I almost finished this post a few days ago on the Blog Direct gadget on my iGoogle page, but something happened, and I lost it all. I may have I touched the wrong key or it just refreshed and disappeared.
Not sure if I can even recall what it was about. Something about what Tish Cohen said the other night about selling one of her books ‘direct to film’. I just about fell off my chair when she said that. I had never thought about a film for my book except as a remote possibility in a book contract long after the book came out. But the reverse order got me thinking. What would it take for a book to sell directly to Hollywood?
Tish herself revealed one feature that could be your ticket to Hollywood: a unique voice. Voice trumps everything, she said. Even if your plot is weak or your characters sketchy, you can still hit a home run with a fresh voice that grabs the reader. Once you’ve found your voice, she suggests going so far as to incorporate a hint of it into your query letter. Clearly she’s a risk taker. I would calculate my risk here and choose my words and style with care. The point is don’t make your query letter too business- like.
The other way a writer could hedge her bets on Hollywood is to focus on the scenes, making them as vivid and cinematic as possible with a lot of sensual detail. What do you see? What can you smell? What sounds do you hear? How do things feel ? How do things taste? And the 6th sense? Emotional awareness. How does it make you feel? I recently reviewed a novel by Canadian filmmaker Shandi Mitchell, UNDER THIS UNBROKEN SKY. The reader comes away with so many images, vivid scenes begging to be transposed to the big screen. With her background, this may be what Shandi intended.
Showing posts with label Tish Cohen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tish Cohen. Show all posts
What’s a Fragmoir, Logline, Six-Word Memoir or an Elevator Speech?
In this age of short attention spans and shameless self-promotion, writers have to be prepared to sell themselves in short sound bites whenever someone asks: So, what are you writing?
Memoirs Ink invite writers on their blog to try compression with a Fragmoir contest; Fragmoir is defined as a short (as in a 144 character Tweet) description of your life. An example: I swore I'd not kill myself if she stayed. She told me not killing myself was, frankly, not helpful. It’s kind of a cross between a status update and a summary of your life. Mine submitted for today would be: Aspiring writer spends all her time on social media to sell the book she hasn’t yet written.
I only heard the word 'logline' for the first time 2 days ago listening to Tish Cohen at the Richmond Hill library. A logline is a concise 1 or 2 sentence description of a film, screenplay or book which must include:
• Who is the main protagonist, described with a well-chosen adjective?
• What is their goal?
• What stands in their way – the antagonist?
• And sometimes a brief set up of the story
It’s the blurb you read in a movie guide that helps you decide which film to watch, e.g. A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea. (Titanic) It's the grabber, the powerful hook to draw the reader, agent, publisher, or producer to your story. I wonder what my logline would be?
Smith Magazine started a contest a few years ago based on the concept of a Six-Word Memoir, life stories distilled into 6 words. The idea took off like a wildfire and they have now published several books since the first, NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS PLANNING. The idea came from Hemingway: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. That line makes me shudder every time I read it. What a story we could all write. The challenge is to condense our own story into 6 well-chosen words that have as much depth. Can I do it? Can you?
The last compression challenge is the 'elevator speech', coined in the pre-digital era. A writer might meet someone in an elevator and have just enough time before the doors opened to utter 1 short sentence in reply to: What’s your book about? How do you squish 80,000+ words into 1 line? Find the key words. Focus on the protagonist. Ignore side plots. Make it under 25 words. I’m working on mine. Are you?
Memoirs Ink invite writers on their blog to try compression with a Fragmoir contest; Fragmoir is defined as a short (as in a 144 character Tweet) description of your life. An example: I swore I'd not kill myself if she stayed. She told me not killing myself was, frankly, not helpful. It’s kind of a cross between a status update and a summary of your life. Mine submitted for today would be: Aspiring writer spends all her time on social media to sell the book she hasn’t yet written.
I only heard the word 'logline' for the first time 2 days ago listening to Tish Cohen at the Richmond Hill library. A logline is a concise 1 or 2 sentence description of a film, screenplay or book which must include:
• Who is the main protagonist, described with a well-chosen adjective?
• What is their goal?
• What stands in their way – the antagonist?
• And sometimes a brief set up of the story
It’s the blurb you read in a movie guide that helps you decide which film to watch, e.g. A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea. (Titanic) It's the grabber, the powerful hook to draw the reader, agent, publisher, or producer to your story. I wonder what my logline would be?
Smith Magazine started a contest a few years ago based on the concept of a Six-Word Memoir, life stories distilled into 6 words. The idea took off like a wildfire and they have now published several books since the first, NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS PLANNING. The idea came from Hemingway: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. That line makes me shudder every time I read it. What a story we could all write. The challenge is to condense our own story into 6 well-chosen words that have as much depth. Can I do it? Can you?
The last compression challenge is the 'elevator speech', coined in the pre-digital era. A writer might meet someone in an elevator and have just enough time before the doors opened to utter 1 short sentence in reply to: What’s your book about? How do you squish 80,000+ words into 1 line? Find the key words. Focus on the protagonist. Ignore side plots. Make it under 25 words. I’m working on mine. Are you?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
