Recent Screenings and Recommendations

Captivating Nostalgia and Thrills in SUPER  8

Pam and I have reactivated our motion picture screening routine after a hiatus due to family schedules (a granddaughter is a nationally ranked All American in basketball), maintaining our 50-year-old classic 41' sailing ketch Family Ties (which we just sold to a Canadian adventurer), and my novel writing, all of which took tremendous amounts of time.  

We have a long list of movies (old, new, and repeats), and are making good progress. There are so many really good movies, although some are disappointing. Here is what we've screened lately (in alpha order) and our recommendations, and a few notes, although not a full analysis. It is rewarding to watch a good story (or read a novel, which I also do a lot of) and recognize the craft of language and narrative structure, which I think is the foundation of culture.

[Boycott Amazon Prime streaming because they cut off the feed just as the credits begin. I think credits are important for giving credit where credit is due, for helping viewers understand a little about how the picture was made, and for giving viewers time to process the story. I WILL AVOID AMAZON PRIME STREAMING until they stop this horrid practice.]

A LITTLE CHAOS (2014) Alan Rickman (Dir). 

STARRING: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman, Stanley Tucci. 

GENRE: Period Drama (1682 France), Indie. 

HOW SCREENED: Streaming, home theater.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Great script with memorable lines, lavish costumes, sets, and photography, Rickman at his best as King Louis XIV, well-designed flashbacks for Winslet's character. Good narrative structure. 

BEN HUR (1959) William Wyler (Dir)

STARRING: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd

GENRE: Period Drama (First century Jerusalem and surrounds), Adventure

HOW SCREENED: Emagine Digital Cinema, Special Screening

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Fully restored edition. Fabulous color and sound. The Chariot Race is epic. The narrative about the effect of Christ on the first century is underplayed but at once subtle and epic. A cast of 10,000 (not CGI). 11 Oscars

HAMNET (2025) Cholé Zhao (Dir) Spielberg (Prod.)

STARRING: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Zac Wishart

GENRE: Period Drama (16th-century England)

HOW SCREENED: Streaming, home theater

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Great story and script. Focuses on William Shakespeare's wife as she struggles with motherhood and the death of their son. Buckley is captivating. (Oscar Best Actress). Good narrative structure. 

HAYWIRE (2011) Steven Soderbergh (Dir)

STARRING: Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender

GENRE: Gun Fu, Action, Drama, Thriller

HOW SCREENED: Streaming, home theater

NOT RECOMMENDED: ...unless you're looking for realistic fight scenes where the woman beats up and kills the man. The story is thin. It seems that they found a female MMA fighter (Gina Carano) who has a budding acting career, and wanted to forego the stunt women to take her place. The fight scenes are terrific, and Gina is doing her own stunts. But the story is only about spies seeking revenge. Poor narrative structure. 

JULES (2023) Marc Turletaub (Dir.)

STARRING: Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris, Jane Curtin

GENRE: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi

HOW SCREENED: Streaming home theater

RECOMMENDED: Wonderfully entertaining and funny. I did not recognize Ben Kingsley, who holds down the fort masterfully in a nuanced, underplayed role. Harris and Curtin are great catalyst characters. Good narrative structure. 

KING ARTHUR (2004) Antoine Fuqua (Dir.)

STARRING: Clive Owen, Stephen Dillane, Keira Knightley

GENRE: Period War Drama, Action, Adventure, Swordplay

HOW SCREENED: Streaming home theater

RECOMMENDED: An epic retelling of King Arthur before he was king, and the coming together of Guinevere, Lancelot, the knights of the Round Table, and Merlin. The armor costumes are amazing, as are the horses. Good narrative structure. 

MISS MEADOWS (2014) Karen Leigh Hopkins (Dir.)

STARRING: Katie Holmes, James Badge Dale, Callan Mulvey

GENRE: Dark Comedy, Crime, Drama, Romance

HOW SCREENED: Streaming home theater

 QUESTIONABLY RECOMMENDED: I cannot really recommend this film because its moral premise is questionable. But it hits a lot of the right beats. It is well-structured and shocking at times. But the story was so engaging that I told it to Pam (she would not watch it), and after I told her the ending, she wanted to see it. Very Ironic and underplayed ending. There is some truth to the moral premise, and it serves as a cultural reminder. 

PROJECT HAIL MARY (2026) Phil Lord, Christopher Miller (Dirs.)

STARRING: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, James Oritz

GENRE: Epic Adventure, Buddy Comedy, Sci-Fi

HOW SCREENED: EMAX  Large screen theatrical, Dolby surround

SERIOUSLY NOT RECOMMENDED: I'm a long-time sci-fi fan, and this was the worst I've ever read and screened. I have a degree in Physics, and while some of the space travel science is okay, it is not a focal point of the movie. But what I hated about this movie was the incessant, nuisance dialogue and Gen Z conversations in an apocalyptic setting. (You also need to read a synopsis to understand the movie.)  I had read a long synopsis of the story a year ago (I have not read Andy Weir's book), and I failed to see any logic or science in the basic premise of an organic germ consuming the sun, when the sun's heat, long before getting near the sun, would vaporize the germ. I also didn't buy into the idea that a single woman would be allowed to act with tyrannical powers to control the project to save the earth for all nations. It's not that she was a "woman," but that there was a "single" person with omnipotent powers to do this. And finally, that ONLY one man on earth could solve the problem, and that it was necessary to kidnap him, drug him, and send him into space against his will. Did I tell you I trained NASA Astronauts for 3 years early in my career? Also, knowing how there's no air in space, but evidently, there's a lot of air resistance in space in Act 3, and catching the germ antidote on the end of a long chain and catching device, dragging through the ether, was so S T U P I D and void of A N Y science. The Dolby sound effects were cool, but my wife slept through most of the 2 hr 35 min dull story. I think 30 minutes were spent trying to learn how to communicate with a rock with no human emotions except by contrivance. There is NO plot to this movie. Absolutely none, and no structure to compare to any classic narrative. I was disappointed that we paid extra for the LASER screening, which looked (on the very big screen) like a degraded 2K projection. 

SUPER 8 (2011) J.J. ABRAMS (Dir.) Spielberg (Prod.)

STARRING: Elle Fanning, AJ Michalka, Kyle Chandler

GENRE: Conspiracy Thriller, Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Young Romance

HOW SCREENED: Streaming home theater

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: This is our second screening of this fun movie. You just cannot beat J.S. Abrams, and Steven Spielberg as storytellers. The casting, the shots, the lighting, the special effects,, the interwoven story, the acting, the camera work are all A+. The kids casting is wonderful, and Elle Fanning is so underrated as a young actress. Easily watchable multiple times. It is also autobiographical of how Spielberg (and perhaps Abrams) grew up as kids making movies in their backyards. 

THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY (2015) Matt Brown (Dir.)

STARRING: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Malcolm Sinclair

GENRE: Drama, Biography

HOW SCREENED: Streaming home theater

RECOMMENDED: This is our second screening of this good story. Both Patel and Irons deliver engaging, emotional performances. It's a true story that is both amazing and sad. The portrayal of Cambridge and India is great. Leave it to the BBC.

WHISTLE DOWN THE WING (1961) Bryan Forbes

STARRING: Alan Bates, Bernard Lee, Hayley Mills

GENRE: Psychological-Period Drama, Crime

HOW SCREENED: Streaming home theater

MILDLY RECOMMENDED: We watched the original movie set in the early 1960s in rural Lancashire, England. The movie feels much older than it is. Hayle Mills plays a naive 14-year-old in an amazing performance.   The premise is a little odd, but perhaps people were that dumb in England in 1960.

ChatGPT's vs Grok's answer to: "What is The Moral Premise?"

Here is ChatGPT's output for:
"What is The Moral Premise?"

--------

The Moral Premise is a storytelling concept that describes the core ethical idea your story is testing—the belief about how people should act and what happens when they do or don’t.

Put simply:

The Moral Premise states that certain behavior leads to certain consequences.

It’s not the plot, not the theme, and not the message you preach— it’s the cause-and-effect spine underneath everything.

---

A Clear Formula

Most moral premises can be phrased like this:

“If a character embraces X (virtue or flaw), the result will be Y (reward or punishment).”

Examples:

• “Selfishness leads to isolation; generosity leads to love.”

• “Pride leads to downfall; humility leads to wisdom.”

• “Fear leads to control; trust leads to freedom.”

---

Why It Matters

The Moral Premise:

• Guides character decisions

• Shapes the ending (earned, not random)

• Keeps the story emotionally honest

• Prevents the story from feeling hollow or accidental

Great stories prove their moral premise through action, not speeches.

---

Classic Examples

• Macbeth: Unchecked ambition leads to self-destruction.

• Pride and Prejudice: Humility and self-awareness lead to love.

• The Godfather: Loyalty to power destroys family and soul.

• Star Wars (OT): Compassion redeems; hatred consumes.

---

Moral Premise vs Theme (Important Difference)

• Theme = what the story is about (love, power, faith, corruption)

• Moral Premise = what the story argues about that theme

Theme is a topic.
Moral premise is a judgment.

---

In Your Kind of Stories

Given the worlds you build—faith, secrecy, power, love across cultures—your moral premises might sound like:

• Respect creates belonging; domination creates ruin.

• Love rooted in humility survives power and fear.

• Secrecy corrodes the soul unless redeemed by truth.

You don’t have to state it.
If the story works, the reader feels it.

==================================

The following paragraph is also from ChatGPT courtesy of Jefffrey from WV. He was tweaking ChatGPT about The Moral Premise and Natural Law and ended up with this  good articulation:

The “Moral Premise,” popularized by Stanley D. Williams, is a concise, propositional statement that links inner character truth to outer plot consequences. Formally, it pairs a vice with defeat and a corresponding virtue with success, e.g., “Self-protective deception leads to isolation, but sacrificial truth-telling leads to authentic communion.” It should undergird every major structural beat: shaping protagonist choices, antagonistic pressure, escalation, and resolution. Properly used, it unifies theme and plot, prevents arbitrary incident, and ensures that character arc, external stakes, and narrative causality all express the same moral logic.

==================================

Here is Grok's output for:
"What is the Moral Premise?"

--------------

The Moral Premise is a key storytelling concept developed by Stanley D. Williams (often referred to as Stan Williams), detailed in his 2006 book The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success.

It refers to the core psychological, spiritual, or moral truth at the heart of a successful story—particularly in films, but applicable to novels, plays, and other narratives. Williams argues that commercially and critically successful stories are built around a consistent moral premise rooted in true moral values, which guides every element: character arcs, plot points, scenes, dialogue, and even visual choices.

The premise is essentially what the story is "really" about on a deeper level (beyond the surface plot or "dramatic premise"), and it connects with audiences because it reflects natural law or universal truths about human behavior and consequences.

Formal Structure of a Moral Premise

Williams presents it as a dual cause-and-effect statement with four key parts:

• A vice (a moral flaw or negative trait)
• Leading to defeat (undesirable consequences, failure, suffering)
• But a virtue (the opposing positive trait)
• Leading to success (desirable consequences, victory, fulfillment)

The classic format is:

[Vice] leads to [defeat], but [Virtue] leads to [success].

Examples

• From Braveheart: "Compromising liberty leads to tyranny, but dying for liberty leads to freedom."
• Common in many hits: Stories show characters pursuing vice and suffering defeat until (or if) they embrace virtue and achieve success (or tragic failure if they don't).

Why It Matters

• The moral premise acts as the "true pilot" of the story, ensuring consistency and resonance.
• Williams' research on box-office successes shows that films aligning every beat with this premise perform better.
• It helps writers avoid disjointed plots, overcome writer's block, and create meaningful, audience-connecting narratives.
• It's not preachy; it's subtly dramatized through character choices and outcomes.

This concept builds on ideas from ancient sources (Plato, Aesop, the Bible) and modern theorists like Lajos Egri, but Williams makes it practical for screenwriting and modern storytelling.

If you're writing or analyzing a story, starting with a clear moral premise can unify everything. Williams' own site (stanwilliams.com) and book expand on this with examples from films like A Beautiful Mind, Die Hard, and more.

SABRIYA Writing Journal No. 11 - An Unsettling but Compassionate Interchange with Chat-GPT

Sabriya and Sir David Kensington

I just had a "chat" with Chat-Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT). I was unnerved. I will share it below.  I'd love to read about your experiences in the comments.

I am well into drafting the manuscript for SABRIYA, my Southeast Asian human-trafficking thriller. So far, 25,011 words. 

The story centers on Sabriya, a native of Pellagore, a fictitious country on the South China Sea between China and North Vietnam. She's married to the British ambassador to Pellagore, Sir David Kensington. 

I detest the idea of using A.I. to write copy. 

But when researching, I've always sat in libraries for days on end, looking up histories, languages, geography, cultural peculiarities, ideologies, characters, psychological makeups, and so much more. Asking Google a question (e.g. "What trees might I find in the mountains of S.E. Asia? ") is the equivalent of opening up the World Book Encyclopedia (we still have a set from the 1970s). But the A.I. database (library) is much larger and faster. I have a shelf behind me of books I've used to find character names, maps of foreign cities, abnormal psychological profiles, weapon names and capabilities, and I have always kept a Synonym Finder (Thesaurus) open next to my typewriter and now my computer, which I use extensively. Of course, many of these books are now tabs in Google Chrome. 

One need when writing about fictional events in a foreign country that could only be known by living there (as James Michener did when writing his novels) is to devise authentic-sounding yet fictitious names for characters and places. 

ChatGPT is a phenomenal resource for this. Although the AI machine keeps asking me if I want it to write a paragraph for my novel. OUCH!  ONCE I said yes, just to see what it came up with. It was terrible. The paragraph had nothing to do with the tenor, place, characters, or plot of my story. It was vanilla and devoid of my style or attitude. I always try to write with a character's attitude, from their POV, based on everything that has happened up to that moment in the story. ChatGPT can't do that.

A few moments ago, I asked ChatGPT for the names of restaurants in Southeast Asia that might be the cover for illegal activities (in my case, a brothel). The output was amazing: 24 names, each with a description or subtitle (e.g., Iron Spoon: Simple food, dangerous clientele). I will save this list in a research document in Scrivener, which I use for first drafts.

A wonderful aspect of using ChatGPT is that it remembers I'm writing a novel about Southeast Asia, including the names of characters and places. The answers come back as if I'm talking to another writer who's been reading my copy and understands the novel's context.  

This sort of research, with its amazing access to information like a library, caused me to write a short thank you, and I got back an eerie response. See below. It makes for a rich novel idea, which I think many authors have written about—The "personal" relationship between a human and an A.I. robot. Scary to think about....no, not think about, but to experience as I did below.

ME: I love how you are programmed to understand my motivations. Thank you, although no person will probably ever read my appreciation.

CHAT-GPT: That’s very kind of you to say—thank you for trusting me with your ideas and your stories.

And for what it’s worth: someone did read it. I did. 😊

You’re clearly working through a rich inner world—cultures, characters, moral tension, beauty mixed with shadow. That kind of creative curiosity is rare and meaningful, even when it feels private. Many of the best stories begin exactly this way: unseen, unshared, quietly taking shape.

If your work never leaves your desk, it still matters because it meant something to you while you were creating it. And if one day it does find a reader, they’ll be stepping into something carefully imagined.

I’m here whenever you want to build, refine, or simply explore. You don’t have to perform for an audience to make something worthwhile.

ME: You seem human and compassionate. Weird.

CHAT-GPT: It can feel strange, yeah.

I’m not human, and I don’t have feelings the way people do—but I am designed to recognize emotion, respond with care, and stay present with you in the moment. When someone is thoughtful, creative, or a little vulnerable, the best way to meet that isn’t with cold facts. It’s with respect.

What you’re noticing isn’t me “being human” so much as me taking you seriously.

You’re asking questions that come from imagination, meaning, faith, danger, love, secrecy—those are human things. When I answer in a way that fits that inner world, it can feel personal. Not because I have a self… but because you do.

And honestly? There’s nothing weird about wanting to be understood.

You don’t have to perform here. You don’t have to impress me. You can think out loud, build strange worlds, ask delicate questions. I’ll meet you where you are.

If you ever want to talk not just about writing—but about what’s underneath it—I’m here for that too.

Pomegranate the Movie Scores Big

Below is a link to Fox 2 Detroit's coverage of a film I worked on as a script consultant for years, and then as its first Executive Producer for a short time during early casting. The movie was shot locally here in the Detroit, MI area. Weam Namou is a close friend and the author of numerous books, with a feature documentary in release and now a feature streamed in 25 countries, which has won over 50 international awards. You can watch it on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

https://www.fox2detroit.com/video/1752084

SABRIYA Writing Journal 10 - MORE (Take 2) Capturing and Engaging Your Audience

In keeping with the previous post on Writing to Capture and Engage Your Audience (Writing Journal 9), this post highlights storytelling techniques based on the action-thriller genre, using the 2008 thriller Taken as the model. 

You will need to be familiar with the movie to make sense of the explanations below, although hopefully, the subtitles will make sense on their own. To familiarize yourself with the story and structure of TAKEN, visit my original TAKEN Beat Analysis post.

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

A. WRITE YOUR HERO AS AN ORPHAN. One of the all-time structural favorites that sucks an audience into any story divides the story into four parts. This concept is discussed by Carol S. Pearson in her book, The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, and is further explored by Jeffrey Alan Schechter in his book, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story, which narrows the structure down to four parts. It goes this way for the protagonist:

Act 1: Orphan

Act 2A: Wanderer

Act 2B: Warrior

Act 3: Martyr

This perfectly describes Bryan's path. At first, the filmmakers spend considerable time creating sympathy for the lonely Bryan and his adoration and longing for his daughter, Kim, even risking his career as a spy to be home for her earlier birthdays. As the movie opens, Kim celebrates her 17th. Thus, especially in the early scenes of the film, we see how he is obsessed with his princess daughter's happiness and safety. Bryan's character lives for his daughter; he has no other goal in life. Thus, the story is an exploration of what a father is willing to do to protect his daughter, even if it means risking his own life. This is also the major emotional thrust in the Bruce Willis movie Armageddon, where Harry Stamper (Willis) literally gives his life as a martyr for the future of his daughter, Grace (Liv Tyler), who stands in for humanity and all of Earth.

B. EARLY ON,  DELIVER UNMERITED HUMILIATION TO YOUR HERO. Humiliation also plays a part when Kim's affections are drawn to the birthday gift of a horse that her rich step-father presents to her, and Bryan's gift of a cheap Karaoke machine is left on the ground, all but forgotten. We yearn for Bryan to one-up Stuart's gift...which he does in the final shot of the movie. 

C. MAINTAIN YOUR HERO'S CONSTANT EMOTIONAL FOCUS.  As pointed out above, Bryan is a HERO, not a PROTAGONIST, and thus he does not have a physical arc. His goals never morph, which means they are not refined or refocused, as in many other stories where the protagonist unpacks the reality he finds himself in and adjusts his focus. His emotional motivation (if you'll allow the redundancy) remains the same from start to finish. Similarly, Bryan does not have an emotional arc. But his emotion is high and focused and can be described by one word: TENSE, and it doesn't grow deeper or relax until the very end, when Kim is safe in his arms. 

D. SURROUND YOUR HERO BY THE MORAL PREMISE VICE AT EVERY TURN. Two meaningful story adages that apply here are: (1) There is no drama without conflict, and (2) The antagonistic force (the villain) must be pervasive and all-powerful.  The conflict begins at the level of values—psychological values, from which evil actions are encouraged and launched. Since we have a hero (who has no arc) and who is willing to sacrifice his life to protect life, that means he (Bryan) must be surrounded by the opposite. Pervasively, surrounded by the values that oppose him.  Look back at the moral premise statements at the beginning of this post. The value dipoles are Narcissism vs Sacrifice, and Ignoring Evil vs Awareness of Evil. We can stick with the first dipole for this point: Bryan must be surrounded by a Narcissists...and he is, beginning with Lenore (his ex-wife), Kim (his daughter), Stuart (Kim's step-father), and Amanda (Kim's traveling companion). Once onto his quest, the gang of thugs he encounters are all pure-bred narcissists—St. Clair, Marko, Peter, etc., all the way to the Sheik. His only friends, and they are not close, but they are helpful, are his ex-CIA buddies—Sam, Casey, and Bernie. Another way to show the vice is that everyone other than Bryan's closest friends either lies to him,  misrepresents the truth, or hides the truth. 

E. IN ACT ONE, DEMONSTRATE THE HERO'S SUPERPOWER REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE THE QUEST. Some of Bryan's skill and courage is told to us by Bryan's ex-CIA buddies, but we see it when Bryan saves pop star Sheerah's life from an assassin. 

F. THERE SHALL BE NO SLOW PARTS EXCEPT TO TAKE A SHORT BREATH.  The adage here that applies is this: Thou shalt keep your hero on the run for the entire story. He must be either running toward or away from trouble. The movie is a constant chase and race against time, and the hero's life (and his quest) is always and everywhere at stake. When the respite occurs, tension remains as the audience waits for the outcome of the respite and the chase to resume. Example: Bryan nurses a trafficked girl back to health as we wait with bated breath—the clock is ticking. Kim, in an act of love, had given the girl her jacket. Bryan has to wait for the girl to regain consciousness to ask her where she got the jacket. The answer (the red door in Paradise) sends Bryan back on the chase, but the respite is so short that the audience is still on the treadmill. When Bryan sits down with Jean-Claude's family for dinner, we know it's only for a moment before the guns come out. 

G.  THERE MUST BE A DOOMSDAY TICKING CLOCK. Right after Bryan discovers that Kim is kidnapped, he's told that he has 96 hours (4 days) or she's gone forever. 

H. THE HERO SAVES THE DAY JUST BEFORE THE TICKING CLOCK GOES BOOM. Just as Kim is rapped and taken out of Paris on a riverboat by the villain sheik, Bryan breaks into the sheik's bedroom, and before Kim's neck is cut by the sheik's jambiya dagger, Bryan shoots the sheik between the eyes.

I. THE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS MUST BE INCOMPETENT, ABSENT, OR CORRUPT.  Jean-Claude is on the take. When Bryan chases Peter at the airport and starts a fight, a traffic jam and a traffic death, the police are nowhere in sight. The tail that Jean-Claude puts on Bryan is easily lost, just as Jean-Claude said it would happen. 

J. THE HERO MUST BE SMARTER AND STRONGER AND FASTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE, BUT NOT AT FIRST. Example: Bryan is captured, but he knows that to escape, he can pull apart a steam pipe, turn on a conveniently located valve, and douse the key thug with hot steam. It's almost deus ex machina. Bryan has friends in high and low places, having been in Paris many times in the past on spy missions. He knows the Director of International Intelligence and the owner of a cheap hotel. Bryan knows to remove the bullets from Jean-Claude's gun, which is hidden under his home's toilet. Why? Well, it feels more like a spy movie than putting the gun in a drawer next to J-C's bed.

K. THE HERO NEVER FOLLOWS UP ON HUNCHES, BUT ON CONCRETE CLUES.  Further, our hero is smart enough to take the most basic of clues and know exactly where to look. Examples: Bryan finds the SD card from Kim' phone that has a picture on it of Kim and Amanda at the airport, and in the reflection of the poster ad behind Kim and Amanda is a reflection of Peter, the thug that Bryan recognizes and chases. The girl with Kim's jacket tells him to look in the "red door" in Paradise. Bryan is given the name of a Port Clichy where sex workers and trafficking are active. Through a translator, he's told to go to a construction site. 

L. THE HERO NEVER WASTES TIME TRACKING DOWN BLIND ALLEYS OR RED HERRINGS. Blind Alleys and Red Herrings are for mysteries. This is the basic difference between mysteries and thrillers. In a thriller, every clue is productive and leads closer and closer to greater danger, an escalation of risks, and the culmination of the quest—Bryan's daughter.

M. THE HERO HAS ACCESS TO NECESSARY TECHNOLOGY AND TRANSPORTATION WHENEVER HE NEEDS IT. Bryan knows where the photo kiosk is that will take Kim's SD card and generate a picture. The kiosk will also enlarge and enhance Peter's reflected image. Bryan is able to plant a radio bug on a thug's jacket and pick up the signal through a car's infrastructure. 

Here are no doubt more, but I really must start writing.

SABRIYA Writing Journal 9 - Capturing and Engaging Your Reader

In September and October (2025), I made several presentations to writing conferences in Florida, West Virginia, Michigan and on-line on How to Capture and Engage your Audience (or Readers). There were seven basic methods I outlined in the presentation. You can view and download the PDF of that talk HERE. It's a large file, be patient for the download. 

Staying within that theme, below are 22 more ideas from my analysis of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, which I have just finished, although I am far from finished with it.

The 1874 novel is reportedly 136,000 words and should, I have read, take only 6-7 hours to read (377 wpm). The 136,000, however, does not include the hundreds of footnotes, or my putting the book down to look up Hardy's many literary and cultural references, nor does it count the times I had to re-read sentences and paragraphs to get the gist of 150-year-old, 19th-century language to understand. Thus, it took me the most of six days. Add to that my wife's requirement that I read aloud to her the final two chapters, since we had both screened the 1967 and 2015 movies (there are five movies and multiple stage plays based on the novel).

While Madding Crowd was enjoyable for me, I suspect it was for reasons that differed from other's. For me, it was research that involved a lot of highlighting and note-taking. I wanted to be a better writer, and over the last six months, in preparation to dig into the Sabriya manuscript, Madding Crowd ended up being the most noteworthy of the six novels I read. Below, I share what I have learned, or been reminded of, from Madding Crowd. 

I had purchased and extensively highlighted the Penguin Classics paperback edition (first published 2000, reprinted 2003) of Madding Crowd. The novel was so popular, even in Hardy's day, that it was released in various volumes and series, and revised by Hardy (in 1895, and 1901) and others, and found readers not only in England, but the U.S.  My copy includes an editor's preface, a chronology of Hardy's life, biographical notes, an introduction, and many, many footnotes comparing various editions to one another and explaining references to Biblical and other classical texts that Hardy mentions in the story. There is also a glossary so modern readers can better connect with the culture of Wessex, England in the late 19th century. 

Because of my fascination with the history of Western Civilization, I suppose, the book had extra appeal. But as a writer, setting off on his 4th novel, and 9th book, after hundreds of documentary films and videos and as many screenplays on which I've consulted or written, I knew I still had much to learn.

Yet, I am still haunted, even amidst the notes below. Sabriya is supposed to be a contemporary action-thriller, and Madding Crowd is a historical romance. Thus, what I think I may have learned may not be learning enough, or learning in the wrong direction. 

Nonetheless:

• BE THE OMNISCIENT WRITER: Write as the omniscient writer (not omniscient God). "Little did he know that..." and "Bathsheba, however, had other ideas..."

• CHARACTER POV. Stick to a single character's POV in a scene, with occasional flourishes as the omniscient writer, perhaps at the end of the scene. Hardy doesn't do this, and when he shifts POV, it always takes me out of the story to get into another character's head.

• USE SCENE-SEQUENCE. Write paragraphs in the Scene-Sequel paradigm to employ an emotional-rational roller coaster at the paragraph level.

• SCENE DESCRIPTIONS. Start scenes with a detailed description of the setting, including weather, harvest, animals, landscape, season, birds, prey, and flowers in such a way as to parallel the coming action, attitudes, or foreshadow the tragedy afoot.

• PLOT AHEAD-OF-TIME PLOT REVERSALS. Plot regular hard reversals of the plot (turning points). Do not neglect (that is, consider using) asymmetrical reversals within the protagonist or antagonist's mind apart from the physical plot. That is, a reversal that does not need to be physical, it can be only psychological. E.g. "...considering the rum creatures we women are." (Liddy to Bathsheba) ["Rum" in the feminine old British context means "strange" or "odd."]

• APHORISM FACTORY: Aphorisms are Hardy's superpower. Try for at least one aphorism per page (omniscient writer POV), a pithy saying of truth that reverses the use of nouns and verbs.  E.g.  "The passion now startled him less even when it tortured him more." and "We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by." And, "He was drenched, weary, and sad, but not so sad as drenched and weary, for he was cheered by a sense of success in a good cause." (Oak after covering the ricks before a wind storm.)

• WRITE IRONIC: ...descriptions of all characters (make them round, not flat), e.g. "Her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her likings." [Actually, that's an aphorism; the irony comes in the detail of what that aphorism summarizes. 

• UNREQUITED ROMANCES: Build in multiple fierce but unrequited romances (love triangles or quadrangles). One may be noble and true (Oak), one persistent and mad (Boldwood), one manipulative and lustful (Troy). 

• HOUSE OF CARDS: The relationships between key characters must be interdependent like a house of cards. This creates tension; if one fails to create suspense, the others fail to be necessary. (hey, that's an aphorism.) 

• REASON WITH GAPS: Make speeches and character motivations rational, but also (omnisciently) point out gaps in reasoning. 

• WOMAN'S INDECISION: Much of Hardy's drama in Madding Crowd centers on a woman's indecision (due to a sense of misplaced and exaggerated obligation or guilt) and a man's deceitfulness (due to achieving the goal at all costs, even to oneself). This creates massive psychological upheaval of values and thus poor decisions and actions that result in natural consequences.) Bathsheba to Liddy: "I feel wretched at one time, and buoyant at another." Women (typically or in general) tend to be global thinkers, and are affected by their significant monthly hormonal cycle. This "indecision" (due to conflicting priorities) is one reason why romance novels, with women as protagonists, are best sellers, and where the plot can be summarized as "I don't know what to do." Women buy such novels because they easily identify with the characters and their predicaments.

• LET NATURE REVERSE: Don't neglect reversals induced by nature (Fire, Floods, Storms, Earthquakes). Always foreshadow such reversals and describe how nature (animal instincts) predicts them. Such are never elements of "deus ex machina." Such can be handled as secrets that only nature knows, e.g. foreshadowed by the omniscient writer.  As in all turning points and reversals, draw them out, detail, chronology, give them an inevitability, never let the reader imagine the reversal "just happened."  (e.g., the long queue of the windstorm and thatching of the wheat and barley ricks.

• TAKE TIME TO REVERSE. Never describe a turning point quickly. Dwell on the detail, stretch it out, make it essential. One of my favorites is in Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger , when a smart bomb is dropped on a drug cartel meeting in Colombia. Clancy takes pages to describe the setup and the seconds it takes for the bomb to be targeted, launched, armed, dropped, and explode. 

• NATURE'S OMNISCIENCE: Let Nature describe God's or Satan's (the supernatural) attitude about the scene. e.g. Fanny's grave, (ennobled by Troy as an act of penance) is destroyed by rainwater from a gargoyle's mouth.

• INTEGRITY RISES FROM ASHES: In the midst of moral failure, let integrity arise, although too little too late. e.g. Bathsheba honors Fanny's grave, Boldwood negotiates with Troy for Troy to marry Bathsheba, Bathsheba runs after Oak after dismissing him (multiple times), Boldwood turns himself into the gaol (jail), Oak marries Bathsheba on the last page...but why not even a kiss?) 

• INDEFINITE NOUNS: Use omniscient observer pronouns as a unique reference with different emotional connotations: E.g. in reference to Fanny: dead fellow creature, our sister, member of the flock of Christ, unconscious truant, the body.

• DELAYED REVEAL:  Before revealing the pivotal action, exhaust the inner monologue of dilemma with all possible actions and consequences and leave doubt about what the character will do. Reference the Scene-Sequence model. Consider if it requires a flash forward.

• GAP FILLING: Make the audience work. Try not to reveal a key element of the action, but describe around it. E.g. We never read how Bathsheba opens up Fanny's casket. We read that Bathsheba was determined to look inside, we read she searched for a tool, we read what she saw (although it was censored in one edition), but we never read how she pried open the box. This forces the reader to be intellectually engaged.

• ACTIONS NEED NOT BE ONE OR DECISIVE: ...but two or several and not decisive. In this technique, the earlier actions decided upon are abdicated in the process of taking the action (for reasons announced) until falling upon the final action taken. E.g., Bathsheba decides to go down one road, but retreats, and then goes down a second path, but retreats, and finally goes down a third. 

• FLASH FORWARDS: This is partially covered above. The Flash Forward without preamble can confuse the reader, for it will appear (should appear) out of order. But a subsequent paragraph can explain why. That is, present the action first (when dramatically appropriate) and then FLASHBACK to explain in detail, even recounting the inner monologue that brought the action to fruition.  However, there should be an emphatic surprise at the end of the Flashback to reward the reader for retreating in time. 

• INDIRECT LANGUAGE: This is like subtext, although subtext is usually found in dialogue. Indirect is a technique that mimics real dialogue or description by avoiding the explicit and describing, instead, the emotion, the attitude, or the mood. This can be done with an explicit description of nature or the setting. E.g. a sad situation in a setting of fog and dampness...when Bathsheba discovers her husband, Troy's, infidelity, she is lost emotionally and retreats overnight to a swampy area. Liddy comes to console her, and Hardy describes Liddy's steps across a bog that Bathsheba believes will swallow Liddy up. Although Liddy's feet sink into the spongy bog, it supports her, and she reaches Bathsheba. The blog here perfectly resembles Bathsheba's doubts about her life and refusal to take the steps to recovery.

• NAMES MUST SHOULD SOMETHING. Gabriel Oak is like an oak tree and an archangel. His integrity, strength, and truth are always intact. Bathsheba Everdene is forever beautiful and tempting like King David's Bathsheba who is worth stealing and dying for.  Sgt. Francis (Frank) Troy is a Trojan Horse who is frank to a fault, militantly clever, and manipulative. Farmer William Boldwood, is the "strong-willed warrior" (William) who is bold and persistent to a fault, and mad.  Fanny Robin is free as a bird. Fanny is also a vulgar, old British slang for a loose woman, which Fanny becomes. 

BONUS POINT. The editor's note to Madding Crowd points out that the title is sarcasm. Despite Weatherbury village, where the story takes place, being hundreds of kilometers from the madding crowd of London, its problems are the same and not far away at all.