Saturday, October 29, 2016

Mental Can Openers and Writer's Hash ~ Writer's Rings and the Paragraph Parallels



Brad Leach is with us again to turn around our brains 
and look at writing in a new direction.

            I’ve always been susceptible to a unique phrase or description.  I’m impacted by the kind of sentence that freezes you for a moment and makes you say, “Oh wow.  I wish I’d written that.”  I wondered if turning a creative phrase was something you were born with, or could it be learned?  Like football or gymnastics.
            Reader’s Digest used to feature a column called, “Towards more Picturesque Speech.”  It was a collection of such creative expressions.  I clipped some of these and collected phrases from books; then I started using them as my writing gymnasium.  How?

            I first used Neil Boyd’s phrase, “He had a mind like a French horn.”  How clever, I thought, to compare a brain to an orchestra instrument.  I wondered, could I come up with something that clever?  So I tried to think of one.  Nothing. 
            Then I broke the problem into smaller pieces.  “What if I changed only one of the elements?  The instrument?  He had a mind like a tuba?  She had a mind like a piccolo or a Stradivarius?  Interesting.”
            Now, what if I changed more than one element?  Not a mind, but a body.  Not a French horn, but an upright base.  “He had a body like an upright base or base fiddle?”  Base fiddle is kind of country sounding, so how about, “He looked like a base fiddle in bib overalls.” 

            Or, “She had the shape of a violin.”  Violins are strung tight, of course, so work that in.  “She may have had the body of a violin, but her mind was strung too tight.”
            Could we use cars instead of instruments?  Could she have a Ferrari body?  Could he have a Volkswagen mind?  “Hers was a Maserati mind trapped in a discussion full of school zones and red lights.”  Or, “Her faith stripped his mental gears.”  You could choose baking or hospitals or movies, any collection of things or ideas.
            To work with your story, try matching your setting or some aspect of the characters or plot.  If your setting is a ranch, try, “His mind is like a lariat.”  Cowboys rope things so, “His mind was a lariat that he tossed at any mystery he found.  And she was his mystery.”  Or compare his drive and passion to horses, or his hopes with saddles. 
            Heroine’s a dancer?  Compare her appearance to a stage, her career to a dance, her loves  to backdrops that are raised and lowered, etc.  A wounded librarian?  Library or book binding references.  Murder on a boat?  Use maritime references.
            This may seem awkward, but allow yourself to try – and fail.  Remember, you’re only looking for a gem or two among dozens of attempts.  Try it with a favorite phrase or cliché.  Allow your mind to make jumps. 
            For instance, “He scared the daylights out of me.”  Cliché.  I’ll choose a ranch theme.  I thought of cowboys fixing fences, so follow my thoughts here: “He scared the split railed fence out of me” (doesn’t work)... “He could scare a split rail fence” (a little better)... “So scary he could split rails” (more active)... “He would scare barbed wire” (different fence)... “His stare would straighten barbed wire” (better - now use a thesaurus for stronger words)... His steely glare would strip the barb right off the wire and he was staring at me” (Ah!)...  See how you can play?  One doesn’t work?  Try another.
            With a little workout each day on the ‘writer’s rings’ and the ‘paragraph parallels’ you will begin to score with some new verbal ‘iron cross’ or a clever ‘dismount’ expression that nails a perfect 10 into the reader’s mind.  Sprinkle these judiciously into your novel to give your reader that “Oh wow, I wish I’d written that” moment.
~ Brad



Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Five Secrets From Canadian Author Madelle Morgan's New Book: Caught On Camera


Today we get to meet Madelle Morgan who hails from up north, Canada. And she's studied screenwriting...which, as you all know, is one of my major passions! Check out the title, Caught On Camera. And read Secret 1. (Well, read all of them.) 
That is a super cool idea.

Giveaway: Enter to win one of 5 ebooks. One lucky winner in the US, Canada or the UK will receive a Muskoka T-shirt. Subscribe at MadelleMorgan.com between October 26th and midnight EDT, November 13. Winners will be randomly selected by a third party, and will be announced in a blog post emailed from Madelle.

Hi Madelle, introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi L.A., thanks for having me on your blog.  Like Rachel in Caught on Camera, I have a lifelong love of Hollywood films and TV shows. I've studied screenwriting techniques and crafted the book’s three act structure and plot based on the madcap Hollywood romantic comedies you know and love. This is the book for movie-lovers!

Please tell us Five Secrets we may not know about Caught on Camera or you, but will after today! 
1) There’s a SOUNDTRACK in Caught on Camera, Book 1 in the Hollywood in Muskoka series! Actually, the ebook has a playlist with links to YouTube videos. I took this approach because, first, I love music, and second, many people are reading on smartphones or tablets with wi-fi and Internet access. Also, a recent survey said millions of people listen to music on YouTube because it’s free. 

I had a lot of fun selecting songs to reflect the storyline. It’s a Cinderella-themed story, so I linked to “The Work Song” from the Disney movie Cinderella. Who hasn’t watched that movie? Some of playlist songs are nostalgic, but others are by new, award-winning artists, including Eva Avila, an awesome talent who won Canadian Idol.

2) The playlist includes a link to the Victoria’s Secret video of Seal and Heidi Klum singing the hit “Wedding Day”. Heidi Klum’s sparkly, tight short dress inspired the dress Rachel borrows from the bride, a former model, to wear to the wedding rehearsal dinner.

3) The CHAPTER TITLES in Caught on Camera are spoofs of actual movie titles. Rom-com fans will recognize the movies that these chapter titles reference: “Pretty Women”, “Gone with the Police Dog”, “There’s Something about Rachel”—you get the picture.

4) There are TELEVISION REFERENCES too. Batman is of course, a fan-favorite in recent movies, but readers may remember the campy 1960s Batman television series. Batman’s sidekick Robin was famous for his exclamations in the form of “Holy —, Batman!”  There’s even a list of Robin’s expressions on Wikipedia.

Caught on Camera’s hero Mickey is a huge fan of those Batman reruns, and puts his own spin on Robin’s exclamations.

5) TITAN, the retired German shepherd police service dog in Caught on Camera, is inspired by a real, enormous dog who retired from a police force in Canada and now lives with my sister. Titan is featured in Sex and the Screenwriter, Book 2 in the series, coming in 2017.


Blurb:
Caught on Camera is a New Adult romantic comedy with a playlist!

To achieve her dream of working on Hollywood film sets, star struck chambermaid Rachel Lehmann needs $35,000 for film school tuition by the end of the summer. When she’s asked to stand in for a missing bridesmaid at a movie star’s wedding and pretend to be the bride's cousin, it’s her big chance to secretly take photos of celebrities and sell them to the entertainment media! Then Mickey, one of the groomsmen, sweeps her off her feet.

Mickey McNichol, talent agent to the stars, believes everyone in show business is out for what they can get. When he falls for the bride’s "cousin", he thinks he’s finally met a beautiful woman he can trust. But if Rachel betrays the wedding party, Mickey will ensure she never works in Hollywood.

Buy:
Caught on Camera is $0.99 or £0.99 for a limited time on:
Amazon |Kobo |iBooks | Amazon.co.uk


Bio:
Canadian author Madelle Morgan set this novel in the District of Muskoka, Ontario, Canada, named by National Geographic Traveler magazine as one of their top 20 Best of the World Must-see Places. She also wrote Diamond Hunter, a romantic suspense about diamond smuggling set at a northern mine—a hot romance that heats up the arctic.

Find Madelle:
Website |Facebook |Goodreads