Melva Gifford

These are notes I took from a wonderful writing symposium called Life, the Universe, and Everything. We have a lot of talented people in Utah and visitors with a great deal of knowledge. Any Misinformation is the fault of the note taker.

– Scene sequential is a pacing tool. pacing took to allow actions and then reaction.
Q: what are things you’ve read or seen that exemplify this tool? Da Vinci code. Some of the most tense scene is when characters have different goals. It’s not about actions.
– The entire series Dresden files. Keeps moving quickly.
– Need to balance types of conflict physical and characters.
– Conflict can be external and internal. Whatever happens in actions should propel characters into internal conflict. How does the character grow from what they just experienced? The reader wants to experience some kind of triumph. They should experience emotional growth. As your book moves along the physical and mental conflict should match.
– Action should be where a character tries to resolve a problem. If they’re using magic hopefully they are learning more about magic.
– Would slow the action down to have character reactions during the fight. It can be overused. Reflection during the battle can slow down the battle. Just have raw emotion but the more in-depth thoughts would come later.

Q: when crafting a story when do you look at pacing?
– Star off with three act structure. Then will put events under that arch and then each mini-arc for each scene in the three acts
– Break down of the Martian book article according to pacing. First plot pint should get 25% > introduce new conflict. 50 % of the book introduces a new conflict. Second plot point takes 75% of the book. It should be a mix of internal and external conflict. This will make it so the reader is unable to put down the book.
– First avenger movid3 hulk punches Thor and everyone laughs.
– The three-act structure is not used in the romance genre.
– Some books are character books. They have no plot but the character is interesting.
– The litness test is, are you drawing interest. Pacing is not about mortal conflict. Is what on the page engaging you.
– Learn the rules and learn how to apply them. You can use different devices to achieve the same goal.

Q: what kind of conflicts to use?
– Scale> does the problem matter to the character, personal threat, county threat world threat. In every scene, something big happening such as an attack of army unit and something small such as a relationship between characters.
– Have a situation where the characters are cut from the world. Characters that have a clock heart that can be seen as a sorceress. Build a crucible of all the different ways the world will impact (internal and external) for that character.
– Reasons tension works > It works if you have feelings for the character. When they are in a mortal conflict. It is one reason why starting a book with a fight scene often does not work because the reader is not emotionally engaged in the character.
– For one author, the first draft is often a lot of exposition. Then later drafts of the book expand the more emotional moments.
– When you read a lot and write a lot you gain an instinct. Trust that narrative instinct.
– Need to read a lot of books in your genre, especially the top sellers and see what they are doing.
– Book: Save the cat > still apply for moderns cinema.
– As a new writer, a lot of instincts are wrong and the beta readers can help find problems. Book on Save the cat.
– Often people’s writing gets too cluttered and in the rewrite you need to cut out the excess and narrow your focus.
– There is a theater term called ‘sound off’. It is where you have a car accident off stage and people respond to it. A battle
– Learn how to cut down the excess.

Want to add to the list? Please do so in the comment section of this blog.

These are notes I took from a wonderful writing symposium called Life, the Universe, and Everything. We have a lot of talented people in Utah and visitors with a great deal of knowledge. Any Misinformation is the fault of the note taker.

Q: How to apply a meaningful death:
– It has to be a character that the readers feel about.
– Did the death accomplish something?
– There has to be a meaning.
– People hated the last book of a series because after they won, the hero gets killed by a random bullet and had no relation to the events of the book.
– Clever banter can enable the reader to like the characters.
– When there is a killing: death eaters administer death in Harry Potter. Kill of Fredric.
– Rejected Disney princesses. Real life princesses blog website. One princess of a chief had to prove she had to be reckoned with by the British. She was not given a chair to sit when she stood before the British. she had a maiden kneel on hands and knees to be a chair. The princess slit the throat of the maiden when done. She told the British, I never sit on the same chair twice. Good source of death scenes. https://www.rejectedprincesses.com/

Q: what good are bad tropes to use? Can beans you can taste the can. You don’t have to do much to make is a story different from what is expected.
– Tropes: torpes.org and 500 tropes related to death
– If the point of your book does not sound dangerous enough, you will not care. Frodo’s life needs to be in threat. The stakes need to be high enough for the reader to care.
– The movie, Deep Water horizon: a movie about an explosion of an oil rig. In one scene a man sacrifices himself to save others.
– You need to set up a world of the hero’s vulnerability.
– Bad examples: K19 widow maker is a bad example of deaths starring Harrison Ford.
– Supernatural: TV show good relationships and the stakes are high enough to die for.
– Foreshadowing: harry potter foreshadows Horcruxes. Tom’s diary is a Horcrux It’s the first of plotting out the book she knew where to put it.
– Foreshadowing in the Avenger movie, the age of Ultron, Captain America says, if you get hurt, hurt them back. If you get killed, walk it off. The camera centers on the brother and he nods.
– Series of unfortunate events narrator: not a good idea provides foreshadowing. In unfortunate events TV show, in the beginning, hint to change the channel and the opening song look away is foreshadowing.
– New author mistake might be to tell the audience what is going to happen before it happens.
– Fake death: now you see me movie. The purpose if for the reader to feel despair and to feel triumph later.
– If writing war deaths: read journals of soldiers to read the emotional impact.
– How bring someone back? Foreshadowing needs to set up.
– The prestige: bad guy pretends to die.
– See if it undoes the reasons for why they died. Does not cheapen it by an act of cowardice. It doesn’t work if it is not planned out.
– Kill your darlings only if it saves the world.
Want to add to the list? Please do so in the comment section of this blog.