Romantic Comedy Formula

http://www.writersstore.com/romantic-comedy-writing-secrets

http://www.screenstyle.com/fromcontofir.html

To shorten what these links have to say, here's the romantic comedy formula that I like:

1. Protagonists should have an inner conflict that the romantic relationship confronts and resolves.
2.  Put a spin on the standard construct. Try to come up with a concept that will enable your tale to stand out from the crowd. Failing that, an interesting hook in the execution can make a difference.
3. Steep your characters in painful, truth-baring situations, and look for gags to make people laugh.
4. Have it be about something besides romance; reflect an insight you have about the relations between men and women / the human condition.
5. Boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl.

The hero story - a 10 point formula

http://orias.berkeley.edu/hero/


I like this site because you can go around the circle and see how hero stories are built.  It shows the epic hero's story formula:

1. Birth - Fabulous circumstances surrounding conception, birth and childhood establish the hero's pedigree and may constitute another monomyth cycle.  
2. Home -"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." -- Joseph Campbell
3. Call to Adventure -The hero is called to adventure by some external event or messenger. The Hero may accept the call willingly or reluctantly.
4. Elixir - The object, knowledge, or blessing that the hero acquired during the adventure is now put to use in an everyday world. Often it has a restorative or healing function, but it also serves to define the hero's role in the society.
5. Return - The hero again crosses the threshold of adventure and returns to the everyday world of daylight. The return usually takes the form of an awakening, rebirth, resurrection, or a simple emergence from a cave or forest. Sometimes the hero is pulled out of the adventure world by a force from the daylight world.
6. Flight - After accomplishing the mission, the hero must return to the threshold of adventure and prepare for a return to the everyday world. If the hero has angered the opposing forces by stealing the elixir or killing a powerful monster, the return may take the form of a hasty flight. If the hero has been given the elixir freely, the flight may be a benign stage of the journey.
7. Crossing the Threshold - Upon reaching the threshold of adventure, the hero must undergo some sort of ordeal in order to pass from the everyday world into the world of adventure. This trial may be as painless as entering a dark cave or as violent as being swallowed up by a whale. The important feature is the contrast between the familiar world of light and the dark, unknown world of adventure
8. Tests- The hero travels through the dream-like world of adventure where he must undergo a series of tests. These trials are often violent encounters with monsters, sorcerers, warriors, or forces of nature. Each successful test further proves the hero's ability and advances the journey toward its climax.
9.  Helpers/Amulet - During the early stages of the journey, the hero will often receive aid from a protective figure. This supernatural helper can take a wide variety of forms, such as a wizard, and old man, a dwarf, a crone, or a fairy godmother. The helper commonly gives the hero a protective amulet or weapon for the journey.  The hero is often accompanied on the journey by a helper who assists in the series of tests and generally serves as a loyal companion. Alternately, the hero may encounter a supernatural helper in the world of adventure who fulfills this function.
10. Final Battle -This is the critical moment in the hero's journey in which there is often a final battle with a monster, wizard, or warrior which facilitates the particular resolution of the adventure.

Writer's Block

I always thought writer's block was a mental problem: you couldn't think of a sentence. You couldn't think of a title. You were afraid to fail. You were afraid to succeed.

Now I think of writer's block more in terms of life management skills. The lack of.

If I wasn't in charge of laundry for five people, if I wasn't in charge of cooking, shopping, cleaning, organizing, chauffering, disciplining, supervising, loving, tucking in and spanking five people. If I wasn't committed to translating a 500-plus page book. If I didn't have to get out into the sunshine when the weather calls. If I didn't have to sleep.

So it goes-- so life goes, and one wonders how any book writing ever takes place on this earth with so many tasks in the way!

But I have a dream. The dream is of a book that I don't want to give away, yet. It is whimsical, hopeful, child-like and love-promoting. It's empathetic, interesting, and biting. It's got colorful men and vibrant women and delightful children and terrifying deserts and beautiful forests and little red shacks and high haunted castles and fast moving rivers and vast, icy oceans and deep, black lakes and cold, stormy nights and sweet lullabyes in it.  I wonder if it will ever be completed.

I wonder if it will ever be started.

I have to wipe down counters and unload the dishwasher and make minestrone and feed the baby lunch and pick up the other kids from school now.

And so it goes!

I like these

Here come some examples of things I underline in my literature anthology.  Some are great metaphors, some are beautiful sounding, musical poetry, or nail-on-the-head-hitting similes, or sparkling imagery. Words without a sarcastic edge. Words that do not enjoy shocking readers, but that wish to record life as life is, the best and most useful and most adorable and most interesting parts of life.  Words that, like puddles, reflect life in true and interesting ways:


Sound:

"...where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
   Down to a sunless sea."  -Kubla Khan by Coleridge

Characterization/Personification:

Because I will turn 420 tomorrow
In dog years
I will take myself for a long walk
along the green shore of the lake,
and when I walk in the door,
I will jump on my chest
and lick my nose and ears and eyelids
while I tell myself again and again to get down.
I will fill my metal bowl at the sink
with cold fresh water,
and lift a biscuit from the jar
and hold it gingerly with my teeth.
Then I will make three circles
and lie down at my feet on the wood floor
and close my eyes
while I type all morning and into the afternoon,
checking every once in a while
to make sure I am still there,
reaching down
to stroke my furry, venerable head.

--Care and Feeding by Billy Collins

Imagery:  (this one hits it for me, the fear of time passing too quickly)

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard
The desert sighs in the bed
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead"  -As I Walked Out One Evening by Auden

Simile:  (and characterization, so great)

"Papa had said don't be so fast,
you're all you've got.  So she refused
to cut the wing, though she let the boys
bring her sassafras tea and drank it down
neat as a dropped hankie."  -from Summit Beach, 1921 by Rita Dove

Metaphor: (for unrealized dreams)
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-from Langston Hughes

Metaphor: (for humbleness)

"I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous..."  -From The Love Song of J.A.P. by Eliot

Imagery:

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his chlothes on in the blueblack cold...
...I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

--from Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

Why I Haven't Been Blogging Here

They say Charles Dickens got paid by the word.  If that's true, it's incredible that his writing still turned out so well.

I got a job as a blogger-- not here, but on a health business website.  It pays 2.5 cents per word. 

It's not the kind of writing that I wish I was doing, but I'm happy for the job.  I am staying home with my baby and while he sleeps, I can make a little more grocery money, gas money, paying-for-shoes-and-haircuts-money.

Someday, I hope to write beautiful things.  When I have a moment, I read poems and essays from my Norton Anthology of Literature or my yard sale copies of short stories.  I underline words that hit me, phrases that ring my bell, and I write notes in the margins, even though I might never see that page again. 

The fact is that I am in love with words.  Not any old words, but great metaphors, beautiful sounding musical poetry, nail-on-the-head-hitting similes, and sparkling imagery.  Words without a sarcastic edge.  Words that, like puddles, reflect life in true and interesting ways.  I could read writing like that all day.

So, I'll let you know when I write some!  Until then, I'm blogging about health at 2.5 cents a word.

Mustard Seeds and Words

  This is a mustard tree.  It is not small.  Birds can live here.  People can get shade here.

Guess what it grew from?  A seed so small that it makes a penny look huge.


  These are mustard seeds. 

Jesus gave thought to the size of the seed and the size of the tree.  He said that:

(Matthew 13:31)   The kingdom of heaven is like to a ^agrain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the ^abirds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

To me, this means that if we have a tiny amount of faith, but it's good and true, it will grow to become something mighty that others can benefit from.

Another time, Jesus said that if we had faith like a mustard seed, we could move mountains and nothing would be impossible to us.

"If ye have ^bfaith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this ^cmountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be ^dimpossible unto you."    --Matthew 17:20.

How does this relate to writing?

Well, mustard seeds are like words.  One word alone isn't strong, but if you string words together, you get ideas that change people, that change history, that change planets.

I do not want to waste any words.  I want to treat them like water-- precious, life-saving, yet plentiful.  I want to treat them like mustard seeds-- small, unintimidating, yet powerful if you nurture them faithfully.

Motherhood and Writerhood

True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserve the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will exert influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God."
— David O. McKay