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April Update

4/6/2018

I'm ALMOST there! (Believe it or not!)

I have been working feverishly for the last couple of months on trying to get my outline to my editor, C.S. Lakin. I sent her a few pages of my outline at her suggestion recently. And I'm so glad that I did! Because she gave me some excellent advice ... and I took it. It forced me back to the drawing board (so too speak) and enabled me to more precisely nail my outline. Susanne (Lakin) is an excellent tutor and has been so helpful to me personally. Before I have even paid her one penny, she has been gently guiding me along the path to a properly structured story.

All that to say that I am moving forward on this book project. I cannot wait to share it with you! My story addresses courage, hope, and determination. I summarize my project like this: "It is a children's fantasy adventure story (filled with mesmerizing characters) about a bullied individual (a tiny firefly) living in the midst of catastrophic circumstances battling immeasurable odds for a virtuous reason." The book's working title is "The World BEYOND The Toy Box". I hope that is a book you would want to read to the children in your life!

Well, back to my other life. This weekend my wife and I are babysitting grandparents. Life is good!

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January Progress

1/27/2018

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I'm still at it! Still working on book number one.

I am in the pre-outline phase of my first book, The World BEYOND The Toy Box (working title). That means I am creating a synopsis of the book highlighting all the critical "high moments" of the story so that I can create an outline that aims for those "mountain peaks". And let me tell you something: it ain't as easy as it sounds!

KM Weiland, one of my favorite story structure gurus, has a section on her website, helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com, that consists of a data base of hundreds of books and movies, all broken down into these "mountain peak" moments. I have relied on her expertise to try to craft my own "high moments" by following her examples. I specifically focused on three movies, Wreck-it Ralph, Zootopia, and Jungle Book, because they are somewhat similar in story plot to my book. But finding these "high moments" is harder than it looks. That's why so many movies are so forgettable. They haven't mastered the art of crafting "high moments". I hope I can!

Also, as I've journey forward this past month, I've discovered another amazing author with an incredible website. Her name is Kristen Kieffer and her website is well-storied.com. The magnitude of material on her site is mind-blowing! I have gobbled up so much delicious information off her website that I'm afraid I might rightly be accused of gluttony!

I've contacted Kristen about my writing journey and have found her to be an amazing kindred spirit. She has already been very helpful to me. Please check out her website!

I'll check in again soon. Back to the book!!

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December 16th, 2017

12/16/2017

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A Long-Overdue Update!

Just in case you think that I've been ignoring my website (maybe!) and sitting around and doing nothing (never!), I thought I'd pop over here to my Weebly website and slip in a quick update.

For most of the past two years I have been working feverishly on learning the nuanced elements of story structure. I have accumulated nearly twenty three-ring binders full of notes and print-outs detailing numerous aspect of the story-writing process. My Kindle is full of writing craft books including ones by K.M. Weiland (my favorite story structure instructor and author of phenomenal books like "The Secrets of Story Structure" and "Creating Character Arcs"), C.S. Lakin (an incredible story structure mentor who has written excellent books such as "The 12 Key Pillars of Novel Construction" and "The 12 Fatal Flaws of Fiction Writing" and who is the professional editor I have chosen to help me do this correctly), John Truby ("The Anatomy of Story"), Christopher Downing ("Fool Proof Outline"), Jordan Smith ("Finding the Core of Your Story"), and Jeff Goins ("You Are a Writer") - among others. I have listened to multiplied hours of story-structure podcasts (mostly K.M.'s "Helping Writers Become Authors") and YouTube tutorials by editors and authors such as Ellen Brock and Vivien Reis. I've gobbled up a number of Michael Hague's story structure nuggets. I've studied (and devoured!) Christopher Vogler's "The Writer's Journey," Syd Field's "Screenplay," and Blake Snyder's "Save The Cat." I've watched TED lectures by representatives from Disney and Pixar. I've dissected at least three times - while taking copious notes - all ten 0f Bloop Animation's "Pixar's Storytelling Rules" (A must see!!). I've listened to a challenging writing lecture by Stephen King and I've heard interviews of countless other authors on The Creative Penn podcasts. I've marveled at the genius of J.K. Rowling. I've revisited my childhood favorite "The Wizard of Oz" and dusted off my "Chronicles of Narnia" book series (for writing/research purposes) and looked with renewed awe at my 3-book set of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. (I also have "The Hobbit.") I could go on.

Needless to say, I've not been resting on my laurels!

But "What about your own book series?" you may ask. Well, that's what I want to tell you about! An exercise in K.M.'s "Outlining Your Novel Workbook" (which I am enjoying using) asked me to answer this question: "Why would you love reading this story?" It is a prompt helping me to set a target description for my story that I would gladly devote the next couple of years trying to achieve.

Here's what I answered:
This book is an exciting journey into an imaginary miniature world seldom experienced by readers. It is full of incredibly-relatable insects, reptiles, and small meadow creatures. They live in close (but mostly invisible) proximity to their human counterparts and struggle with similar problems. The hero of the story, Mico - a bullied but incredibly determined lightning bug, faces problems with which we can all identify. And to top it off, the fate of the entire world rests on his tiny shoulders! So, we find ourselves enthusiastically cheering on Mico - for our own posterity's sake!

I've asked God for wisdom and guidance and I have dedicated this entire project to Him. I hope that I don't embarrass Him!

I hope this little teaser whets your appetite for my book. It is the first one in a four-part children's adventure series. (I am working on the following three books simultaneously with the interconnected story of this first one.) Please check back in a little while and see how I'm doing with it. And any words of encouragement or interest would be greatly appreciated and incredibly motivating. Just sayin'!!

Till next time!

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A Positive Review of one of my recent School Assemblies

5/22/2017

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This is what Dr. Jean LeBlanc, principal of Nelson School in Niles, Illinois had to say about my recent series of assemblies at her school:
"Ed Denecke captured and held the attention of students in grades K-6 by sharing his Dreaming Giant-sized Dreams theme through his story of getting his book published. Emphasizing traits such as tenacity, asking for help, using feedback to improve his work and more, Ed showed how these traits served him well in fulfilling his dream of publishing his own book."

If you have any connection to an elementary school - whether through your own children or through some other means (friendship, business, or mere proximity) - please consider passing on my name to the administration. I promise you that I won't embarrass you by bringing a sub-par presentation!

I am in the midst of more than a year-long research-and-preparation-project for my first chapter book (part of a four-part adventure series). I have another picture book that has already been presented to my publisher. It was enthusiastically received! Hopefully, soon it will be underway! Because I am a new, unknown author being given a chance by a smaller publisher, the process that I am using to get published requires me to invest in a percentage of the cost of producing my books (My first book "What Happens at School When You're Not There?". easily made back my entire investment!). Now I would like to get my second picture book, "The Nap Book", in print. If it is successful, as I believe it will be, then I will re-invest the profits into my adventure book series. Any help that you can give me in making contact with elementary schools (my target audience) will be greatly appreciated. I can send inquisitive school administrators plenty of pertinent information to help them decide if I am a good fit for their 2017-2018 school year author visit.

Thanks everyone!!

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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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