Edward J. Denecke
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We interrupt this broadcast...

12/11/2016

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I know that I said that I was done with "naming names" but that was spoken prematurely! On Thursday of last week I received a bulk email from K.M. Weiland (she sends one weekly to her "Wordplayers" - people like me, whom have signed up to receive her regular blog posts). In this email, Katie offered her book Structuring Your Novel and 5 other great resources at a discounted rate of under a dollar each. So, ever a sucker for a great bargain, I bought all six books.

​I've already told you how much I admire K.M., so I won't repeat myself but I have been engrossed in studying what one of the other books Katie offered had to say. That book, The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction, has blown me away! Where most of my previous writing research has been concerned with the on-the-ground nuts-and-bolts of writing a novel, the author of this book, C.S. Lakin, gives her readers a perspective from 10,000 feet in the air. She compares the elements of strong story construction  to the pillars  used to hold up the roof of the Parthenon in ancient Greece.  She uses the analogy of pillars to explain the 12 key elements that need to be in place in order to hold up the roof (story) of a successful novel. C.S. Lakin takes "the mystery out of building a solid story and shows you how to go from idea to completed novel in practical, easy-to-understand steps" (as the book blurb accurately describes her methods). I am only about a fourth of the way through this book and I am extremely impressed with it. 

​Okay, interruption is over.  We now return you (next posting) to your regularly scheduled programming! :-)


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Dan Well's Classroom: Teacher #5

12/7/2016

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Though I have many more individuals whom have influenced my writing and current adventure-novel project (trust me on that!), I want to finish this "naming-names" segment with a hat-tip to Dan Wells, a horror writer (not my cup of tea!), who gave a 5-part  series of lectures (Dan Wells on Story Structure) that I found on YouTube. Embedded in these five videos was more solid information on the topic than I could ingest in a single sitting. So I created a four-page summary of everything that I learned from the videos and a plot-planning graph that I have used for each of my four books. I have returned often to these notes (I keep them in a three-ring binder with all my other "plot-constructing" resources). With exceeding gratitude to Dan, I have used his insights as a catalyst to help me formulate the strategic flow of each separate plot in my 4-part adventure-novel series.

​So what exactly did Dan teach me? I'm glad that you asked! Here's his simple seven-part outline (This is the bare skeleton on which he builds his whole structure):
​     HOOK:                    HERO has a sad, boring life.
​     PLOT TURN 1:       HERO becomes a ROLE.
​     PINCH 1:                A BAD GUY attacks.
     MIDPOINT:             HERO learns the truth about SOMETHING,
​                                    and swears to DEFEAT THE VILLAIN.
​     PINCH 2:               COMPANIONS fall to the VILLAIN. And HERO is left alone.
​     PLOT TURN 2:      Facing VILLAIN, HERO discovers
​                                   THE POWER IS WITHIN HIM.
​     RESOLUTION:      HERO defeats VILLAIN.
​Now take that outline and substitue specific names and details wherever there is an underlined word and you have your story structue in seven lines! Amazing! You HAVE TO watch the videos to see Dan spell out the process more completely. It is a wonder to behold!

​In my last post I mentioned Dan's utilization of the movie The Matrix to demonstrate the necessity of carefully and magnificently plotting a story. His videos are worth watching just to see this analysis  alone. He breaks the movie into four separate plot lines which included Action, Character Development, Romance, and Betrayal. If I had not seen his story-structure explanation for this movie (which he takes plenty of time to develop), I would have been oblivious of the high level of skill  the directors of the movie were displaying as they seemlessly wove these four separate story lines together. (I want to be like them when I grow up!) I have plotted each of my stories using this marvelous device.

​In future posts, I will dedicate as many of them as necessary to detailing the process that I am utilizing in order to simultaneously construct four different stories into one continuous adventure series. Please return for more! Adios for now!






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Kenn Adam's Classroom: Teacher #4

12/6/2016

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I like simple. The simpler the better. In the research for my current children's-book-adventure-series project, I have tried not to leave a helpful-to-new-writers-resource stone unturned. And, when I discovered this one, I knew that I had hit pay dirt!

​Kenn Adams created the original 8-line format of The Story Spine in 1991. He describes it like this: "The Story Spline is both a practical technique for learning how to tell a well-constructed story as well as an outlining tool to help construct a story." Simple isn't it? As I've utilized this tool to streamline the focus of my 4-part adventure series, I've celebrated over and over again its magnificent simplicity.

​Here is the complete Story Spline.  The whole thing. In its entirety.

     Once upon a time...
     And every day...
     Until one day...
     And because of that...
     And because of that...
     And because of that...
     Until finally...
     And ever since that day...

That's it. No bells and whistles. No frills. Simple.

​I've taken that simple outline and filled in the details for each of my four stories.  It has given me confidence that they are structurally sound. Now I am in the process of putting  meat and bones on each of them!

In a guest post called "Back to The Story Spline" found at aerogrammestudio.com., Kenn demonstrated how to  find The Story Spline in two movies: The Incredibles and The Wizard of Oz (two movies that I greatly admire!). Check those examples out. The Story Spline will knock your socks off in its uncomplicated ingenuity!

​In my next post, I am going to end this "naming-names" segment by highlighting the significant influence Dan Wells has had on me with his 4-Part Plot Planner. His dissection of The Matrix movie is fascinating. Come back soon and see what I learned from Dan (and put into practice on my stories!).

​
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K.M. Weiland's Classroom: Teacher #3

12/5/2016

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Now this post is going to be tough to write.  K.M. Weiland has influenced me so much that I don't want to do an injustice to her by misrepresenting her incredibleness to you!! So pretend like you can hear the excitement in my voice as I describe the impact her numerous books, articles, blog posts, podcasts, teaching videos, and personal emails have had on my story-crafting.

​I don't remember when I first encountered K.M. (or Katie, as she likes to be called!) but it didn't take long before I was devouring all-things Weiland-originated. At first, it was her videos that I binged upon on YouTube. They are brief, crisp, and tremendously inciteful novel-writing featurettes packed full of important and extremely helpful suggestions.  These amazing videos are  monumentally significant (I know I'm layering on the adjectives!) sources of advice for writers of all levels.

Are you getting my drift? I'm impressed with this girl's bona fides!

​I have read  three of K.M.'s books: Outlining Your Novel, Crafting Unforgettable Characters, and 5 Secrets of Story Structure. I have just began to read a fourth: Conquering Writer's Block and Summoning Inspiration. I have created many spectacularly helpful tools  for my current writing project based upon pertinent information found in the pages of these books. At one point I shared with Katie a picture of my desktop (the one you pull a chair under, not the one on your computer screen). It was covered with outlines and worksheets and graphs and diagrams and notes and flow charts - all based on information gleaned from her books. I expressed my immense gratitude to her for every bit of it. When she answered my email with a personal response, I was undone! I'm not worthy!!! :-)

​Besides K.M.'s books, there is a plethora of her articles and insights available online. Type "K.M. Weiland" into your search engine and you will be ushered into a universe of ways to obtain Katie's material. You will find her podcasts, her blog, her Facebook site, her eBooks, her YouTube app, her Pinterest and Twitter accounts, her Amazon page, and so on and so forth! She is EVERYWHERE! If you are curious about how to write that book you've always wanted to get published, start with reading anything of K.M. Weiland's that you can find. You will be glad that you did!

​In my next post, I will be highlighting The Story Spline by Ken Adams. This simple writing device will blow you away. I promise. Check back soon and see if you agree with me on this!




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Christopher Vogler's Classroom: Teacher #2

12/4/2016

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​I was late to Vogler's classroom. (It's funny but nearly everyone  with whom I discuss The Hero's Journey has heard of it before.  I find searching for someone unfamiliar with Vogler's  analysis of Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) as futile as trying - all these years after it has hit Netflix-level saturation - to surprise a friend with the eye-popping plot twist at the end of The Sixth Sense.) But Christopher kindly allowed me to stay after class and catch up with the other students. And catch up I did!

​If you have never heard of The Hero's Journey, stop reading this right now and go google it! (And then please give me credit for exposing you to it!) You won't ever be able to watch a movie or read a book with the same blind unawareness of, as Vogler defines it, "the pattern that lies behind every story ever told."

​In 1985, Vogler wrote a seven page memo describing Campbell's story insights and gave it to a story analyst friend and to a couple of key Disney executives. The rest, shall we say, is history. "The Memo," as it has come to be known, transformed EVERYTHING in the story-composing world. His exceptional book, THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, is required reading for anyone seriously attempting to craft a captivating screenplay or novel.

​I have taken copious notes on everything Hero's-Journey-related that I can find. I have even created a three-ring binder designated exclusively to The Hero's Journey for use in my present and future novel-writing projects. It would be impossible for me to summarize his analysis in less than thousands of gushing words.  Therefore, you are left to just trust me and go study it for yourself. You will thank me someday!

​In my next update, I will focus my attention on the extraordinary K.M. Weiland, the award-winning and internationally published author of the Amazon bestseller, Outlining Your Novel, and numerous other similarly helpful books. No one has influenced my writing more than Katie. Check back soon to discover why that is!


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Randy Ingermanson's Classroom: Teacher #1

12/3/2016

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One of the first "teachers" whose "classroom" I invaded and within which I set up a squatter's camp was Randy Ingermanson's. You can find his Snowflake Method spelled out at advancedfictionwriting.com. But be forewarned: if you are going there to learn about his process for writing a novel, you will be able to "check out any time you like, but you can never leave" as the Hotel California song warned. ;-)  That is because once you've studied Randy's brilliant concepts you will be unable to ever abandon them completely.  I spent over a month following his step-by-step process and have been extensively utilizing what I learned  ever since.

​Randy lays out a 10 Step process for writing your novel. The process starts with a one-sentence summary of your novel and ends with the first real draft of it.  In between, are eight steps of filling out the complexity of your story step-by-step. He calls this process the Snowflake Method because it starts simple like the drawing of two triangles laid out with one inverted upside-down atop the other to create the basic shape of a star. Using that simple analogous illustration, Randy then "builds" (moves forward through the process)  the "snowflake" (story structure) one layer of detail upon another (the 10 Steps) until an exquisite "snowflake" (completed story structure) is produced. At the time I discovered Randy's approach to writing a novel, The Snowflake Method ​ had been viewed over 2,400,000 times on his web site! This guy is no beginner!

​I hope that, if you are an interested future novel writer, that you will check out Randy's Snowflake Method.​ You won't be disappointed that you did!

​In my next post, I will describe my fascination with Christopher Vogler's The Hero's Journey. ​I hope that you will return to hear what I have to say about that! Till then!
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Naming Names

12/2/2016

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I had so much to learn about writing the kind of  novel that an editor would be interested in publishing.  And the way I began that learning process was similar to the way I learned to do something that I had no previous incling how to do.


Years ago I had an old car that needed a new transmission.  My brother-in-law, Jeff,  and I spent a Saturday on the garage floor  underneath that Rambler taking its old tranny out and installing  one that we had salvaged from a nearby junk yard. I watched a lot because I had no idea how to do any of it. 

But, as providence would have it, mere days after we had successfully installed that salvaged transmission, it stopped working and I needed to replace it again! And as providence would also have it, my brother-in-law was not available for a rerun. So, on a cold, Fall day the following weekend, I found myself underneath that Rambler with all the necessary tools spread around me on our gravel driveway.  But this time there was no seasoned expert there doing the work for me. I was on my own.

Because I had paid close attention to everything Jeff had done when he did all the work, I was able to replicate his transmission-replacement-prowess and complete the project on my own. I would never have learned that I could change the transmission on a car if I had not been able to observe the process first-hand and up close. Jeff "taught" me how to do it.

​In my last post, I said that I would "name names." Therefore, I will do that now. In my next post, I will spend some time explaining exactly what I learned from each of these experts as I "watched" them work their story-telling magic.

          Randy Ingermanson, The Snowflake Method
​          Christopher Vogler, The Hero's Journey
​          K.M. Weiland, The Secrets of Story Structure
          Ken Adams, The Story Spline
          Dan Wells, The 4-Part Plot Planner

​Although this list includes just some of the experts that have been my teachers over the last year, these are enough names for now. I hope that you can come back soon to learn what each of them has taught me!



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What I Discovered

12/1/2016

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Are there any more incredible children's  story-tellers than Pixar and Disney? (I'm sure there are some strong candidates!) As I listened to representatives from both studios explain their techniques during their TED lectures, I was startled to learn how simple these techniques really were. Not simplistic. Simple. Universal themes packaged in easy-to-follow formulas: Desire + Motive + Action. Isn't that amazingly spellbinding in its lack of unnecessary complexity?

                 (1) Hero in his/her NORMAL WORLD.  
                 (2) CALL TO ADVENTURE. 
                 (3) Hero in his/her NEW WORLD.  
                                       = Stunning simplicity!

"Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty." they explained. Brilliant!

                Beginning.
                Middle.
                End.
​                                      = the basic building blocks of effective storytelling.

The greatest stories are all the same in their allegiance to the simplest fundamentals - done correctly. All I had to do is learn to make these ingenious story-telling precepts useable!

​I had gathered a handful of foundational ideas about what I needed to know in order to begin to write my children's book adventure series. Now, I had to find out what I didn't know about actually utilizing this knowledge. As I continued down this magical rabbit hole of eye-opening (to me!) information, I began to regularly listen to podcasts by a half-dozen published authors. In my next update, I will "spill the beans" and name names! I hope that you will check back in again soon!
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    Edward J. Denecke is an aspiring children's book author.
    His first book was published in 2014.

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