family project –
brothers make a coffin
for a brother
Month: April 2011
Pen to Paper: Star Wars: The Sorcerer’s Stone
Click through to Neatorama for a fairly entertaining look at the similarities between the first StarWars movie (chronologically speaking) and the first Harry Potter book. At first glance, it may look like JK Rowling plagiarized George Lucas. No such thing, though.
Lucas, first unknowingly and then by design, was merely following the hero’s journey, a narrative pattern found around the world. Joseph Campbell focused attention on this journey, which he referred to as the monomyth, in his famous 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
That the hero’s journey works so well across the years and across cultures and across genres speaks to its power to entertain us. That we may recognize the pattern early on is no impediment to enjoyment; the differences lie in how the hero accomplishes his journey. That’s where the writing matters.
Fiction: Politeness
On such a warm, beautiful spring day, Cal didn’t care to be cooped up in his office one minute more than necessary. A vendor provided a couple of hot dogs and a cold drink, and Cal found an empty park bench and made himself at home. He used his left hand for his meal and held his smartphone in his right hand, checking his messages.
As Cal was halfway through his second hot dog, he suddenly found a gun in his face. The young man wielding the gun snatched Cal’s phone and ran off with it, shouting, “Thanks, man!”
With his newly free hand, Cal reached into his jacket. He yanked out his revolver and fired two shots. The thief spilled to the ground, still clutching the phone.
“You’re welcome,” Cal yelled.
Dad was right, he thought. “An armed society is a polite society.”
Quotable 46
All the questions and choices of technique can overwhelm a writer. The only way that most of us get any writing done is not by thinking of technique, but by actively daydreaming the lives and actions of our characters and writing down what happens.
– Bruce Holland Rogers
haiku 157
under the covers
closing my eyes
to a coyote lullabye
Pen to Paper: Writing by the Rules
A recent Quotable was amusing (and Greg’s comment even moreso), but it pointed to a simple truth: there is no formula for good writing. It is more art than science.
OT: April Fools’ Day
I don’t care much for April Fools’ Day. I think it’s a little juvenile, frankly, and so I don’t participate – not as a trickster and not as a fool (if I can help it). So there’s no gotcha waiting to get you at the end of this post. Really.
But I’ll tell you two true stories about April Fools’ Day, once when I was the trickster and once when I was the fool.