Crafty Craft

Mario Puzo writes that he wrote Godfather when his publisher threatened to throw him out. I thought, if writing a bestseller comes down to that, then what is it? I started reading a lot of craft books.

My favorite is Robert Mckee's Story, a book about writing screenplays. Now, coincidentally I am also for the first time in my life watching a lot of movies, not new movies but really good movies. Watching art in another medium is great because it, the distance, allows me to study the form and what works about story.

McKee says that story is not language or beauty, I paraphrase, but a temporal art, some structure that keeps us gripped. The character's desire drives the story. The character tries, takes action to do something about it, but the world opposes, forcing the character to take even greater risks.

I have read about the 7 acts, but I am still trying to understand the three-act structure. McKee says that we expect a climax at the end of every act. In act I, the inciting incident launches the character on a quest to restore balance (climax of Act I). The Act 2 climax defines the lowest point, complete defeat, an impossible situation, from which things have to change. And act 3 climax is the resolution. McKee goes into a lot more detail. A character is defined by characterization (for e.g. doctor, poor, living in NY), and desire, and then we put the character under stress t see how they would act, what choice they would make, and it is choice under pressure that defines character. Without desire, without pressure, without the character making a choice, there is no story. A character can have conscious desire vs unconscious desire. Each scene must change something. I am going to at least try to meet these basic elements of story in the novel I am writing now.

I am also interested in writing a play. A friend in theater invited me, and I think it will help my writing. I watched Death of a Salesman in Houston, costume designer Lilli Lemberger, and it's remarkable how much I thought about craft just watching. Watching another play next weekend. McKee says that most good writers have worked in theater and they understand that good stories are about action, movement, blocking, action and reaction. I am going to be pacing and acting out my scenes from now on, going into fits of passion, rage, and despair

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