Pixar’s Story Rules, Illustrated in Lego by ICanLegoThat
Last year, Pixar story artist Emma Coats (@lawnrocket) tweeted 22 rules of storytelling like “give your characters opinions” and “no work is ever wasted.” Alex Eylar, aka ICanLegoThat, has illustrated twelve of those rules with Legos. He gave us the chance to premiere them at Slacktory.
Guest Post: How to Write a Sentence
by Hal Duncan In the paid critiques I do for the Writers’ Workshop, I’m often faced with writers with a level of narrative prose so rudimentary that I really can’t just tell them it needs polish in this respect or that; I pretty much have to tell them the basics of how to write a sentence. Of narrative, that is. So I’ve thought for a while that maybe I should turn all that work into some sort of Sentence Writing 101 post for the blog, but of course, I can’t exactly use a client’s text even anonymously. A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the massive barbarians hide enameled shield as his rippling right arm thrust forth, sending a steel shod blade to the hilt into the soldiers vital organs. I think we can safely all agree that this is unmitigated shite, yes? 1. There are many things you want to say in a sentence, but you can’t say them all. Good decision is conscious, considered, confident, conclusive*. So… The word “riveted” has been grabbed off the shelf. 2. So this: 3. 4. 5.
Necessary Fiction
I am amazed that the good and wise Steve Himmer has let me have the run of the place for a month. I am going to mess this house up and only talk about how to clean it. For July, I have decided to play History. I have decided to launch a war on first drafts and erect the memorial to edits. Revision is where we do our most important work as writers, or at least where we can. When Steve asked me to “reside,” I had the grand idea to create a sort of Rolodex for revision methods, fears, hopes. Sometimes I had to pull teeth. So I thought I would start off by putting my money where my mouth is (online, mostly). Hopefully, over the next month, as we all revise our manuscripts — and I’ll be talking about how mine has changed over 8 years, as I make a last ditch effort to “finish” it — we’ll all be able to take away one new strategy, we’ll all be encouraged to do better. Here are 20 thoughts to start: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. You can also do this for the themes on each page. 8. 9. Related: 10. 11. 12.
The Pixar Touch - history of Pixar - Blog - Pixar story rules (one version)
Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories: #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. #2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different. #3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. #4: Once upon a time there was ___. #5: Simplify. #6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? #7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. #8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. #9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. #10: Pull apart the stories you like. #11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. #12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. #13: Give your characters opinions. #16: What are the stakes?
Describing your Characters by =Inkfish7 on deviantART
Script Formatting
Margins Stage direction and shot headings (also known as slug lines) have a margin of 1.7" of the left and 1.1" on the right. TWO BLANK LINES PRECEDE EACH SHOT HEADING. Dialog has a left margin of 2.7" and a right margin of 2.4". Font Use 12-point Courier (not Courier New) or Prestige Pica. Use of "CONTINUED" When a shot or scene continues from one page to the next, (CONTINUED) must be added at the bottom of the page where the break occurs, preceded by a single blank line. Breaking stage direction When stage direction (also known as action) is broken at the bottom of a page, break it only at the end of a complete sentence. Breaking dialog When a character's speech is broken at the bottom of a page, break it only at the end of a complete sentence. SKYLAR See, it's my life story. End Example (from Good Will Hunting) Formatting parenthetical character direction "Parenthetical character direction" is specific business relating only to the speaking character. Correct GIRL You are such an idiot.
The Jane Austen Word List | Mary Robinette Kowal
The Jane Austen Word List One of the things that’s tricky about writing historical fiction like Shades of Milk and Honey is getting the vocabulary right. There are a lot of words which are obviously anachronisms but there others which aren’t. Short of looking up every word in a novel, there’s no way to really know if a seemingly innocuous word like “hello” exists yet. So here’s my planfor Glamour in Glass. I’ve created a list of all the words that are in the collected works of Jane Austen to use for my spellcheck dictionary. It won’t be perfect. For the curious, there are 14,793 words on the list. My problem right now is that I’ve tried a couple of different sets of instructions to create a dictionary for OpenOffice and have been unsuccessful. Here is the Jane Austen Word List as a .txt. file. This is my attempt at making the Jane Austen dictionary extension for OpenOffice. If you are curious about the words that I wound up cutting from Glamour in Glass, I’ve got a list of them. Like this:
