socialmedian: Halfway celebration

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Halfway celebration

Source: The Writing Life II

Oct 29, 2009

Summary

Will have students read their midterms in class today, maybe 8 or 10 of them, all good work. Only a few are still not "getting it" and trying to write prose fiction instead of screenwriting. Time for the light to go off for them.

Stumbled upon yet another software package for structure, this for novelists, called New Novelist. Again, an organizational tool and a guide to discipline -- no one can write for you. Might check it out.

I do like Contour. The software "thinks" about structure the same way I do -- so it's a great tool for keeping everything in one place. For example, on the splay I'm developing as a test drive, I printed out a Beat Sheet that will be very useful when/if I start writing the script.

I suppose the key for any individual is to find the tool, the software, that speaks more or less the same structural language that you do. They are just tools, after all. It's always about beginning-middle-end storytelling, and the various tools give you benchmarks for organizing thoughts in a way that makes dramatic, structural sense.

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