Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Manny Hardin and the Story Telling Model

Manny Hardin and the Story Telling Model

This blog-a-mine has really taken off here of late. I still have the same 16 unique members that pop in and out but they are return customers with 180 visits in the last month. What has really surged is the non-member views. Almost 400 in the last month. This month I have increased by about 100 views. Think I’m about to get offered a syndicated contract?

Actually I think the interest is because I write about writing. The people who visit this site are naturally interested in that subject and if you write about writing instead of your mother-in-law or your dog you are almost a shoe in to pick up a few views.

Anyway this blog today is a continuation of that theme.

Today I combined my Play writing philosophy with my sensual prose writing and came up with a formula for writing a novella. This is how I did it.

First off, for the past year and a half (On and off) I have been writing vignettes, first for the weekly Quickie and more recently for the sensual prose 2 and Jaces contest. While doing the weekly quckie I wrote a bunch of 869 word vignettes that featured a character called Manny Hardin.

So today I pretended that these were exploratory writings for a new novella and I made an outline just like I require my students to do in the One Act Play class. Step on was to take the vignettes and come up with a common thread story line. This was not difficult because they had all been written under the Manny Hardin umbrella and contained the same back-story.

So I arranged these short stories in some kind of order and put that outline to one side. Then I took the thread of the outline and inserted the dramatic ingredients…If this sounds like a broken record it is but there is always someone who will read this blog as a stand alone entry. So I identified the Central Character (No it wasn’t Manny, surprisingly it turned out to be Beth)

This is a good point because who you think will be the central character doesn't always turn out to be the case. Seeing the vignettes together convinced me that Beth, who is in the center of things is inclined to be the CC. Naturally the Main Supporting Character (MSC’s) are Manny but there is also Race,(aka FranK) who's the car builder she falls in love with.

So with the CC and MSC’s identified I had to come up with the next ingredient. This is a life changing incident. I resolved to make the hiring vignette show this scene. Then it was onto the next...the want need or desire. For Beth this is a fierce desire to save the Family Real Estate firm, become the Broker and gain financially independence. With that checked off I needed to find some crisis. By going through the vignettes I found three that were biggies. Then I had to come up with a theme and undercurrents and I’m working on these right now. I think the undercurrent will be her desire to have a family and her bio-clock is ticking away.

Once I had the story outline thread integrated with some of the dramatic ingredients I began filling in the chapters. Naturally the material from the vignettes suggested the chapters and in short order I had twenty. Then I started going back and plopping them in. Now this is going to require some work because Beth wasn't the only female character I gave an audition to. Several of the Interns that Manny tested had different names. There are other issues as well and the POVs get a little crazy in these stand alone stories and they have to be sorted out but all this is doable. Then I have to start editing out most of the squeeze and tease. Now this is another interesting aspect.

I think that once a piece of literature is imbued with the procreative spirit it's like an ink stain. (Not to be confused with those other sorts of stains. ) You can’t get rid of them even if you delete some of the graphic language and sensual imagery. The piece remains animated and even after the hysterectomy, the spirit of the libido sticks to the pages like fly paper. This is a good thing and is another reason why aspiring writers need to show both boldness and discretion about going into the bedroom. ‘Tis a fine line between crowding the margin and disdaining to stick your nose under the tent.

So this is where I am now. I will show my readers, in a few days, where to find this composite piece that is evolving and would welcome any comments. By the way the process for doing this can be learned in my One Act Play class but for those of who are timid most astute readers can probably figure it out by reading this blog. Personally I think it’s a lot more fun to take the class that will be offered in January.