Thog’s Masterclass

Dept of Punchy Opening Lines.
‘At first there was only the cold, the Stygian inky iciness that held every muscle of his body in thrall and made his thoughts flow with the turgid slowness of treacly molasses.’ (Wilbur S. Peacock, ‘Spider-Men of Gharr’, Summer 1945 Planet Stories)

Quickness of the Hand Dept.
‘… he laughed, and before I could stop him, stroked my face with the speed of light.’ (Debbie Johnson, Dark Vision, 2014)

Neat Tricks.
‘He stood tall, in fact even taller than he usually was.’ (Ibid)

Like a Huge Springing Beast Dept.
‘The redhead springs deep and soars through the air. Flying like a spread-eagled amoeba …’ (Kieran Shea, Koko Takes a Holiday, 2014)

Dept of Useful Add-Ons.
‘He rose to his spare elbows.’ (Charles E. Gannon, Fire with Fire, 2013) [AL]

Shock of Hair Dept.
‘His ginger hair with its generous dashes of grey sat on his head like an electrified cat.’ (J.D. Robb [Nora Roberts], Strangers in Death, 2008)

“When I was in the middle of writing Eat Pray Love and I fell into one of those pits of despair that we will fall into when we’re working on something that’s not coming and we think ‘this is going to be a disaster, this is going to be the worst book I’ve ever written — not just that but the worst book ever written … So I just lifted my face up from the manuscript and I directed my comments to an empty corner of the room and I said aloud ‘ Listen you, thing! You and I both know that if this book isn’t brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right? Because you can see I am putting everything I have into this, I don’t have any more than this, so if you want it to be better then you’ve got to show up and do your part of the deal, OK? But you know what? If you don’t do that then I’m going to keep writing because that’s my job and I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up and did my part of the job!” – Elizabeth Gilbert, author Eat Pray Love

Writing our own stories helps us see the narrative thread in our lives, reflect on the consequences of events and maybe find redemption or closure. Life stories, memoirs, autobiographies — whatever term we use–have been wildly popular for the past twenty to thirty years.  In the 1990’s Frank McCourt‘s Angela’s Ashes and Mary Karr‘s The Liar’s Club, among others, sparked an enthusiastic response among readers that has yet to subside. Memoirs have elbowed their way into book discussion groups. Issues of truthfulness in memoirs have become front page and talk show news. Reality TV shows and social networking sites on the Internet, blogs, oral history organizations like StoryCorps, and an explosion of information sources about the life of celebrities, proclaim our fascination with this genre. The most popular nonfiction has a personal aspect to it. Popular histories focus on the role of the individual, self-help books reveal the struggles of the author, and true crime is always popular. Cookbooks are filled with personal stories about the cook and her family.

The best memoirs are shaped like novels:  with a beginning, full of exposition and character development; a middle, often with climactic events; and an ending that ties up what came before with a satisfying resolution. We know that in fiction, the writer has used memory, experience, imagination, and all the tools of creative writing. What we must know is that memoir writers make use of the same creative toolkit.

Full Day Workshop

Master The Skills Needed To Write Your First Novel

9 am to 5 pm with a one-hour lunch break

REGISTER NOW!

Master The Skills Needed
to Write Your First Novel
or Revise Your First Draft!

You need the skills to impress a publisher enough to receive a contract on your first novel.

Here’s your chance to learn what it takes, then develop those skills with the guidance of a Master. Toni Lopopolo is a professional editor, seasoned instructor, and a successful literary agent since 1991. For twenty years before she opened her agency, Toni served as executive editor at Macmillan, then at St Martin’s Press in New York City. As an acquiring editor, Toni reviewed the best projects sent to her by agents.

When Toni opened her own agency, she realized, by what writers sent to her agency as “finished” manuscripts, that most had not mastered the required skills. Agents are the great “filtering” system, the “gate-keepers” who send only the most sophisticated writing they find, to editors in publishing houses. So Toni  has developed proven methods to help writers learn those skills, practice those skills, and master them.

Saturday, October 18, 10 AM-4 PM
Los Angeles Valley College

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

Orson Welles’s short speech in The Third Man: Italy vs Switzerland

This video is amazing. So’s the letter. In 1973 they burned 75 copies of Slaughter House Five.  

Alan Sepinwall reviews a screening of FX’s Fargo:

“…the level of suspense that Noah Hawley‘s script and Matt Shakman’s direction create is almost unbearable, and that tension was palpable and powerful throughout the screening….

“…That there isn’t any violence in between the elevator massacre and Linda’s murder only illustrates the power of making your audience wait for something to happen, assuming you’re a good enough storyteller to make it feel like something more than just the marking of time.”

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-fargo-a-fox-a-rabbit-and-a-cabbage-apple-pie-a-la-malvo

Every language has its own vocabulary of vocalized pauses, which are meaningless words used to keep the conversation flowing smoothly.^[1] In English, these are usually “um,” “er,” “ah,” or “you know.” In North America, especially among young people, it’s common to use the word “like” as a vocalized pause. This became popular with the rise of “Valleyspeak,” which is a stereotypical manner of speaking that originated in Southern California in the ’70s.^[2] If you’re, like, totally hooked on using the word “like,” see Step 1 below to start speaking more professionally and stop being (like, so) annoying.

READ MORE

In 2012 nobody was good enough.

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious awards in American literature. Previous fiction winners have included Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Jennifer Egan and Philip Roth. Publishers submit works according to published guidelines; winners for the literary categories must be U.S. citizens, except for the History category, where the subject of the book must be U.S. History.

The jurors for the 2012 Fiction prize were Susan Larson, the former book editor of The Times-Picayune, Maureen Corrigan, book critic for Fresh Air on NPR, and the novelist Michael Cunningham. They submitted three unranked finalists to the Board: David Foster Wallace’s “The Pale King”, Karen Russell’s “Swamplandia” and Denis Johnson’s “Train Dreams.”

But for the first time since 1977, by failing to come to a majority decision, the Pulitzer Board’s conclusion is that no book is worthy of the prize.

READ MORE ON TheHuffingtonPost.com