Category: Act Three Template

New Tips for the 2012 Nanowrimo

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                                                                                 Nanowrimo 2012—Prep Work Don’t wait until Zero Hour to start writing for Nanowrimo. Here are some tips for preparing yourself for the long haul–50,000  words. 1. Place. What’s the main setting for your novel? How many locations do you use more than twice? Where does your Page One open? Does it open in a cave? On a spaceship hurtling past dark stars? Does it open in a laundromat (see Jack Remick’s Blood)? Does it open on a lonely beach road, a car chase (see Robert Ray’s Bloody Murdock)? Does it open in a boudoir with a bidet? Does it open in the cage of a Werewolf? Does it open in the Oval Office? In the Situation Room? In a school with a student shooting a poison dart at the teacher? 2. Character. Profile your five major characters. Protagonist, Antagonist, Helper One, Antag One, Helper Two. For each main character, jot down these info-bits: Back Story Trauma Motive Agenda Want Need Can’t have.   3. Back Story. For each major character, write 3-5 pages of back story. To connect the back story to your Page One, use this simple method of increasing the distance in time: Startline: An hour before the book opens, the protagonist was…. Startline: A week before the book opens, the protagonist was…. Startline: A year before the book opens, the protagonist was…. Startline: Five years...

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A Short Course in Structure ~ Writing Tips for the Committed Novelist

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Paula Lowe, editor at Solo Novo Magazine, invited me to write a few guest blog posts on the magazine’s Facebook page. I saw this as a chance to pull together into one sequence some of the ideas Bob and I have developed about structure, the novel, and screenwriting.

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Dramaticus Moebius

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We built this website because we want to open a doorway for writers to go deep into the art and craft of writing. Writing today, in America, is about images. It is about images and action. We live in a post-literate world but it’s a world that lives for and consumes images, moving images—film. Art in the 21st Century is driven by the moving image. To achieve success, a writer today will create a work that transforms easily into image, a work that adapts to film, moves with ease into video. The key for the writer in this century is to know that behind every image there is a solid piece of writing. Behind every movie, there is a solid screenplay. The precursor to the image is the written word. Reading is, perhaps, on the wane, but writing is stronger than ever. To use our website, the writer does not have to write a movie or a film but she must be aware that the moving picture is the cultural pinnacle of art, a pinnacle that all other writing will reference. This means that the writer who comes here might want techniques, ideas, and insights that will lead her toward an image-based style of writing, a writing built on images and action, action and reaction. By image we mean word pictures. In the art of writing there are at...

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©2010-2017 Jack Remick, Robert J. Ray. All rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material, including text and images, without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Short excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jack Remick and Robert J. Ray and "Bob and Jacks Writing Blog" with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.