In Today’s Journal
* Learning Pacing from Film
* My Personal Take on “Fictional” Characters
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Learning Pacing from Film
I was recently blessed to read “How Goodfellas Reinvented the Gangster Film”, as published by BBC In History, a weekly newsletter I receive.
As I’ve said many times before, even when genres don’t overlap, techniques that are valid in one genre are almost always valid in others.
That includes the literary genres—essay, short story, novella, novel, stage plays, and screenplays (film)—as well as the commercial genres: thriller, mystery, romance, SF, and so on.
If you read this article, pay attention to how Martin Scorsese, the director of Goodfellas, a 1990 movie, mimicked with music and camera shots what was going on in the mood and mind of the character(s) in the scenes.
Also pay attention to how the music Scorsese picks echoes the overall mood of the scene. Not that you ever want to use song lyrics in your stories or novels (serious copyright issues). But if you’re familiar with the songs he used and understand why he used them, you can catch the correlation.
In short stories and novels, you can do with narrative description and dialogue what Scorsese did with camera angles and camera shots. The difference between an effective scene and an ineffective one is in how you mix the narrative with the dialogue and internal monologue of the characters.
The narrative, the dialogue, and the character’s unspoken (or internal) monologue can both “match” and indicate the characters’ mood and what’s going on in their mind.
If you can’t quite pull that off yet, you will be able to eventually. Just remember to include all five physical senses as well as the mood of the character, setting, and scene. Then keep practicing those nuances I talk about so often.
Neither narrative description, dialogue, nor internal monologue has to be an unbroken block of text. It’s often far more effective in storytelling to mix and match them. For examples, see almost any fiction I’ve ever written in any genre.
This is a truly fascinating article, and one that I highly recommend. I know for a fact I’ll read it more than once and refer back to it in my own writing.
My Personal Take on “Fictional” Characters
In fiction we’re actively taught that characters don’t actually exist anywhere and that we have to do character sketches and build them.
Meanwhile, when we meet ‘real’ people, we’re perfectly all right with allowing ourselves to learn more about them naturally, over time, as they reveal different aspects of their personality.
We can do exactly the same thing with so-called ‘fictional’ characters.
So I guess my questions for those who believe characters are only fictional and don’t actually exist are these:
- How do you KNOW they don’t actually exist?
- If you’re a writer, why would you even WANT to believe they don’t? To assuage your ego? To take credit for ‘creating’ them?
As you might have surmised, I choose to believe the characters I write about actually exist somewhere and I’m ‘tapping into’ them via my creative subconscious.
Maybe they exist in an alternate universe or maybe in a different plane of existence or maybe in my DNA—but what does it matter WHERE they exist as long as I, a writer, believe they do?
After all, many millions of people around the world choose to believe a supreme being exists (in whatever physical or spiritual form) despite a lack of proof. Or maybe all the proof they need are the various religious texts that hint at—or some would say ‘illustrate’—his (or her) existence.
If stories published in books give credence to that belief in a supreme being, it also gives credence to my belief in the characters. Hey, I have millions of words of ‘proof’ in stories in books.
Of course, I haven’t actually physically seen them. Anecdotally, I also believe various tribes of aboriginal people exist in the wilds of Australia despite the fact that I’ve never been to Australia or seen them.
The fact that I believe the characters I write about actually exist is of paramount importance to me. Why? Because to believe in them is to respect them.
Belief in them is what enables me to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel, physically and emotionally, what’s going on in their world when I look in on them. And I feel blessed they’ve invited me to record what they’re doing and saying in reaction to events that are happening in their world.
Do I have proof that they exist? Beyond the stories I’ve recorded for them, no, I don’t.
But in the human experience, ‘I believe’ is a concept that is second in importance only to ‘I am.’
‘I am’ is irrefutable. It verifies our existence. ‘I believe,’ to the believer, is also irrefutable. It permeates and enriches that existence.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
20 Podcasts for Authors on Writing, Publishing, and Book Marketing
Why I Switched My Email Service to Sendfox
Albania appoints AI bot as minister to tackle corruption If you can’t find a story idea here you aren’t trying. (grin)
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 840
Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty
Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Day 2…… 1110 words. To date…… 4360
Day 3…… 3323 words. To date…… 7683
Day 4…… 1656 words. To date…… 9339
Day 5…… 1413 words. To date…… 10752
Day 6…… 3135 words. To date…… 13887
Day 7…… 3338 words. To date…… 17225
Day 8…… 1228 words. To date…… 18453
Fiction for September……………… 7701
Fiction for 2025………………………. 541850
Nonfiction for September.………… 9710
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 195960
2025 consumable words…………….. 730196
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
Short story collections……………………. 29