The Place For My Writers Notes

Based on http://johndbrown.com/writers/my-big-draws/

Now, this is where it starts to get complicated. See, John is going to get seriously analytic here, starting with taking apart The Phantom Menace (you remember, the Star Wars movie? Jar Jar Fun Fun and other pains? Yeah, that one. Article right over here, compleat with sections, appendices and all that. Imagine, you too can have your very own Thrill-O-Meter! Go to http://www.hatrack.com/misc/phantommenace/index.shtml and read all about it!)

Quick summary: We all like sympathetic wahoo, curiosity, wanna, wonder, humor, and insight. When a story fails, you get confusion, disbelieve and disregard, mistrust, irritation and anger, and boredom. Now what we as writers want to understand is what sequence (character, setting, problem, plot) makes what effects!

Readers need to understand the situation, trust the author, and believe.

And... that's probably enough. Go read the article for more details.

So, what's that got to do with Thing 1, Lesson 3? I'm glad you asked. Basically, thing one, lesson three is about John Brown's big draws -- and yours. The same kind of thing that John does with Phantom Menace, and that we did with our list of 10 stories (you did make your list, right? And what emotions they stirred in you?) But with more detail.

First, John makes a list of the emotions that his favorite stories generate. Along with some keywords. Not just sympathy, but sympathy, rooting, justice. And he notes that this is basically story. Take a look at his list.

He also notes how he likes to feel when he's finished. When the movie ends, when you close the book and set it aside, how do you like to feel? He's got three, but you might have more or fewer.

Finally, he looked at it in terms of three or four story parts: characters, settings, problems and plots. What do you like to feel about characters? What do you like to feel about settings? What about problems? And of course, plots?

OK? So we've got our lipstick. Stories make us feel emotions. We've got our draws. What specific emotions do we like in our stories? And now, we've taken that list of emotions a little bit further. Polished up the list, looked at what we want to take away, and played a little with which emotions go with which parts of the story.

Go ahead and tidy up your lists. What are the emotions, where do you like to end up, and what do you associate with each part of the story: characters, setting, problem and plot?

And next... we'll look at thing two! How do stories do what they do (that old Black Magic?)?