Blog - Page 55 of 77 - Addicted to Writing

The Following: When Both The Protagonist and Antagonist Are Writers

Posted on February 6, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

The Following-James Purefoy-Kevin Bacon — The Following starring Kevin Bacon (on the right) and James Purefoy (on the left). Image via zap2it.com.

What can be more exciting than the battle of good vs. evil when they are both smart, published authors, and their actual professions are FBI agent and English professor-turned-serial killer? Not to mention, the serial killer wants to write a second book, with the agent as the protagonist and himself as the antagonist. You get one exciting weekly thriller.

Let me lay the background first:

What The Hell Is The Following?

The Following is a thriller/drama/crime series starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy, who respectively play the agent and killer. It was created by Kevin Williamson (the creator/writer of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty…), and each episode feels like one well-edited, solid movie, also thanks to the brilliant cast. Whether you liked Williamson’s slashers or not, The Following is a lot more than that.

The Plot

Charismatic, inspiring and Poe-obsessed literature professor, and the author of the critical/commercial flop The Gothic Sea, Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) takes his obsession with “romance of death” a bit too far and starts killing his students.

By the time FBI agent Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) catches up with him, he has already killed a lot of girls-but Hardy manages to save his latest victim. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get away unscratched: Joe punctures Hardy’s heart.

After 8 years of sentence and a short time away from being executed, Carroll escapes from prison. During his imprisonment, his book and the notoriety of his crimes have gained him a cult following, ready and willing to kill to impress him.

While his first action is to go after his remaining victim, we also learn that:

1) Ryan has written a book on him, a book well-read by Carroll.

2) The Gothic Sea has turned into a hit.

3) Ryan has had an affair with Carroll’s wife Claire, who didn’t have a clue what a monster her husband was until he was caught, and not before they had a kid together.

4) Ryan has quit the FBI as his heart wouldn’t let him be a field agent anymore.

5) His “following” includes the two “nice” neighbors of the surviving victim and his son’s nanny.

After killing the girl, Carroll surrenders, knowing he can’t be executed. Not with an unknown number of following killers out there and with his son kidnapped. Ryan is called back into action, and he is more pissed and haunted than ever.

The Second Book – Killer Wants to Write It with the Agent

Carroll’s following are out there, being violent and dangerous, Claire is going crazy and Hardy has to deal with a not-so-brilliantly operating FBI. Carroll openly complains about Ryan’s first book, so Ryan asks what his sequel will be about at the end of the first episode.

Below is a part of their dialogue:

Carroll:

– I thought I might go more traditional this time. You know villain, good vs. evil. I need a strong protagonist so that the reader that can truly invest. A flawed, broken man searching for redemption. And that is you. You’re my flawed hero. Yes, I insured that by killing Sarah. She was the inciting incident, the hero’s call to action. This is merely the prologue, this is just the beginning.

Yes, it is a bit disturbing, but I assure you, even with all the gore, The Following is PG-13 compared to any Tarantino movie. The acting is good, the pace is satisfactory and good vs. evil had never been so literal and literary at the same time…After all, not only we have Hardy and Carroll’s books, Poe’s poems and stories are always supporting characters…

I recommend that you try the first episode. If you don’t like it, you will have analyzed a story on what didn’t work. If you do…well, there are many benefits to that (which I’ve covered in this post).

PS This post contains affiliate links.

<br />

10 Reasons Writers Should Watch TNT’s Perception starring Eric McCormack

Posted on January 29, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Perception’s Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack) is a brilliant neuropsychiatrist:

He has published 7 books on neuroscience.
He is teaching at a prestigious university while helping the FBI solve their most complicated cases.
He has finished med school at the top of his class.
He can see things and make connections others can’t.
Only the most complicated and exciting puzzles can keep his interest.
Oh, and, he is managing all this (depending on your perception), despite/with/because of his condition: schizophrenic paranoia.

He mostly manages his condition with carefully set routines, the help of his TA and living aid Max, and through the cases his FBI agent friend/ex-student Kate (Rachael Leigh Cook) brings.

Perception (aff.link) is a wonderfully inspiring show, especially if you are a writer and/or you’re suffering from a health condition, mental or otherwise.

It has great acting, intriguing storylines, a well-written main character and scientific accuracy, being assisted by the leading neuroscientist David Eagleman who’s also a writer (of fiction and non-fiction, his non-fiction having been published on Wired, The New Yorker and others.)

I like breaking the don’t-watch-tv productivity tip. I don’t watch everything, trust me. I try, evaluate and become a regular watcher of shows that are smart, highly entertaining, inspiring and intriguing. It helps if there are characters you can empathize with on one level or the other, or characters whose jobs you wouldn’t mind doing (e.g. Cal Lightman’s job, Lie to Me.)

Perception is such a show, and I recommend writers to at least check it out because:

1) Perception combines drama/mystery & comic relief really well. As writers, we want to be able to pull this off well, especially in fiction.

2) The leading character’s self-depreciating sense of humor as a defense mechanism works on a writing level, but it also gives us ideas on how to manage our own conditions and issues.

3) He writes to keep sane, and well, he is full of ideas all the time so he needs different media to convey them. He lectures, aids FBI and writes books.

4) He is a writing success despite his condition.

5) The show presents the very exciting field of neuroscience. I’ve been reading about it since I started watching the show.

6) There is a fictional role model, as well as a real one (the consulting neuroscientist/writer David Eagleman who was born in 1971!)

perception-eric-mccormack — Eric McCormack as Daniel Pierce. Image via ew.com.

7) It gives you nice little flashback into university years. I only had a couple of inspiring lecturers, so I wouldn’t have minded one like Pierce: always engaging, always relevant.

If you are collecting reasons to go back to college, this might warm you up further to the idea. Just remember, not all campuses are that nice and a lot of the lecturers tend to be boring.

8) It’s possible to be a writing expert and expert writer at the same time. Writers might lack the professional knowledge and need to interview experts. Experts might lack the writing skills.

Pierce (and Eagleman) possess both. Oh, I should add that Eagleman brainstorms with Perception writers about the possible scenarios too.

9) It provides therapeutic entertainment. Just listen to the lectures where he covers lying, fears, reality…

10) And the series has an overall appreciation of individuality and life.

Have you watched it?

<br />

P.S. To read more about perception, you can check out its review here.

Finding Article Ideas & Writing About Them: 30 Inspiration Tips for Writers

Posted on January 21, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Writers really need to be a jack of all trades these days since we are expected to be writers, editors, bloggers, platform builders, marketers and so on. We also have to have a million “sellable” ideas and we can’t afford to run out of them. Because all our other skills won’t add up to much if we don’t have any sellable ideas to begin with.

We need them for all types of fiction and non-fiction. We need them for our blogs and other publications. But there are times even the most prolific creators can feel stuck and uninspired or they can get lost in their search for an angle that hasn’t been done way too often.

The list I gathered offers what I do, and should do more of, to find ideas. While I get quite a few intriguing ideas without even trying (when the magical “what if……? “questions seem to come out of nowhere), most of them come through a lot of effort.

1) Go through your old posts on your blog.

What have you covered? What else should you cover? Should you update existing posts? Or are there posts that you need to turn into a series to make your advice more thorough and helpful?

*If you don’t have a blog, you might want to read 6 Reasons Why Every Writer Should Blog.

2) Go through your pitches. Maybe they landed you assignments. Maybe they didn’t. The ones that didn’t might be lying down somewhere forgotten because of the depression mode you got into due to rejection.

Is it possible that you targeted the wrong markets, you just got better at querying in time or you’ve just discovered other markets that could be interested in those ideas?

Recycle, improve upon and use those ideas.

3) Go through your published articles. You probably know more now than you did then. Do you think there could be another slant hidden there somewhere? Can you use the same research to write other articles around the same topic?

4) Study the markets you are interested in, focusing on titles, reading the articles, focusing on the slants/angles. There’s a chance you’ll disagree with some points, and develop an article idea on that. For instance, I came up with my Freelance Switch article How Coffee Shops Can Make the Best Substitute Offices after reading a few articles on the site that covered libraries and co-working spaces. Since I have a couple of favorite coffee shops I switch back and forth (in addition to my home office) where I worked productively, I decided to make a post of it.

5) Study the markets you find interesting, even the ones you think you may not write for. They might inspire you for fiction and slants. You might even think of an idea for them. You never know.

6) Recycling/revamping your ideas lists. You need to check your list of ideas regularly for updates and editing. You may have written about some of them, you might find inspiration while looking at the others. If you have used all of it, go ahead and delete it. Now you’ve updated yourself about some of the things you’ve already covered.

7) Watch TV shows and movies without switching off the writer in you. I’m a sucker for an engaging story, and I am running an entertainment blog, so I am tuning off the productivity tips about watching less TV. Of course keep in mind that I hate reality TV, and I quit or fast-forward a show the moment it stops being interesting.

How do they make good posts, you ask? Below are some articles that were inspired by them:

On story analysis:

– Crying for a Good Story, by PJ Reece (on Good Will Hunting)

– Two New Movies That Demonstrate Story Physics by Larry Brooks (on Lincoln and The Sessions.)

On delicious conflicts:

– Most Enthralling Story Conflicts & Dilemmas: The Ledge – Kill Yourself or Your Loved One Will Be Killed

– Your Daughter’s a Liar or Your Best Friend’s a Pervert: Most Enthralling Story Conflicts 2 – The Hunt

On inspiration:

– The CSI Guide to Finding Your Next Killer Idea – A Guide for Bloggers by Pippa

Having fun analyzing fictional writers:

– Writer Character from 27 Dresses – Getting Involved with Your Source

I have so much fun doing this, I have an entire category dedicated to it.

8) Talk to professionals in different areas that you are interesting in writing about.

9) Make a list of your failures. Some of the most popular posts were born through author mistakes.

10) Make a list of your accomplishments. See what topics you can dig up from there.

11) Go through the “finding ideas” posts on sites you love, bookmark /print out the ones you find useful (that include tips you don’t already put to use or haven’t tried yet.)

Two good examples would be Where Oh Where Are All the Good Article Ideas? from Writing World and 50 Ways for Writers to Find Article Ideas from Susan Jonhston.

12) Find a great “writing headlines” source and think in terms of titles, getting article ideas from them. Try Jon Morrow’s 52 Headline Hacks.

13) Analyze characters from novels you love. Think about them. Maybe they can tell you something. Lots of fun dating article ideas can be born from them, such as:

How Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Matthew Macfadyen’s Darcy Ruined Women Forever

14) Think about the jobs you hated/you loved.

15) Think about your career progress. I realized that for me, a combination of a part-time teaching job and writing worked wonders. You bet I wrote a story about it: One Freelance Writer’s Surprising Strategy for a Revved-Up Career. It was published on Carol Tice’s Make a Living Writing blog.

16) Write about songs. Especially if you’re writing about music, the ideas are endless.

17) Rant.

18) Find things in common between Blockbusters/best-sellers and your writing topic.

19) Never turn off your creativity switch. Even if you are just watching a celebrity interview on YouTube.

20) Collect the best list posts on your chosen subject. Bookmark them, study them. Focus more on the information you haven’t internalized.

21) Gather your ideas in one place and look through them occasionally. Add, subtract, improve. It’s hard to keep track of them all when they are scattered on post-its, notebooks, word files and so on.

22) Cover your favorite resources. I do it often here. It helps me restudy the material, gives me something relevant to write about and helps me share valuable information with readers.

Some of my review posts are:

Resources for Writers & Bloggers:Travel Blogger Academy Review

E-book Review: Crafting Unforgettable Characters by K.M. Weiland

Write Great Fiction Dialogue with Gloria Kempton

23) Cover stuff that inspired you.

Paul Arden’s Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite -The Bedside Book for Creativity, Motivation and Life Management

24) Write case studies.

25) Brainstorm niches, and then brainstorm further from those niches. Here’s a great list from All Freelance Writing to get you started: 101 Niches to Write About.

26) Think in “how (to) ” terms.

It works wonders especially if you back it up with a real life success story.

You might try How I Made 6 Figures as a Freelance Writer in 2011 from Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing.

27) Think about how not to do something. Think about what not to do. Or the reasons why you shouldn’t be doing that. And start taking notes.

28) Gather your favorite resources in a list.

You might want to check out 60 Resources for Freelance Writers by Jennifer Mattern on All Freelance Writing.

29) Share success stories, and it doesn’t have to about writers.

Like I did with How Mads Mikkelsen and Gerard Butler Can Motivate Writers Like Hell: The Ultimate Gerard Butler and Mads Mikkelsen Guide to Freelance Success.

30) Find inspiring, fun and useful templates/how-to (e) books and work your way through them. I really like Steph Auteri’s Freelance Awesome: A Starter Kit and Thursday Bram’s New Ideas on Old Topics. They can be acquired through their sites, and they are free.

When It’s OK to Use Cliches in Your Writing: Hidden Metaphors – Poison’s Bret Michaels Style

Posted on January 5, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Writers are often advised to avoid cliches like the plague. Oops, I used a cliche even in my first sentence, didn’t I?

The “avoid cliches” advice is everywhere, and it in itself has become a cliche. And let’s face it, it is a part of the word’s definition- a cliche is commonplace- mostly because it makes a lot of sense. I mean you do have to avoid a plague after all.

Yet sometimes, it is just fun (and actually good) to use them, as long as you are aware why and how you are using them. I’ll continue to share my other favorite cliches in both mine and others’ storytelling in the upcoming posts and today I’m starting with a popular song from the 80s: Poison’s Every Rose Has Its Thorn.

Bret Michaels, Poison — Bret Michaels of Poison. Can you smell the 80s? 🙂 Image via naturesjyny.com

Poison is one of my favorite rock bands. They have my 3 requirements to adore a band: great vocals, relatable/fun lyrics and catchy music.

Yes, there are a lot of cliches about a (hair) rock band. They are in their names, attitudes, videos, personal lives and themes. You can’t be a rock band without some songs about sex, partying, drugs, booze, love and relationships.

But sometimes, an apparent cliche in a romantic ballad is a hidden metaphor.

When I first heard this song, I liked it, thinking it was a sad song about a guy (Bret Michaels, the leading singer) trying to get over the demise of his relationship. He didn’t want it to end, but even good things end. And nothing is perfect, right? Hence, the girl/relationship being the rose and her/its flaws being the thorn.

You can check out the lyrics here.

So sweet and yet, so typical.

But then I read Bret Michaels’s commentary on the song where he explains that while the song is based on Bret’s relationship that ended, the rose doesn’t represent the girl.

The girl left her for another guy with more money, but Bret was sure he’d make it. And guess what? His career is the rose, and the girl is the thorn. I hadn’t seen that one coming, and it made me like the song even more.

Now every time I listen to the song, I listen with a grin on my face.

I’d say he used a cliche well. What do you think?