Blue Metropolis Website
Monday, April 30, 2012
Blue Metropolis - Reality TV
Reality TV made me a Better Writer – Jeffrey Oliver
Jeffrey Oliver wrote his novel – Failure to thrive with these steps he learned from working in Reality TV
The rule: “It is what it is” You’ve got to get it done on time. Sort of like doing Nanowrimo, you've got to just sit down and write and not worry about anything else until it's time to worry.
Aspire for genius but go for a damn good read. "I’m just a guy who likes to tell funny stories, and that’s okay."
Care deeply about your characters – Create a story of their life. The edit is a major part of the creative process
Adopting Habits of Reality TV: Here are the Steps
1- The Pitch
Quick, snappy
A good pitch keeps you honest. You have to stick to that pitch. Stick to what you’re book is about.
Have the answer to, “what’s your book about?”
2- Schedule & Budget
Apparently it took Jane Austen 16 years to write Pride & Prejudice
Write fast! What will happen in each episode? Make a very tight schedule
Every day of writing or planning: If you go over schedule in Reality TV it’s money!
Create a penalty – write a cheque to some charity every time you don’t write.
Story beats are scheduled
Story beats = scenes
You’ve got to let your characters do what they want
Be disciplined about your time.
3- Casting
You have to know what you want
People who are extreme in their passion or at an extreme moment in their life.
Story core – asking people the story of their life
Know your characters
Difference to the classic coming of age story – find something new, what is unique, what no one has written of before
4- Scripting the Beats (Google beat sheets for more info)
You set out the beats and whatever happens happens
In a half hour reality show there is a 4 act structure
In an hour long show there is a 6 act structure
Set up what’s going to happen immediately,
3 acts – beat every scene
The story is most important, the act structure you hammer out.
Beats first – structure next
Just pound it out then it’s in the edit that you do it all.
1st draft – just let you characters speak and at the end then you get into the structural beats in the edit.
Characters are most important, let them do what they want to do.
A woman asked a question whether Jeffrey was saying beats or beads?
Beads on a necklace
Beats – drum beats, the music, the rhythm.
It's beats but Jeffrey did like the idea of beads on a necklace.
5- Location Scouting and Location Research
Here’s our story and here’s the location we want to shoot
In TV locations fall out all the time
Choose the location and invent the truth of it
6- The Shoot
The actual writing
Run & gun shooting – the camera people never put down their camera, you better keep shooting everything happens.
On the fly interviews – something weird happened that we didn’t expect to happen so we interview the characters about it.
We’ll fix it in the edit
Chisel, find the story
Pick ups in reality TV – when they make the characters reenact what they did when the camera didn’t pick up originally.
We write a lot more than we end up using
7- The Edit
The thing you love the most often is what you have to delete.
Who are you writing for?
Chisel, cut right to the action
Most important part of the story
Writing is rewriting
Justify your words, your paragraph, your story
Cut more
8- Delivery
Deliver on time, promotional material
Book promotion – twitter, Facebook, blog etc
Time, courage, energy
Be resourceful – social media, entrepreneurial
MFA program – create your own MFA program
Motivation – here’s what I have to accomplish in 2 months
I can’t be a proper happy person unless I accomplish this dream of writing
I need to have an emotional plan and a practical plan
The character will take over and you’ll have new beats. Editing takes as much time as writing
Put your novel away for a bit before you edit.
It was an interesting idea and Jeffrey was a pretty funny, entertaining guy. I bought his book Failure to Thrive. Haven't started to read it yet. I'm currently reading Ray Robertson's, Why Not?
EY
Jeffrey Oliver wrote his novel – Failure to thrive with these steps he learned from working in Reality TV
The rule: “It is what it is” You’ve got to get it done on time. Sort of like doing Nanowrimo, you've got to just sit down and write and not worry about anything else until it's time to worry.
Aspire for genius but go for a damn good read. "I’m just a guy who likes to tell funny stories, and that’s okay."
Care deeply about your characters – Create a story of their life. The edit is a major part of the creative process
Adopting Habits of Reality TV: Here are the Steps
1- The Pitch
Quick, snappy
A good pitch keeps you honest. You have to stick to that pitch. Stick to what you’re book is about.
Have the answer to, “what’s your book about?”
2- Schedule & Budget
Apparently it took Jane Austen 16 years to write Pride & Prejudice
Write fast! What will happen in each episode? Make a very tight schedule
Every day of writing or planning: If you go over schedule in Reality TV it’s money!
Create a penalty – write a cheque to some charity every time you don’t write.
Story beats are scheduled
Story beats = scenes
You’ve got to let your characters do what they want
Be disciplined about your time.
3- Casting
You have to know what you want
People who are extreme in their passion or at an extreme moment in their life.
Story core – asking people the story of their life
Know your characters
Difference to the classic coming of age story – find something new, what is unique, what no one has written of before
4- Scripting the Beats (Google beat sheets for more info)
You set out the beats and whatever happens happens
In a half hour reality show there is a 4 act structure
In an hour long show there is a 6 act structure
Set up what’s going to happen immediately,
3 acts – beat every scene
The story is most important, the act structure you hammer out.
Beats first – structure next
Just pound it out then it’s in the edit that you do it all.
1st draft – just let you characters speak and at the end then you get into the structural beats in the edit.
Characters are most important, let them do what they want to do.
A woman asked a question whether Jeffrey was saying beats or beads?
Beads on a necklace
Beats – drum beats, the music, the rhythm.
It's beats but Jeffrey did like the idea of beads on a necklace.
5- Location Scouting and Location Research
Here’s our story and here’s the location we want to shoot
In TV locations fall out all the time
Choose the location and invent the truth of it
6- The Shoot
The actual writing
Run & gun shooting – the camera people never put down their camera, you better keep shooting everything happens.
On the fly interviews – something weird happened that we didn’t expect to happen so we interview the characters about it.
We’ll fix it in the edit
Chisel, find the story
Pick ups in reality TV – when they make the characters reenact what they did when the camera didn’t pick up originally.
We write a lot more than we end up using
7- The Edit
The thing you love the most often is what you have to delete.
Who are you writing for?
Chisel, cut right to the action
Most important part of the story
Writing is rewriting
Justify your words, your paragraph, your story
Cut more
8- Delivery
Deliver on time, promotional material
Book promotion – twitter, Facebook, blog etc
Time, courage, energy
Be resourceful – social media, entrepreneurial
MFA program – create your own MFA program
Motivation – here’s what I have to accomplish in 2 months
I can’t be a proper happy person unless I accomplish this dream of writing
I need to have an emotional plan and a practical plan
The character will take over and you’ll have new beats. Editing takes as much time as writing
Put your novel away for a bit before you edit.
It was an interesting idea and Jeffrey was a pretty funny, entertaining guy. I bought his book Failure to Thrive. Haven't started to read it yet. I'm currently reading Ray Robertson's, Why Not?
EY
Blue Metropolis - April 2012
Blue Metropolis – April 2012
I made the decision to commit to enjoying my life more now that I am no longer in constant physical pain and the first thing that popped up, once I made the commitment, was an email from Blue Metropolis. So I bought a VIP pass and a couple other tickets that weren’t included in the pass and I made plans to go to Montreal for a week.
It was a fun trip of eating, writerly events, family, time with my childhood best-friend and being a tourist in the city of my birth. I went to 4 of the places that I’d lived when I was a child, places where traumatic things happened. It was a freeing experience to go back to those places and see that I am an adult, that I survived all of that grief and face my own strength. And if the energy of my little self is still there in another dimension, I told her that she will be okay, there will be a lot of crying but she will survive it all.
It was funny because I made plans to see people in the mornings or for lunch knowing that in the afternoons and evenings I’d be busy with the festival. A couple people tried their darndest to get me to change my plans for them and miss out on the festival. I wasn’t having it. I went primarily for my writing and for the first time in my life, I made my writing a priority and if you couldn’t work around my schedule, you didn’t see me.
Everyone was so friendly in Montreal. As an English speaking Montrealer, there can be rudeness over the language issue but it really seems like the language issue is becoming less of an issue. French people speak English really well and English people speak French really well. It was heart warming. And made me think that it’s time to go back to French and speak it well myself. Really, Montreal is an international city, people should speak both languages. It can only be a positive. I’m happy that things have changed. I won't wait another 5 years before I go back again.
I kept all of my events in the one location, the Hotel Opus, although there were events in other locations. I wanted easy schmeasy since I knew I’d be doing a lot of running around in the mornings. Apparently the festival wasn’t the normal large one that it has been in years past. It is under new management and Hotel Opus was the new location. The staff were friendly and accommodating. It’s a nice Boutique Hotel
Quebec Roots Book Launch was my first event.
Writers and photographers work with students at different schools in Quebec and help them to write about their story plus teach them that writing isn’t as simple as just writing something down. You’ve got to re-write and edit….and they are published in a Book. From what I know, they’ve been doing this with different schools for a number of years, possibly 7 years.
Students from different schools got up and read excerpts of their pieces that would be appearing in the book. A couple of the young guys, maybe grade 7, painfully read their excerpts. It was that nervous public speaking only in front of their peers and complete strangers. And they were all rewarded with a copy of the book at the end of all the readings.
I didn’t stay long but I did take the time to ask their teacher if I could speak to them for a moment and I told them to remember what they’d just done, standing up there with all their nerves and shyness and reading any way. That what they did is what you call “Walking through your fear.” The teacher thanked me for saying that and said to all of us, “They walk through their fear on a daily basis.”
Bilingual Cities - Sherry Simon and Hugh Hazelton
The Spanish person who was supposed to be a part of this event didn’t make it, sadly.
The speakers talked about Montreal in the past when St Laurent, the main, was the line of Division. West of St Lawrence was English and East of St Lawrence was French.
Cities as a whole aren’t bilingual. Bilingual suggests an equalness in the languages. The confrontation of languages creates creativity, a vibrant literary scene. There is a cultural vitality with 2 languages. A person who comes to the city with a third language has to deal with both languages and generally has to choose one over the other.
All cities are multilingual.
In the 1940’s to the 1960’s, Montreal was the place for English Canadian writing.
The role of the translator is to bridge the two cultures.
Crime Writers – “Hot Art” by Joshua Knelman
Josh is one of the founding members of “The Walrus” magazine
He started off just wanting to write an article about an art theft in Toronto and the deeper he got into his research, the more he realized that it couldn’t simply be an article.
He told funny little anecdotes like meeting up with an art thief, who called him to meet, and over lattes, the thief threatened to kill him if he ever mentioned his name in any writings. The funny part, of course, was that they were sipping lattes and the guy said it in a friendly tone like there were talking about what they saw outside the window.
Quebec has one of the best art theft divisions who investigate art theft internationally. There are not many places that have a division that can do much in the way of investigating art theft. Most of the time, if art is stolen, the prevailing thing to do is not say anything and suck it up.
Cracking the U.S. Market - Scott Esposito, Chad Post, Katia Grubisic
Fiction e-books are leading the trend, specifically – romance & science fiction
And disposable pulp fiction
The discussion was primarily about how there is a whole new range of ways to get your writing out there. It’s something people can be excited about.
If you are looking at getting an advance, you need an agent and to go the traditional route.
They talked about when reading, most don’t give a book a chance past a certain point. Advice was to write something people will be excited about, excited to read.
Louise Penny event/ reading – because she was out of town and Blue Met wanted to honour Louise, especially since she is a Montrealer and she is a crime fiction writer, which was the theme. They had actors read an excerpt from her latest book. There was an Alfred Hitchcock type who gave a bio of Louise Penny and a couple actors who read from her novel. I have to say, I’m not a big fan of readings, they are a crap shoot. Either authors are terrific readers or you want to slit your wrists listening. It was a nice change to have a reading like this.
And a quote from Louise Penny, “Be willing to make the audience suffer.”
Love under Fire - Tess Fragoulis and Felicia Mihali
Talk about women surviving in a predominantly male society. Why love is never enough. Dealing with the consequences of a disaster for years to come. Like a friend of mine who was homeless after Hurricane Katrina who is still struggling. We forget about them, once the news cameras move onto something else, the people who have survived a disaster are still struggling is silence.
After you have left home and write about it and possibly decide to go back that there is no home to go back to because everything has changed, moved forward. “Not the same kind of Greek”
Ahdaf Soueif
Her book Cairo – is 18 days of a diary about the Egyptian Revolution
She said there is an element of trepidation after the major change. The feeling that now you really have to do it right. It’s like living a miracle. The responsibility that this brings.
A sense of paralysis – how can change come about?
It’s such a relief not to have to despise yourself anymore.
In the face of the army and weapons – There’s no reason to run back, it’s better to stand your ground.
She said about the youth – they have refused to have their life stolen.
One poignant thing that Ahdaf said about her mother who passed away, that through all of this ‘revoluting’ she had the tremendous need to tell her mother. Wanting to hear her mother react and respond.
I'll put the notes from Reality TV Made me a Better Writer in a separate post, since those notes are probably the most helpful for writers.
EY
I made the decision to commit to enjoying my life more now that I am no longer in constant physical pain and the first thing that popped up, once I made the commitment, was an email from Blue Metropolis. So I bought a VIP pass and a couple other tickets that weren’t included in the pass and I made plans to go to Montreal for a week.
It was a fun trip of eating, writerly events, family, time with my childhood best-friend and being a tourist in the city of my birth. I went to 4 of the places that I’d lived when I was a child, places where traumatic things happened. It was a freeing experience to go back to those places and see that I am an adult, that I survived all of that grief and face my own strength. And if the energy of my little self is still there in another dimension, I told her that she will be okay, there will be a lot of crying but she will survive it all.
It was funny because I made plans to see people in the mornings or for lunch knowing that in the afternoons and evenings I’d be busy with the festival. A couple people tried their darndest to get me to change my plans for them and miss out on the festival. I wasn’t having it. I went primarily for my writing and for the first time in my life, I made my writing a priority and if you couldn’t work around my schedule, you didn’t see me.
Everyone was so friendly in Montreal. As an English speaking Montrealer, there can be rudeness over the language issue but it really seems like the language issue is becoming less of an issue. French people speak English really well and English people speak French really well. It was heart warming. And made me think that it’s time to go back to French and speak it well myself. Really, Montreal is an international city, people should speak both languages. It can only be a positive. I’m happy that things have changed. I won't wait another 5 years before I go back again.
I kept all of my events in the one location, the Hotel Opus, although there were events in other locations. I wanted easy schmeasy since I knew I’d be doing a lot of running around in the mornings. Apparently the festival wasn’t the normal large one that it has been in years past. It is under new management and Hotel Opus was the new location. The staff were friendly and accommodating. It’s a nice Boutique Hotel
Quebec Roots Book Launch was my first event.
Writers and photographers work with students at different schools in Quebec and help them to write about their story plus teach them that writing isn’t as simple as just writing something down. You’ve got to re-write and edit….and they are published in a Book. From what I know, they’ve been doing this with different schools for a number of years, possibly 7 years.
Students from different schools got up and read excerpts of their pieces that would be appearing in the book. A couple of the young guys, maybe grade 7, painfully read their excerpts. It was that nervous public speaking only in front of their peers and complete strangers. And they were all rewarded with a copy of the book at the end of all the readings.
I didn’t stay long but I did take the time to ask their teacher if I could speak to them for a moment and I told them to remember what they’d just done, standing up there with all their nerves and shyness and reading any way. That what they did is what you call “Walking through your fear.” The teacher thanked me for saying that and said to all of us, “They walk through their fear on a daily basis.”
Bilingual Cities - Sherry Simon and Hugh Hazelton
The Spanish person who was supposed to be a part of this event didn’t make it, sadly.
The speakers talked about Montreal in the past when St Laurent, the main, was the line of Division. West of St Lawrence was English and East of St Lawrence was French.
Cities as a whole aren’t bilingual. Bilingual suggests an equalness in the languages. The confrontation of languages creates creativity, a vibrant literary scene. There is a cultural vitality with 2 languages. A person who comes to the city with a third language has to deal with both languages and generally has to choose one over the other.
All cities are multilingual.
In the 1940’s to the 1960’s, Montreal was the place for English Canadian writing.
The role of the translator is to bridge the two cultures.
Crime Writers – “Hot Art” by Joshua Knelman
Josh is one of the founding members of “The Walrus” magazine
He started off just wanting to write an article about an art theft in Toronto and the deeper he got into his research, the more he realized that it couldn’t simply be an article.
He told funny little anecdotes like meeting up with an art thief, who called him to meet, and over lattes, the thief threatened to kill him if he ever mentioned his name in any writings. The funny part, of course, was that they were sipping lattes and the guy said it in a friendly tone like there were talking about what they saw outside the window.
Quebec has one of the best art theft divisions who investigate art theft internationally. There are not many places that have a division that can do much in the way of investigating art theft. Most of the time, if art is stolen, the prevailing thing to do is not say anything and suck it up.
Cracking the U.S. Market - Scott Esposito, Chad Post, Katia Grubisic
Fiction e-books are leading the trend, specifically – romance & science fiction
And disposable pulp fiction
The discussion was primarily about how there is a whole new range of ways to get your writing out there. It’s something people can be excited about.
If you are looking at getting an advance, you need an agent and to go the traditional route.
They talked about when reading, most don’t give a book a chance past a certain point. Advice was to write something people will be excited about, excited to read.
Louise Penny event/ reading – because she was out of town and Blue Met wanted to honour Louise, especially since she is a Montrealer and she is a crime fiction writer, which was the theme. They had actors read an excerpt from her latest book. There was an Alfred Hitchcock type who gave a bio of Louise Penny and a couple actors who read from her novel. I have to say, I’m not a big fan of readings, they are a crap shoot. Either authors are terrific readers or you want to slit your wrists listening. It was a nice change to have a reading like this.
And a quote from Louise Penny, “Be willing to make the audience suffer.”
Love under Fire - Tess Fragoulis and Felicia Mihali
Talk about women surviving in a predominantly male society. Why love is never enough. Dealing with the consequences of a disaster for years to come. Like a friend of mine who was homeless after Hurricane Katrina who is still struggling. We forget about them, once the news cameras move onto something else, the people who have survived a disaster are still struggling is silence.
After you have left home and write about it and possibly decide to go back that there is no home to go back to because everything has changed, moved forward. “Not the same kind of Greek”
Ahdaf Soueif
Her book Cairo – is 18 days of a diary about the Egyptian Revolution
She said there is an element of trepidation after the major change. The feeling that now you really have to do it right. It’s like living a miracle. The responsibility that this brings.
A sense of paralysis – how can change come about?
It’s such a relief not to have to despise yourself anymore.
In the face of the army and weapons – There’s no reason to run back, it’s better to stand your ground.
She said about the youth – they have refused to have their life stolen.
One poignant thing that Ahdaf said about her mother who passed away, that through all of this ‘revoluting’ she had the tremendous need to tell her mother. Wanting to hear her mother react and respond.
I'll put the notes from Reality TV Made me a Better Writer in a separate post, since those notes are probably the most helpful for writers.
EY
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