Current Project: Derby book 1
Status: Lots of promise
Most of you can probably guess what this blog post is going to be about...the Michael Hauge/Bob Mayer workshop put on by Rose City Romance Writers over this past weekend. I'd seen the Hauge/Christopher Vogler DVD (our awesome chapter owns it and members can check it out at monthly meetings) a time or two and found it quite helpful. But my hope with this past weekend was that it would be the same principles in the DVD, but personalized for romance novels (instead of screenplays). And it was! He often used movies as examples, but he brought it back to writing and adjusted his lessons for novels. If any of you have seen his handout that shows the three-act structure with percentages for stages and turning points - he said those percentages are more for screenplay than novels, that there's more flexibility for novels.
He broke down the stages of a novel and discussed what should be happening in each. Much of what he said is things that many of us learn through RWA, but sometimes it takes hearing it phrased another way to really make it click. One of those things for me was his idea of identity and essence. His definition of identity is basically the armor a person puts on about themselves - who they think they are. The essence is who they would be if they had the courage to do so. Thus the character arc is them living fully in their identity, glimpsing their essence, going back and forth between the two, then by the end fully living in their essence. I really like that. The trick is to find ways to have them glimpse their essence early on.
I could go on and on about Michael Hauge and my seven pages of notes, but this is not the venue to share all the tips he gives at workshops :)I highly recommend you try and catch one of his workshops or check out his DVDs.
I didn't get to hear as much from Bob Mayer as I had to leave at lunch time to come to a work event. But there was one thing he said that really stuck out to me - what you really need to pay attention to is what you're afraid of. Michael Hauge touched on that a bit as well. I encourage you all to ponder that and see if that relates to any difficulty you may be having in your writing lives, or even personal lives.
This was a weekend of the attack of the a-ha moments! Not to mention a whole lot of fun getting to hang out with Alice and Eli for two days :)
7 comments:
Lisa, it sounds like it was an excellent workshop!
The DVD gives me aha moments every time I watch it. I used Hauge's 6 act structure to write a synopsis before I wrote the book(I know that's unknown for me) and found it very helpful in staying true to what I wanted to show in the story.
what you really need to pay attention to is what you're afraid of Wow this could be a plethora of things. I'll have to think about it.
Interesting post!
Wow. Two big aha's just in your post for me--the identity versus essence thing and the paying attention to what you are afraid of.
Thanks for an awesome post and recap!
Lisa -- That fear line struck out at me, too. It fits right into Michael's Hague's last statement as well:
Ask your character to fill in the blank -- "I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve my goal, just don’t ask me to ___________ because that’s just not me."
This comes from the character's identity but it also ties into life, doesn't it?
I've been going back over my proposal with all sorts of ideas fresh in my head. Thanks for the great post!
Hey, Lisa, thanks for the overview of the Michael Hauge/ Bob Mayer workshop.
I saw Hauge several years ago in Seattle, and saw Mayer at RWA National years ago with Jenny Crusie. Awesome information. I wrote as fast as I could and still couldn't keep up with all the aha moments.
Thanks also for the reminder that the chapter has a DVD of Michael Hauge. Sounds like it's time for me to revisit his presentation!
Paty, plethora of things for me too! It's definitely a lot to think about. I'm glad his 6 act structure helped!
Wavy, woohooo! Glad they were a-ha's for you too :)
Alice, definitely. I liked how he asked everyone to think about that for themselves, not just their characters,
Genene, same for me! I couldn't type fast enough :)
Dude, you gotta bring your notes to the retreat! I love the identity and essence thing. Very aha-ey for me, too. ;)
I definitely will, Piper!
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