The Comic Muse » fiction writing

Syd Field, Screenwriting, and Three-Act Structure

Sun, 01 Dec 2013 03:09:20 +0000

Only the immature artist scoffs at the demands of form. “Free verse,” quipped Robert Frost, is like “playing tennis without a net.” There is a reason why the films of Terence Malick, as brilliantly associative as they are, tax our patience. Syd Field died on the 17th of this month. He was, along with Robert […]

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True Confessions of a Self-Publishing Author

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 14:05:58 +0000

And here’s Part 2 of my talk to the Annapolis Chapter of the Maryland Writer’s Association, in which I get into more of the practical details of self-publishing and marketing one’s books.

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Ideas and Stories

Daniel McInerny — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:31:29 +0000

"Storytelling is the creative demonstration of truth. A story is the living proof of an idea, the conversion of an idea to action." --Robert McKee, Story In this edition of The Comic Muse Podcast we talk about the "soul" of story or what Robert McKee calls the Controlling Idea. In this podcast you will learn about the supreme importance of a strong, clear idea to the success of your story the basic equation of a good story idea: VALUE + CAUSE the necessity of integrating your idea into the "body" of your story Books discussed in this podcast: Robert McKee, Story David Lodge, The Art of Fiction Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Ideas and Stories

“Don’t Call an Ambulance. It’s Only an Artistic Coma!”

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:02:33 +0000

I love reading biographies of authors. I love reading most about the period of their early struggle (and, frankly, I often lose interest after the author achieves success). Just last night I dipped back into the early chapters of Robert McCrum’s magnificent Wodehouse: A Life. “The quality of [Wodehouse’s] life as a freelancer was solitary […]

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Failure to Launch

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:25:31 +0000

So you check the email one more time, or consult your planner or glance at the newspaper. Anything but confront the page in the notebook or the document on the laptop where you will actually have to go to work. Why don’t you plunge in? Why do you hesitate? You say you want to write […]

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The Problem of the Next Line

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:49:19 +0000

Back to the question of planning versus plunging. Here is a YouTube clip from an interview with playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard in which he discusses his play, Arcadia. Watch the clip from the beginning to 2:04, where Stoppard discusses the genesis of the play. Then pay attention again from 2:58 and following, where he […]

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250 Words Every Fifteen Minutes

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:13:51 +0000

It’s interesting. When I put the thoughts from my last post in front of the folks in the Writer’s Café at Kindle Boards, I received, from more than one writer, a very strong reaction I had not expected. One said that people who focus on their artistic temperament are really only playing at being writers. […]

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Muriel Spark and the Uses of Omniscience

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:48:39 +0000

In talking about free indirect speech in the last couple of days, I didn’t situate it within its wider historical context. Free indirect speech is a technique that was exploited, if not invented, by modernist writers such as Joyce. David Lodge observes that free indirect speech (or style) was also a feature of some of […]

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