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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| A changing Central Character. So having talked about the importance of knowing where you’re going with your story let me say again that it won't be is necessary in the is workshop for the writer to know exactly where that is. The workshop is designed to help you figure out where you want to go. While you don’t have to figure it out right away by the time you finish you will definitely know where the story is heading and where that point is down the road, where you will be ultimately be writing “The End” So a story is a journey and the reader or audience signs up to enter a vicarious relationship with your characters and follow along for the ride. Ok, with that understanding, What is it that readers or audiences are straining to see? Sure they want to see the story played out but what are they looking for along the way…The answer to that is CHANGE! Hopefully it’s change for the better but in a tragedy in might well be change for the worse…There are lessons to be learned in both and if the change is positive we traditionally thought of the story as a comedy and if it was negative it was called a tragedy. Let me make a point here for the benefit of my younger readers. In the traditional sense comedy was not the situational or stand-up comedy you’re familiar with. It referred to whether or not the ending of the drama was happy or sad. In the end the reader or audience experiences a pathos which can be either laughter or tears. It is a venting of emotions which can be uplifting or gut wrenching but either way it’s the cathartic pay-back the consumer hopes to receive in return for the cost of the book or the price of admission. Remember the Dramatic Premise….How you looked at the synopsis earlier and wrote that premise in both a negative and positive sense….How I said that DP was the backbone of the story. Well the thread of what the audience will be looking to discover is a trend line showing that change.….Will it lead the CC to becoming a better person or lead him/or her to destruction. Will in the end the audience feel warm and fuzzy or will they be disconsolate and moved to tears. The Greeks who invented drama knew that a good story can be satisfying with either the most positive or negative of outcomes. They liked a happy ending but they also lived much closer to the edge than we do today. They tended to carry much more emotionally laden baggage than we do today and welcomed a mechanism to help them get some of it off their chest. The writer needs to decide which direction on the continuum this tale is headed and prepare the reader emotionally for where it’s going… The key to doing this is a moving target, where the CC is constantly in a state of flux , undergoing changes that the reader can see, follow and relate to and anticipate where the whole story is going. |
| Where the story is heading How many times have you started writing something and not really known where it was headed. If you are like me the answer is “Plenty of Times.” Actually not knowing where you are going is not such a bad thing. My earliest and happiest memories are exploring with my Standard French Poodle, Benoit while my father was assigned in France. My wife on the other hand is not a great explorer. She wants to know where she is going from the git-go and has most everything figured out before hand and when I want to digress from what she has it mind, it causes her great woe. I have great sympathy for her and no idea how she has managed to live with me all these years. When she gets to be too much to bear I reminded her of the “Obey” clause in our wedding vows. Still there is a lot to be said for having a plan, particularly if the journey will be long and there is a particular place you want to wind up at . This begs the question, where is that mysterious place, anyway? In my career I ‘oft saw my peers racing along at a hundred miles an hour with only the vaguest notion of where they were heading and hoped to wind up. So common is this problem among soldiers that war planning sees exploring and doing as two different processes. First is the exploring and second is the doing. Talk about getting an edge on the competition. A two phased planning process is hard to beat . So in the military it is not only OK to cast around for the best way before you go charging off, it is mandatory. Now the way this two phase process evolved is because it is possible to be successfully tactically without going through the process. A commander who is talented can operate at the tactical level and achieve remarkable success. How often have you heard the saying….we won the battle but lost the war? This is true not just in war fighting, but many other aspects of life and writing a novel is no exception. What it takes to write a piece of flash fiction and perhaps even a short story is not a modus-opperendi that can be simply extended linearly and through the investment of a bit more time be expected to pay dividends. At a certain point, which I’ll define as a work that goes beyond a chapter in scope, the human mind becomes saturated. If you don’t have the operational and strategic issues worked out in advance you are setting yourself up for failure. One of these is knowing where you’re going. Keep in mind a tactical military leader just has to succeed in winning a battle at a single point in time and space. It is a unique event and I won’t for an instant denigrate the importance of being able to do that. This type of undertaking is of a scope that someone really smart can wrap their mind around and achieve some local success. For a writer of flash fiction and short stories this is certainly the case. I read some awesome work, here at WDC and elsewhere. But don’t think for a minute that that this ability alone will propel you into the big time. One of my specialities in the Military was Transportation Management….In graduate school I read a study that some of the most efficient and profitable commercial truck companies were Maw and Paw operations under the million dollar threshold. The wife would usually handle the operations and dispatching and the husband, fleet maintenance and driver training. Together they could keep an eye on what was happening and make a fair living. Unfortunately all too often they decided to expand beyond the scope of personal influence and invariable went bankrupt. This was because there was much more to managing a multimillion dollar operation than one below that threshold . Now apply that thought to writing….Its one thing to juggle everything in your head when working on a small project. However, when you take on something big, when you can’t juggle all the balls in the operating range of your awareness, then you need to have mechanims to manage what is happening at the operational and strategic levels of a longer, larger and more complex tyte of work . So this brings us back to the military model which essentially says, “Before you go off half-cocked make sure you’ve figured out the best course of action. Then write an implementing plan and finally execute that plan making sure the minions are on board. If this doesn’t sound like writing a novel, you just aren’t paying attention. This is how you get from where you are to where you want to be and it requires some developmental thought designed to chart the course on how you propose to get there. |
| Defining Character I do fairly well explaining things as long as the subject deals with the science of writing. However, when it comes to explaining the art I am in deep kimchee. This is not only my problem but one for anyone who tries to explain the art of anything. I have a pile of references and when I get in trouble I use these to help me focus… but you know what? Writing about the science of defining characters is like sticking Jelly to the wall. I use the example of my watercolor teacher showing me how to paint a leaf. It was a process for which there was no real explanation…. She could do it and demonstrated it before my eyes and I couldn’t approach her skill… even though I tried over and over again. However, my leaf painting did improve somewhat so I guess that hope springs eternal. Now the point I’m trying to make is that all writers know something about character development and I could sit here and try and intellectualize the process and all I would accomplish is some head scratching. Like these references I read on character development. I have concluded that it is beyond the scope of the human mind to intellectually give birth to a character any more than it’s possible to think a baby into existence. When the time comes they will emerge and the best you can hope for is to be ready to catch them, and offer a little nurture. They are the unborn children of your spirit filled with darkness and light destined to never actually walk the pathways of this dimension. They are sometimes mean spirited and sometimes sublime and without the chains you bind them with, they soon return to the nether world, from whence they came. So brothers and sisters, fellow writers, let their vapor rise up from your soul and walk the corridors of your imagination. Give echo to their footsteps, authenticity to their amorphous form and make them stand taller than life. Let their darkness fill your story or their purity glisten like the dew. Let them stretch and yawn briefly taking note of your presence as they stare with awe about the bewildering world of your persona. Catch them while you can in the in the key strokes of your fingers and give them immortality in words. Don’t make them an intellectual exercise. Start with something generic from your past and coax them from the dark world of fancy into the bright light of day. Take note of who they represent and what they stand for. As their faces begin to emerge from past experiences use their plastic visage as the batter in your cupcake pan. Give them the flesh of believability and embellish them in robes of grandeur. Let them behave plausibly but fill the mold to overflowing. They need to germinate as a transient seed and slowly grow bigger than life. Begin with a memory or a stereotype and push them to the limits of awe. Don’t get caught up in trying to figure out what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Trying to decide if the story line begets the character or if the character is the genesis of the story. It happens both ways. You get an idea for a story and like a casting director you go out in search of the actors. Or you can have this interesting character that you get to talking and they tell you the story. Or you can get both working concurrently and let them feed off each other as they mature before your very eyes. In my class I tell the student to write a vignette between 1K and 3K words. Then in the prompt I throw in half a dozen things I want them to include. Then I turn them loose. The catch is that they have to come up with something by the following week and the subsequent vignettes share the same characters and story line. In this process they must settle on who the Central Character will be. Now I won’t tell you how often students identify a central character who is anything but central, or how often a supporting character upstages the central character. What is important is to show who they are and what they stand for and the changes that take place at this important phase in developing a story. It begins by showing them doing something and ends as they mature into something different. |
| Themes I have been thinking about having two types of objectives. One would be like a lecture where I elaborated on a teaching point to try and head off any questions and the other would be a practical exercise that would require the student to demonstrate that they understood one or more of the objectives that had been covered. This is pretty old hat to teaching professionals who have been at this a long time , however this practicum type of objective is something that Karen wanted me to think about as we were kicking the can for the Workshop down the road. So I have taken a different approach on this one because it is an area that gives students trouble and it involves shades of meaning, specifically, what is the difference between a Dramatic Premise and a Theme? These are not two words with same meaning. They are different. If the Dramatic Premise (DP) is the keel of the story then the Themes are the ribs. The difference is that there can only be one DP but there can be multiple themes. Themes are much like subtopics and the DP is the Main Topic. Rather than try and explain this in a definitional sense, I decided to write a small story synopsis and ask the students to see if they could pick these components out. When I finished there were some other ones I also decided to check on and see if they could identify these as well. See if you can identify the DP, (A positive and a negative one), Themes, Central Character, Supporting Characters, Life Changing Event and the Three Crisis in the story. REMEMBER! Identify a DP, using the template, “____leads to ____.” Woe is Me Once upon a time there was an overweight young girl named Lucy, who ate too much of all the wrong stuff. In Wall Mart one day she bought a book called Eating Responsibly. Every night she read this book for inspiration. Unfortunately inspiration wasn’t enough. Later that week, she heard two of her friends joking about her weight problem. She burst into tears and was sent to the School Nurse‘s office. The Nurse gave her a pamphlet entitled Nutrition. Every night she studied it along with her inspirational book. Still she couldn’t break the cycle and found herself eating between meals. Her personal life was a mess and eating eased her anxiety. On top of everything else, her boyfriend, Frank, dumped her after class one day saying she was too fat. This trauma caused her severe anguish and suicidal thoughts, until she resolved to turn her life around. She began by deciding she would only eat three nutritious meals a day. Her newly acquired self- discipline paid dividends and kept her from gaining any more weight. Her test came when she went to McDonalds with her friends. She was very proud of herself, only ordering a glass of water. As time went on there was good news and bad news. While her weight wasn’t increasing, neither was she shedding any of those excess pounds. Another setback happened when she called her EX pleading to take her back. He rebuffed the poor girl, telling her he might reconsider if she lost fifty (50) lbs . “Woe is me!” she lamented. A friend told her about Weight Watchers. She signed up and the program offered classes on Monday and Wednesday night. The first was “Setting up a Diet.” The second was “Counting Calories”. For the next six months she religiously attended those classes, learned the teaching points and took them to heart. At the end of six months, after losing sixty (60) pounds, she ran into Frank. “Wow! What a knockout,” he said, “How about the movies Saturday night?” “Sorry, I have other plans,” she replied . Write the DP, (A positive and negative one), Themes, Central Character, Supporting Characters, Life Changing Event and the Three Crisis in the story. |
| The Dramatic Premise I'm getting to the part of the class where I’ll be discussing many of the strategic undercurrents that swirl about a story. At the top of the list is the Dramatic Premise (DP). A DP is the heartbeat of the work. It’s something you need to be passionate about….something that gets you spun up. As you write you need to keep this notion constantly in mind and ask yourself… is this part I am currently writing, resonating with the dramatic premise?. I need to digress for just a minute and remind my readers that the Workshop I will be teaching is called “Exploratory Writing.” In this course you're not yet actually writing a longer work. You are leisurely exploring some of the areas you intend to write about, following this workshop. So, much of what you think you already know is being put on hold as you decide the best way to write that future piece of literature. Indeed that is problem statement for this workshop and it eads, “The student will determine the best way to go about writing “Bozo the Clown.” You might not have a clue at this point what the Dramatic Premise is and that’s OK. The workshop is designed to help you discover what it is. What you are doing with a dramatic premise is putting a gloved ultimatum to the reader. It is a challenge….It says in essence… “This story is about the way people behave….You might find the material troubling and if you do, ask yourself “Why?“ Maybe its because of a troubling past experience or maybe something so disconcerting you don’t even want to contemplate it, much less write about it. For example say it deals with a serial killing and the whole notion scares the heck out of you. Still you feel passionately about your Central Character and this is part of; her story. It is a story that makes your heart go pitter-pat, pitter pat and is going to have the reader sitting on the edge of their seat. The audience will be affected the same way you are because your passion as a writer is contagious. The emotions you experience as you write will imprint on the pages and when the reader enters vicariously into you character they will be as frightened about aspects of the story as you are. The consumers of your work are big boys and girls each with a judgement and will of their own. They want to see that life changing experience in a characters life as if they were experiencing it for themselves. They want to decide how they would have handled the same situation. What we are discussing here is what separates humanity from the animal kingdom at large. As humans we can learn things through imagination without having to experience them first hand on the playground of real life. When reader’s pick up your novel they are embarking on a journey that will become real. For a brief period your characters will cease to be figments, and come alive, providing a validation of sorts to the reader's life. The Dramatic Premise is the backbone of the story….analogous to the keel of a ship. You can’t see it when you take that cruise on Caravel but it’s down there. It is traditionally described as a relationship between two key ideas linked by an active verb. For example Idea #1 (Active Verb) Idea #2 1. Love conquers everything 2. Jealously Kills the one we love 3. Suspicion undermines the trust we have in one another 4. Rage drives the human spirit from our lives 5. Kindness soothes the pain of reality The key is this needs to be a relationship that you feel strongly about….Strongly enough to pour your creative energies into a serious work such as a novel, stage or screen drama. It is your reality check and when you realize the story is getting off track. An alarm bell clangs…a wake-up call buzzes on the speaker phone of your judgment. The dreamlike voice whispers, “That dumb-assed muse of yours is leading you astray.“ There are two types of Premise. One that tells you what to do and one that tell you what not to do. These are called positive and negative premises. For my part I tend to like the positive ones. For example “A loving heart makes someone a better person…. A helping hand leads to a better world. Prayer leads to a sense of humility and rightousness.” Negative ones are reflected in #2-#4 listed above. They go on and on and each one should be a unique expression of something you strongly believe in. This is what your work is really all about and a constant reminder that your story is on the right track. In the military one of the first steps in the planning process was the Estimate of the Situation. The first step in the Estimate is defining the problem. In order to avoid a go/no go outcome and instead have a number of discrete possibilities a planner uses the standard template… “The problem is to determine the best way to ……” This is opposed to one that might read…“We need decide between X and Y.“ The same idea holds true for a dramatic premise. Don’t say “Lying is wrong“ or that “Greed is self-serving or that God is great.” This sort of premise puts you in a box with two choices. Rather say something like “hope leads to an eternal optimism. Charity leads to a kinder world…. This sort of open ended relationship offers infinitely more room for the themes and possibilities. In the Workshop, you are attempting to discover what this premise is. You come up with a “Straw Man” and begin from there. This straw man becomes a working assumption and you follow it until something better comes along or until your initial gut hunch proves to be correct. So, nothing is etched in stone to begin with and you latch onto the coat-tails of your muse and follow along for the ride. |
| On Writing After the Napoleonic Wars, a Prussian General named Clausewitz wrote a book entitled On War. His claim to fame was an idea that there are three levels to war. He named these, The Strategic, The Operational and the Tactical levels. In the Tactical classification he put battles. These were fought on a piece of terrain and were local in nature. In the Operational classification he put campaigns. These were a string of battles that secured some sort of regional objective. In the Strategic classification he put the whole world in which the war was being waged…. This involved one or more regions that encompassed the entire geographical influence that was acting on the outcome of the armed conflict… Since this was my discipline for many productive years and since I have a somewhat connective mind, it soon became apparent that these ideas do not apply to war alone but many aspects of the life that surrounds us. One of these I am beginning to learn applies to the writing of a novel, stage or screen drama. In writing this is how I see the above classifications applying. Tactical Writing: This includes spelling grammar, the writing of sentences, paragraphs and chapter sized works. Operational Writing: This involves the stringing together of chapters into one or more volumes. Strategic writing: Involves choosing something to write about, Central Characters, Want Needs of Desires, a Dramatic premise, a life changing event and a series of crisis that build to a climax, each one more intensive than the last. At WDC I see a lot of Tactical Writing taking place. It is extremely important that a writer to master this level of writing. Still, like in war, all great tactical leaders don't have what it takes to be effective campaigners and all campaigners are not strategic thinkers. A writer however must be able to manage all three of these components and it is a huge mistake to believe that these are sequential phases. Strategic and Operational planning must happen concurrent with one another. What good is it to have great tactical and operational planning when suddenly something strategic happens and the whole notion is tossed out the window. the history of war is rife with examples where this has happened. In my class, The One Act Play, it became evident that there was a lot of strategic and operational thinking that had to take place in a developmental phase. Just because someone could write a beautiful piece of flash fiction or short story did not mean they could simply devote a bit more of the same and also be successful with a novel or drama. I am not an expert in the Nano process and I know that for many who participate they do a great deal of developmental work. However, I'd be interested in seeing how these developmental structures and techniques dovetail into a writer’s operational and strategic thinking. It is my view, the operational and strategic components of a longer work must happen concurrently. That is that the developmental process must look carefully at and they require a significant expenditure of time to make sure all the structures and ingredients are in place before the serious writing begins in Phase 2. Developmental writing is an important consideration and it involves much more than a simple outline. In my Exploratory Writing Class sketches will be made in prose in much the same manner as a fine artist does preliminary drawings for a painting. These are the six contest vignettes that are written. In this exercise the writer is searching for validation as to who the Central Character is going to be, what the story line will encompass, the dramatic premise, themes and how all the necessary ingredients are going to express themselves. From the six(6) vignettes, a story thread is then extracted and in the final week the whole effort is drawn together into a comprehensive outline or writing plan. This type of groundwork, I’m hoping could evolve into a process that will be useful in preparing anyone interested for next year’s NANO extravaganza. |
| The Wellspring of Creativity I have some good news for my army of readers.  particularly those of you who suffer from the dreaded writer’s cramp. I am going to tell you how to come up with a great story line without the agony of pulling a thread from your almighty brain. The answer is…”Go back to the classics!”I hear a woosh of disappointment. “Shucks! “I hear a voice mutter in the wilderness….Not another “Snow White” or the “Sound of Music.” Another voice cries out….”I don’t run retreads, Mr. Goodfellow…. I pride myself in a little imagination and creativity.“ “And so you should,” I think to myself with another “So you should.” I am not talking here about dusting off another old story line, I’m talking about checking out a well uncovered long ago and still full of water. “Huh?“ Let me explain.Great writers when they get on a rip leave behind wells that are still full of water. Go back a couple of blogs to the one I wrote on Diagramming a story. Take that template and apply it to the best screenplay you ever saw or book you ever read. For heavens sake don’t use “Real Steel” use something different. But diagram it like I did Real Steel. Step two. Now you remember how I am always harping on writers getting it wrong on central characters… Let me tell you, great writers throughout history and down to the present wrote some classic stuff but often missed the boat on who the central character should have been. I mean there were some characters that never got the role who should have. As you diagram your favorite piece of literature you will see who I am referring to and say to yourself, with a gasp… “Oh my Gawd! Percy’s right.“ If the story had been written through the eyes of Susie Spotless it would have been entirely different and Joe Bazats is a whole lot more interesting than BOZO the clown. Why don’t I write about this other character who never got a shot at the big time. So that is a nugget I offer as a gift to all my friends who have endured my blogs and keep peering into a disjointed mind from underneath the carnival tent. As a matter of fact I will take the secret even one step further. It doesn’t have to be a great historical or contemporary writer. One of my favorite writers here at WDC is AMAY. The reason I like her writing so much is that she does well what I am always striving to do. First she animates her writing with sensual prose….I have said before that I think our human sexuality is the engine of our creativity. Anyway AMAY writes wonderful stories and as appropriate goes boldly and walks with ease in areas where most have too much baggage to write comfortably about. As I was reading one of her stories recently I thought to myself, this sounds like a Janet Evanovitch, who isn’t riding the clutch with a heavy left foot. She uses the language that is appropriate and it doesn’t sound obscene.. It sounds absolutely in character with the people and the setting and the sensual prose is an accent and not the main course. This contest, Sensual Prose 2, is one of the best on the WDC site and is struggling to stay afloat. Now we compete in this same contest and she always wins and the reason is because she deserves to. Anyway she wrote one piece about an editor of children’s books at a major publishing company who gets an assignment from her boss to try and rehabilitate the work of a mystery writer told to amp up his work a bit. The Publisher paid the writer a big advance on his next book. The writer in response bought a porn movie and used that as a model and as you might guess it simply didn’t work. So the heroine in this vignette had to step in and try and get things straightened out. Now this is where I thought about Janet E and her Stephanie Plum series. What if Stephanie had only written one serial of her best selling continuing saga. This is what I am getting at. I told AMAY she had a dynamite story line in this germ of an idea. To take the Evanovitch model and run with her completely different take. That there was plenty of water left in the well of the story she unearthed and breathed life into. I doubt that she will take advantage of my advice but here is the point I am trying to make. Writers die of thirst paddling around in a lake full of fresh water. Holed up in your cubicle, sitting down in the basement, writing in bed in the wee hours of the morning is not where you need to be coming up with a story line. As Victor Hugo so aptly put it…You have to keep the pitcher of your mind full of water… and the well from where your creative juices spring is in one sense inside your “…you know what?“ and in the other scattered about in the world around us. The thread or rope and bucket are inside and the well is in the back yard. If you are looking for where to find a great story… part is in the compulsion we have to make babies and part is in the world around us… in springs uncovered long ago which still await, in the undeveloped material of the greats and not so great. Don’t try and make writing such an intellectual exercise. Most great ideas are not buried in the caverns of your soul, …they are scattered about the sidewalks of your hopes, and dreams, driven by obscenity and wrapped in the written material you’ve been reading for a long time. |
| A Changing Central Character (Wanging with the key board) I have participated in a number of contests in the past year and even tried to get one up and going. My one previous attempt failed to catch on. So bad did it flop that there was not even a single entry. Now I don’t believe in celebrating failure, however, it is a great teacher if you take the time to consider, that maybe there was something you did wrong or neglected to do that contributed to the demise of your hopes and expectations. I concluded that there is not much fallow ground in the old contest garden and it takes some cultivation and a lot of seeds to get one to sprout. (…Not to mention coaxing one to maturity) It takes writers to sustain a contest and they are a precious commodity indeed. … One of the things a writer needs to consider in a longer work are several important factors. First is the starting snapshot, then a life changing event and finally a series of crisis that will loom up along the way. I have already talked about these in some detail and rather than repeat myself will now express a truism that pertains to both a reader and audience. They want to see some change. It may be for the better, it may be for the worse but change is what they are looking for. Nothing is more boring than a central character who fails to change in the course of the story… and this happens more than most writers are willing to admit. In my one act play class one of my best tactical writers had a central character who simply failed to change. The CC was the same when the drama finished as she was when it started. The only thing that happened to her was she kicked the can a little further down the road of life. You do not want to let that happen in your story. You want to make that life changing event gut wrenching. Think about your own life and the anguish you felt on the cusp of such a traumatic experience. If it was truly a life changer it forced modifications in who you were. This is what the consumer of your literary creation is looking for. CHANGE! In the furnace of adversity a melt down begins to happen and the CCs character becomes transformed. This is fascinating stuff to watch and read about and it will raise an eyebrow or cause someone to lean forward in their seat. So a writer needs to show this. Anybody who has ever seen metal worked in a forge could not help but notice that the process took some time. A first the piece of steel just lay in the coals, but then it started to turn red and finally it began to melt. When it turned red the smith began to bang on it with the hammer. He didn’t want it to turn into a molten puddle and in same sense neither does the writer. Instead wait until the time is right and the character becomes malleable and then begin your Wanging. The time window opens when the first crisis looms and closes when the final hoopla is brought to climax….Then the smith, holds the creation up for everyone to see and dashes it into the water….Voila! as the steam clears there emerges something new and different, something is reformed and born again. The reader claps their hands in delight and feels something akin to a religious experience. In the process of all this happening they have been privileged to be able to see the change that has been wrought, with each blow, (stroke of the pen) one image after the other, … served up on the video screen of imagination. The audience watched spellbound, jaws hanging open, nodding their heads in acclamation, thinking (Yes! Yes!) This is what you have to do with your story….Show that change that is happening. If you do you’re onto something, if you don’t…(Do I really have to go there?) |
| Vibrancy and a Sense of Urgency I dreamed about this blog last night. This morning I woke up and knew exactly what I was going to write but it was one of those mornings filled with more important things to do. So here I sit when things finally slow down, darn near spent from the days activities. Vaguely I remember thinking that one of the strengths of the Exploratory Writing course was being able to go off on tangents, to follow your muse and just see where she was headed. Sometimes a muse leads somewhere. Then again, sometimes she doesn’t In the military there are two steps to the planning process. The first is figuring out what is best and the second is planning how you intend to do it. This workshop I am writing embodies the first of those two principles. You can’t just start writing about the first possibility that comes to mind. It might be sort of half baked and fall far short of the character and story potential. If I learned anything in my first two classes teaching the One Act Play it was that a little bit of development work could go a long way. For example if you just start out to write a story you might think you know who the central character is but I guarantee if you act solely on first impulse you will get just past the point of no return and realize the story you’re writing is not going where you want and your Central Character is something less than central….Instead, in the workshop possibilities begin to open up that are much more intriguing and characters emerge that upstage the CC you started out with. In the exploratory workshop then you can begin with an attitude that the development part is going to be an audition of sorts to find out who the CC is going to be and the direction the story is headed. Then in phase 2, after you settle on these answers you are ready to firm up an outline and follow the story line that is now much more clearly defined. Finally you will know how it ends and that is huge before you start pushing the pencil or pounding the keys. Once you have written the six vignettes and developed three characters (or more) you have a pretty good idea, much better than you did to start with… as you looked out the window and lamented your writer’s cramp.. “Woe is me. “ How much easier it is, to write these little exploratory essays and see who is worthy of the role in this story that is going to take a whole lot of pain and effort to develop. To settle instead on the thread of a tale that has some complexity and elegance rather than the first thing that came to mind. A story line needs some vitality. It needs to vibrate like a motorcycle that rumbles to life and resonates with a deep throbbing engine. When you pop the clutch, as a writer , it needs to accelerate with power and urgency.., a rush of excitement needs to animate the writer. It it gets you amped up there’s a good chance it will have the same effect on your reader. Exploratory writing is the only way to go. Its fun and when you finish you have some food for thought in the lauder that will be sustaining through that long winter of creative despair. |
| Drawing a Diagram At this point the complexity of developing a good story line really begins to expand. If a writer were to analyze it he/she might chart them together on a piece of paper. I will use the Real Steel example. 1. Synopsis of Story: A Down and out fighter, who fights robots, is on the skids and reaches the bottom of his profession. At his point he winds up with custody of his son for the summer. He is forced to examine his past and decide what's really important…. His dissipated lifestyle or the love, respect and esteem of his Son. 2. Sketch of Central Character: A reprobate in his late forties leading a dissipated life in an exciting world of fighting robots. He is an ex boxer who has compromised everything in order to gratify his selfish needs and maintain his self esteem. He hustles, deceives, cons, lies and finds no behavior too despicable if it will get him the money to pursue his dream of being a top tier Robot Fighting manager and promoter. 3. CC’s Wants Needs and Desires: Wants to be at the top tier of the Robot Fighting world. He desires the love of his girlfriend and needs the support shop she runs in the repair of fighting robots. He needs money to support his professional addiction and is constantly scheming ways to get it. 4. Life Changing Event: His wife dies and he winds up with his Son for the summer. When his son arrives the CC must reassess his values. He sees in his son a mirror image of himself as a younger man. They share the same devotion to the sport of Robot fighting. The event forces him to choose between the love, esteem and respect in their father son relationship or continue in his traditional character and behaviors. The CC has totally compromised any values he might of had. His son however, still has a sense of innocence, decency and fair play. A conflict between the two begins to develop over principle and the question of the ends justifying the means. At this point in the writing process we begin to see the synergism between the components of a good story. It isn’t just one thing or an array of things but the synergism that is taking place between the parts. Using a diagrammatic technique such as shown above is a good way to see if the thread of the story has the components that will lead to success. |
| A life Changing Event A good story begins at the “Good Part.” I've mentioned this several times before but now it's become a lesson objective. It's the theme of Lesson 2 in the Exploratory Writing Workshop. It's a major component of the prompt that will debut next week. The basis for the notion is that for the most part a person's life is rather uneventful. We get up in the morning, go through the bathroom routine, go to work, come home, eat and go to bed. Still one rare occasions we face a Life Changing Event. It's in one of these where all good stories begin. Something happens to jerk the CC out of their rut and set them on a new course. When this happens the CC must step back and assess what's going on. How will this event effect what their Wants Needs and Desires and what has been happening up to this point? Are there life style habits that have to change, are there some character traits that must undergo modification? Added to this is the certainty that there will be fresh obstacles to overcome and our past behaviors must adjust to some new changes in circumstances. What this means to the writer is that in the time line of his/her story this event must be introduced early on, yet not before we get a look at the CC and what makes this character tick, and the world of the story is where all this is happening. It will have to come early but perhaps not immediately. However, the writer should not defer it three chapters into the novel. The reader or audience will start fidgeting long before that happens. So in the timeline of the story this becomes a pivotal point in the CCs life... one that changes everything. Often in the One Act Play class I see anything but this Life Changing Event…What I do see is a stream of conscious that ambles along that makes me yawn and say, “So What?“ If this is a story about mowing the lawn, or selling lemonade or a recollection of someone’s first date then this might make for an interesting vignette or flash fiction but it simply won't have the stamina for a longer and more serious piece of work. No, the reader or audience is looking for certain things to come up front and a life changing event is one of them. And if the reader has some age and maturity they are going to know what that sort of event looks like, smells like, sounds like and feels like. They will have that something known as experience and though it hasn’t happened many times, it's something they remember at the visceral level. They will know if this Life Changing Event has a ring of authenticity. In the screen play Real Steel the CC is moving along, fat dumb and happy, in his downward spiral of debauchery and is close to an all time low...analogous to a drunk waking up in an alley with a Hobo urinating on his head. At this juncture he gets word from a lawyer that his ex-wife has died and that her sister wants to adopt his son. “No problemooo” our hero exclaims and then one thing leads to another and he winds up with his son for the summer. This is the life changing event in the movie. This is going to create all kinds of turmoil in the world of the CC and everything that revolves around it or spins off is a foot note. Some exciting footnotes but footnotes none the less. I use the example of this movie a lot... not because I think it’s necessarily Oscar quality material but because those who wrote the novel and screen-play knew the craft, inside and out. It’s chock full of vivid examples of how to go about writing a good story. |
| The Before Snapshot One of the things a reader or audience is looking for is growth and change in the Central Character. (CC) In order to gage this evolutionary process it is necessary to establish an initial image. The diet and exercise industry accepts this as a central axiom. How many times do we have to see it, in before and after shots, the change in people who lost weight or decided to start lifting weights? In character development you have convey early on what the fundamental problem is that the CC faces, their want need or desire, then provide some visualization of physical appearance and clues as to the sort of person he/she is. Then as the story progresses the reader gets to see the effect the change is having based upon the initial look they received. There are several ways to do this. The first is through exposition and narrative. The writer describes the CC’s physical appearance, and tells a little about their past and shows and tells a little about what they stand for. There was a popular country song several years ago that had a line “You gotta stand for something or you’ll fall for anything…..You gotta be a man and not a puppet on a string. Well this is what the audience is trying to assess as they watch the central character in action and do their initial assessment. Now a good story is supposed to begin at the good part. A person leads a life that is usually not particularly exceptional except for a moment or two where they stand out… for the most part it is rather uneventful and not terribly exciting. However, there are moments in most everybody’s life where they face a life changing event and the story needs to show this event early on and at the same time the type of person the CC was when they went into it. The screen play “Real Steel” starts out where the CC is transitioning into middle age and it looks like his "prime time" is close to becoming "Middle Life." He has led a dissipated, self centered and selfish life. The writers of this screen play (novel) did a good job of showing a before snapshot. He is seen driving a dilapidated old cargo semi, sleeping in the cab and his spaced is littered with empty beer cans. He awakens with a hang-over. We get to see him in need of a shave as he goes about his daily routine of going from county fair to county fair with his fighting robot. Then we get to see his gambling nature and his need to impress the ladies and how he hustles to make enough money to put some gas in the truck and travel expenses in his pocket. The writers of this movie knew the art of story telling because the picture they initially paint is classical and provides a good baseline for the measuring and comparison of what is coming. In a screenplay the motion picture camera and recording devices are superb for doing this. There is not a huge requirement for exposition or dialogue. The audience just sits back and watches this CC in action, the way he moves about his space, the modus opperendi he uses in his vocation, what it is that catches his eye and things that motivate him from day to day. In a stage play this character would be less visual and language would be used to a greater extent to paint his character. This is the big difference between the two genres. In a movie the visual aspects dominate and in a stage play the words dominate. However, both use a combination of sight and sound. In a novel there is no physical sight or sound. There is only imaginative sight and sound and instead of playing on the video and audio of a consumers awareness, the symbols inscribed on a page feed into and illuminate the reader’s imagination. So the way the story is displayed is different but regardless of media, a story is still a story. It has a certain structure, plot and ingredients that are amazingly consistent and unchanging. So in my class, Exploratory Writing, developing the story line, characters and dramatic ingredients is the same regardless of what genre the writer will ultimately use to spin the yarn. This is why a development process is so important to a longer work and where the writing must focus to begin with on the before snapshot of the CC on the verge of a life changing event. |
| Back Story One of the things I always find fascinating about writing is the back story that underlies the tale being told. Sure the author gives you glimpses to keep you current with the story line but an exciting piece of literature makes you wonder about a whole lot more than you are being told. I have come to the conclusion that a writer’s life is inexplicably tied up in the stories they tell. This is not to imply that someone who writes about a serial killer has a deep seated desire to kill, but rather if that is a part of the story he/she takes their own life experiences, to the degree that they can, and uses these experiences to give credibility to the subject being told. As a writer, about the only thing you have an intimate understanding about is the life you’ve led It’s sort of like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. She wrote about a fantasy world but the characters were anything but figments of her imagination. The lion, scarecrow, tin man the witches were all adaptations of people she knew in life. This is the way it is with successful writers. They write characters that draw much of their authenticity from people they’ve known. In your minds eye you already know these characters. They come from a stable of the people we have known and once the writer settles on a particular model, then all they need to do is refine the image. If they have a photo of the real deal that is an excellent starting point however, a character does not have to be a mirror image or a carbon copy. As I search about for a mental image I ultimately stumble on a picture, a cartoon, a caricature, a porcelain figurine or painting and when I see it, I know it . “Ah ha!” I say to myself….That’s Bedelia or that’s Manny Hardin. So the back-story really begins in the writer’s life experiences and the characters become real if they are modeled upon real people, someone you once met them at at point in time and really gave you an eyeful. Another thing I like to do is find an object my character is fond of. It might be a cane, or a weapon, or a hanky dropped by his lady love….whatever it is I get a replica and keep it handy. I touch it, examine it closely and become familiar with it. In the house I carry it around pretending it’s real and p[retending it was once one of my character’s prized possessions. Your subconscious doesn’t know the difference between what you imagination says is real and what the physical world claims reality to be. Huh? It’s true, think about it. Then I get the characters to talking and while they ramble on at first, they eventually get around to telling me the story….A story that fits into the greater context of the back story. Now it is OK if you embellish the character, perhaps give his life a different turn, however you start with the mold and keep in check your desire to venture too far into “Never Never Land.” As long as I sitck to a world I know something about I always seem to be on fairly solid ground. When I was younger I read the Hobbit, then the Lord of the Rings and sometime afterwards the Silmarillion, which was a history of the Elves. The Trilogy which I thought was huge and sweeping turned to be but a page in the history of the Elves. Tolkien spent his life living in this imaginary world… a piece of his awareness dwelled there and even though it was a fantasy world his characters rang true because they were modeled after those he saw around him. So I understand that my tale is going to be a small piece of a bigger world I already know. Now comes the hard part. Here the writer has to learn how to show the reader enough of this world so they understand the environment of the story and what happened earlier that has helped shape what is getting ready to happen. The trick is how you go about doing this without putting your reader to sleep. If you devote the first three chapters to back-story I can all but promise you that the reader is not going to finish the book. Then again you can’t wait until halfway thorough before you start providing some back story. So what are you going to do…Ah hah you say…I’ll use “FLASHBACKS“ That’s certainly a technique and a possibility that works for many. The reality is however you have to start feeding in the essential back-story from the beginning. The operative word here is “…feeding in.“ Don’t go on from page one ad nauseous cranking out back-story. Start with some action and work it in as you go, a little bit at a time, giving the audience enough of an understanding so they know what’s going on but not so much it bogs the story down. It might even tweak their curiousity. |
| A character’s Want, Need or Desire. I wrote a lecture yesterday for my new course….The Exploratory Writing Workshop and since WDC is a place where people write I think I will share some of the things going through my head. Yesterday I talked about a character’s problem. That they can have superficial problems and deep seated ones. A story is about how a CC deals with them. Also that the hidden problems are powerful motive forces. How they lurk in the back story and how the difference between truth and facade creates friction and how a Consumer of Literature (COL) gets caught up in it. Today the discussion will shift to a character’s want need or desire (WND). Maybe some of you remember the famous song from the Musical, “All I want is a room somewhere….” Well the reader or audience is also very interested in what this “WANT” is. This is what propels the central character along the surface of the story and the undertow that swirls beneath. Actually It doesn’t really matter what that compelling need is or even if it isn’t in someone’s best interests. It is their passion, a motive force that gets them up in the morning and energizes the day, drawing them towards some conscious or unconscious goal. There is nothing really Freudian about a WND. It is what the CC will show you in a heart beat, wears on their sleeve or is stuffed up it…. It is the thing they are angling for and are determined to have happen. This does not have to be a physical need….it can be spiritual or emotional. it's a compelling drive to get off your butt and do something to make things better in life, a desire to get out of that rut a person gets stuck in. The reader is waiting…this is the drama…will the CC get what they want? After you have a Central Character in mind and the reader catches a glimmer of their problem, (superficial or underlying) you want to show what motivates them. A WND that is unfulfilled is a powerful force, it is a clash between expectation and reality and the reader perks up when they see it. Oh my goodness gracious, they say to themselves, something exciting is getting ready to happen. This realization is frequently a precursor to all the crisis that will soon rise in opposition to CC’s attempt to get life back on track. We’ll spend three weeks dealing with all these roadblocks, that rear their heads in opposition, but first, the writer needs to show the WND and some of the resources the CC has at their disposal… the strength of their will, persistence and commitment being high on the list. A story is about frustration, conflict and turmoil. The CC has this compelling drive to do something that is being constantly thwarted. The CC’s will is the irresistible force and all those crisis become the seemingly immovable objects. The two collide in a crash that keeps the reader riveted into the story. In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara wants her sister’s fiancé. She needs to make sure “…I’ll never go hungry again,“ and has a big time desire for Ashley Wilkes. “Oh my Gosh….Poor Melody…..Sue Ellen, or anyone who stands between Scarlet’ and her wants needs or desires. Margret Mitchell write her classic and gave new meaning to the WND component of storytelling. It’s the grist of a good tale and the sooner the audience realizes it the sooner they will form an attachment to the CC. And that is exactly what the writer is trying to achieve…that emotional attachment, that latching on between the reader or audience. The writer needs to get the consumer spun up and emotionally involved. .. To develop that vicarious attachment, so they become as deeply committed as the CC is. The central character is also the point of view (POV) character. The story being told is being conveyed through the eyes of the CC. The CC is who the work is about and the motive force behind the story. So early on the writer needs to get busy about what the (WND) is and if this is something the writer fees passionately and can communicate through experience, so much the better. Think about most every unforgettable story you ever saw or read. You can bet the CC had a bee in their bonnet or an axe to grind; And the consumers soon discovered it was something they could relate to and find some sympathy for. |
| Designing an On Line Course I have been intrigued about the design of an On Line Course ever since I wrote one … The One Act Play Course. In the process I got to thinking about how an On line course differs from a traditional classroom and how an E-Workshop differs from a physical workshop. There were some aspects of both I felt were advantages and disadvantages. For example the convenience of an On Line class gave it a distinct advantage over a traditional workshop and the conventional classroom gave a student a human being to interface with. So it seemed to me a designer needed to develop the inherent advantages and try to compensate for the lack of a real live teacher. My first attempt was to take other classes and model mine after what I felt were some of the best features they had to offer. As I got some experience under my belt I started getting ideas of how an E-Class could be made more interesting and take better advantage of some of the features that WDC had to offer. In developing my latest class, The Exploratory Writing Workshop I decided to have a contest as one of the design features. I saw a lot of people participating in contests at WDC and writing some pretty good material. Often this caused me to think, WOW! If this writer got involved in a larger work they certainly have the potential to make a success of it. There needed to be a class that launched these flash fiction and short story writers towards bigger and better things. Still what I was seeing in the One Act Play course was a lack of discipline and not all that clear an understanding of how to optimize the science of some of the longer forms of literature. What I was seeing was that somewhere beyond a short story the complexity of the form expanded beyond the capability of the mind to manage it without some developmental work and prior planning. The Nano writers understand this and there are a number of groups that work to provide a framework and structure before these marathon writers suit up and take off running. Without this developmental work and a structure there has to be a drop off in quality. However the problem goes well beyond this.. A writer needs a good story line to start with and well developed characters….Then they need write a few vignettes to see where some of the germs of their ideas are going and get settled in before they go racing off into the sunset. What struck me was that as talented as some were they needed to develop a new mind set when taking on a larger work. They needed a launch platform as a jumping off point. This class would be as traditional as I could make it. There would be lesson plans with objectives and daily lectures. These lectures would be posted five days a week and attempt to simulate a student teacher rapport. In all there would be eight lessons and forty Lectures. Each week a lesson would have the objectives incorporated in a prompt that would define the requirements of the weekly contest vignette. From Wednesday to Sunday would be a daily lecture that covered one or more of the weekly objectives. The student could continue to write vignettes in their comfort zone but be guided by a structured method designed to head them in the right direction and get them off to a good start, with the structure and ingredients necessary to writing a novel, screen or stage drama. The start point would be character development and understanding the importance of discovering the Central Character in a Story (CC). A CC is often misunderstood by a writer and frequently late arriving onto the scene. One of the reasons readers often find it difficult getting into a story is because the CC is not in evidence. By central that is what I mean, CENTRAL…not a character who creeps around the fringe of a story peeking in the window. This is someone who owns the story and needs to plop down early, right in the middle of things… In my One Act Play course I was amazed at the problems students had in discovering who the CC was. Often they would start out thinking they knew when it was really somebody else. So I thought why not let the student follow their muse to begin with and get to know their characters before deciding who to pick for the Oscar winning role. This was a real advantage of the format because at the end of the workshop nothing was locked in cement and the serious writing had yet to really begin. So at the start the student could assume that any of the characters had the potential for becoming the CC. So I’ll tell the students to think about who this special person is. Have them develop in their mind’s eye as sharp an image as possible. To cast about in books or magazines or photographs for an image that represents what they he/she looks like. Then on their first vignette start with that image at the top of the page. So that’s the plan. For the next month I’ll be keeping you posted on how everything is coming. |
| Lipstick on the Pig In my One Act Play Workshop last term I had an amazing student. In lesson 2 we were doing Character Development and I challenged the students to acquire an image of their Central and Supporting Characters. Her approach to doing the lesson was finding photographs and pasting them to the top of the Character profile templates. When I saw her work my jaw dropped open. For about an hour I closely examined each photo and read several times the accompanying templates. When I started reading the acts of her play I had a vivid image of these characters and could picture them walking about, delivering their dialogues and monologues. This got me to thinking about some of my own vignettes and short stories about elves in my Essence and Stones Serials. Sometimes I read a contest prompt and think about one of the episodes. The weakness of these, when I wrote them, was that they were written with a stage drama mindset and not for the mind’s eye of a prose reader’s imagination. So when I saw a prompt that fit some earlier material I want back and focused specifically at translating from a stage to a short story genre. In the process I had acquired some images of female elves from some of our local WDC Shop owners. Legerdemain proved to be extremely helpful. What began to emerge was that there was a science to the conversion process to go along with the obvious art. This is what I did. First I used WritingML to center and display the image. There are tutorials at WDC on how to do this. So I would paste the image at the top of a blank sheet of electronic paper and begin there. Then I would paste the vignette that had been one of the “also runs.” From there I began adding in all that rich warm exposition I‘d been dinged for not including. A part of this exposition was character descriptions. On this go around however, I had an image and after careful study began expanding my anemic earlier attempts…. You see in a play, it was my experience, that the casting director was going to read it and based upon her light and experience select an actor or actress she thought would fit the bill. Have you ever gone to a movie after reading a book and found the characters to be rather out of alignment with the impression created in your mind? Well this is a part of the problem I’m talking about….going from a novel or short story to a screen or stage play or vice versa. Now however, for better or worse, I had an image and after careful study and reviewing the litany of traits in the template, was ready to make these characters come to life. The next step of course was to decide how many words I could devote to these sketches and that depended on the word count ceiling associated with the contest. One of the advantages a student comes away with from the one Act Play Work Shop is experience with a three scene structure that introduces, shows and peaks, and tapers down, in much the same way that most literature follows a structure of introduction, body and conclusion. Now the word count is by no means evenly distributed between the three parts. In a half hour play five minutes might be allocated to scene 1, twenty to scene 2 and five to scene 3. This is a very liberal rule of thumb and the dramatist is certainly at liberty to rob Peter to pay Paul and is anything but hard and fast….however, a written work generally has these three parts and if constrained by a word count the writer has to decide what the distribution will look like. Have you ever read a work that ended abruptly when it appeared the author bumped his/her head on the ceiling? I read a lot of contest entrys that sound like that. In a piece of flash fiction of say a thousand words the writer has to get in, do it and get out pretty fast. Still some measure of the word count must be devoted to character development, as well as story line in addition to the other demands of the genre or form. In addition to this I discovered that WritingML has some graphic features for enhancing the default printing mechanisms. Some people go a little overboard with these and some ignore them altogether. For a young writer its like getting ready for that first date. My daughters usually over did the makeup and I recall applying a bit too much English Leather… once upon a time. (My date made me pull over and scrub my face at a service station wash room… can you imagine that?) Get the drift…?I am reading that the richness of a composition is often in the details… and I am finding more and more that this is the case. So when you do your next contest submission, don’t be afraid to provide an image up front. After all how many novels have you purchased, hooked first by the cover art? Then give some thought to maybe bumping up the font into an something easier on the eyes….while applying some of the common sense learned long ago in the classroom of life. (chuckle, chuckle.) |
| Contemplating the Unthinkable What I have been writing about the past few days in this blog has nothing to do with prophetic visions or a position on the Iranian Nuclear Weapons issue. I am an American and not an Israeli or an Iranian. However, I believe that Americans have a stake in this issue since it was an American City that suffered the 911 terrorist attack. Since Iran champions and supports the use of terror throughout the world we would be wise to pay attention to what is going on there. While I assume that Isreal will be targeted, saying they will be at the top of the list is a tenuous assumption indeed. While I hope for the best I urge we plan for the worst. There are some assumptions that need to be examined and courses laid out in preparation for a scenario that might not be worst case, but is definitely much uglier than anything that’s happened to date. My experience is that if you prepare for the worst you seldom have to deal with its consequences but if you just wring your hands and do nothing ….that's another matter entirely. The Problem: Determine the best way to deal with a nuclear weapons capable Iran. Facts: Currently estimates are that Iran will have a capability in 2 to 3 years. Russia and China are supporting Iran’s developmental efforts. Iran has been using inflammatory and threatening rhetoric. New York City suffered the last terrorist attack. Assumptions: Diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions will not deter the Iranians from an acquisition strategy. There will be no preemptive strikes. Once Iran has a weapon they will use it in some manner to achieve a political objective. Russia or China will not covertly provide an advanced weapon or delivery system capability. Iran’s first development will be a Hiroshima class bomb. Advance warning of surprise attack would be from 6 hours to 6 months. Isreal would be a likely but not necessarily the first strike target. In proceeding beyond this point, a review of options must examine not just a tactical response, but a host of operational and strategic measures designed to deter, mitigate the effects and educate the world to the enivitable consequences. I think I'll leave the subject at this juncture, to the sandbox of the big boys and girls. |
| The Value of the Human Spirit As a corollary to yesterday’s Mosque Sermon I share the following Graduation Speech. Delivered At Masada in 2014 In the market place of cynics, where the souls of men are weighted, an Arab woman is valued at less than a camel. In our recent negotiations with Hezbollah we found that the heart of someone who straps explosives to a child, detonates car bombs in a market place and fires rockets into peaceful settlements is by their own reckoning set at over two-hundred for one of our soldiers. We pay whatever price they ask because the difference between a Jew and a terrorist is not measured in rhetoric but in the value we place on the lives of our people. God explained all this in the Wilderness, but it’s been a hard lesson and we are stubborn and forgetful….The Almighty has had to keep reminding us, over and over, until gradually some harsh lessons sunk in…became etched into our understanding and evidenced in the way we think and do things. Unlike our Arab neighbors who measure wealth in lands and gold we measure it in the human spirit. To us the value of a Jew’s life is beyond measure and we leave it to our enemies to put a price on it. Rather than seeing this as a weakness we see it as a strength. Our Neighbors don’t understand us because they have not been forged in the same furnace of adversity nor have they suffered as we have the trials of an ‘oft cruel and insistent God and a trek through a desert hotter than anything they can imagine. As a consequence we understand our foes better than they understand us. We know how they think because once, in a distant past, we walked in their shoes, until Jehovah showed us a better way. We undertook that journey, while they stayed home and slept. The time is approaching for a final reckoning and it will soon be thrust upon us. It will be a test of courage and a demonstration of resolve… ‘A final proof of our worthiness of God’s love. Gird your fortitude young friends. We approach the dawning of a new era. |
| A Worst Case Assumption In a nutshell what follows is an assumption… The worst case rhetoric and resolve the Iranians might resort to once they have a nuclear weapon. Yesterday I pointed out what I perceive to be a shortcoming in Israel's operational and strategic planning. Since I don’t know the full extent of it, this might be unfair, an inexact characterization….however, even if they are involved in it, execution will be another matter altogether. To explain what this planning would entail, an assumption is necessary because the issue deals with futurity. This is to say it is not a fact because it hasn’t happened yet. However, in order to plan, one must treat hypothetical future events as though they are factual. I have written my assumptions in the form of a sermon delivered in a mosque in Tehran sometime in the next three to five years. If you see in this view a tone of religious zeal you will get a sense for the mindset and passion which the followers of Islam often demonstrate in venerating their beliefs. If it carries a twinge of hysteria to the Western ear, or a note of fanaticism this is because most Moslem’s regard Islam as a central aspect of their lives. In the West we have faith based systems, but ours have evolved more over time giving weight to other thought processes and we have learned to keep separate the way we consider science, political and economic forces. We do this almost unconsciously and as a result it is easy to ascribe the way we think to others in the world. Be advised, even if you already realize it, that the thought process of West and East is markedly different. Dear Believers in the One True Faith, For Generations we felt secure from the Jewish blight while it was absent from our lands. Then in the span of a generation it returned and like a bloodsucker, began to draw the vitality from the corporate body of Islam. Too late we acted to tear it from our flesh but it had burrowed deep and despite our best efforts we failed to rid ourselves of this invasive cancer. Every time we tried the Jews aided by the great Satan, the United States, arouse up and through the clever use of their materialism and technology, thwarted our efforts. However, Allah in his infinite wisdom, has extended his boundless and untiring mercy and shown a way to exorcise these unbelievers from the lands of our forefathers. He has delivered into our hands a scimitar of his infinite power and we are on the cusp of using it to rid our lands of the infidels. We will soon have a nuclear weapon, the veritable instrument of our salvation. Let the faithful understand and rejoice, as I do, in the wondrous blessing that lies close at hand. It is no revelation that throughout history the pride of the Jew has been brought to heel when their arrogance became too much for their neighbors to bear. In days of old our forefathers defeated the Zionists and led them off in bondage. When faced with surrendering their lands or imminent death they have always chosen to save their lives. Hold that thought! Throughout history when they have refused to acknowledge the generosity of their hosts and taken shameless advantage, they have endured the wrath of those who mistakenly showed them hospitality. This happened here in biblical times, in Spain during the middle ages and in Germany in WW2. When they wear out their welcome in one place they move to another. After WW2 they moved back to Palestine and in short order stole the lands of the peoples who were the rightful owners and relegated them to the role of second class citizens. The Arab world has been indignant about their outrageous behavior but we have been thwarted by the West who operate like lackeys under the influence of the usury and financial exploitation for which the Jews are famous. Slowly they wormed their way back into our world and entrenched themselves in one of the most holy centers of our beloved heritage. Everything we tried to arrest the spread of this pestilence met with failure and when their threats and financial machinations were not enough they resorted to military force aided by their proxies in the West. We can no longer stand idly by and allow this to continue. We now have the means to scourge these parasites from the body of Islam. Knowing that the Jews have historically chosen their survival over the lands they occupied you can rest assured when confronted with the means we now have and our steadfast willingness to use them… they will once again realize the hopelessness of resisting the divine will of God and slink off, ridding us of their loathsome occupation. To this end we have issued the Jews of the State of Israel, usurpers of the land of the Palestinians, an ultimatum to quit those lands or be forcibly ejected. Six months from the posting of this edict, those who fail to comply will be expunged by the terrible sword of the Holiest of Holies. |
| East is East and West is West…. Once the meaning of the above truism really sinks in you will understand better why Western minds are nervous about the Iotola getting a nuke. The thought of being able to accomplish with a push of a button what they have historically been unable to achieve through conventional arms is almost euphoric. When they see that nuclear mushroom cloud rising up out of the desert they are not horrified, like a typical Westerner. For them it is more akin to an orgasm. (Remember that Palestinian girl dancing gleefully the day the Twin Towers fell? Was anybody paying attention?) When the West had a monopoly on Nuclear Weapons we could count on the fact that a model based upon reason would be used in decisions regarding employment. Mutually Assured Destruction worked to deter the West from using these weapons on one another. To the typical Middle Easterner, however “Reason” is a rather amorphous Western concept… It is a process they have never bought into at the visceral level. Oh, some of those who once attended foreign Universities can explain it, and when they argue in the United Nations they can come up with all kinds of “reasons…” however, this is just part of a game that is played to further their political interests. They believe deep down that anyone who settles differences through negotiations and diplomacy is doing so out of weakness…. And they have been stringing the West along and shaking their heads in contempt for a long time. What they understand is the “Rat-Tat-Tat” of an AK 47 rifle and see nuclear weapons as simply a grander version of the scimitar. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon you can bet that reason will not be a big player in any employment considerations. The same minds that concluded there wasn’t a Holocaust, and that 911 was an inside job will scratch their butts, stroke their beards and BANGO!, the world will be bathed in a spectacular display of nuclear fireworks. So don’t think for a minute that just because the West had Nukes for 50 years and restrained themselves that the “Faithful” will continue the long proud tradition. The Israelis are in a huge bind. They are a bunch of very talented tactical thinkers….beyond that they are severely constrained. Some of the greatest genius of recorded history has emerged from that gene pool but they have a fatal flaw. They can’t agree on anything. They are their own worst enemy. They should be glad they are surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors because left to their own devices they have traditionally self destructed . So when it comes to regional or world order thinking don’t expect too much from them. If we expect them to pull our chestnuts out in the Middle East, think again. Physician heal thyself…. The cobblers child has no shoes… Where they can apply their minds to a single small focus, they excel but where they have to network together for the greater good of their State, the limitations begin to show. No doubt these observations will get me labeled as anti-Semitic. The truth is I feel a sense of attachment. Historically they have faced adversity that sends a shiver down my spine and fills my heart with empathy. They have become the red-headed step child of the West and I admire and wish them well but they have some huge internal problems. The Holocaust took something from their corporate identity… a part of their soul never grew back. Actually it started well before, when they were evicted from Spain…Or maybe it goes back even further to new testament times or even into the old testament days. Maybe it goes back to acts of genocide set down in the earliest records of history. Whatever the problem is, it’s deep seated and chronic. What I will say is that they need to worry more about the threat they pose to themselves than their neighbors. Their enemies only triumph after they have neutered themselves to the point where they fall apart and turn to procrastination and in-fighting. “Why are you going there Percy?” you ask…and the reason is because many believe the Israelis will act unilaterally and take down Iran before they get their hands on a nuclear weapon. This might happen (I doubt it) but if they do it will spark an action that will make them look like the aggressors. They will be the ones who set in motion, forces that cannot be recalled. What it will take to scourge the problem will require a heavy dose of combat power, that will push conventional weaponry to the limits of their utility. It will leave collateral long term fallout in both the figurative and literal sense. This act will fracture once more the fragile corporate identity of the state of Israel. They will surrender the moral high ground to Arabs. The Arabs will scream to the world, we didn't start this Jihad, the Jews did. Better to move some of their people, abroad “temporarily” (A big chunk) if a nuclear war ever looks imminent…let the men remain at home and duke it out. Better that, than entrench themselves more deeply behind the isolation eight-ball. An evacuation of non-combatants would send a signal that even the Arabs would understand and an unmistakable signal that the Israelis have the will and capability of dealing with anything the Iranians dare serving up. (Their people would not be such a large part of a hostage equation) They need to begin considering some tough options before its too late, and strategic thinking isn’t their long suit. |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
