What’s Up?

Highlights from June.

Comedy Craft / Story Fiending

I’m both a story structure geek and a fan of exploratory writing.

On the story structure front, one of the things that has helped me the most, from all that I’ve read, is specific language that that both resonates and encapsulates what I’m trying to do.

For example, John Truby’s term: The Comic Cyclone. (From his Anatomy of Genres.)

He explains: ‘You want the biggest laughs at the climax of the story. Therefore, sequence as many comic nightmares as possible and have them come at a faster and faster pace. This way, the final, ultimate nightmare will prompt the biggest laughs.’

It helped me unlock some sticking points in Act 3 of the novel I’m now revising. And it’s a term that I come back to. I’ll be all caught up in some other aspect of the writing and then go….oh, hang on. Comic cyclone! Am I truly cycloning towards my ending? Or spiralling down a drain here? How do I get more cyclone into this?

Fellow structure geeks might enjoy the whole 700 pages of John’s Anatomy of Genres, which digs into 14 major genres. Or if you want to start with an intro into the comedy chapter, I interviewed John about it. (Here’s the audio version, if you prefer.)

The Flip

Thanks to everyone who messaged saying that you enjoyed last month’s Flip: an almost silent podcast, with a timed 15 minutes to write. I’ll sprinkle in some more of these as we go.

 (If you’ve joined since then, you can find it here.)  

 For those who asked about the timer and the bracelet I mentioned, here you go…

This bracelet is extra appropriate for a section called The Flip. My husband made it for me. The L flipped on its side was an accident, and he was mortified. But it couldn’t be more perfectly imperfect if it tried.

 So big love to all the things that are a little flipped around—in life and in our writing. What would you want put on a bracelet if you could choose anything?

Stash: things I love

Ok, I warned you last month about my obsession with the Amazon series, Patriot (created by Steven Conrad). High-five to my fellow Patriot fan, who called it a ‘criminally underrated show’. Right?!

 I’m not sure the show name is the best, but I can see why it was chosen? The main character, John Tavener, is an intelligence officer—but this is not your regular spy show. It’s both visually poetic and darkly funny.

 We follow John as he works undercover as a piping engineer, while compulsively telling the truth through the folk songs he writes and performs. (A problem!) This music is used brilliantly throughout the show, and adds to its melancholy, surreal, and deeply human vibe. It’s different, for sure, but I love both the craft and the heart of it, with a passion.

 And I love this quote from Steven Conrad:

 ‘The mindset we have more or less when we create a field of characters is to create a world of tension between expectations and a world of connection between needs.’ 

 Love it! What have you been loving, that has at least a twist of humour in it?

Dare Bears

Apparently in each of these letters that I’ve written to you so far, I seem to have started a ball rolling that then catches up with me, Indiana Jones style? Which is fun.

Last month in this section I was referencing Sydney Liu’s way of embedding asks in a getting to know him manual. (If you missed it, you can find it in the Dare Bears section here.) And, as declared, I’ve now made one.

I like that it’s a live document; having thrown this version down, I can now adjust. Aside from the asks, I created different sections from Sydney—ones that made sense for me.

HOW DANIELLE WORKS (Superpowers and obsessions. One thing you definitely should not to ask me to help you with 🙂— I bet you can’t guess! Wild asks etc.)

If any of you end up making a version of your own, please do share with me as I’d love to learn more about you and what you’re up to! And also see if I can help with any of your asks.

Until next time,

PS: Thanks for reading my Seriously Ridiculous letter. All feedback is welcome, as I only want to do this if it’s useful or fun for you to read. You can hit reply and it will wing its way to me.

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