SABRIYA Writing Journal 7 - Laughter, Reading, & Distractions

LAUGHTER

The laughter comes from my ever-changing mind about the working title of this book I hope to write. I got tired of trying to pronounce "Shenzhen," although it should be easy, and I like alliterations. Besides, Hong Kong is next door to Shenzhen, and yet I need a visually interesting but fictional place to avoid geographical faux pas descriptions. So, for the time being, the story takes place in and around Hong Chi's environs.

READING RESEARCH

One of the tasks I undertake before getting too far into creating a manuscript is to read inspiring literature, hopefully in the genre that I intend to write. But, in this case, I'm a novel behind. Right now, the book I'm enjoying and marking up is something I should have read before the novel I just finished, Tiger's Hope (see below the distraction). Tiger's Hope is a cautionary tale about a singer-songwriter's IVF mix-up, a few Catholic priests, and a prelate. SABRIYA, while there is a subtle Catholic motif to the story, is NOT about the church or its prelates. 

Shenzhen and Hong Kong at Night by Mike Leung (flickr)

Regardless, the idea is to read an author that I want to emulate. I hope to learn how to write better. I stumbled upon the prolific pile of 105 books written by Ralph McInerny (1929-2010), 52 of which were fiction. A little research suggested that "The Priest" (1873 ~160,000 words) may have been his best.  I'm only 102 pages into the 563, and so far, there's plenty to admire in McInerny's command of English. The Priest is about a young man who has just returned to Ohio to be a junior associate priest after three years in Rome earning his Doctorate of Sacred Theology degree. The conflicts he faces are rooted in the shadows of the Vatican II council, a controversy that persists today despite the council's sessions, held long ago between 1962 and 1965. 

Nonetheless, here are some juicy examples of language...pardon the lack of context. Similes, metaphors, color, and ironic juxtapositions.

"Trying sinning on the side of charity, Monsignor."

Arthur Rupp was a first drip followed by many more...

...his brows dancing suggestively...

"Someone's been taking notes on your forehead." 

Something happened to the embalmed line of Agnes's mouth, as if she were trying to pop the stitches and scream that she was still alive.

She turned abruptly, the movement causing her eyes to snap open. She might have been catching him in a lie.

Did he really think Rome [the Vatican] was the buzzing center of it all . . . its major industry was postage stamps.

A moral theologian had several dozen ways of being less than candid [i.e. lying]

His voice seemed to force its way through the bridge of his nose.

...the newer neighborhoods and eventually suburbs spread west, munching into the orchards as they go...

...eyes downcast, corners of the mouth drooping, a general promise of tears.

"...the Second Vatican Council is a vicious rumor launched by Newsweek and the National Catholic Reporter."

The row of brick residence halls might have been a squadron of sinking ships.

She peered at her watch, hidden in a fold of flesh.

She wrinkled her nose and knitted her brows, prepared for the worst.

She became a poet of the nuptial bed in public.

It (the confessional) was a setting for the enactment of sad scenes. 

Bev freed a pickle slice that had been embedded like a fossil in the hamburger bun.

...but no matter where he looked he saw the infinitely interesting landscape of himself.

He had bared his soul to her, such as it was, and now they were to cuddle and coo. She felt like throwing up."

The Priest is a great read. I'm reading scenes aloud to Pam, as she doubles over in laughter .... hopefully at McInerny's wit and not my reading. 

And now for the...

DISTRACTION NO. 1

I haven't been able to write due to the distractions.

The first box of my latest novel, Tiger's Hope, was scheduled to be delivered from the printer. I wanted to use AI for the first time to generate a short promo video. I had spent several hours reading about how to achieve consistent results for a character's face, but I was fearful of the real time and money it would require. In reality, it took me about 10 hours but only cost about $20 out of pocket. I used a combination of Whisk to transform my AI cover still art into a prompt, then used ChatGPT to generate a consistent character prompt, and then a series of scene prompts (using the same character description for Anna Marie's face. I then rendered the results in VEO3 (not known as Sonovid). There were five scenes, as seen below, but it took at least three times that many renderings to get the visuals and voices correct. 

I assembled the five scenes in Final Cut Pro and added some James Stonehouse music from our motion picture effort of the same story 10 years earlier.

In the end, the voice clarity was very inconsistent, so I asked my wife, Pam, to ADR all five scenes. After which I applied audio filtering and sound effects to get the final soundtrack.  Here's what it looks and sounds like. What do you think?

DISTRACTION NO. 2

But then the books arrived, after I announced their release. I was too impatient. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. The printer, in this case IngramSpark, forgot to refill the yellow ink tray.  I'm sure they will reprint for free, but... well, at least the red cover metaphors the blood letting that freaks out my protagonist. I guess I have a pile of free "early readers." 

Rejected cover (left)        Desired cover (right)

Onward and upward, as my first publisher, Michael Wiese, would say. Wanna buy the book? CLICK HERE.

Sabriya of Shenzhen - Journal Entry No. 6 (Grammarly)

Over the past week, I've been forced to take a break from Sabriya of Shenzhen to make progress on another novel... the one before Sabriya—Tiger's Hope. 

I've titled this post 'Sabriya...', however, and not 'Tiger', to illustrate an essential aspect of a writer's life—life is full of interruptions and is really only a stepping stone for the current project.

That means the diversion to work on Tiger's Hope must and inevitably will advance Sabriya's progress. 

How did that work out for me?

Tiger's Hope is a 57,000-word novel based on a screenplay we almost produced a decade ago. I've blogged about this earlier. After finishing the draft and reading it aloud to ensure the structure and plot flowed smoothly, I was ready to have it proofread. 

My regular proofreader was free (my sister, the editor), but I've overworked her, she's busy this summer, and this novel didn't interest her that much. I had no problem with that. 

I've been fortunate to work with a half-dozen proofreaders over the years. None of them were perfect. Even with my bad grammar skills, I was still finding things they missed. I was worried that since G missed the error, it might miss even more, and I would never find what was missed. On Wizard Clip Haunting, there were four editors, and each one saw more and more things wrong. It was disheartening. 

Okay, so let's hire a "professional."

Proofreaders for a 57,000-word novel cost from 0.7 to 1.5 cents per word, or $400 to $855. That's reasonable.  I queried the $400 proofer. She was not taking on any more work...which translates to, "I've underpriced my services." 

Next, a $650 proofreader might have been able to review my novel in about three months. I was not willing to wait that long.  

All this time, I was thinking about how I needed a foolproof way to look at every comma, every sentence with cold, calculated eyes... when the word algorithm came to mind.  That meant computer, and that suggested A.I.

I'm not in favor of AI-generated text. When an author uses it to generate text, it's not the writer, and it makes sense that what I've read is true—a writer who uses AI to write can't remember what "he" wrote. So, what good is it to him? That probably reveals that I'm not very well off financially. My goal is not to make money, but to learn and instruct, so that I can know even more. I'm repulsed by all the "get rich quick" memes on social media about having an AI generator write a book and the "writer" collecting the royalties. Sorry, I find that repulsive and right up there with fake news. 

However, I have no problem with a computer pointing out that I've misspelled a word or that my grammar could be improved. 

After a day of researching AI proofing tools, although not in-depth, I chose Grammarly. As I  suspected, it wasn't perfect and over the entire book (I finished Grammarly's  proofing of the 57,177 words last night), I manually rejected about  50% of its "corrections."  So, here's a review of my findings. And to cut to the chase, I believe the novel is significantly improved after using Grammarly than it was before. 

SETUP NOTES and CONTROLS

MY COMPUTER

I work with Microsoft Word at this stage (after I draft in Scrivener). I am working on a 2015 Power Mac (tower) running macOS Monterey (12.7.6). I have two 27" displays. While I'm surrounded by RAID 1, 2T–16T external ThunderPort drives, my manuscript writing is done on the system's 1T Solid-State Memory.  I've discovered that MS Word does not like to save files to an external drive without creating a temporary file to work on. After an hour's work, I realize I've been typing into a Word Temporary file with an incomprehensible file name that can't be found without using 'Save As'...

GRAMMARLY (G)

I installed G-Pro ($12/month) on my Mac, including Grammarly for Mac and Grammarly for Word. There is also a web browser version, but it does not allow me to preserve my Word Styles and other formatting. On my computer, two versions may conflict, and G's Support team keeps advising me to turn one off or uninstall it due to issues that arise. I tried that once, but rejected it for the reasons cited below.

There are actually three G controls on my desktop: 

(1) In the Mac Tab bar at the very top of my primary screen. It's a pull-down menu that allows me to turn G on or off for different applications. Currently, it is off. When it's on, it's like a grammar teacher constantly looking over your shoulder and telling you not to do something, and confusing the line I'm typing on with red or blue highlights, suggestions. After I finish a draft, I can turn it back on and go through the suggestions to make the necessary fixes. I may do that with this blog...but not until I'm done with the draft. 

 (2) There's also a G icon in my dock called Grammarly Desktop.  It contains several innocuous choices, but the one that actually makes sense is "Settings." Under Settings, you can view your Block List, Account Info, and Customization options. The Customization is extensive, but not enough for me. You can choose the style of English (US, Canadian, British, Australian, Indian), a Quick Key to accept suggestions, an Open shortcut keystroke, and the most useful "Writing Style." The writing style is a comprehensive list of proofing functions that you can turn on or off. See image for the first 1/5 of this list. This "Your preferences" list and your choices on it are kept at the G website and are served up live. You guessed it, if your internet connection goes down (even temporarily), G ceases to work well.  

(3) The third control is in the Application Menu bar, e.g., Word. Which turns the G app on, if it had been off before.  When it comes on, it searches your document and displays every grammatical issue you've requested, as per your preferences, in a sidebar. In my 57,000-word document, there were an estimated 1,800 suggestions to review.  See sidebar (right). At the top, if you can read the details, you're told there are 366 alerts to check. There are growth bars for correctness (red), clarity (blue), engagement (green), and delivery (purple). All the alerts in the column below fall under one of these categories. As you see, my raw writing (the first 5 chapters of Tiger's Hope) scores high for clarity, engagement, and delivery, but poorly in correctness (meaning, grammar). 

In the top right corner is the number 77 in a download circle. This is your score (out of 100). When I respond to each of the alerts in the list — either by accepting the correction, making a manual change to the manuscript, or dismissing the alert — that number has been 99 or 100. 

Once I take one of those three actions to an alert, G automatically reevaluates the text, and may come back once or twice to offer a new suggestion, based on the change you made or didn't make. 

Clicking on an alert provides several options, including seeing the alert "IN TEXT" 

The bullseye next to the number 77, offers another way to deliver alerts to you by asking about your Audience (General, Knowledgeable, Expert), Formality of Style (Informal, Neutral, Formal), Domain (Academic, Business. General, Email, Casual, Creative), Tone (8 choices) and Intent (4 choices). 

EVALUATION

1. Their customer support exists, but it is not very helpful. Support (aside from a chatbot) is only available by filing a Support Ticket, and the email responses returned are boilerplate, simplistic answers, such as uninstalling and reinstalling. I've requested support 6 times, and I've finally given up on them. They never answer the question. And in the end, they've asked me to jump through hoops to compile a system report and send them the entire file, etc. I refused....too much time. 

There are workarounds to issues you can learn. The biggest problem occurs when the Internet is slow or hesitant. During such times, the G system simply stops saving your changes and hangs up. I've managed to restart it by opening a previous file that had been through the G review, rebooting the entire computer, and then restarting G. Support suggests just quitting G and restarting. 

3. When G for Mac is on, writing an email or blogging (as I'm doing now) is very difficult because G is constantly interrupting my writing with ways to write better. It's irritating

G for Mac alone will only check 4,000 files before it quits. Support says the word count is unlimited, but I cannot find an explanation of how I can invoke that capability  . The web-browser version will check even fewer words at a time. 

5. G for Word on Mac (an Add-in, they call it) will check 150,000 characters at a time, or about 30,000 words. For my 57,000-word novel, I split it into three files and recombined them when I was done.  I've also been told by Support (contrary to what is printed on their website) that Word for Mac can check an unlimited number of words. However, this is coupled with the explanation that G only loads a certain number of words ahead of your cursor location, and once you move your cursor, G will load more words. This is only partly helpful. G can scan an entire file, but only if it's less than 150,000 characters. Within that limit, it can alert you to inconsistencies and help you make them consistent, like whether a word used throughout the document should be capitalized or not. If it's only checking part of the file, then you may not get all the words consistently capitalized. 

6. I've been told by G-Support that G for Word on Mac is no longer going to be supported, OR it is no longer available for download. But the communication from their support is not always consistent. The personnel may be from a foreign country, and they may not understand English very well. That is ironic; support for an English grammar checking application is not provided by English grammar specialists. 

7. G does not check quotation marks if they are missing. Sometimes it will adjust the closed quotation mark from before to after a period. But not always. G does not have a way to globally accept a similar alert throughout the document, like changing 70 ellipses without spaces between the periods to 70 ellipses with spaces between the periods. But that problem can be corrected directly in WORD using Advanced Search and Replace.

8. With G on and constantly checking, if it highlights a sentence you, and makes a suggestion, you better accept it, dismiss it, or close G and make a manual change. YOU CANNOT MAKE A MANUAL CHANGE TO A HIGHLIGHTED SUGGESTION. THE LOGIC WON'T LET YOU. Turn off the app first, else where you think you placed your cursor is NOT where you placed your cursor, and what you then type will be somewhere else. Good luck finding it. 

Now that I'm mostly finished with this blog post I'll turn G for Mac back on and spend the next ___ minutes making "corrections.

SO WHAT CAN I TAKE FROM ALL THIS TO HELP WITH SABRIYA

Reviewing 1,800 grammatical and spelling suggestions:

a. Gave me a better understanding of grammatical constructions I'm weak at using

b. Corrected spelling issues I've misunderstood

c. Show me better ways to construct sentences that are easier to read, and use a greater variety of construction techniques. 

Sabriya of Shenzhen - Journal Entry No. 5

So, I started writing. Not so fast, Stan.

You may note in the poster to the right that the picture of Sabriya has changed, and "Shanghai" has changed to "Shenzhen." More about that later.

The first scene of the first chapter (target 1,000 words) is supposed to set the tone and location of the story in an omniscient voice. According to Journal Entry 4, Step A, I had long pre-visualized the setting. So, I stepped to B. and began the "objective or universal POV" of the location and tone.  This is what I came up with.

It was a wild boar snort before midnight, June 1995, when thirty-three thousand taxis and motorcycles jammed the streets, freeways, and ferries of Hong Chi. The colorful conveyances shuttled high-maintenance women from the crowded luxury shops of Chao and responsible men from the financial district back to their plastic kitchens and bamboo bedrooms in the banyan-festooned foothills. Meanwhile, young couples, apparently without responsibilities and dressed similarly, flocked to the club district and its frolicking nightlife, and male tourists, who had long ago shed their responsibilities, trooped to Qui Plaza’s red-light district where strumpets displayed their available assets for rent. Along the densely populated late-night streets, wet and muggy from a late-afternoon squall, the intoxicating mix of diesel exhaust and steam from food stalls hawking exotic stir-fries, kabobs, and crepes anesthetized the masses in their search for meaning.

EXCEPT,  I had put off committing to a specific (historic) place. I really didn't want to get tangled up in writing another lengthy historical novel, because getting the history right is always challenging.  "Hong Chi" sounded generic enough, and not like Bangkok or Hong Kong, where I'd face the historical challenges of also including the local political reality that always seemed in flux. But I faced a dilemma. I didn't want the story to be so generic that the culture could not be clearly identified. The story is about human trafficking, so I stopped writing 500 words into the 1,000, and started to read (again) about human trafficking and organ harvesting in SE Asia. It became apparent that China was at the top of the list, not just because of independent gangs, but because in the far north-western autonomous region of Xinjiang, there are reports of forced government organ harvesting of ethnic minorities.

Time and place are essential elements to nail down, so I've made a working choice. 1995. SHENZHEN.  Shenzhen is a large, colorful Chinese city adjacent to Hong Kong. Shenzhen is located in the historically famous province of Guangdong, formerly known as Canton, where the Opium Wars took place along the Pearl River. I have read (twice) the non-fiction biography Canton Captain about Merchant Captain Robert Bennet Forbes (1804–1889) (written by James B. Connolly). I was fascinated by the place and wanted that research effort to play into the Sabriya project. Another inadvertent piece of research is that we have a close acquaintance who lives in China, who has visited Shenzhen and worked for the UN on anti-human trafficking projects.

Finally, as a visual person, I knew that I would need to physically describe my characters early on in the manuscript, and that their ethnic background would play a role in those descriptions. This realization led me to make decisions that pushed my desire for a generic approach off the table. 

Here are the steps I've taken in the last few days.

MAP

I created a map and identified the location of all the major scenes in the treatment. Google Maps is very helpful here, especially since all the locations identified in the map below (yellow dots) have photo galleries accessible on Google Maps. So, I can see what the land and buildings look like as they have been photographed in the last few years. 

TIMELINE

Next, I had to nail down the historic events and ages of all the major characters in the story. The principal story takes place in 1995, before Hong Kong was handed over to the People's Republic of China (in 1997), marking the end of 156 years of British rule. For my story to work, the United Kingdom still needs clout in China.  I've created timelines like this successfully in the past using Excel. The image below shows an example of the Excel timeline for Sibriya's story. It lists the central characters and their ages corresponding to events in the plot beginning in 1979. The last row is 1995. I will add political and other events to this Excel file as needed. (Yes, there are multiple story events each year, here represented simply by the letters A through Q.)

CHARACTER BOARD

My character picture boards were created decades ago by cutting out images from magazines. Years ago, I used pictures from Google Images (often celebrities dressed up for a movie character). But this time around, I used Microsoft Pilot AI. Here's the result. The prompts for creating these images include the ethnicity and age of the individuals. Of course, once I made these images based on age and ethnicity, I had to update the poster. The previous Sabriya image looked too European to come from S.E Asia.

Let's see if I can now get back to writing... although all the above is part of writing. Right?

Sabriya of Shanghai - Journal Entry No. 4

I've started to write, after many weeks of planning and plotting. Now, the rules of writing, for me, will vary day-to-day. Not that the rules change, but because I'll forget them from one day to the next. Thus the critical need for rewriting and remembering the rules.

MY WRITING RULES:

The following assume I've taken the time to outline the story, and completed due diligence in researching the broader aspects of the era and characters—both critical writing tasks, which in this case I've done. The rules below are not about general research, planning or plotting (see Journal entires 1-3) but about stringing the words together for the first time.  

1. VISUALIZE FIRST. Take time to visualize the scene as if watching a movie. This may be the most time consuming thing about writing—NOT WRITING.
2. START OBJECTIVE. Every scene should begin with a paragraph from an objective or universal Point-of-View (POV) that describes the setting and characters in the scene with a disaster close at hand. By objective POV I mean the POV of someone NOT in the scene—the narrator—who can see everything about the scene, e.g. God's POV.
3. ONE POV. After that first objective POV paragraph, every other paragraph in a scene must be told from a single character's POV who is IN THE SCENE, perhaps the POV of the most emotionally conflicted character.
4. WRITE FOR IRONY. Every description, and perhaps line of dialogue, should contain an ironic comparison. 
5. WRITE TO TARGET. First draft not so much, but second draft must condense word count to the target number, OR revise the rest of the chapter or book so word count goal (overall) is observed.
6. WRITE ATTITUDE. Write with an emotional attitude that channels the POV character. Nothing in this word is clean and objective. Even God has an attitude and sometimes he expresses with with catastrophic results. Attitudes vary from sarcasm to sweetness, from retribution to forgiveness. Vary the attitude as you vary the POV. 
7. END ON CLIFF. Every scene ends with a cliff hanger described by Step 3 (the disaster step) of the Scene-Sequel structure pattern. In some cases this may be an objective, universal POV, like the first paragraph of the scene. (more on Scene-Sequel below)
8. RIGHT WORD. Never hesitate to take the time to find the right word, turn-of-phrase, or trope. (more on tropes below)

Scene-Sequel Structure Pattern

Writing in a Scene-Sequel pattern is method of structuring your writing at a paragraph, sentence, or micro level. If you deconstruct the best fiction writers' output, you will see it. I always start out writing a new project by following this pattern anally, by putting these hidden steps in Scrivener to constantly remind me. After a few weeks the pattern becomes almost automatic.

In every scene-sequel sequence there is a DISASTER that spurs the action forward (or in a new direction...a mini-turning point). Here's a diagram from my on-line workshop (Storycraft Training). An explanation follows.

Novel Scene-Sequel Sequence (simplified)

Running from left to right in the above diagram. (1) The protagonist has a physical GOAL to achieve. (2) The protagonist takes action to achieve that goal, and in so doing creates CONFLICT with the antagonist. (3) Because of the conflict, the goal is not fully achieved, resulting in a DISASTER. (4) The protagonist experiences an EMOTIONAL REACTION, which acts as a motivation to keep going. (5) The protagonist spends some time evaluating in his mind (THOUGHT) the DILEMMA faced, until... (6) The protagonist makes a decision about the next goal and takes the fist steps to achieve it. [And the process REPEATS starting with the new goal.]

Tropes

Using tropes in your writing is like writing with subtext—it keeps the reader intrigued and intellectually engaged.  Here is a summary of useful tropes copied from Google's AI engine.

Tropes are recurring themes, ideas, or literary devices used in storytelling. They can be categorized into various types. Tropes can be elements of character, plot, or setting, and they often reappear in different stories, sometimes becoming defining characteristics of a genre. 

Here's a breakdown of some common types of literary tropes: 

Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things without using "like" or "as" (e.g., "Juliet is the sun"). 

Simile: A comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as" (e.g., "Her smile was like sunshine"). 

Irony: A figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words (e.g., saying "Oh, fantastic!" when something bad happens). 

Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole (e.g., "wheels" for a car). 

Metonymy: A figure of speech in which one thing is used to represent something else with which it is closely associated (e.g., "the crown" for the monarchy). 

Hyperbole: Exaggeration used for emphasis or effect. 

Litotes: Understatement, often for ironic effect (e.g., saying "not bad" when something is actually very good). 

Sabriya of Shanghai - Journal Entry No. 3

I draft in Scrivener, which allows me to set target word lengths for each scene within a chapter.  Below I've expanded the Excel spreadsheet from Journal Entry No. 1, to calculate the word length for each chapter and scene, all based on the treatment. THESE ARE ALL TARGETS AND THEY WILL CHANGE, BUT THIS ANAL WORK  PROVIDES A FOUNDATION AND DIRECTION. The closer I stay to it, the closer I will arrive at my target book length.

The table below shows that there are 17 chapters of lengths 3250 to 4500 words. There are 63 scenes of lengths 500 to 4500, the 4500 scene filling an entire chapter (9). The average scene length being only 1143 words.  The final manuscript target length being 72,000 words.

The "0" cells compare two different ways to calculate the word counts so they add up to 72,000. If one of the "0" cells does not show a "0" I know one of my calculations is wrong. Notice the chapter breaks favor the length of the chapter and not the end of one of the 21 macro beats (grey).

The green lines represent the backstory, flashbacks discussed in Journal Entry No. 2— notice the FB scenes are very short, as flashbacks should be.

Everyday when I think through this stuff I imagine a revision to the treatment or micro beats. I make notes of those in the treatment, which I will be following as I write. In fact, when I write a scene, I'll copy the treatment paragraphs for that scene and paste them into the Scrivener document,  which gives me beginning copy for that scene. For instance just before starting this journal entry I copied the treatment paragraph for Chapter 1 Scene 1 into Scrivener. I have the target for that scene set to 1,000 words. The treatment paragraphs were only 275 words. That gets me going and I started to rewrite and expand.

Here's what the Scrivener Binder (left margin) looks like for the first four chapters and 12 scenes.

Each one of those 12 scenes (text documents) has a word length target set for it. As I write, a growth bar appears at the bottom of my manuscript page in blue. When I hit the target of 1,000 words the bar will turn green. If I go beyond 1,000 words the growth bar will turn red. After I pasted in the treatment paragraph to what I was calling Shenzhen (but it's changed now to Hong Chi) I edited the first sentence. The document was then 271 words of my 1,000 and this is what the bottom of the page looked like...

If I write 1,223 words it looks like this, meaning I'm over and must edit down, thus keeping me on target.

So, I have started to write, although I will stop often to research what I am writing about. My protagonist, in addition to being the glamorous Thai wife of the British consulate, is also a Wing Chun practitioner of some advanced skill.  Wing Chun is the mysterious and hidden form of Kung Fu developed by Ypi Man (1893–1972) who passed it on to Bruce Lee's who made the form famous. So, one of my research steps will be to watch the "Ip Man" Blu Ray trilogy...for the third time.

Ah, here''s my first sentence... I'm sure it will change:

In the dead of night thirty-three thousand taxi sedans and motorcycles jammed the streets of Hong Chi shuttled men and women from the crowded luxury shops in Chao, to the colorful nightlife in Yezong and the go-go bars of Qu Plaza, where hundreds of young women exposed their assets just a block from Assumption Cathedral in one direction and the stiff upper lip British Consulate in the other. 

A distant siren wailed.

Sabriya of Shanghai - Journal Entry 2

I have finished the preliminary plotting for my novel about Sabriya of Shanghai. Let me share what I've done in the last few days.

Steps 1-7: (discussed in blog post Journal Entry 1)  I constructed a slide in Keynote (4000 pixels x 2500 pixels) and divided the slide into 21 columns, each corresponding to the 21 macro beats of the story I intend to write. These would be the same 21 beats I'd use for a screenplay and are a reliable structure into which to drop particular story beats (or cards), a process called "breaking the story," i.e. I'm breaking down the story into relatable chunks, scenes, or events.

Step 8

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows how I parsed the formerly written movie treatment for Sabriya into 87 smaller beats, each closely associated with scenes. I'll end up with 100–120 such beats after the manuscript is written as many of the beats in the middle of the story (and above graphic) are summarized.

The first column of the above figure is the "Prologue" or back story that proceeds the present day beats. The events  in the Prologue are necessary to fully understanding the drama that unfolds later.  Years ago I considered that the prologue story could be told as flashbacks during the telling of the present day story. I imagine that withholding the backstory at first, and revealing it slowly through flashbacks will create additional intrigue. In story time there is perhaps a 10-year gap  between the end of the Prologue and the beginning of the next column known as "Life before" or the first half of Act 1. 

Step 9

Figure 2

I decided to disburse the prologue beats throughout the present day story as a slowly revealed series of flashbacks. So, I turned them green for clarity. Not very evident in Figure 2 is that I clumped the Prologue beats into six clumps each clump occurring chronologically close in time. Thus, the Prologue can be considered to contain just six beats. 

Step 10

Figure 3

I realized that that the structure template I'm using contains six natural turning point beats starting with (1) Act 1's Climax and the Threshold crossing into Act 2, and then (2) Pinch Point B, (3) the Moment of Grace, (4) Pinch Point C, (5) Act 2 Climax, and (6) Pinch Point D. [Pinch Point A is the same as the Inciting Incident in the middle of Act 1.]

Those critical turning points, or possible reversals, would be excellent places to tigger the flashbacks that reveal Sabriya's present day motivation due to her backstory. So, in Figure 3, I slid the six Prologue Clumps over those turning point columns. I am not sure what the present day action will be in Sabriya's experience to trigger her memory of her past, but figuring that out seems like a minor concern at this point.

I now have a structure that will create a great rollercoaster ride of action and emotion for the reader, and reveal the back story as motivations for the present day story.

NEXT I need to analyze the above beat structure to ensure the protagonist and antagonist actions are consistently and evenly applied along the through-line of the story—the rescuing of Sabriya's secret son from the boy's father, a leader in the S.E. Asia human trafficking trade.

AFTERTHOUGHT: By moving the prologue into six flashbacks, I need to redistribute the word counts, taking the 4-5 words reserved for the Prologue and assigning them to the turning point columns where the flashbacks will occur. 

Development of a Novel - Sabriya of Shanghai - Journal Entry 1

Not sure if I'll be able to keep up this journal, but I'll try.  Writing a novel is a long affair and there are many interruptions, blogging being one of them and staring at a blank page another. There's a solution to both. Starting today I try to share how you can eliminate the latter, and strengthen your linear storytelling mind. The foundation of this is my book The Moral Premise and the extensive resources of this blog, my on-line Storycraft Training series, and years of  experience working as a story and screenplay consultant.

The novel I've started and which this journal will follow is Sabriya. It's the story of an elegant Chinese woman, a skilled practitioner of the hidden martial art Wing Chun, who marries a young British diplomat to Shanghai, then risks her marriage and scandalizing Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service when she creates not a little mayhem around Shanghai trying to rescue her secret son from his ruthless father who has become the chief of a human trafficking syndicate dealing in youth for labor, sex, and  harvested organs.

Step 1 - Pick a Successful Antecedent

Sabriya of Shanghai (SOS) was originally a treatment for a martial arts thriller movie set in S.E. Asia. I wrote it on spec for a potential client, but when he went in another direction I retained ownership. The antecedent for the treatment is Taken, the 2008 thriller written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, directed by Pierre Morel, and starring Liam Neeson. Taken was so successful there were two equally successful sequels. So, I designed the beats of the new story on Taken but I made it different—I changed the location from France to China; I changed the male lead to female; I changed the kidnapped victim from a daughter to a son, and I changed the lead's expertise from a being secret spy to a secret form of martial arts.  

Step 2 - Select a Practical Medium

Having no money to make a film, and having written several novels, and non-fiction projects, it was time to transform SOS from a film treatment into a motion picture thriller.  The first question was, how long of a novel?   My three previous fictional efforts were 30,000, 57,000, and 372,00 words. I could not get traditional agents or publishers to consider the 372.000 project, and no one was interested in a novella. Agents told me 70K–90K was an ideal length. So, I settled (arbitrarily) on 72,000 words, knowing I'd go long. 

Step 3 - Structure - Use a Successful Structure

I will use a high-level, generic structure used successfully in long-form stories of all genres, and which has proved accurate in hundreds of box office hits and best selling novels. The structural sequence uses 21 beats for the through-line. I describe these beats in various places and detail elsewhere on this blog and fundamentally in The Moral Premise. The percentages and word lengths (based on 72,000) were calculated with the Excel spread imaged below. Thus, this level of detail decision making was not made arbitrarily. I will write the first draft in Scrivener who allows me to set word limits for each document—in this case each of the 21 major beats that vary in length from 1,00 to 5,000 words. 

Step 4 - Create Template for Carding (or Breaking) the Story Beats

Over the  years, I have set up structural templates on door walls with 3"x5" cards and masking tape, on large wooden folding closet doors,  painted walls with the pictures removed, on black landscaped 4 'x 8' Gatorfoam Board with Post-It Notes, on portrait 4' x 8' Masonite on wheels with Post-It Notes, and in Apple's Keynote,  which I am using on SOS. (image below)

I have come to prefer Apple's Keynote (Appel's answer to PowerPoint for Mac users like me), with a single slide dimensions set to 6000 x 2500 pixels.  I can type, transform, and copy Keynote cards faster than writing with a marker on physical Post-Its. When other people are in the room for a story meeting, however, one of the 4' x 8' boards works best with physical Post-Its—we can all see the beats at once, and anyone can jump up and make a change on the large board (or wall).

Below is the beginning of the story breakdown. Each "card" represents a scene, each column is one of the 21 macro story beats. 

For SOS I've chosen to break the story into columns from left (beginning of story) to right (end of story). The column widths (defined by white lines) are the relative duration of the beat. The image above shows the first 10 beats, with "cards" filled in for the first 4 beats (Prologue through Reject the Journey).  The numbers 4.5, 9, 15, etc are the running total of words (in 000s) to the end of the beat where they're placed. These numbers will differ from the Excel chart as I've changed my mind about some lengths.

Step 5 - Card the Story

The first (or left) column is the Prologue. I have created cards for each micro beat (or scene) of the treatment, and placed them in chronological order from top to bottom, whereupon the story continues in the next column (Life Before).  The row of short color cards at the top is my color key for different characters. If I want to place a card for a character that is not already on the board, I can option-drag one of the color key cards to copy the card, stretch it as wide as the column and start typing. You'll notice most of the cards have gradated colors—the first time I've used them. The top and bottom colors indicate the two principle characters that appear in that beat. I will continue to fill in this story board based on each beat present in the treatment.  

Each card above begins with a number, which is the line number of the earlier written treatment. See image with "greek" words.

Step 6 - Analyze the Structure

Why do all this carding of each scene on a board with the macro beats? First, the board will act as a living outline that will be open while I write the manuscript. Second, it's important that I study the outline before I begin to write and look for plot holes that need to be filled. I might ask, "Does the antagonist appear ubiquitously and frightfully?  The display and spread of colors will indicate the presence or absence of a character in each beat. In the illustration above Sabriya is light yellow and the the antagonist is red. If there is part of the story where no red grading appears nor light-yellow appears, I know immediately where and what I need to fix. For example, Sabriya should be present in 75% of the cards. Does she? If not, I need to broaden her appearance before I start to write. 

Step 7 - Fix the Structure Before Writing

Based on the previous step, I will make changes to the story board before writing. Knowing what's going to happen and when, allows me to expertly place foreshadowing and resolution information and scenes that deepens the intrigue and reader's enjoyment. 

That's where I am. Please post your questions and follow my journey. 

Using A.I. for Book Jackets & Illustrations

Artificial Intelligent applications have greatly broadened the landscape for us creative types,  although there's one area where I find AI degrading. 

Yes, I have enjoyed the enhancement in entertainment that AI brings, not only in narrative motion pictures where it can create vivid and visceral imaginative worlds, but in silly social media posts of things like Olympic pool diving cats and talking babies that look at public figures. Unfortunately, the nefarious applications lie close at hand, intent on corrupting civilization. Won't be the first thing. 

Books and AI 

I've been writing books lately. When submitting manuscripts to publishers there's always the question, "Did you use A.I. in the creation of any portion of this manuscript?" It's a sad but necessary question. It's in the writing of what should be original and creative works that I found AI repulsive. I'm quick to answer "NO." to the question.  I could not imagine a novel that had any creative or original punch that was written by AI. I do not believe it's possible, even with the ubiquitous advertising of claims to the opposite.  AI is great for pattern recognition tasks, but it cannot think originally. Indeed, AI is currently only able to composite what others have thought up in the past. AI is the opposite of original thinking.

So, I was gratified this morning when I stumbled across an Instagram post about a New MIT report on how ChatGPT is eroding critical thinking skills of its users. I followed the link to the TIME Magazine report. Here's a quote and link.

ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperforned at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study. (Link to TIME  article on the report.)

The MIT study was examining the writing of SAT essays, which, of course, negates the whole purpose of a SAT essays—can you think originally (and write) on your own. 

Bias Alert: I Can Write but I Can't Draw

So, while I can write, I can't draw very well. I rationalize using AI (Microsoft's Copilot with Adobe's Photoshop) to help me create covers and dust jackets for books and to help illustrate projects for which visuals do not exist. Here are some examples for which I take NO CREDIT other than being able to prompt the drawing engines with words.    

For the Angel Quest Documentary (Link) 

For Wizard Clip Haunting Alternative Book Covers (Link)

For Forthcoming Novel Covers: Tiger's Hope and Wizard Clip Haunting Jr (YA&YR)

The Tiger's Hope cover was imported to Photoshop to adjust over all color, shadows and then to add the text. Publishers are considering, but nothing soon and if they accept I'm sure they won't use the above image. 

The Wizard Clip Haunting Jr. cover is further along with my distribution company, Nineveh's Crossing. I just ordered the first case from Ingramspark our POD printer and distributor. Here's what the front, back, and spine will look like.

How I Created This Cover with AI and Photoshop

The image of Eve (12) and Henry (9) came from Microsoft Pilot on the first prompt that went something like this: "Draw me a picture of a 1797, 12-year old farm girl and her 9-year old brother. They're standing in a field of flax and looking scared."  The word "scared" evidently triggered a restriction and Copilot refused to draw anything. So I changed the word from "scared" to looking up in awe," and what you see above as the base image is what came back. I then realized that Eve's secret weapon was prayer, so I wrote a followup prompt: "The girl should be holding a black prayer book." The book showed up under her arm as you see it. I then wrote: "There should be a crescent moon in the sky." The moon came back but it was in the middle of the image. I left it there for the time being. I then wrote, "Put a two story farm house and barn in the background." Copilot it did. All the images returned were square and did not lend themselves to a vertical oriented book cover (5"x 7"). So I wrote: "Add space at the top of the image for the title of a book." The vertical portrait aspect ratio above returned, which I could use, so I downloaded it.

For the back page of the jacket I wrote, "Delete the children in the foreground and the farmhouse and barn in the background, and add a vertically standing white, limestone tombstone in the foreground, and put a tree growing behind it."  What returned I downloaded. There was two or three other iterations where I asked for a creek with boulders along its bank...but I didn't like the creek, so I told Copilot to erase the creek. 

I then merged the two images in Photoshop. They were different in intensity, so I softened the edge with Photoshop's Clone Stamp Tool with a large soft edge, then I cut out and moved the moon over, used the clone stamp to mend the hole the moon had created, adjusted the overall tone, hue, intensity, and color to my liking and added the text, and I found a Jerusalem Cross (.png) on line, and added it to the book. Originally, the cross was on top of Eve's arms, so I erased the parts of the cross that were on her arms, and then darkened the cross, and made it mostly transparent so it looked like it was always part of the black book.

I guess I should add that the entire process was built on a template from Ingram that was generated for the 5x7 trim size of the book, and with a  .433" spine. When you request the template from Ingram, the generator asks for the ISBN number (I have a library of numbers I bought years ago from Broker), the final trim size, and the number of pages. To know the number of pages you first have to lay out the book. I use InDesign. When I was done I had 172 pages. Ingram also asks for a paper selection (I chose groundwood).

I hope this was informative. 

STORY FORCES

 

It's time to revisit the most basic concepts behind successful stories—the forces that make stories work. There are more sophisticated ways of diagraming the above, just search Google images for "story through-lines."  If you follow this blog you've see the following more complex renditions of "The 13/20 Roller Coaster Beats," or posts on how to intertwine subplots so they support the same plot.  The BASICS never change as I've tried to diagram above:

• NOBLE (or villainous) VALUES always drive the
• Protagonist's or Hero's decisions and action, that are always obstructed by an
• Antagonistic or Villainous force, in an effort by the Protagonist or Hero to always achieve a
• NOBLE (or villainous) GOAL

NOT diagramed above are subtleties critical to a cathartic story structure:

• Noble Values always reflect NEEDS required for human survival.
• Ignoble Values always reflect WANTS that lead to human destruction.
• At first the protagonist is often motivated by a WANT but... 
• Close to the story's midpoint (The Moral Premise's "Moment of Grace") the protagonist comes to realize the difference between their WANT and their NEED.  
• The protagonist may be a heroic or a tragic character (but always opposite the antagonist).
• The antagonist may be a heroic or a tragic character (but always opposite the protagonist).

The above diagram relates the never changing forces of a successful story. The above diagram is the most simple illustration of the through-line, the plot, the backbone, the theme, or the moral premise. But there can be sub through-lines related to various subplots, and all tied together with supportive themes, and Nicomachean Moral Premises. (I've blog extensively about all this before.) A story becomes interesting when the through-lines, plots, and theme are imbued with irony, motifs, red-herrings, and secrets.

For example, there can be, in one story the:

• physical through-line of the main plot
• emotional through-line of the central protagonist
• symbolic through-line of various 3-beat motifs
• thematic (moral premise) through-line of the protagonist
• secret through-line of information held back from the audience

But in the end there ALWAYS must be:

VALUES that motivate the PROTAGONIST to battle the ANTAGONIST in order to achieve an GOAL.

In a redemptive story the value and goal are noble and focus on a NEED.

In a tragic story the value and goal are scandalous and focus on a WANT. 

The are almost 400 posts in this free blog that discuss these issues. My book, The Moral Premise sets forth the foundation for all successful stories. My free Storycraft Training series dives deep into these topics. And I'm sometimes available for story/screenplay consulting on specific projects.