by mizwrite on March 9, 2010
Hi, all! I’m over at Popculture Divas today, blogging about TV families.
Duggars? Gosselins? Do you watch any of the new crop of reality families?
Or are you a little old school like me, and pining after the fake families like the Partridges and the Brady Bunch? (“Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!”)
Come read my current take on why the switch over the decades, and weigh in with your own opinion in the comments over there.
(I also mention why I now have my eye on Modern Family. Do you watch that show? Hilarious. …)
by mizwrite on March 5, 2010
Alright, so we’ve covered two of the crucial things every story needs:
Now we’ll cover the third and final element:
A story without a conflict is not really a story. Otherwise the story would end on page 2, because after you introduced the protagonist and the goal, you would simply say “and he won.”
(Which, obviously, would be very boring and there’d be no point in telling it.)
So you need conflict. It’s what people like to read.
Now perhaps you remember all this from high school (I can completely hear Mrs. Kirby in my head covering all this.) (Hello, Mrs. Kirby! Thank you! You too, Mrs. Zukoski and Mr. Drummond!). But for those of us who were passing notes to our friend Dawn, or who were busy drawing hearts on our PeeChee folders, or who were running in late to 6th period every day, here are the four basic types of conflict: [click to continue…]
by mizwrite on March 4, 2010
Here in earthquake country, we often have “plans” set aside about what we’d do in case of an earthquake: Flashlight? Check. Bottled water? Check. Hard-soled shoes beside the bed? Check.
But what I often think about is what I’m wearing to bed.
Californians – am I alone here?
I often go to bed in … well, I can’t even tell you what I go to bed in. Let’s just say it wouldn’t look very good out on the sidewalk come a good 7.2 on the Richter scale. …
But the stranger thing, perhaps, is that this actually goes through my mind every night.
Am I alone in this?
by mizwrite on March 2, 2010
So earlier we were talking about the basics of critiquing being identifying the protagonist, and identifying the goal. But both can be a little tricky, so I thought I’d take the discussion to the next level.
What if the protagonist isn’t clear?
Protags can be much trickier than you think. And there are other questions that come up:
- Can there be more than one?
- Is he always the “good guy”?
Identifying the protagonist can be tricky because it can seem like there are lots of “important” people in the book. (And in romance novels, there are always two, right? The hero and a heroine?) Some argue that there can only be one protagonist, but ensemble pieces will invariably come up in the conversation (The Big Chill, for instance) and shoot that theory out of the water. [click to continue…]
by mizwrite on March 2, 2010
Interesting discussion the other day on how we all critique. It really made me think about how I approach a story and when I think a book is “good” or if it leaves me feeling flat. Do you ever read a book and just feel “flat”? And maybe your friend just LOVED it, so you wonder what you missed, or didn’t get?
(Yeah, me too. …)
Lauran left a similar comment the other day when we were discussing how we critique about how, even when reading a book for book club, she sometimes finds it difficult to express what specifically she likes and dislikes. (I hear ya, sister.)
But here’s the deal: It probably comes down to the most basic of reactions to the most basic beginnings of critiquing. It probably has to do with your reaction to the goal.
What’s that?
The most basic plot of any story is that there is a protagonist. And, as the book opens, he has a goal. Every novel, every movie, every short story, is simply watching the protagonist try to get his goal. … [click to continue…]
