Writing to find a post about writing

May 1, 2013 3:01 AM

Or it could have been a comment, about writing or planning a book. It went something like this. (I think it was askme, but I'm not sure). 1. Event 2. Climax 3. Ending And then 1a. Lead up to event. 1b. actual event. 1c. results of event. 2a. Lead up to climax 2b. Almost climax 2c. Climax! Showing a hierarchical method of laying out a story, so that the paragraphs practically write themselves. Thank you.
posted by b33j to MetaFilter-Related at 3:01 AM (30 comments total)

Makes me think of a recent New Yorker essay by John McPhee in which he discusses the architecture of his writing.

Also: http://www.metafilter.com/122197/Whys-This-So-Good
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:14 AM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

Or this one from unsane in 2006?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 4:24 AM on May 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

Yes, Admiral Haddock! That's it exactly! I thought it had boy meets girl in it, but that brought up so many Askme Relationship questions, I gave up. Thank you!
posted by b33j at 4:52 AM on May 1, 2013

It pays to be a grizzled ancient with a long memory.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 4:58 AM on May 1, 2013 [8 favorites]

1. Event 2. Climax 3. Ending

THANK GOD you people answered the b33j's question so now I can do my premature ejaculation joke. Oh wait I did the punchline too s-
posted by the quidnunc kid at 5:18 AM on May 1, 2013 [8 favorites]

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
posted by Mister_A at 8:42 AM on May 1, 2013

unSane is a badass. MeMail him and if he's not too busy he'll probably school you even more on this technique (that's what I did a while back and we had a lovely conversation).
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:46 AM on May 1, 2013

There was one just like this but it was a link to a professional writer's sketch of a genre novel. I want to say he was writing in the 1950s and the stages were things like "Now throw a ton of trouble on your guy. Next 2000-3000 words, the trouble keeps coming." This ring a bell?
posted by shothotbot at 9:49 AM on May 1, 2013

Ok, can I piggyback this for something totally unrelated? I'm looking for an article linked from MeFi sometime in the past 6 months or so that had a slideshow of ten years or so of PDAs, iPads, the iPhone, and then the last one was Windows 8. It said that Windows 8 was the first mobile computing innovation (or something) in nearly a decade. I searched all last night, but I can't find it!
posted by Night_owl at 9:51 AM on May 1, 2013

shothotbot: It's been on the MeFi in some form before but the link you probably want is this:

How to Write a Book in Three Days: Lessons from Michael Moorcock

posted by Doleful Creature at 9:55 AM on May 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

"Now throw a ton of trouble on your guy. Next 2000-3000 words, the trouble keeps coming."

Lester Dent?
posted by zamboni at 9:56 AM on May 1, 2013 [6 favorites]

Zamoni has it, thanks!
posted by shothotbot at 10:00 AM on May 1, 2013

Yup, zamboni. Moorcock was riffing on Dent.

For those interested I have compiled a number of these into a personal PDF titled Write Like an Evil Machine (dropbox link). It's uncited and for personal use only but y'all are welcome to it if you find it useful.
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:03 AM on May 1, 2013 [9 favorites]

Wow, unsane wrote Sylvia? Neato.
posted by FelliniBlank at 10:14 AM on May 1, 2013

John McPhee wrote about how he writes? I sorta don't want to read that, as I've always thought it must involve some voodoo of the highest order, offering tumblers of whiskey to an old manual typewriter that he keeps in the basement of a cottage somewhere in the Pine Barrens. It'd be a shame to learn otherwise.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:38 AM on May 1, 2013

Hey all! I'm glad people find that comment useful. I still use it for everything.

I keep thinking about turning it into a book actually, as it has a lot of implications and there are a few curlicues you might not have thought of (like how do you manage subplots, how does it play at the dialogue and beat level, what does it mean for action sequences, and so on... all of which have good answers).

Does that sound like it would interest anyone?
posted by unSane at 7:18 PM on May 1, 2013 [11 favorites]

NO!

Or rather YES! It's certainly advice that's stuck with me for years, though I have yet to put it to good use other than in my Garfield/Jon slash fic.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:40 PM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

How incredibly useful! I can see where one might want to vary how many layers deep you go with this, to leave room for noodling - I do prose rather than screenplays, and noodling is one of my strengths, but plotting isn't. I've got a story idea I had rolling around loose all sorted out into a plan now.

unSane, I'd buy that book about the curlicues.
posted by tomboko at 10:25 PM on May 1, 2013

I would but that book, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
posted by chrchr at 11:17 PM on May 1, 2013

Feel free to run the book past me before sending it to your publisher. I dunno that you'd get any use out of it, but I sure would. Also, if you think it would work just as well as an infographic, please memail me, I'd love to collaborate with someone who's idea stuck in my head for 6 years.
posted by b33j at 3:00 AM on May 2, 2013

The infographic is a great idea.
posted by unSane at 3:52 AM on May 2, 2013

I'd buy that book as well. After finding your comment yesterday thanks to this thread, I spent a couple hours last night arranging the outline of my current screenplay around your system, just to see how it felt. It was a good exercise.
posted by gauche at 5:51 AM on May 2, 2013

Of course you will start with a three sentence outline: Writer gets idea. Writer writes screenplay. Profit.
posted by shothotbot at 6:00 AM on May 2, 2013 [1 favorite]

Or in my case:
1) Writer gets idea
2) Writer writes book
3) Does world a favour and sets fire to manuscript
posted by arcticseal at 7:20 AM on May 2, 2013

I would buy that infographic.

Why don't more people create infographics, rather than write a whole goddamn book - which involves the waste-cycle of cutting down old-growth kindles and pulping them into electrons and then sending them to my kindle?

Surely someone has an infographic version of À la recherche du temps perdu, for example. It would sure help me recherche for that damn temps I'm always perduing.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 7:58 AM on May 2, 2013

It takes a tough man to recherche a tender temps.
posted by dersins at 8:01 AM on May 2, 2013

unSane, I too would pay cash-money for that. Especially a slick infographic I could paste on my wall. Book would be cool too.
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:45 AM on May 2, 2013

Yes, let me give you money. Infographic and/or book format.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:33 AM on May 2, 2013

unSane's ever-expanding method of plot building reminds me a bit of the 'Snowflake Method,' which I read about somewhere, and which it looks like this guy is trying to market.

Does that sound like it would interest anyone?

That kind of good information always interests people. If nothing else, it's always a lot easier (and more fun) to lie around reading about how to write than it is to actually sit down and write something.

As Thomas Mann said, "A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

p.s. Doleful Creature: thanks much for sharing that .pdf with us.
posted by LeLiLo at 10:48 PM on May 2, 2013

No probs! I love sharing
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:03 AM on May 3, 2013