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. 

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. 

SABRIYA Writing Journal 8 - The Real Drama is Mostly Invisible ... VALUES and Inner Monologues

I have finished plotting out Sabriya as an action thriller novel, if such a thing exists. (see pix below of Keynote plot outline.) The story is set in fictional countries and towns of Southeast Asia. I was scared off from making it in a historical setting since I know so little about Southeast Asia's history. But I wanted to write better. I'm still pleased with my writing in my previous three fictional outings (Wizard Clip Haunting, Wizard Clip Haunting JR-YA, and Tiger's Hope). However, I wanted to venture into a more classic genre with Sabriya, even though the genre is an action thriller, not unlike the movie TAKEN and its sequels, which was the inspiration for the original Sabriya movie treatment from which this novel originates. 

Plot Beat Board for Sabriya Novel. Writing has begun.
Planned: 37 chapters, 72K words

The VALUES and the mental DECISIONS we hold in our hearts are the instigators of our ACTIONS and the resulting Natural Law CONSEQUENCES.  Some of you may be familiar with the workshop slide that follows. It's a milestone to understanding how character values and actions transform. 

As I usually do before starting a major project, I research the subjects where my knowledge is lax. In the case of Sabriya, I want to become a better novelist, so I've been reading and studying the writing techniques of well-known authors in genres I admire. The last three I've read are pictured below.

At right, is Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd."

The ... UNLESS ... surrounded by ellipses in the title of this post refers to WORDS on a printed page. Words are visible, but in a classic novel such as those above, the words refer to what's invisible—the inner monologue of the moral dilemma facing a character.

All successful stories, if I can make an invisible assertion, is that stories (even movies) are really about what is happening inside a character's heart and mind. An oft-repeated adage in our industry is SHOW, DON'T TELL. But what is shown in a movie, e.g., the action on the screen is only a metaphor for what the story is REALLY about—the internal transformation of the characters.

What I've come to realize anew is that novels, as opposed to movies, have a superpower—they spend most of their time dealing with what the story is really about by staying (mostly) inside the character's head, dealing with and negotiating values and decisions—the inner monologue predominates in classic novels.  I write "classic" novels, because popular novels read more like movies and spend most of the words describing action. My novel, Wizard Clip Haunting, does that because it was modeled after the style of Len Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, which I pored over at least twice before writing Wizard. 

I am not capable of mimicking Thomas Hardy in Madding Crowd. But I can't help but idolize passages like the following:

FRTMC (2015) Carey Mulligan (Bathsheba Everdene)
and Michael Sheen (William Boldwood)
Multiple movie efforts. We've seen the 1967 and 2015 
versions (our favorite).

Boldwood was thus either hot or cold. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him: a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed. The shallows in the characters of ordinary men were sterile strands in his, but his depths were so profound as to be practically bottomless. (Some of these delicious words were omitted in the 1912 edition as noted in the footnotes of the Penguin Classic edition shown above.) [Chapter XVII, p.105]

The above paragraph is a (physical) plot-worthy necessity as it foreshadows Boldwood's actions that bring the novel to a bold and surprising climax (not herein spoiled). The paragraph also foreshadows Bathsheba's internal reaction that unfolds in a subsequent paragraph. Together, the two make the climactic ending sensible and complete.

Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark and silent shape upon which she had so carelessly thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she known Boldwood's moods her blame would have been fearful, and the stain upon her heart ineradicable. Moreover had she known her present power for good and evil over this man she would have trembled at her responsibility. Luckily for her present, unluckily for her future tranquility, her understanding had not yet told her what Boldwood was. Nobody knew entirely: for though it was possible to form guesses concerning his emotional capabilities from old flood-marks faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused them. (Chapter XVII, p.106]

Yes, novels can do much more than movies when it comes to revealing the truth of a story, and not overemphasizing the metaphors.

Sabriya, an action thriller, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your tolerance for internal dialogue), will be more pulp fiction novel than classic.  

 

Adam Livingston Descendants Join Wizard Clip Book Signings

Jeff Livingston and Stan Williams

Several weeks before I left Michigan for a speaking and book signing tour to Florida and West Virginia, I received an email from Jeffrey Livingston, 8th generation grandson of Adam Livingston, the protagonist in my Wizard Clip Haunting historical novel. This excited me; Jeff was the first descendant of any of the real characters in the Wizard Clip Haunting novel to make a connection.

For years, Jeff and several in his cousins, uncles, and brothers have researched their linage, and discovered their relationship to Adam Livingston of the Wizard Clip events, and in past years have visited Priest Field where there stands a shrine to Adam.  Jeff found my historical novel, Wizard Clip Haunting, on Amazon, bought a copy, and then contacted me. I was thrilled to get his email, and I sent him a signed copy of WCH, which he  told me later he stored away for safe keeping.  Jeff finished the long novel before flying to WV to meet up with me.

The picture at right is the two of us before heading into Martinsburg, WV's FIREBOX BBQ for dinner on Oct 8, 2025. Jeff had decided to fly up from Texas and join me for several events leading up to the annual Middleway Day street fair on Oct 11 where I would be giving away and signing copies of Wizard Clip Haunting as well as Eve's Story, the YA adaptation.

The next day Jeff joined me for one of my radio appearances on WRNR with Rob Mario and company, and then that night his cousin, Joel Livingston joined us for a book signing at the historic Martinsburg train station, which today doubles as the For the Kids by George, Children's Museum, directed by Aubry Ervin, assisted by a board of directors which includes an early fan of WCH who has become a close friend, Donald Patthoff, DDS. We were given a grand tour of the historic train round house and then a few people showed up for a talk in the station and book signing my yours truly and the Livingston cousins.

Today the roundhouse is used as a conference and wedding site and even a play or two. 

The turntable, in the middle still works.

Jeff Livingston takes in the expanse of the historical Martinsburg railroad roundhouse.

The next morning we paid a visit to Priest Field, the Catholic retreat center, where a shrine to Adam Livingston still stands on the acreage he donated to the Catholic Church from his farm holdings. The center's first full-time manager, retired Susan Kersey, and the current manager, John Guiney were very happy to visit with the cousins. Jeff, had visited the center in 2017 and Susan remembered the flat tire their golf cart sustained during the tour she had given him eight years earlier. 

(L) Adam Livingston's Shrine and 8th generation grandsons. (R)  Guiney, Susan Kersey, Joel & Jeff Livingston

On Saturday the weather was perfect fall day on East Street along the Middleway cemetery for the annual Middleway Day Fair. The turn out was huge, and I was out of WCH books (both editions) in just two hours.  Jeff and Joel claim they sustained writers' cramp signing over 150 books. Middleway historian Larry Myers, who lives in Middleway and who I interviewed during my original research years ago, and whose ancestors owned property across the street from the Livingstons, paid our booth a visit and continued to share historical insights. 

Joel, Stan, Jeff - the Middleway cemetery behind our booth - Historian Larry Myers.

THE REAL DESCENDANTS OF ADAM LIVINGSTON differ from my novel. I'm quick to admit.

The Adam Livingston family tree is available on Ancestory.com. It reaches back 15 generations to the Livingstons of Switzerland. 

When I researched and wrote WCH I knew that Adam and his two wives had upwards of eight children. Although the family tree on Ancestory.com claims Adam had only one wife, Mary Ann, I favor the account in the novel (based on additional documentation) that his first wife, Esther, died in PA, which in part triggered his move Virginia where he married Mary Ann.  

(L) Jeffrey Livingston, and (R) Joel Livingston at Priest Field October 10, 2025.

I encountered a typical novelist's problem of accounting for eight children and following up their stories, and escalating their subplots plots without diluting the main trust of the Wizard Clip and the family's encounter with Catholic priests. Early on I decided to create an entertaining story that was close to history, and thus I decided NOT to write a history that might be dull. Thus, I compacted the eight children into four, Eve, Henry, Martha and George.

But for the record, as the accuracy of historical records go to date (October 24, 2025), considering that there are various accounts of the family tree on various ancestry websites, here is my current accounts of names and dates of Adam's children.

1. George (1764–1834)
2. Agnes (1767–?)
3. Henry (1762–?)
4. Eve (1769–?)
5. Sharlotte (1770–1837)
6. Mary Ann (1772–?
7. Jacob (1773–1854)
8. Catron (?–?) 

Catron is mentioned twice in Adam's last will and testament of which I have a PDF copy. By the ordering of his living children at the time the will was dictated to a scribe (December 28, 1819), Catron is the youngest.  Henry and Eve are NOT mentioned in the will and so I assume they may have died before 1820, as I have suggested (purposely and ambiguously) in the novel.

Adam died in March 1820, only three months after the will was attested. He DID NOT SIGN the will, but placed his mark (X) between his first and last name. The will states that he was of sound mind and memory, but "weak in body." I believe he did not sign the will long hand as the witnesses did, due to his physical health.

Please share your insights in the comments.

BTW: I understand there is a brother of Jeff Livingston living near me, whom I have yet to meet, but am anxious to do so.

Click Image for books' Website

WARNING: Wizard Clip Jr is Dangerous for YA Readers

Only 8% the length of the full-length novel.
Available in paperback and ebook editions.

Recently we released the YA adaptation (Eve's Story) of the full-length Wizard Clip Haunting historical novel. 

A Virginian mother who is also a grandmother and author of a YA book or two, was given a copy of Wizard Clip Haunting Jr.—Eve's Story. She didn't like it. She sent me a long and varied critique. She said she would never let her children read it, but perhaps she meant her grandchildren. She feared that readers would copy the behaviors of the priest characters, and that my fictional accounting of the events was not historically accurate.

Therefore, I want to warn the 80 recipients who received a copy of Eve's Story over the past two weeks during my speaking and book-signing tour. Evidently, this YA book is dangerous. Perhaps you should not read it or let children read it. But I'm not giving refunds. Details below.

Of course, these concerns are present (even more so) in the full-length novel. So be careful out there. If you have the same concerns, or not, please comment. 

WARNING LABEL - Eve's Story

• Sure, it's a historical novel, but it's historically inaccurate.
• Some behaviors of the Catholic priests are "entirely un-Christian." 
• Adam Livingston's daughter, Eve, prays to her deceased mother for intercessory help. Christians are forbidden to pray to the dead for help, even if they're in heaven.
• A faithless Lutheran minister's behavior is exaggerated and in poor taste.
• Adam Livingston engages in a physical battle to the death with a demon. Christians should never do this.
• The descriptions are far too graphic for young readers, as are the Goosebump books.
• A priest would never sin by giving communion to a non-Catholic, even though Pope John Paul II did it several times. 
• The portrayal of Adam Livingston's frailties will offend living descendants, although one 8th-generation grandson said he "loved it." 
• Baptisms should be in the church and would never have occurred in a river.
• The evil in the story is pervasive and too strong. 
• There is much more to dislike since the author's imagination was unnecessary...

...but he wants to keep this post short.

Full-length novel
792 pages. 372,000 words
Available in hard cover, paperback,
and ebook editions.

You've been warned. 

LINK to endorsements and to buy the books.

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).