The 3D Journey

I have been concentrating on other things these few past months. Family, work, health. You know: all the essentials of life. Recently I have picked up a routine again, which will allow me to do a little writing as well. As I am not a professional (paid) writer it is considered not an essential of my life. However, I do find it an important tool in self discovery as well as a very rewarding hobby. So I've picked up where I left off with Aelemental Book 1: The Tree of Life. My lovely wife Nancy took the time to proofread it and I can without embarrassment tell you it is dripping red. Yes, proof that I need to work on writing is there. It came as no surprise.

What did come as a surprise though is with how much I instantly agreed with her assessments. Too little characterization. Not enough conflict. Simon is too whiny. Sally is not realistically terrified. Everything happens to him, not enough comes from him. Villains are obtuse or not threatening enough. Many of this are just variations of the same complaint really: the characters are two dimensional. (There is also too much plot, but as a fan of Lord of the Rings and the Wheel of Time I don't find too much resentment with that.)

So now what? Well, as she was emptying several pens worth of red ink on my manuscript I took up reading Vogler and McKenna's 'Memo From the Story Dept.' It's an excellent source of story indicators that not only lead to good storyboard translations into movies, but also to the creation of original quality stories themselves. It examines plot related elements (Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and Propp's Fairy Tale Elements), but more importantly (and what I was missing) essential character development and mechanics to establish fully 3D people in the story and a dramatic and engaging narrative itself. Using wants, obstacles, reciprocal actions, environmental facts and many more tools these excellent story surgeons are capable of tracing any written manuscript back to the author's fully imagined story.

So I spent a couple of mornings (right after my son Alex takes his school bus and right before I do my exercise and get to work) applying this story gold of Vogler and McKenna to The Tree of Life. I reworked the premise, fattened the plot skeleton with character meat, supported it with a firm dose of date, location, social and political underpinnings and finally peppered it with conflict, character dialogue, hidden motives and deeper intentions. So far very satisfying. Now comes the hard part: I have to go through the whole annotated manuscript page by page and actually write it out.

Wish me luck.