent, sexy, and curious.
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Friday, May 13, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Give-away!
 |
| Titled, "Green Flash" |
Today, you get to guess the movie quotes. Be the first person to name the movie, and win this lovely!
Quote 1.
"This is just so shocking. I mean I must just be so monumentally naive."
Was that too hard for you? I'm such a sweetie, I'll give you a second clue!
Quote 2.
":Shut up, Mr. Burton! You are not brought upon this world to get it!"
Monday, February 14, 2011
Story Basics Part IV: Archetypes, not Straightjackets
Some examples:
Obi-Wan Kenobi is considered the classic example of a Mentor. He shows Luke what he could be and how to get there.
But he does not stay in the Mentor all the time. The emotionally powerful scene where he confronts Darth Vader is created when he steps into the Hero role. He is moving the action in that scene, not merely instructing or demonstrating things to Luke. When a character shifts archetypes for a scene, the stakes go up. No matter how many times I see Star Wars, I cry when Obi-Wan is defeated in the light saber scene. This intense emotional reaction comes from him changing his role in the movie.
A second reason to think of the archetype as a role and not a personal characteristic is this creates a fuller, more interesting character in your story. If your Mentor just sits around dispensing wisdom and pithy comments all the time, well....Ok, let's face it. That is boring.
If your character delves into a new archetype, they are suddenly deeper, truer, more emotionally resonant people. Don't think of archetypes as limiters.
They exist to liberate your creation.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Story Basics, Part II
In the endless quest to understand your characters, I'm revisiting a post I did a couple of years ago. One of the most useful tools in a writer's toolbox is an exercise called GMC.
For each of your main characters, you determine their Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. You come up with with a basic description of their personality (which for me is incredibly difficult), a Tagline (which could be lessons she needs to learn, or perhaps his personal motto), and then, you start in on determining what they want, what makes them want it, and what is keeping them from achieving their goals.
The amazing Debra Dixon came up with this shorthand in her amazing book called (oddly enough), Goal, Motivation & Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction.
One hint before you dive in - when you are working on this exercise, make sure your character's external goal is a concrete one. "World Peace" is a nice goal, but it's completely undo-able. Make it something that he can attain. Instead of World Peace, write "Obliterate X Terrorist Cell" or "Get President to sign X Peace Treaty on time and alive". For something less Earth shaking, try, "Buy childhood dream home" or "Open coffee shop in six weeks". What kind of story you have often depends on the antagonist's Goal.
For example, let me show you one of the GMC charts that Ms. Dixon uses in the book - Rick Blaine from Casablanca.
Rick Blaine
Description: Cynical Loner
Tagline: (lessons he needs to learn)
One person can make a difference in this world
Women in war must make desperate choices (think of the newlywed)
Goals: (what he wants)
External
Motivation: (because)
External
External
Looks easy, doesn't it?
It's actually a difficult chart to fill out because you are constantly learning more about your characters and your story. The big part of a good character arc is discovering how their GMCs change from the beginning of the story to the end.
For each of your main characters, you determine their Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. You come up with with a basic description of their personality (which for me is incredibly difficult), a Tagline (which could be lessons she needs to learn, or perhaps his personal motto), and then, you start in on determining what they want, what makes them want it, and what is keeping them from achieving their goals.
The amazing Debra Dixon came up with this shorthand in her amazing book called (oddly enough), Goal, Motivation & Conflict: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction.
One hint before you dive in - when you are working on this exercise, make sure your character's external goal is a concrete one. "World Peace" is a nice goal, but it's completely undo-able. Make it something that he can attain. Instead of World Peace, write "Obliterate X Terrorist Cell" or "Get President to sign X Peace Treaty on time and alive". For something less Earth shaking, try, "Buy childhood dream home" or "Open coffee shop in six weeks". What kind of story you have often depends on the antagonist's Goal.
For example, let me show you one of the GMC charts that Ms. Dixon uses in the book - Rick Blaine from Casablanca.
Rick Blaine
Description: Cynical Loner
Tagline: (lessons he needs to learn)
One person can make a difference in this world
Women in war must make desperate choices (think of the newlywed)
Goals: (what he wants)
External
- Keep bar open
- Punish Ilsa
- Get Ilsa and Victor on that plane
- Regain the love he had in Paris
- To do what's right in the world
Motivation: (because)
External
- Needs money and people depend on him
- Because she left him in Paris
- Insure her safety
- The pain of losing Ilsa has never gone away
- Daily, he sees what war is doing to people around him
External
- The French Prefect has all the power
- Punishing her puts her in more danger
- Victor has been put in jail
- Ilsa is married
- He must put aside his own happiness
Looks easy, doesn't it?
It's actually a difficult chart to fill out because you are constantly learning more about your characters and your story. The big part of a good character arc is discovering how their GMCs change from the beginning of the story to the end.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Catching up on 'The Classics'
I'm always watching movies and reading books, trying to learn more about writing, structure, and what makes a story dazzling. I've been on a musical kick, seeing how the writers tied the music to the story, used it to advance the plot, or used it to reveal a character's innermost self.
In Silk Stockings, Cyd Charisse's solo dance with her lingerie clearly tells the viewer that here is a woman who is finally embracing her yearning for pleasure. It's one of the most tender and touching metaphors for female sexuality and orgasm that I've seen.
So from this movie, I learned how to engage a reader in more than just the motion of the ocean, but also the emotions of the motion, so to speak.
On the downside, I learned just how necessary character development is. In Pal Joey, Joey starts the movie with being run out of town by the police. Because he'd been pouring drinks for an underage girl in his hotel room. For some reason, this was considered funny back in 1957.
I was yucked out immediately. And I stayed yucked out, because Joey remained a complete dog. Kim Novak played a helpless innocent (another Waif on our hands!), and Rita Hayworth played a woman who actually owned her sexuality. Which means, of course, that she got dumped. Here's the trailer to get you started.
What I learned?
1. I need to pay attention to the mores of your time, and what is considered funny.
2. Sometimes, I just want to watch the movie for the musical numbers, and not the plot. Or the characters.
3. If I'm going to write a jerk or someone in need of redemption, I need to show some kind of reason why anyone would cheer for this louse.
In order to get this foul taste out of my mouth, I had to watch some Mae West movies. My Little Chickadee to the rescue.
In Silk Stockings, Cyd Charisse's solo dance with her lingerie clearly tells the viewer that here is a woman who is finally embracing her yearning for pleasure. It's one of the most tender and touching metaphors for female sexuality and orgasm that I've seen.
So from this movie, I learned how to engage a reader in more than just the motion of the ocean, but also the emotions of the motion, so to speak.
On the downside, I learned just how necessary character development is. In Pal Joey, Joey starts the movie with being run out of town by the police. Because he'd been pouring drinks for an underage girl in his hotel room. For some reason, this was considered funny back in 1957.
I was yucked out immediately. And I stayed yucked out, because Joey remained a complete dog. Kim Novak played a helpless innocent (another Waif on our hands!), and Rita Hayworth played a woman who actually owned her sexuality. Which means, of course, that she got dumped. Here's the trailer to get you started.
What I learned?
1. I need to pay attention to the mores of your time, and what is considered funny.
2. Sometimes, I just want to watch the movie for the musical numbers, and not the plot. Or the characters.
3. If I'm going to write a jerk or someone in need of redemption, I need to show some kind of reason why anyone would cheer for this louse.
In order to get this foul taste out of my mouth, I had to watch some Mae West movies. My Little Chickadee to the rescue.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Back on Track. And pissed off.
Ok, back to In Defense of Twilight, even though I hate it: Part Three.
As you may or may not know, I have a degree in Library and Information Science. Save the Dewey Decimal jokes - I've heard them all. We're going into the jungle of literary criticism today.
Library school gives you amazing perspective on popular culture. The criticisms aimed at Twilight for being misleading, wrong-headed, and a bad example to our youth have been fired at writing as far ranging as Harry Potter to E. B. White to the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew to Tom Swift.
Yes, I'm serious.
Literary critics used to claim that reading these kinds of books as akin to feeding your child poison. After all, children are weak minded, you know.
To all the people who tell me that Twilight is going to tell women to fall for a gross, stalkery freak, I have one thing to say.
Women are not stupid.
Could it be possible that females are perfectly capable of discerning the difference between fantasy and reality??
When a young woman makes a poor choice in a mate, the example she's using comes from up close and personal observation of adults around her.
Not fictional characters.
If we honestly thought that women yearned for maltreatment, why don't we believe that every man reading a James Bond novel yearns to be shot, stabbed, tossed out of airplanes, dunked in arctic ice cold water, and have no emotional life to speak of?
Of course that is ridiculous - because we don't think men are stupid.
Why should we think our girls are stupid, impressionable, and helpless? Reading about Waif Bella does not turn a girl into a passive Waif. Reading about James Bond, the man with no sense of self-preservation, does not make a boy into a moron who thinks that getting shot is just business as usual.
Twilight (and romance) is popular because girls and women know it is fantasy. They get to experience what it is like to be passive Bella, or pretend they are dangerous Edward (more on that next time), or even learn how very wet the Pacific Northwest is.
What would the world look like if we believed that women were smart?
As you may or may not know, I have a degree in Library and Information Science. Save the Dewey Decimal jokes - I've heard them all. We're going into the jungle of literary criticism today.
Library school gives you amazing perspective on popular culture. The criticisms aimed at Twilight for being misleading, wrong-headed, and a bad example to our youth have been fired at writing as far ranging as Harry Potter to E. B. White to the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew to Tom Swift.
Yes, I'm serious.
Literary critics used to claim that reading these kinds of books as akin to feeding your child poison. After all, children are weak minded, you know.
To all the people who tell me that Twilight is going to tell women to fall for a gross, stalkery freak, I have one thing to say.
Women are not stupid.
Could it be possible that females are perfectly capable of discerning the difference between fantasy and reality??
When a young woman makes a poor choice in a mate, the example she's using comes from up close and personal observation of adults around her.
Not fictional characters.
If we honestly thought that women yearned for maltreatment, why don't we believe that every man reading a James Bond novel yearns to be shot, stabbed, tossed out of airplanes, dunked in arctic ice cold water, and have no emotional life to speak of?
Of course that is ridiculous - because we don't think men are stupid.
Why should we think our girls are stupid, impressionable, and helpless? Reading about Waif Bella does not turn a girl into a passive Waif. Reading about James Bond, the man with no sense of self-preservation, does not make a boy into a moron who thinks that getting shot is just business as usual.
Twilight (and romance) is popular because girls and women know it is fantasy. They get to experience what it is like to be passive Bella, or pretend they are dangerous Edward (more on that next time), or even learn how very wet the Pacific Northwest is.
What would the world look like if we believed that women were smart?
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