This snippet was pretty solid from the start. A few small tweaks and one HUGE rule for writers come into play in getting the story into its best possible shape.
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From the category archives:
Writing Videos
In The Case of the Ghostly Girls, I uncover the four reasons that a well-written scene with realistic dialogue doesn’t live up to the writer’s expectations. Episode Four includes:
- A Dialogue Relevance Crash
- A Dialogue Action Crash
- An Element Connection Crash
- A Scene-Planning Crash
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Reasonable question. No video to go with this, just a quick and I hope clear answer.
In a frame story, you begin the story by showing a character or characters settling in to:
- Watch a play
- Listen to a story
- See old slides
- Read a diary
In the frame story, the characters as they are in the present are NOT participants in the actual story you wish to tell. They could be getting ready to tell us a story of their younger selves as main characters in your main story, they could have been minor participants in that main story, or they could have no relationship to the main story whatsover.
The real story—the story that has been framed—is whatever happens once the writer cuts from the observers to the action. Once the real story ends, the writer cuts back to the frame, shows the audience getting up and leaving, or the diary reader putting the book away and going on with his life, or whatever fits.
In every case, however, the reader is reminded from the beginning that your MAIN story happened in some other place, to different people, and he is forced to see himself as a member of an audience getting the story fed to him through a presenter of some sort, rather than experiencing it himself firsthand. This is distancing, and does not make for great fiction, though writers still use the device from time to time.
Including diary entries, storytellers telling stories, or people watching plays within the body of the story, where those items are not the main story, is not creating a frame story.
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In The Case of the Fuzzy Thing, I dig into the five crashes that make what should be a scary story opener fall flat. Episode Three includes:
- A Vague Noun Crash
- A Weak Verb Crash
- A Sensory Deprivation Crash,
- And Action Crash, and
- A Visualization Crash
CREDITS:
Writer Crash Test Series Music:
“Mysterious Stranger,” © Jack Waldenmaier
Music Bakery Publishing BMI
WARNING: Unauthorized use of the music contained in this production is subject to criminal prosecution.
All copyrights, licensing, duplication, and distribution rights are held exclusively by The Music Bakery (BMI).
800-229-0313 or 972-578-7863 musicbakery.com
The image “Decay Zombie” was purchased from BigStockPhoto.com, and is copyright © Chris Harvey.
The image “After Fire” was purchased from BigStockPhoto.com, and is copyright © Olga Fesko.
This movie was made with a MacBook, Apple Keynote, Photobooth (the author photos), Screenflow, a Logitech webcam for Mac, and a Blue Snowball mic.
This production is Copyright 2009 by Holly Lisle. All Rights Reserved.
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In Episode Two, I take a beautifully written introduction and uncover the four major reasons the writer can’t get it to work. Episode Two includes:
- A Viewpoint/Filter Crash
- A Priority Crash
- A Human Nature Crash, and
- A Structural Crash
This crit brought to you by me, with the help of volunteers from HowToThinkSideways.com who submitted work they knew had problems for me to crit.
In answer to a privately-asked question:
Yes, you are welcome to add this video to your own website, send people to this site, or both.
Here is the EMBED code (basically, you cut and paste this into your website, and the video will appear there.)
============CUT BELOW THIS LINE===========
<embed src=”http://blip.tv/play/AYGA1XEA” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”480″ height=”318″ allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true”></embed>
============CUT ABOVE THIS LINE===========
CREDITS:
Writer Crash Test Series Music:
“Mysterious Stranger,” © Jack Waldenmaier
Music Bakery Publishing BMI
WARNING: Unauthorized use of the music contained in this production is subject to criminal prosecution.
All copyrights, licensing, duplication, and distribution rights are held exclusively by The Music Bakery (BMI).
800-229-0313 or 972-578-7863 musicbakery.com
The image “Decay Zombie” was purchased from BigStockPhoto.com, and is copyright © Chris Harvey.
The image “Haunted House” was purchased from BigStockPhoto.com, and is copyright © Dunca Daniel.
This movie was made with a MacBook, Apple Keynote, Photobooth (the author photos), Screenflow, a Logitech webcam for Mac, and a Blue Snowball mic.
This production is Copyright 2009 by Holly Lisle. All Rights Reserved.
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