On Writing On Publishing On Marketing

On Writing 1. "Play God! Give Your Characters Zing!" by Carol Kluz Mold that character, then sit down and interview him. Avoid the usual stereotyping and give him or her a unique quirk. Fleshing Out Characters The Body Physical You’ve decided that your protagonist is going to be a male. Now you need to instill this person with a personality. He needs to have feelings, dreams, and desires. And you have the creative power to mold him into whatever you want. Will he be tall, very short, very tall, average, stout, muscular, lean, gaunt, skinny, obese, slender, or average? Is he going to be a child, a teen, a young man, an old man, or somewhere in between? What race is he and what is his ethnic background? Will he be from a new race? Mold him and watch him take shape. Assume you’ve created a young man in his late twenties with a slender physique and shaved head. Don’t stop there. Finish molding him until he becomes someone. Color his eyes and eyebrows. Work on his features. Does his face boast chiseled features or are they softer? Is his nose slightly large, or maybe it’s a bit crooked from a childhood accident when his brother ran into him. Is his face interesting, pleasant to look at, handsome, rugged, patrician, snobbish, youthful, ugly? Does he have unusual quirks like chuckling when he’s embarrassed, or blushing? Does he mumble to himself when he’s thinking? Is he sensitive, slow thinking, sharp, street smart, book smart? Does he get into trouble? Is he law abiding? Is he loyal and polite to his family and friends? Is he rebellious? Will he fight when pushed, or will he try diplomacy? Clothes Clothing often categorizes people. Does your character work in a business office and wear suits with ties? Is he a fireman by day who wears casual slacks and golf shirts when off duty? Is he a ranch hand who dresses in faded jeans, boots, and long-sleeved western-cut shirts? Is he a by day conservative and by night liberal who wears a rock band T-shirt, tattered jeans, and sandals, or is he an athlete who wears jogging suits or shorts? Maybe he’s in the military, or maybe he’s from another world and dresses in colorful jump suits or dragon leather. Don’t forget accessories. What sort of shoes and socks will he wear? Does he wear a ring and what sort? How about a medallion, or gold chain, or earring? Does he wear a belt? Does he carry a wallet or shove his money into his pockets? Does he wear a broad sword across his back or carry a knife in his pocket, on his belt, or hidden in his boot? Once you have him dressed in a manner that suits his status in life and his personality, you have taken several major steps in fleshing out your character, but the work doesn’t stop there. Environment Your character needs some place to live. Where he lives and his habits will help to mold his personality. Will he be neat and organized, a total slob, an average guy who occasionally leaves his socks and underwear scattered on the floor? Does he live in an apartment, a house, alone, with others, in a tent, in a sheep wagon, in a condo, on a houseboat, in a castle? Back History and Psychological Issues Interview your character now and find out where he grew up. Get him to talk about his parents, his friends, his escapades, his siblings, his school, his religion, his political beliefs, and anything else you’d like to know about him. Ask him why he hates his oldest sister, or why he and his father haven’t spoken in five years, or what he did that landed him in jail for two days when he was in college. Ask him how he managed after his mother was killed by a mugger. What are his aspirations? Does he want to own a company someday, run his own cattle ranch, destroy the evil dragon, marry his high school sweetheart and raise a family? What motivates him and why? Does he want to find the man who murdered his mother, attend a rock concert, join the CIA, run for the Senate, write a musical score, or join the priesthood? Status Quo We all have ideas on usual types of characters seen over and over in fiction. Misunderstanding is rampant when an individual is portrayed as a mean and threatening individual but turns out to be just the opposite. We also see this with the underdog—the meek person who comes through with an incredible courageous act to save the day. Others include the vengeful woman, the antihero, the hero. So, what you want to do with your newly fleshed-out character is avoid making him a stereotype. Do this by giving him an added habit or quirk that doesn’t quite fit the stereotype. He could be a liberal senator who secretly listens to Rush Limbaugh, a professor who likes reading children’s books, an opera singer who has a collection of Grateful Dead records. Giving your character contradictory traits is a good thing. You want him to be unique. Just try not to follow the status quo when doing it. Actions, Reactions, and Feelings Our protagonist is readying himself to help drive the plot of your story. How he acts, reacts, and feels all play an important role as do his interactions with the other characters in your story. Different factors about your characters will determine their reactions. Some of these are ethnic background, education, age, environment, rebellious personality or conforming personality, and even specific events in his background. Suppose your protagonist and his best friend, a female, are accidentally bumped on a busy street. The memory of his mother’s mugging and subsequent murder flash through his mind, spurring him to grab the offender and slam him against the wall of a building, his eyes flashing with anger. She immediately grabs the protagonist’s arm, begging him to let the man go, insisting that it was only an accident. It isn’t the fact that they were bumped that’s important. It’s how elements of their personalities were revealed by their reactions to the incident. By this revelation, the plot has thickened, because we now know that the protagonist has a weak spot, an explosiveness that will play a role in future events. We learned that his friend is forgiving and compassionate. Introspection Help your readers to know what makes your protagonist tick by allowing them to occasionally see what he is thinking. Thoughts not only help build who he is; they allow the reader to bond with him as well or at least to understand him more fully. Now your character is whole. You’ve taken all of the necessary steps to breathe life into him so that your readers will be interested enough to want to know what is going to happen to him. Will he achieve his goals? Will they want him to? Will the readers feel sad when he fails? Will they feel anger when someone does him wrong? Will they rejoice when he succeeds? Will they laugh when he’s the butt of a joke? Will they cry if he dies, or will they think he deserved it? When your readers react to your characters, you know you’ve succeeded in making them real. 2. "How to Write a Film Treatment" by Carol Kluz A film treatment is a ‘glorified’ synopsis of a story or novel. Film treatments are not difficult to do, and many production companies will accept them in lieu of a screen play. The cover page can be a simple design printed on color paper. At the top center type in the words "Film Treatment." This should be bolded and in 14-point font. Then center your story or novel title. This should be bolded and in a larger font, depending on how long your title is. You can put borderlines above and below the title. At the bottom center, in 8-point font and bolded, type in the words "Registered with Writers Guild East" (or west), and beneath that, type your registration number. A Table of Contents page is next, listing in order: Author Bio, Logline, Pitch, Cast of Characters, Locations, and Film Treatment. Only the treatment needs page numbers at the bottom. The other preceding pages should have bolded roman numerals centered at the bottom of each page. The first page following the table of contents page is the Author Bio. Next is the Logline. This is a very short one- or two-sentence paragraph describing the plot. Example: "A young Sicilian immigrant, desperate to be successful in his new homeland, is befriended by two of New York’s top Mafia bosses—one Sicilian—one Irish. By 1920, when prohibition becomes the law of the land, he is enmeshed with both factions." The Pitch is a two or more paragraph page telling why this will be a movie people will be interested in. Example: "Prohibition was the fuel the ethnic mob bosses needed to expand and establish their power in New York and other large cities throughout America. A law meant to stifle criminal activity did just the opposite. Young Francesco ‘Cheech’ Caruso, a small player, yet personal friend of two Mafia bosses—one Irish, the other Sicilian—could not refuse them any request, even murder in the name of justice, because he believed in loyalty—whatever the cost, whatever the risk. "What will make this movie unique is that the characters are based on fact through stories and documentation. The son of the main character does not exaggerate nor gloss over; he merely tells the story as his father repeated it to him in his later years. People will come to know a bit of that history when they meet Charles "Vannie" Higgins, the top Irish boss and rumrunner, and Salvatore "Toto" D’ Aquila, the Sicilian who declared himself the boss of bosses in New York. "The movie will have appeal for its roaring twenties flapper-era costumes. Young adults all the way to octogenarians will be enthralled with it. We’ve seen The Godfather movie series and The Sopranos gain great success depicting the activities of the Mafia. This will be a true story told by someone who knows." The next page is the Cast of Characters pages. Center and bold the title: Cast of Characters. Beneath that write small descriptions of your main characters. Below are several samples. "Francesco ‘Cheech’ Caruso is a man who rarely smiles when sober, except around children. Drunk, he can be in very good humor—or very dark and dangerous. He loves his family, his friends and his music. A talented singer, he often throws songfest parties on the roof of his building. He is average height, powerfully built, with thick shoulders and arms, light skinned, brown hair, hazel eyes. He is twenty-seven years old. "Salvatore ‘Toto’ D’Aquila is the first boss of bosses of the Sicilian Mafia and what is now known as the Gambino crime family. He is nearly six feet tall, with a swarthy complexion. He is a touch overweight, and his black hair is contrasted by a touch of gray at the temples, giving him a look of distinction. Forty-three-year-old Toto is noted for his elaborate clothing and fancy cars." The next page has the bolded and centered title "Locations." You will need to list locations that will be needed in the production of the film. Example: "Neighborhoods depicting old brick building with stoops, gaslights, and shops will be needed, along with buses and cars circa 1920. "An apartment interior with furnishings of the twenties will be needed and should include a kitchen with a small wood burning stove, an icebox, and so forth." The most important element is the film treatment. Center and bold your title. The first paragraph is concise. I have put an example below from one of my coauthored suspense novels. Countermeasures Uprooted from her happy and secure existence, Sharon McCoy is thrust into a maze of fate, misconception, and danger. What seems an ordinary introduction turns out to be a fateful event that foreshadows tremendous changes about to occur in this young woman’s life. Doctor J. P. Knight seeks Sharon’s expertise in accounting to help set the financial affairs of one of his patients in order. They develop a friendship. Several weeks later, she makes a heartbreaking discovery about her husband. Harboring thoughts of suicide and facing the possibility that she is married to her brother, she turns to her new-found friend. Together, they work through the mesh of fate, doubles, misconceptions, and danger to get to the truth. A panorama of the Rocky Mountains comes into view. The scene shifts to the Denver skyline and zeroes into the window of an office building. A large office area with many desks comes into view and focuses on an attractive twenty-eight-year-old woman working at a computer. Then, it shifts to an older woman escorting a tall, middle-aged man toward the desk with the young woman. As you can see, the film treatment has full justified margins. You are, in a sense, creating a small magazine. Try to describe the opening scene. Beneath this and with a line skip, begin a to-the-point synopsis of your first chapter. Use bolded lines or asterisk lines to separate the chapters. Use line skips to separate time frames or scenes within a chapter. It is OK to use some dialogue in your chapter descriptions to emphasize a particular scene. Chapter descriptions should not be drawn out and should be confined to one or two paragraphs. Now, you need to register your treatment with the Writers Guild East or West. You can find addresses at http://www.wga.org. Write first and request the packet for registering your treatment. This will include a special envelope where you seal your treatment. Once you send this in with the fee, you will receive your registration number. Be sure to put that on the title page. When you send out queries to production companies, be sure to mention that your treatment is registered and include the registration number. Type the registration number at the bottom of your cover page. Print out copies and staple it twice on the left edge. You can use a colored sheet of paper for the front and back.