Story Structure Circus Tent

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I've been reading Alexandra Sokoloff and other writers on story structure. There's something not quite right about my draft, and I'm trying to figure out what's amiss. (I suspect it's the Antagonist, who keeps changing.)

In my search, I came across this visual, which I quite like:

Be sure to click on the blog to read the details. This "beat sheet" from from StoryFix.com helps, as well. The terms are slightly different from those that Sokoloff and others use, but the concept is the same.

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Blogs and Slogs

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When I'm in writing mode (as opposed to research mode), I get hungry for books and articles on writing. I've lately been reading the blog posts of Alexandra Sokoloff; Screenwriting Tricks for Authors (which I just posted to my Links page above). 


Sokoloff has a background in theatre and screenwriting, which gives her a strong feeling for plot and setting. I like her essays: they send sparks flying, which is what it's all about. 


A note on reading
I've given up on Franzen's novel Freedom: I find it a slog, lacking heart. Does Franzen care about his characters? I don't think so. The author perspective seems so condescending. It feels like he's dissecting them. I'm disturbed by the raves this novel has received. Is heartlessness in vogue? I'm in agreement with this review in the Globe and Mail: "absolute banality."



(photo by mikebaird)


A note on iPad reading
Instapaper allows me to tag interesting blog posts and website finds to be "read later," which I can do now in comfort on my iPad. When reading the blog on my iPad, if I see a passage I like, something I want to remember, I'm able to highlight it and email it to myself as something to follow up on. If it's something to do with research, I email it to my EverNote database. If it's a quote on writing I like, I send it directly to my Tumblr blog. 


If it's a PDF I'm reading—an academic article, for example—I find iAnnotate the best iPad app because I can send highlighted passages (as well as the marked-up article, should I wish) to my EverNote database. 


I love Kindle reading for the same reason: my highlights are available on-line (with some fiddling: see "Research Tools" on my research blog). These can then be copied and put into a searchable database. 


Could I live without my iPad: I don't think so! 


Sandra Gulland

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Warning: a big change coming

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I'm in the process of having all of my website and blogs changed over from Blogger to WordPress. I've been frustrated by Blogger for too long. The formatting can be so ungainly and uncontrollable!

But the main reason to change is that under WordPress, my entire website will be under my control: I won't have to hire a Net Guru to change a comma, for example.

That said, there are bound to be glitches and frustrations ahead, so please bear with me!

Cheers for the Josephine B. Team

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I'm in that anxious holding pattern now, waiting for The Taskmaster's feedback. (Of course I always assume that he's unhappy with the work.) Not that there isn't a great deal to do:

Research, research, research.

Gather and organize my scattered revision notes.

Get back to the Google Lit Trip project for The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.

This last, the Google Lit Trip, is both exciting and exhausting. Google Lit Trips are an exciting educational tool: they allow students to geographically follow the course of a novel they are reading, as well as to explore, on-line, subjects that come up. For example, there's one for The Kite Runner:

On learning about Google Lit Trips, I threw out the idea of a Josephine B. Lit Trip to my readers on my Facebook page, and a number of them jumped at the challenge. They would do it! With the help of Jerome Burg, creator of Google Lit Trips, they put together the initial draft of a Lit Trip for The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. It's likely that this is the first time Facebook fans have taken on a collaborative project like this, which I find thrilling.

However, The Taskmaster has been working me so hard, I'd not had a chance to give their work a close look...until now. And it's awesome! (Cheers for the Josephine B. team!)

It's also a little daunting because in some cases I need to try to find specific locations: where Josephine (then Rose) lived when she first came to Paris; the location of her aunt's county home; the church she was first married in. I have notes on my computer—from over 15 years ago!—but they are sketchy. However, in the time since the first Josephine B. was published in 1995, internet research has exploded. I'm amazed by what I'm able to discover now.

For one thing: I learned today that Josephine lived not far from where we stayed last spring in Paris, not far from where my current heroine lived. I had a general idea before, but Net research makes it possible to find out rather quickly the history of her street, its many transformations over time. Net research allows me to find out the exact address of Aunt Désirée's country home in Noisy-le-Grand, which, I confess, is grander than I'd imagined.

It all makes me just a bit dizzy!

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Novel hypnosis

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I finished reading Room by Emma Donoghue last night. I can't recall a reading experience so intense: I didn't move—literally—for two and a half hours, not until I'd come to the end. And then I stumbled around for a bit, stunned.


The novel is told from the point-of-view of a five-year-old. I've read in an interview that Emma Donoghue studied the language patterns of her own five-year-old child to create the voice for this story. She profoundly succeeds, but what is her true accomplishment, in my view, is her ability to see (or appear to see) from the point-of-view of a child—a child born and raised in captivity.


Room has garnered a bouquet of raves from fine writers, such as this one from Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours: 

"Room is that rarest of entities, an entirely original work of art. I mean it as the highest possible praise when I tell you that I can't compare it to any other book. Suffice to say that it's potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory." 

I agree. It is also charming, as well as enchanting.

As a writer, it reinforced, for me, the importance of the imagination, of imaginative penetration into the world of ones characters. The first enchantment must be the author's own.


*****
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