13 Lessons
Dialogue Study #3 - Ten Traits of Faulty Dialogue Continued
Mar 20, 2010 - 6:00 AM
Traits 7 through 9: #7: Talking Wallpaper #8: Forced Exposition #9: Malformation
Epilogues Study #1: 9 Uses of Epilogues
Mar 06, 2010 - 6:00 AM
Nine possible uses of Epilogues: 1. A Last Laugh 2. A Plea for Applause 3. Restatement of the Story's Moral 4. Add Irony 5. Answer Last Questions 6. Give Slow Curtain 7. Punctuation Mark 8. Future Fates 9. Show Climax's Spread of Effects
Prologue Study 3: Eleven Ways To Use Prologues.
Feb 27, 2010 - 12:00 AM
11 Ways To Use Prologues: 1. Give Exposition 2. Set A Mood 3. Establish a Unique Setting 4. Introduce Variety 5. Hook Interest 6. Recap 7. Set Up Future Payoffs 8. Frame the Story 9. Create Dramatic Irony 10. Develop a Setup Sub-Plot 11. Just for the Laughs Examples Referred To (in order mentioned): Star Wars, CoCo Before Chanel, Taming of the Shrew, Sexy Beast, Casablanca, Law & Order (NBC), Damages (FX), In Treatment (HBO) , 24 (Fox), Joyce Carol Oates' novel What I Lived For, Gandhi, The Last Emporer, Sunset Blvd., Double Indemnity, Predator, Life is Beautiful, Robert McKee's mini-series Abraham, Scrooged
Dialogue Study 2 - Traits of Faulty Dialogue
Feb 20, 2010 - 7:52 AM
Traits of Faulty Dialogue (Continued) - Traits #5 and #6 Trait #5: THE USE OF DRY, ARID LANGUAGE In Writing Dialogue: * Always prefer the familiar to the exotic. * Prefer the concrete to the abstract. * Always prefer direct phrases to circumlocutions. * Prefer shorts words to long. * Prefer Saxon words to Latinate words Trait #6: OVERSTATEMENT * Brawny Words, Puny Motivations, Puny Conflicts. Examples Mentioned: Deadwood, The Sopranos, The Wire
Prologue Study 2 - Placement of Prologues
Feb 13, 2010 - 11:17 PM
Prologue - Lesson 2 Where to place the Prologue in your story: Prior to the inciting incident. Immediately after the inciting incident, but prior to the story's progressive complications. After the story's crisis and climax. The placement in time is outside, or irrelevant, to the story told. Examples Used: Ingmar Bergman's film WILD STRAWBERRIES George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK Tennessee William's play THE GLASS MENAGERIE Joseph Conrad's novella THE HEART OF DARKNESS Max Frisch's play THE FIREBUGS
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