The Breakdown - Week of 4/20/20
How this newsletter operates
Hi! Welcome to “The Breakdown,” a weekly newsletter where I’ll offer up five scene-specific creative writing prompts from my book “What Would Your Character Do? - Writing Prompts to Help You Destroy Writer’s Block, Write Faster, and Write More” (up on Amazon now and free in Kindle Unlimited!) in addition to news and articles.
These are user-tested prompts, perfect for any genre. They’re also designed for almost any type of fiction (narrative, screenplays, short stories, RPG gaming, flash fiction, etc.) and designed to get you unstuck from any scene. If you’ve signed up for this newsletter from the prompt book, consider these as prompts for your prompts, just to help keep you thinking about your story and the direction it might take.
Okay, fabulous! So, how is this newsletter going to work?
Weekly - For Free Subscribers
1) You’ll get five random prompts from the “What Would Your Character Do?” prompt book, delivered to your email inbox.
2) You’ll get links to a couple of articles or news items you should check out from either the publishing or entertainment industry (or a combo of both), with a brief commentary on why they matter.
3) On occasion, you’ll also get a craft article. Since I have experience in TV/Film as well as digital publishing, I’d love to share some insights with you and some lessons learned. Having worked as a Story Consultant, (and recently analyzed over 200 stories for a client!), my expertise is in story development, but I can also bring some unique industry insights to the table, having seen what goes on “behind the curtains” in both industries.
Monthly - For Paid Subscribers
1) You’ll get all of the same weekly emails that free subscribers get.
2) There will also be a monthly drawing for my paid subscribers, and that subscriber can submit either a query letter or the first five pages from their manuscript for feedback. NOTE - The feedback will be published in a post for all paid subscribers so that we all have a chance to learn from the process.
In addition, the chosen subscriber will also be able to ask more specific follow-up questions that I’ll respond to via email. Only paid subscribers will be able to read the analysis and ask questions or comment.
My plan for this segment of the newsletter is to draw on my experience working at ICM and HBO to help you better position your work for the agent/editor/manager marketplace (and yes, these days you should think of it as a marketplace.)
Alrighty, then! Let’s commence with the first posting of “The Breakdown.” :-)
Prompts
Quick explanation of how these prompts work. These are unique prompts, designed to get you unstuck from any scene. Most prompts I’ve encountered are either too generic (“Write about fire.”) or are too specific (“Write about a magician being mugged on the road to an ancient city.”) Neither of these are terribly helpful when you’ve just thrust your character into the midst of a dilemma and you don’t know what to do next. That’s where “What Would Your Character Do?” comes in. These particular prompts really help you pinpoint a conflict or event in your scene that you can use to get your creative juices flowing and give you the momentum you need to move forward with your scene. If these five don’t do it for you, no worries! You’ll get another five in a week, or you can just buy, or check out, the book to pick from over 500 more!
Okay, so let’s get started.
If you're stuck in a scene, try to have your character:
1. Offer to do someone a favor
2. Admit to something they've been hiding
3. Turn an argument around
4. Ask someone if they know about something
5. Get defensive
Give those prompts some time to marinate and if they’re not doing it for you, hang tight! You’ll be getting five more next week!
News
Agents Weigh Whether to Submit Projects During the Pandemic
Trying to fathom where the publishing market will go, or what it will look like, post-pandemic is almost impossible. All we know is that it won’t look exactly like it looked before, at least not for a very long time. However, business still continues. So, the questions that matter to us most are: How are agents and editors operating during lockdown? How are they preparing to react once lockdown is lifted since there might be a backlog? What are the longer term impacts, given that many in publishing will be taking a financial hit from which they’ll need to find a way to recover. Food for thought.
So, as most of you know, except for animation, film and TV production has completely shut down. And while we’ve all adjusted, once production resumes, it’s not as if a switch will be flipped and everything will go back to normal, immediately. While that’s true for most industries, Hollywood is unique. It’s a very high contact, high touch business, and given the complexities of production, the special considerations they’ll have to take into account and the steps they’ll have to take in order to protect cast and crew; the implications to production; and therefore the stories Hollywood (and Bollywood, and Nollywood, and whatever the Asian and European equivalents are) looks for next, might be impacted.
What form might this impact take? Well, development executives might focus on smaller cast productions with fewer locations, not only to reduce costs, but also to reduce the risk of infection to actors and production crews. Animation may experience a huge boom, given that it can much more easily continue in disruptive times like this. Movies that rely on less expensive CGI might become more attractive; again, because they reduce the need for multiple locations, larger casts, and even crowds. The emotional and psychological impact of COVID-19 might even have a more profound impact on the type of stories audiences will want to see going forward, at least for the time being. All something to think about.
Pandemic spikes youth reading habits, TRA survey finds
This is just one survey, limited to the UK, but it points to a similar rise that I’ve read about from other sources. Given that kids and young adults are reading more, whether to continue their education, as well for a bit of escapism and relief for their parents, the trend is wide enough, globally, that this might create a more fundamental shift in young people’s reading habits. It’s worth watching the numbers, post-pandemic, to see if this is the case, especially if you’re writing middle grade or YA.
Final Thoughts
Pay attention to how both the industry you’re most interested in reacts to the crisis, and how readers and audiences react to what they consume, both during this crisis and after it. There might be a fundamental shift in either or both the publishing and the entertainment industry that could affect the potential viability, appeal, and success of your work.
Until next time!
~ Paula G.