James N. Frey's The Key is a wonderful resources that takes Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, and shows one how to use it as a writing tool. For anyone interested in using archetypes in their writing, this is a must-have.
Obviously, as a Fantasy writer, this book especially appeals to me, but Frey demonstrates starting with the introduction, why Mythical writing is in fact present in almost every story from Madame Bovary to Crime and Punishment, and why this book will help you (yes, you specifically) become a better writer.
As you'll recall from The Art of Dramatic Writing, good stories require excellent orchestration of characters - not just protagonists, but antagonists as well. A real mythological/epic-proportioned hero(ine) requires a villain that is at least the hero(ine)'s equal, and in fact the villain ought to be better and more resourceful in some areas. Frey delivers some tools to evaluate these two pillars of writing a mythological story and tips on how to make that story really pop into life.
The one caveat with this method of story-telling is getting too wrapped up in the checklists and losing focus on the story and characters themselves. However, Frey equips his readers with how to really familiarize themselves with their own characters while going through the checklists - and he even mentions that not every mythological story has all of the elements listed. In fact, if one were to use all the elements, one would come up with a rather busy story. He advises to pick a few and work with them. Only use what you need.
I'd rate this book as a good read - not quite as necessary to read as How to Write a damn good Novel or its counterpart, but it's a valuable resource, especially for analyzing one's own work.
If you're inclined to watch the Edgar Winter/Simon Pegg movie Hot Fuzz, I'd recommend reading this book, then watching the movie again. You'll see that it is ripe with mythological elements.
Write on, dear readers.
Showing posts with label James N. Frey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James N. Frey. Show all posts
21 June 2013
12 April 2013
How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, A Review
"Tell them to write as honestly as they can. Tell them to ponder their characters to make sure that the emotions their characters feel and the decisions their characters make - their choices, their courses of action - are consistent with the characters they have envisioned. And tell them to check and recheck each sentence to be sure they have communicated what they intended to communicate. And to ask themselves, What does this sentence say? Are its nuances the nuances I want? Tell them that's what they have to do if they aspire to write a damn good novel." - Lester Gorn
There are a few things How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, Advanced Techniques is not: it is not a magic wand, it is not a waste of time, it is not light reading, and it is not a book for the beginning writer. This book assumes that you have a reasonable grasp on how to formulate a plot, write characters, and handle a premise (without which your plot is just another absurdist comedy regardless of your pacing or gripping action sequences. Premise is what your book aims to prove in around 80,000 words). If you haven't spent at least a few thousand hours on writing, then this book likely will not be as useful to you as another book on the bare bones of writing.
As promised in the title, Frey delivers hard hitting advice on how to write with increased complexity and realism. He starts off with a chapter on the Fictive dream - which it is your job as the author to induce - and how it's not in fact a dream at all, but a trance. The following chapters are like nested for-loops (for the coders) or the dreams within a dream from Inception (for everyone else). If you're one of the three people that hasn't seen Inception, basically it's a multi-layered frame tale like that old shaggy dog about the scout leader telling a story about the scout leader telling a story about the scout leader ad nauseum. EXCEPT! Your stories better only induce nausea from terror and wicked descriptions, not boredom, or your writing dreams are DOA.
Frey will guide you through how to really craft the telling details that will make your minor characters pop without taking over the scene, how to redream the fictive dream yourself while editing, further tips on orchestration (which Lajos Egri discusses in his masterpiece), and most importantly of all: Multiple Premises. While the story has one premise (let's use Macbeth, because I like Scotch), say "Ruthless Ambition leads to destruction," the protagonist(s) might have quite another: "Power belongs to those who can seize opportunity" (Lady Macbeth), or "Betrayal earns death" (Banquo). However, what Frey means here is that a single story can contain TWO main story premises, but for this to work you need two equally strong protagonists (hence why orchestration is covered before this chapter). This means that you'll have 2 climaxes (they should be near each other), 2 moments of truth (the protagonist must choose either to sacrifice his/her lover and live or risk death themselves), etc. For example, you could have "Selfish Love leads to Desolation" (Male Lead) and "Tyranny sows the seeds for Freedom" (Female Lead). In fact, those could be the arguable premises for Ibsen's The Doll House.
Bottom line, get some writing under your belt (if you read this blog, likely you already DO have a non-trivial amount of writing under your belt), buy this book, and enjoy the confidence of the James N. Frey's 100% guarantee: work hard, learn well, re-dream the dream, eat the delicious pie of publication.
Just keep in mind that Jack London worked hard, and for him that meant 18 hours a day 7 days a week locked in his office writing, but then again, when he started he could barely string a sentence together.
Also, Mr. London is dead. Whereas you are still alive and therefore your potential is limitless. Now get back to work.
There are a few things How to Write a Damn Good Novel II, Advanced Techniques is not: it is not a magic wand, it is not a waste of time, it is not light reading, and it is not a book for the beginning writer. This book assumes that you have a reasonable grasp on how to formulate a plot, write characters, and handle a premise (without which your plot is just another absurdist comedy regardless of your pacing or gripping action sequences. Premise is what your book aims to prove in around 80,000 words). If you haven't spent at least a few thousand hours on writing, then this book likely will not be as useful to you as another book on the bare bones of writing.
As promised in the title, Frey delivers hard hitting advice on how to write with increased complexity and realism. He starts off with a chapter on the Fictive dream - which it is your job as the author to induce - and how it's not in fact a dream at all, but a trance. The following chapters are like nested for-loops (for the coders) or the dreams within a dream from Inception (for everyone else). If you're one of the three people that hasn't seen Inception, basically it's a multi-layered frame tale like that old shaggy dog about the scout leader telling a story about the scout leader telling a story about the scout leader ad nauseum. EXCEPT! Your stories better only induce nausea from terror and wicked descriptions, not boredom, or your writing dreams are DOA.
Frey will guide you through how to really craft the telling details that will make your minor characters pop without taking over the scene, how to redream the fictive dream yourself while editing, further tips on orchestration (which Lajos Egri discusses in his masterpiece), and most importantly of all: Multiple Premises. While the story has one premise (let's use Macbeth, because I like Scotch), say "Ruthless Ambition leads to destruction," the protagonist(s) might have quite another: "Power belongs to those who can seize opportunity" (Lady Macbeth), or "Betrayal earns death" (Banquo). However, what Frey means here is that a single story can contain TWO main story premises, but for this to work you need two equally strong protagonists (hence why orchestration is covered before this chapter). This means that you'll have 2 climaxes (they should be near each other), 2 moments of truth (the protagonist must choose either to sacrifice his/her lover and live or risk death themselves), etc. For example, you could have "Selfish Love leads to Desolation" (Male Lead) and "Tyranny sows the seeds for Freedom" (Female Lead). In fact, those could be the arguable premises for Ibsen's The Doll House.
Bottom line, get some writing under your belt (if you read this blog, likely you already DO have a non-trivial amount of writing under your belt), buy this book, and enjoy the confidence of the James N. Frey's 100% guarantee: work hard, learn well, re-dream the dream, eat the delicious pie of publication.
Just keep in mind that Jack London worked hard, and for him that meant 18 hours a day 7 days a week locked in his office writing, but then again, when he started he could barely string a sentence together.
Also, Mr. London is dead. Whereas you are still alive and therefore your potential is limitless. Now get back to work.
29 March 2013
How to Write a Damn Good Novel, A Review
All right ladies and gents, I promised you a review of a craft book that will kick your writing in the balls or punch it in the ovaries. James N. Frey's How to Write a Damn Good Novel IS that craft book - just in case a curse in the title wasn't an indication of that.
This is a great book filled with information that will help you really see whether you have the perspective it takes to be a writer. Frey opens with a segment on subspecies Homo Fictus, a term he uses to explain why fictional characters CANNOT be real people. My favorite little segment on the Homo Fictus explains why your heroine should never, ever, ever be the "idiot in the attic." Homo Fictus always behaves up to their maximum potential - never beyond, never beneath. So, your teenage babysitter armed with a flashlight and an ever-present cell phone will not in fact storm the serial killer's lair in the attic. She'll call the cops and get the heck out of Dodge.
By far the meat of the book focuses on the integral parts of storytelling, with special emphasis on how to create sympathetic characters by manipulating the opening situations and thus the reader's emotions. To really hook a reader you, as the author, have to give the reader someone with whom they connect. That doesn't mean your character has to be likable; look at Scrooge. Dickens wants Scrooge to be loathed, and no one will contest that Dickens succeeded - otherwise why would "Scrooge" still be an insult over a century later?
The book ends with a rubric on how to assess one's writing groups. This rubric was especially helpful to me, because I had just moved 1300 miles and had fallen in with a new writing group, a group that could have quickly damned my own push for writing mastery. These writers had no negative comments to say about anything someone else brought in - in short this was a "fluff" group. Unless you need a group to keep you coming back to the page (accountability is important for everyone), then the only group worth joining is one that will tear your work apart. Frey calls these groups "destructive" but the fact is they're just serious about their craft. If you don't have the guts to keep bringing in a piece for repeated stripping down and whipping, then you won't get any better. This is also a good place to practice separating your self from your art. You are not your novel, your novel is not your child, etc. Your novel is a piece of work. If a carpenter got upset at someone for criticizing a rickety table, do you think s/he'd ever make a dime? Of course not.
This is my second favorite book on craft, and one that I cannot recommend highly enough. Go out, buy it, read it, and if you don't feel that you're a better writer for it, leave a comment and I'll provide my e-mail address for your strongly-worded hate mail.
As always, thanks for reading. Now get back to writing.
This is a great book filled with information that will help you really see whether you have the perspective it takes to be a writer. Frey opens with a segment on subspecies Homo Fictus, a term he uses to explain why fictional characters CANNOT be real people. My favorite little segment on the Homo Fictus explains why your heroine should never, ever, ever be the "idiot in the attic." Homo Fictus always behaves up to their maximum potential - never beyond, never beneath. So, your teenage babysitter armed with a flashlight and an ever-present cell phone will not in fact storm the serial killer's lair in the attic. She'll call the cops and get the heck out of Dodge.
By far the meat of the book focuses on the integral parts of storytelling, with special emphasis on how to create sympathetic characters by manipulating the opening situations and thus the reader's emotions. To really hook a reader you, as the author, have to give the reader someone with whom they connect. That doesn't mean your character has to be likable; look at Scrooge. Dickens wants Scrooge to be loathed, and no one will contest that Dickens succeeded - otherwise why would "Scrooge" still be an insult over a century later?
The book ends with a rubric on how to assess one's writing groups. This rubric was especially helpful to me, because I had just moved 1300 miles and had fallen in with a new writing group, a group that could have quickly damned my own push for writing mastery. These writers had no negative comments to say about anything someone else brought in - in short this was a "fluff" group. Unless you need a group to keep you coming back to the page (accountability is important for everyone), then the only group worth joining is one that will tear your work apart. Frey calls these groups "destructive" but the fact is they're just serious about their craft. If you don't have the guts to keep bringing in a piece for repeated stripping down and whipping, then you won't get any better. This is also a good place to practice separating your self from your art. You are not your novel, your novel is not your child, etc. Your novel is a piece of work. If a carpenter got upset at someone for criticizing a rickety table, do you think s/he'd ever make a dime? Of course not.
This is my second favorite book on craft, and one that I cannot recommend highly enough. Go out, buy it, read it, and if you don't feel that you're a better writer for it, leave a comment and I'll provide my e-mail address for your strongly-worded hate mail.
As always, thanks for reading. Now get back to writing.
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