Writing Archives - Page 38 of 50 - Addicted to Writing

The Ultimate Cliche of Getting Published Through What You Know

Posted on December 4, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

“Write what you know” is one of the most overly-used advice in writing. It’s such a cliche that you feel like people should stop writing about it already. So why the hell am I doing it?

Because it is a very useful cliche. It works, people take advantage of it and that’s why it has turned into a cliche in the first place. And it has definitely worked for me:

– My first two writing assignments were travel articles on 2 cities I knew well.

– The next one was a 5-piece article series on business management. I have a BA in Business.

– I wrote articles on social media based on everything I had learned blogging.

– I wrote several articles on Freelance Switch, closely related to freelancing.

– My article on writing while holding a part-time job (I loved) got published on Make a Living Writing.

– A city inspired an entire story, while a PR lecture inspired the premise for a novel.

– ……

The list goes on.

As obvious as it is, sometimes we underestimate what we know, or we fail to pitch our knowledge in the most intriguing way.

Brainstorming about things you know is a great exercise for finding ideas but sometimes we can make things a little too broad or narrow. And sometimes we focus on our degrees and researches so much that we forget that what we know also includes our failures, what we have experienced, what others have experienced, what we have seen and so on.

Make a list of areas you’d like to write about. Make a list of what you know, in the broadest sense. Then keep brainstorming, developing ideas, pitching and writing.

I am not saying you should only write what you know. I’m just telling you not to underestimate what you know. It can be a great starting point, whether you are just starting out or just feeling blocked.

It’s not a coincidence that the ultimate bestseller of legal thrillers is John Grisham, who holds a law degree. It’s also not a coincidence that he has gone on to write dramas revolving around baseball since he plays and coaches.

Go ahead. Make your list. You might be surprised about everything you’ve overlooked.

Ransom – You Just Killed Your Son or You Just Saved Him: Most Enthralling Story Conflicts 3

Posted on November 27, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

This is the 3^rd article in the Most Enthralling Story Conflicts and Dilemmas series where I cover the story conflicts that I wish I’d come up with. The first two are:

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

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

Part 3 is features the conflict from the 1996 Ron Howard movie Ransom starring Mel Gibson. Please note that there might be some spoilers.

Ransom 1996 movie poster-Mel Gibson — Image via mylot.com.

The Situation:

Businessman Tom Mullen (Mel Gibson)’s son is kidnapped and is asked to pay $2,000,000. He does, but something goes wrong and he’s asked for $4,000,000. Tom realizes that the kidnappers had no intention of delivering the boy in the first place, so he comes with a brilliant yet risky plan:

He gets on the news with the money but declares that he’ll pay it to whoever brings the kidnappers. His wife goes ballistic, so do the kidnappers.

Why This Conflict Is Different:

This is one of my favorite stories, and story dilemmas because unlike most conflicts, this is created by the protagonist.

In The Ledge, the girl’s husband presents the protagonist with an impossible situation.

In Jagten (The Hunt), it all starts when a little girl lies.

Now here are the two ways things can go for Tom:

1) He was right. This will help him get his son back.

2) He was wrong. He just caused his son’s death.

He’s led to believe, for a moment, that it is the latter, resulting in a very powerful performance moment for Mel Gibson. But then he gets what he aimed for: The kidnappers start fighting between themselves. And their leader (Gary Sinise) decides to deliver the boy, and get the money as the hero.

Of course things don’t turn out the way he plans, but you should see the movie for the climax.

Ransom is based on an idea from a TV show from 1954, which was later developed into a movie 1955, though I don’t know if the 1955 father offered the money as a bounty.

Ransom is a film that shows the way you tell your story is just as important as your idea. Offering the money to those who deliver the kidnappers on live TV is a pretty good twist. Then you have great actors (Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise, Lili Taylor, Live Schreiber, Delroy Lindo) to portray mostly grey characters, and they were directed by Ron Howard. But Howard and the actors wouldn’t have had that much to work with without the story (by Cyril Hume, Richard Maibaum, Richard Price, Alexander Ignon).

The “twist” is supported by new information about the characters, character development, relationship between the protagonist and his family, relationships between the kidnappers, the fact that the leader (Gary Sinise) is actually a cop…

What makes Ransom enthralling is not just the little twist, but how the characters handle the situation before, during and after that.

But the conflict raises the bar really high, and the main character dies an emotional death (just like P.J. Reece’s story structure advices that he should) during the wait. Did he save him? Did he kill him? And he is alone, with no one to support his decision.

I recommend the movie as an exciting way to spend 2 hours. But I also recommend it from a storytelling perspective.

What would you do if you were Tom Mullen?

PS This post contains affiliate links.
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The YA Genre: Definition, Popularity and Resources

Posted on November 23, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

The-Hunger-Games-Book-Cover — Image via lytherus.com.

Wikipedia defines YA (young adult fiction) as “fiction written, published, or marketed to adolescents and young adults.”So no wonder our vampires, werewolves, witches and other supernatural creatures, as well as aliens and characters from post-apocalyptic worlds, are all in high school (or look like they belong there).

YA writers often tend to change, or add to, to the lore we’ve been exposed to so far, often to the dismay (and even disgust) to the fans of lore.

They’ve become so popular, both as books and movie/TV adaptations, that there are more and more publishers & agents accepting manuscripts in the YA genre.

And no, I’m not hating it. I’ll admit that I like my vampires pretty as opposed to ugly, werewolves as shapes-shifters instead of hairy man-beasts. Add some action, a fun plot, some intriguing characters and at 27, I do enjoy some YA work.

Of course YA fiction isn’t just marketed to teens. Again, to quote Wikipedia, “Authors and readers of young adult (YA) novels often define the genre as literature as traditionally written for ages ranging from twelve years up to the age of eighteen, while some publishers may market young adult literature to as low as age ten or as high as age twenty-five.”

But as much as YA became a bit “in your face” in the late 90s, it goes back to early 19^th century.

The recent ones we have definitely heard of are:

– The Hunger Games series – first book was made into a movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence. Second one is being filmed.

– Twilight series – All books were made into movies, made producers ecstatic. The last movie is still in theaters and smashing box offices.

– Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling is a very rich and established author, and Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have movie careers.

– The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones:. It’s made into a film, one of the stars being Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Remember King Henry VIII of The Tudors?

– The Vampire Diaries – made into a series for the CW. It’s in 4^th season, very likely to get a 5^th. And yes, I’m watching it.

While I’ve been somewhat fascinated by the supernatural and have some ideas on writing a supernatural story, it currently doesn’t look like it’ll be YA. Not because I’m against the genre, but right now it feels a lot more natural to be in the heads of someone who’s in their 20s, 30s and 40s than to be in the head of a teenager. For one thing, it doesn’t feel that long ago that I was one, and it wasn’t such a fun period to begin with.

But it is a market full of great potential, and while you’d still have to worry about writing a captivating and addictive story, you won’t have to worry about finding a market. Tempted? Well, here’s a Writer’s Digest article that gives you the necessary tips to start out:

Writing for the Young Adult Audience

You might then want to check out the list of free downloads from WD, all about writing for the younger audience:

Young Adult/Childrens Downloads

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

Posted on November 16, 2012 Written by Pinar Tarhan

The Hunt-Jagten-Mads Mikkelsen — Mads Mikkselsen stars as Lucas, a role that won him the Best Actor award at Cannes this year. Image via phdacademy.org.

Since there is no story without a conflict, I started an article series on my favorite conflicts. The more you can raise the stakes, the more you can involve and intrigue your audience. So I’m not going to involve simple situations where the decision won’t scar anyone horribly, whether literally or physically (or both.)

The first article covered The Ledge’s story, a movie where the protagonist was forced to choose between his own life and his lover’s.

The second one is about the premise of a Danish movie I’m dying to see. Jagten (The Hunt) presents one of the most difficult choices one needs to make- and the wrong one will destroy the other party.

Conflict: Your little daughter told her female teacher that she was abused by her male teacher (the protagonist). The teacher, Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen), is your best friend. The girl never lied before. Lucas is one of the nicest guys you know.

Door Number 1: Your daughter is telling the truth, and your best friend is a pervert. You can’t believe you have loved and trusted him for so long. You can’t wait to make him pay.

Door Number 2: Your very young daughter told a very disturbing lie, and started the destruction of Lucas’s life and career. He may not recover from this.

While we won’t know for sure that Lucas is innocent until we see the movie, the trailer sure suggests it. It also tells us which door the guy chooses: he chooses to believe his daughter and things get very complicated and dangerous after that.

As far as conflicts go, this just might be the mother of all. In the end, only one person is innocent, and you are going to have to live with yourself afterwards. Of course the person that will get hurt the most is the person you chose not to believe.

I don’t know where writer/director Thomas Vinterberg got the inspiration from, but it is one hell of a conflict.

* Just because you’ve known your friend for decades may not mean he is not keeping things from you.

* But just because you think your daughter doesn’t lie, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t. Sometimes kids can go to disturbing lengths for the most trivial reasons.

What would you do? Who would you trust?

How do you feel about this conflict as a writer?

PS. I’d love comments, but please don’t give any spoilers if you have seen The Hunt.
PPS. This post contains affiliate links.

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