How I Write a Script by Scott Myers, Part 1

Today I studied a very interesting ten part blog which appears in Going Into The Story by Scott Myers titled, How I Write a Script. It was originally posted in June, 2008 at http://www.gointothestory.com/2008/06/how-i-write-script-part-1.html  I heartily recommend this blog.

About conceiving a story concept, Myers writes, “The two most important words in the story concept process are What if?” Once a story concept is found he enters brainstorming ideas into a word processing file on his computer. The key to brainstorming the right way is, “no pre-judgment” All ideas go into the master brainstorming file. “Research generally goes hand-in-hand with brainstorming as research feeds that process.”

“As you are brainstorming and doing research, characters emerge, plot ideas pop up, themes evolve. At some point, you will have accumulated enough story ‘stuff’ that key characters will spring to life. Then it’s time to dig into them. He creates individual files for the primary characters. The single biggest key he found about working with characters is to be curious about them. Ask them questions. Interview them. Talk with them. That works for some characters; others I find myself writing a narrative of their past.”


“At some point, I apply seven questions to my characters to try to see what narrative functions might play in the story:
• Who is my Protagonist?
• What do they want (External Goal)?
• What do they need (Internal Goal)?
• Who is keeping them from it (Nemesis)?
• Who is connected to the Protagonist’s emotional growth (Attractor)?
• Who is connected to the Protagonist’s intellectual growth (Mentor)?
• Who tests the Protagonist by switching allegiances from ally to enemy (Trickster)?”

I think these character archetypes link to the James N. Frey book, The Key, How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth, that I read in January, 2010.  Frey wrote, “Myth-based fiction is patterned after what mythologist Joseph Campbell has called the monomyth. According to Campbell, the monomyth is structurally a reenactment of the same mythological hero’s journey; it is prevalent in all cultures, in every era, from the dim beginnings of human consciousness eons ago to the present.”

Frey writes, “Jung thought that the components of myth were actually biological structures of the brain – that they are, so to speak, hardwired into a mental computer. Myths, Jung proposed, were automatically responded to upon an individual’s hearing them. The individual uses these structures and the myths themselves to help in his or her own transformations. They are patterns of behavior, stored away for future use… To accomplish any kind of personal change, you will find yourself following the path of the hero of a monomyth.”

I have so much to learn about myths. The concept is fascinating. And if we are in-fact hardwired to respond to them, authors, especially new authors, ignore them at our own peril.

How To Write Killer Fiction by Carolyn Wheat

Today, I finished reading How To Write Killer Fiction, The Funhouse of Mystery & the Roller Coaster of Suspense by Carolyn Wheat.

“The best advice on writing I’ve ever seen came from a fictional character, Seymour Glass, J.D. Salinger’s cryptic antihero, tells his brother, Buddy, an aspiring writer: “You think of the book you’d most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.”

While I read both Mysteries and Suspense, I realized from her description of the difference between the Mystery genre and the Suspense genre that my favorite is not actually a Mystery but Suspense. The type book I best like to read is Suspense, whose authors include: Francis, Grisham, Clancy, Ludlum, DeMille, Lustbader, LeCarre, Follett.

“In contrast to the intellectual pleasure of the mystery, suspense is an emotional roller-coaster ride; if there is a puzzle element, it is decidedly secondary to the visceral experience. The suspense hero, like the protagonist of a folk or fairy tale, faces tests that will elevate him to another level of maturity. The suspense hero, unlike most detectives who already have the skills to detect, must learn skills to cope with the new reality that has overtaken him. We readers want to see him becoming a hero through overcoming obstacles on the way to the showdown with evil. By the end of the novel, he has walked through the fire and has emerged as a different, larger person.”

The book contains three parts. Part one is devoted to the mystery. Part two is devoted to suspense. Part three touches on the writing process.

In Part Two - The Roller Coaster of Suspense, Wheat provides an in-depth analysis of the various branches of the suspense family tree. Writing about Suspense vs. Thriller she wrote, “What makes a suspense novel a thriller? My facetious answer used to be, ‘A six-figure advance,’ but I’ve come to see that it’s more than that. Yes, thrillers are big sellers, but they also take the reader to a higher level than an ‘ordinary’ suspense novel. Thriller writers aren’t afraid to take their plots, characters, situations, and locales to the max, pushing the envelope of credibility at every possible turn. They pile it on, pitting their protagonist against super-powerful enemies and putting obstacle upon obstacle in the way of success. They squeeze everything they can out of their settings, to the point where the reader ends up knowing more than he ever wanted to know about the internal working of submarines or dinosaur DNA.


And yet that’s part of the thrill, inherent in the thriller: the sense of getting more than you bargained for of being taken inside the inner circle and told things no one is supposed to know. Just when you think the plot can’t possibly take one more twist, it throws one more monkey wrench into the hero’s plans and spins your head around. It takes you toe the highest highs and the lowest lows, and if it does these things at the expense of credibility and ordinary human emotion – well, that’s what you want… You want something to rivet your eyes to the page, to let your escape into an exciting, danger-filled place.

And that's what I want to write.  Not just suspense.  I want to write a thriller. 

Now, I just need a story.  I 'm having doubts that my idea for historical mystery set in early 1800's Georgia will work for me.  If I, “...think of the book you’d most like to be reading, and then you sit down and shamelessly write it.”, it won't be a historical mystery.  It's got to be a thriller.


Also in Part Two, Wheat writes about how suspense novels borrow from The Hero’s Journey of myths. My favorite chapter is devoted to the structure of a suspense novel. For me this chapter is worth the price of the book. I will be using its instructions extensively. Another valuable chapter is on writing the ending, a difficult job at best and critical for a suspense novel.

In Part Three – The Writing Process, Wheat gives a concrete example of how to implement a storyboard to pre-plan scenes that will be very valuable to me. (especially since I’m a pre-planning freak)

I love this book. It has definitely given me a kick in the seat of the pants down the right path.  I give How To Write Killer Fiction, The Funhouse of Mystery & the Roller Coaster of Suspense four stars!

Story Idea – Post Revolutionary War Mystery

If I'm going to write a novel, I've got to have a story idea.  I've been struggling to come up with an idea since I made my New Year's resolution to write a novel.  Finally, I've got one.

After I recovering from 1st round of chemo, radiation, surgery, and 2nd round of chemo in 2000, I began doing genealogical research on my ancestors.   Over the past ten years I've collected information on about 12,000 individuals.  Most of whom are very distant cousins. 

In the process, I've learned a lot about General Edmund Hogan. 

He was a wonderful bigger than life character who died in 1828 in Little Rock, Arkansas Territory when he was stabbed by the walking cane sword of a political rival.  Edmund was born in North Carolina and migrated to Georgia in the early 1800's to Georgia where he gained land through the land lottery.  He served as a Sheriff, a Colonel in the state militia, a Senator in the Georgia legislature and a Judge.  In 1814, he abandoned his properties and "ran away" to the Missouri Territory where began operating the first ferry across the Arkansas river at the 'Little Rock'.  In 1820, he was reported to be the wealthiest man in the Arkansas Territory.  He later became the commanding general of the Arkansas territorial militia.  He had spent most of his wealth by the time of his death. 

I'm reading that I should write about what I know about.  Edmund Hogan seems like a good character to build a story on.

Story Idea: My protagonist is Edmund Hogan living in Georgia in 1801. He marries Frances Green. She is from a wealthy family who give her a domestic slave and a field hand slave for their wedding. He has a gambling habit that will make him flee from GA to AR in 1814. 

I think Edmund would be a really good hero for a mystery series.  I'm imagining an Anne Perry type historical mystery series set in Post-Revolutionary War Georgia

Unfortunately, I don't know much about the customs, and dress of this period.  If it isn't in Mel Gibson's movie, The Patriot, I don't have a clue.  My wife, Suzy, tells me that President Jimmy Carter wrote a book, The Hornet's Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War. 

It looks like I'm going to be going back to Amazon for another book.