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The Crutch – She uses alcohol and drugs. She yearns for companionship? Maybe not so much. But definitely she has a drug and alcohol problem. And she overcomes it near the end with the help of a childhood friend.

The Tragic Early Life Event – Her mother dying and her becoming an orphan. Finally explained at the end. At the moment she relives it she also has the strength to throw the pills away.

The incredible ability – a genius chess player. You want to cheer for her. An unusual chess player also, a young girl.

The nemsis – The Russians and in particular Borgov. Although her enemies changes throughout.

The Showdown Climax – The big chess game in Russia against Borgov.

Slowed down Climax – During the game, Borgov adjourns. Slowing it down. Then during the match he acts outside how they planned. Beth focuses on the ceiling, her old trick to learn it all and then over come him – after also getting help from her team. All her strengths coming together.

The cast of mentors – boyfriends and her friend from school. She also remembers her old chess teacher, the janitor during the press questioning.

Tragic death of a loved one – her mother. Her real mom dies then her step mother. Then she turns to drink heavily. Things seem to be spiriling.

The Broken heart – the reporter who is gay? But she loved him?

The crutch removed – pills and booze – after facing down her history.

The Climax as rematch – She lost in Paris to Borgov.

The intro as flashback before worst moments – The intro is a flashback to her trying to get ready for a chess match after a late night of partying.

The return of her team at the end – her friends, ex lovers, all of them come together to help her prepare.

Tropes? – Seems to have a lot of the hero’s journey – hero with a problem trope.

The Hero as flawed mega talent

7 Episodes about an hour long each with their own story flow, inciting incident, climax, etc.

I feel like I got my plot outline to a good place but the story felt light. Like there wasn’t enough for me to work with. I went back and starting looking at my main characters and the locations. I had some some quick sketches but there really wasn’t much there. Also, I had tried and did use one of those detailed character questionnaire but I never liked it. It felt too technical and frankly boring. Like who cares what shoe size my character likes.

One of the things I remember from Aaron Sorkin’s masterclass is that he doesn’t spend a lot of time developing backstory for characters. He just runs through it, which I like also, partly because I’m lazy. But on the other hand, I read a book about character and plot and it proposed that you should explore traumatic and life changing events in your character’s past because that is what shapes who they are and the choices they make. Often times it can also be the root of some flawed thinking that can be the source of conflict in your story.

So I decided to take a break of outlining plot to exploring back story. I started with my main character. Interestingly, as I wrote about my main character I also started developing the setting more. I picked a year and location. When I wrote about my main character, I approached it like “the story of MAIN CHARACTER.” So instead of lists about what his hair color is, I talked about his birth etc. And it was cool. I felt like I was writing, not just populating some list of attributes. I felt like the information that was coming out of me could actually be useful.

Then I started writing about the next main character. I wrote about her relation to the main character. Again I approached it from the question of “What is the story of SECOND MAIN CHARACTER. Of course, that is also a big question that can go on and on, so I limited to birth, parents, and at least two major life changing events, usually traumatic that shaped that characters thinking and motivation.

But then I started thinking about the frame of “The story of…” It is a powerful frame because it can be immediately engaging and absorbed by the reader. I was watching the Masterclass on leadership and it talked about how Abraham Lincoln used stories as much as could in speeches. He knew it was an incredible way to convey information and have people retain it.

So, I used the “Story of…” as a frame for all sorts of parts in my book. The story of the city location. The story of how the government got put into place. The story of some of the main inventions in the world. Instead of just saying this thing exists, I explore the who, what, where, why, when and how. Like a journalist investigating the story behind this world. I supposed it can get out of control and it probably does for a lot of writers.

Some people don’t need to go into the story of in so much detail because their story piggybacks on another story. If you are writing about contemporary America, I think most readers would already understand a little about how America was created, the government, the police, and basic technology. Most people know the story of the Internet or do they? Is it important to the story you are trying to tell? That would be the second important question.

This reminds me of the book The Shining. In it Stephen King has Jack find a history book about the hotel in the basement. it is a way for King to convey information about the hotel to the reader. We learn about back story, newspaper clippings etc. In another movie I just watched, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the main characters go to the library and research the backstory of the town and a family in particular. In Ready Player One, the main character researches the backstory in order to solve the puzzle.

In my story, the main character has to research the connection between a rehab business and the death of his girlfriend. I talk to go into backstory. But you can see in the examples above, backstory is best delivered in scene with conflict brewing. Backstory exposition on itself is boring. King didn’t have a dry recitation of backstory in the Shining, it was while he was taking a break from his family in the basement of the hotel. The book he found was mysterious.

So that is what I’m doing now on the book. I can write a little more backstory for elements of the story that will help me understand why things are the way they are and how to better incorporate it into the story.

So I set a goal to finish redoing the outline for my book by Sunday but it’s not looking like I will get it done. Although I made good progress. Mostly I got a boost by recording my voice in my car and dictating ideas and scenes and options. Then I type them up in the morning.

On that note, I’m really seeing that a lot of the outlining process for me is brainstorming options. The more options the better the story because it comes off more original.

The use of BUT and THEREFORE has also drastically helped. It really forces me to connect story beats with more consequential actions. Before I think my outlining would be more of random connections or even the dreaded “And Then.” I had no idea that “and then” makes for a boring story but after using the BUT and THEREFORE technique, now I see. And you can use the BUT and THEREFORE technique in any sort of story telling like blog posts and public speaking.

So now, I have plot points worked out based on an existing structure that works. I also have the BUT and THEREFORE helping me plod along. I have some characters, I’ve worked on and some situations. I also have a genre to help me get reader interest. It definitely feels like I’m moving along. I looked back at when the folder was created and see I started back in August 2019. That is a little discouraging. That I started almost four months ago and I’m still working on my outline. The prior big outline was done in October. So it takes me around a month to create an outline it seems. It would have been a lot faster if I just used an existing plot structure.

Another thing I’m doing while outlining is exploring the character’s voice and their fears. I read somewhere about creating character empathy you need a combination of things but one is a fear or desire that competes with another fear or desire. Especially something related to the human condition. For example, a character that wants to earn more money but has a fear of leaving the house.

So I started specifically exploring that for each character – that dual fear or desire that conflicts. It creates that inner conflict. One of the ways I did it was by talking in the first person. I would write almost stream of conscious and then talk about what I was worried about.

It reminds me of that movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I saw it recently and then after I analyzed it a bit more deeply. Both characters have a desire or fear. Leo’s character, the television star, sees his stardom fading. He is being cast as a bad guy. He is not recognizable in costumes. He is being recruited for Italian movies. He ends up doing the Italian movies. He gets married. It seems like the end for him. He literally cries thinking about it with a little girl.

At the end of the movie, Leo finds redemption sort of. He’s kills off the bad guys and then is invited to spend time with the younger more successful movie people. Its like two different stories. The action story is almost inconsequential to the human story of this actor who is trying to revive his career.

So I asked myself, who is my character, what does he want besides the main plot, the desire to stay alive?

My goal for this week is to get a treatment finished. From beginning to end. I want it to be like 20-30 pages long. I want to have the main characters analyzed. I want this to be all done by next Sunday. I guess I need to do about 3 pages a day.

I’ve been experimenting with using a journal to keep me on track . If you asked me about a journal ten years ago, I would have waved you off. Now I can see its benefit as life starts to move fast and its easy to get stuck working on the wrong stuff – e.g. anything not your goals. I quickly realized I needed a method for journaling though.

At first I was just doing something basic. Recording what I’m grateful for, a few notes about what I learned that day etc. As time went on, I realized that I wanted the journal to keep track of my goal progress and other random things. I also started to keep a separate journal for work and another for writing.

My journal was getting a little disorganized. I couldn’t find things that I had written down and I had no desire to go back and flip through pages of unintelligible handwriting. I looked up other methods like the bullet journal but it was too tedious and not focused on what I working on – tracking progress and discoveries related to goals.

So here is what I came up with:

Table of Contents

First block out 3 pages and Title them Table of Contents. Write the following:

(Page) (Title)
1-3. Table of Contents
4. Lifetime, 10 yr, 5 yr Goals
5-6. Next 12 Month Goals
7. Daily Notes Template / Weekly Template
8. Current Month Daily Tracker
9. General Todos
10. Bucket List
11. Values

Lifetime, 10 yr, 5 yr, Goals

Remember, these should be specific measurable, attainable, relevant, trackable. Take the goal and 10x it (kinda cheesy but good to remember).

Also good to remember to have goals for health, wealth, family / love, happiness.

Specific goals for health like quit drinking. Run a marathon. Be able to to 100 push ups. eat right everyday. Exercise everyday. Get enough sleep everyday.

Specific goals for wealth income of 100k from real estate. 100k income from dividends. High salary. Whatever.

Related to wealth: I think you should also have specific goals for networking. People you want to meet etc. The process in the book never eat alone is a good place to start. (And I admit that I’m not doing well in that area.)

Specific goals for Family / Love: to spend takes kids to park once a week. To go on date with spouse once every two weeks. To cook for family.

Specific goals for Happiness: Schedule time for friends, help others, vacation, schedule fun.

When planning goals it is important to also think about:

1. Who can help me meet this goal?
2. Why do I want to reach this goal?
3. What do I need to reach this goal?

12 Month Goals

List out the next twelve months. Write monthly goals for each based on your long term goals. What sub goals do you need to reach in the next twelve months in order to reach your long term goals?

Values List

It’s good to go through this and make a list of your top ten values. Family, Creativity, Freedom, Independence, Helpfulness, Integrity, Sincerity – Brainstorm on it for 30 minutes. Set a timer on your phone. Put everything away and think on it. Then compare your goals and your values. Make sure there isn’t a conflict. If you value family above all else but your goals mean you have to work 80 hours a week – then there is a problem.

Bucket List

it’s good to keep track of random things you want to accomplish. It’s helpful to have a page devoted to that in the journal.

Todo List

I also like to keep a general todo list of random things that pop up and I want to remember to review them. If I fill this page up I just create a new one on the next available page and note that in the table of contents.

Daily Template

The daily template contains 2-3 questions to answer each day as well as a short list of long term goals and an affirmation to write. That way you get in the habit of writing your goals everyday. Also you get in the habit of looking critically at your day, what you learned etc.

Example questions to ask yourself:

1. Three things you are grateful for
2. Something you learned today or yesterday
3. Three things you need to get done today

Example goals and affirmations. Write in the present tense. I can do one a arm push-up, a one arm pull-up, and a pistol squat. I make 100,000 a year from writing. I have my own thriving law practice generating over 1,000,000 per year. I spend the weekends with my kids and go on regular dates with my wife. I see my friends at least twice a month.

30 day check in template

This is a template with questions to review to make sure I review my goals and how things are going. I also review the last Monthly Tracker and see how I did on my daily goals. I do this at the beginning of the month.

First, review the monthly tracker and see who I did for daily habits.

Second, questions to answer

1. What went well this past thirty days?
2. What were my wins in goal areas?
3. What had me the most excited?
4. Where do I need to pivot?
5. What have I done and what?
6. What have I learned?
7. What do I wanted to do in the next thirty days (translate to monthly goals)?
8. What 2-3 wins would make the biggest difference to my ideal vision?

Monthly Tracker

For the month breakdown a list of things you want to do on a daily basis. You should definitely include at the top of the list the hard stuff that you always push off so that you prioritize it. I push off exercise and writing generally, so those are the things I should do first. I don’t have a problem reading at the moment but I do have a problem making notes on what I’m reading so that I can learn from it.

This is similar to the Ben Franklin method of keeping track of his virtues but what I’m trying to do is dial in daily habits that will help me in achieving my goals.

An example of daily habit list:

1. Exercise (15 min)
2. Write (20 min)
3. Meditate (5 min)
4. No internet in the morning
5. 8 hours of sleep
6. No drinking before sleep
7. 2 cups of coffee max

A daily list at work could include:

1. notes on reading
2. writing
3. marketing activity
4. 3 important things

When its the next month you just go to the next available page and put that in the table of contents.

Daily Notes

After all that preliminary work is done, this is the more traditional form of journaling. This is where I just put the date, answer the questions from the template, write out my goals. Sometimes I put in things that happened that day.

Conclusion

Now with the table of contents I can find important information, track goals and daily habits, and have an easy to find structure of monthly and daily reviews. Hope this helps you too.

I took my kids to see the Lion King recently and around the same time was reading about the Story Circle in Chris Fox’s book Plot Gardening. The whole idea of the Story Circle comes from Dan Harmon and ultimately comes from The Hero of A Thousand Faces by Campbell.

Dan Harmon says he’s used the circle so much he sees it everywhere. It’s tattooed on his brain. He’s also always analyzing stories.

So I thought I would try it with the Lion King. Here goes nothing.

The story circle has been described well at other parts of the Internet including by Harmon himself. However, I’m going to give it a shot so you can understand where I’m coming from with this analysis.

Imagine a circle, the movement of the story is clockwise.

Split the circle along the middle. The two halves represents a duality. Order and Chaos. Ordinary World and Special World. Consciousness and Unconsciousness. Life and Death. It is also moving from the ordinary world to the spiritual world. Also – moving between external forces. I found a whole list of dualities here. Some cool dualities:

• fact and myth
• strong and weak
• attraction and repulsion
• mass and energy
• finite and infinite
• mind and body
• collectivism and individualism
• idealism and realism
• tangible and intangible
• pleasure and pain
• good and evil
• reason and empathy
• wealth and poverty
• anarchy and authority
• virtue and vice
• moral and immoral
• just and unjust
• happiness and sad
• war and peace
• male and female

That link above also has a interesting quote from the Tao on Abstraction. Basically it says that the opposite helps define the subject. Especially in relative terms. Long is long compared to short.

Now split the circle from top to bottom. The right half represents the internal problem with the protagonist and the left half represents the change for better, e.g. going from selfish to unselfish, or stubborn to not stubborn. Look to the extreme of a character trait. It can’t just be a little bit of greed. It is moving from inner states.

Here is a good list of character traits. Here are some ones I like that seem common in story telling:

• jealous v. trusting
• fearful v. courageous
• greedy v. generous
• self centered v. considerate
• arrogant v. humble / modest
• lazy v. active
• compulsive v. controlled
• dishonest v. honest
• angry v. calm, peaceful
• aimless v. methodical, resolute
• depressed v. cheerful, glad
• narrow minded v. tolerant
• narcissistic v. sacrificing
• weak willed v. bold, brave
• think also about the characters in The Wizard of Oz
  • Cowardly Lion v. Courage
  • Tin Man – Lack of Heart v. Empathy
  • Scarecrow wants brains, he’s dumb v. intelligence
• and the Seven Deadly Sins
  • Pride
  • Envy
  • Gluttony
  • Lust
  • Anger
  • Greed
  • Sloth

Now with those pairs of halves. Bisect the circle into 8 parts. Going clockwise and starting from the top, number the lines from 1 through 8. These represent sign posts as follows:

1. You – in a zone of comfort
2. Need – you want something
3. Go – Enter an unfamiliar situation & what the story is about, the terrorist attack, the contrast of worlds
4. Search – Adapt to it, the road of trials, experiment, stripping away and moving to the deepest unconsciousness.
5. Find – Get what you want, meeting with the goddess, greatest point of vulnerability,
6. Take – Pay a Heavy Price, Meet your Maker, Take Control of Your Destiny, New Goal Created Here – Obiwan Dies
7. Return – return to the familiar situation, Waking up – pulled out of extreme situation, return to rebel camp to plot
8. Change – Change the world having changed yourself. Master of Both Worlds, life not the same, the showdown

A lot of this comes from A Hero with a Thousand Faces which I’m not going to get into here.

The Circle Can apply to any piece of the story including each character, the tone, theme. You want to have a circle for each character.

Now taking this and applying to the Lion King.

1. Simba is born and hanging out with his dad. Introduce some characters, Nala, the Bird, the Monkey, and Scar. (I forget names.)
2. Simba wants to be big and strong like his dad. He’s egged on by his uncle to dangerous situations.
3. Simba thinks he kills his dad by starting a stampede. Scar convinces him to leave his home. He ends up in a new world.
4. At first he is about to be attacked, then he finds friends and starts to adapt.
5. He’s found happiness and belonging. He runs around his new home seemingly content.
6. He learns that Scar has taken over the lands and destroyed them. He learns that he cant just run away from him problems and he has his dad’s courage.
7. Simba returns. His uncle confronts him and makes confession about killing his dad. Simba uses new strength to escape Simba. The pride turns on Simba and he runs off. They battle again, Simba offers empathy, but Scar turns on him while betraying his bad buy friends – the hyenas – who turn on Scar.
8. Simba and Nala have a baby and the circle of life goes on.

Lessons learned: Most of the stages seem to go as planned. At Number 4, the Take, we get a couple things bundled in that I might be doing wrong. When he learns about the destruction of his old home, he learns the cost of his actions. We also get the lesson from the Monkey and the spirit of his dad. In the return we get an extended sort of battle that wraps up the story threads. Scar versus the pride. Scar versus the hyenas. Simba reconciles the death of his father with the Pride.

So that’s the Lion King and the Story Circle. It works!

I’m starting a new writing project and rethinking about how to start in the best way possible. Since the last time I started a longer project, I’ve read a number of books about everything from structure to character arcs. I’ve also ready books about the business of writing books. One thing that is true: there is always more to read. Another thing that is true: you have to write everyday. You cannot wait until you have read every book or analyzed every story that is out there.

In thinking about what I’ve learned, it is a good idea to start with a genre. That is like saying there is a market for what you are writing. At first I didn’t like this idea. It felt to money oriented. That is not what art is about right? It depends on your goal. Do you want people to read your book? To enjoy your book? To buy your book? Then you should think about a market. Who do you want to read you book? Everyone? Maybe narrow it down. Most, and probably all people don’t want to read a book describing your shoes. On the other hand, there are many many people who want to read about zombie apocalypse or epic sci fi adventures.

Most people read to escape. They don’t read for grand literary ambition. Most people don’t read to be educated. Likewise, people watch TV to escape, to get lost in a story, to identify with people. most people don’t want TV to get educated. Most people don’t want to watch experimental short films. This has been a hard lesson for me because I like reading and watching experimental stuff. I like punk rock and abstract art. I don’t mind if it doesn’t make total sense, as long as the artistic expression is high.

But after writing and submitting stuff, I sure wouldn’t mind if I had some people reading my stuff. Enjoying it. Buying it. Good old capitalism. The marketplace as a test of worthiness. It’s not always right but it is a test.

I also remind myself that a lot of very good respectable authors also wrote in genre.

So this time, I sat down and wrote out genres that I liked. I wrote out five genres like paranormal horror, espionage, noir mystery, thrillers, and gritty urban sci-fi. In doing the exercise, I started thinking about all those writers I love reading. Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson.

Another author I recently read that I enjoyed was James Patterson. I read Kiss the Girls. It was fun, fast faced, scary and engaging. I also watched his Master Class and found that also surprisingly enjoyable. I always dismissed him as a guy who wrote books to sell at supermarkets. There is definitely something to be said for the easy breezy writing style that pulls you in and compels you to turn pages.

After I picked the genre, I started doing market research. Basically, I did what Chris Fox says to do in his book Write to Market. I went to Amazon, looked at the genre category, look at the top 3 books and then a couple of books around the top 20 and a couple of books around the top 100.

I look at the sales ranking of those books. Some of them sold surprisingly well. I also noticed some trends. In the cyberpunk section, there seemed to be a trend about people playing video games, kind of like that movie by Steven Spielberg movie Ready Player One.

I didn’t see a book specifically containing the tropes I was interested in. I don’t know of that is a problem or maybe a sign my idea is dated?

Either way, market research and genre choosing is done for now.

If it can’t be measured. It can’t be improved. I believe the management guru Peter Drucker said that. It isn’t limited to business either. Some people also believe that science is only about things that can be measured. Well what about the arts?

There is no measurement for what is good writing. There is no measurement for a strong plot or interesting characters. You wouldn’t need critics if that was the case. Interestingly, there is a measurement for clarity in writing. For example the Flesch formula measure of readability. I believe it is built right into Microsoft Word so that you can see the difficulty or grade level of your writing ease.

Some argue that the way you get better as a writer is output. Just write more. And read more. There is a story about a ceramics class in the book Art and Fear. It goes something like this: On the first day of a ceramics class, a teacher offered students to be graded by the weight of their pottery output or the perfection of a single piece. Of course, the students who tried to make one single perfect piece couldn’t compete with the students that made tons of pottery and by the end had mastered the materials and techniques.

Often people say you should have a writing quota everyday. The problem I have with that is does revision and editing count for the writing quota? Brainstorming and outline? Aren’t those all important to the writing process? Where am I supposed to fit in time for submitting and researching markets for my writing? Has anyone successfully outsourced that submitting and researching using a service like Upwork? Questions I should look into later.

For now, I was brainstorming metrics for a writer beyond just writing everyday. Something I can measure for myself, compare to my past self, and plan for my future self. Here are things I want to measure:

1. # of short stories finished
2. # of novels finished
3. # of blog posts finished
4. # of scripts finished
5. # of book read
6. # of finished pieces submitted
7. # of rejections collected
8. # of acceptances
9. # of stories, novels, or scripts analyzed

What other metrics are out there?