Okay, today is the last day of notes I'm going to post. There is more, but unless you attended the lecture the essence/identity stuff just isn't going to make as much sense. I highly recommened buying his books, though. Good stuff.
5 Ways to Create Empathy
1. Make your hero the victim of some undeserved misfortune.
2. Put your character in jeopardy.
3. Make your character likable - show character as well liked by other people.
4. Make your character funny.
5. Make the character powerful (hero worship, we want the powerful experience.)
*The #1 problem with love stories that don't work is that there's no logical reason why the hero/heroine are together.
- The reason the romance character (his term for the love interest/heroine) is the hero's destiny is because she sees beneath the hero's identity (basically his false persona) and connects with his essence (his true, hidden self.)
- The essence is the promise of who the hero can be.
*Two Other Characters
1. The Nemesis - the character who most stands in the way of the hero's motivation. Inner Journey - Nemesis embodies the hero's inner conflict.
2. The Reflection - Outer Journey - the character who is there to help hero achieve goal. Inner Journey - Reflection is conflict, because reflection reveals inner conflict. Think Donkey in Shrek.
*Three Major Themes of Most Hollywood Movies
1. Integrity - becoming honest
2. Stand up for one's beliefs
3. Need for connection (isolation to connection)
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Okay, that's it. I hope you've gotten something out of this! Now go write!
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Michael Hauge Notes - Part Three
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Michael Hauge Notes - Part Two
Outer Journey
*Plot Structure - events of a story and their position in relation to each other - the sequence of events that illicits maximum emotion.
-Proper structure means the right thing happens at the right time.
Stage One - The Setup
- approximately the first 10%
- Introduce hero and show them living every day life (big moment has not yet occured)
1st Turning Point - The Opportunity
- this takes your hero into stage two and the new experience.
- creates the preliminary desire, just enough to take hero into new situation
- often creates a change in geography
Stage Two - The New Situation
2nd Turning Point - Change of Plans
- something happens to turn story in a new direction - here and only here, the hero's goal becomes evident (goal is established)
- in a romantic comedy, hero often has two goals, the second of which is always to win love
- in a love story, this is the point where the audience wants the hero to fall in love
Stage Three - Progress
-Hero has goal and decides on a plan
3rd Turning Point - Point of No Return
- Hero burns bridges
- in a love story, often the point of love making
- declaration of love, desire is spoken outloud
- outside world starts closing in
- obstacles come from outside goal
Stage Four - Complications and Higher Stakes
- Now if hero loses, they lose much more
- lose destiny
4th Turning Point - Major Setback
- Something must happen to make goal seem unachievable
- In a love story, hero/heroine break up or are torn apart
- "All is lost"
Stage Five - The Final Push
- Hero wants to go back to the way things were, but can't
5th Turning Point - Climax
- Hero must give everything
- Peak emotional moment
- Point which clearly resolves physical goal
Stage Six - Aftermath
- New life the hero will live having completed the journey
- Transformed existence
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That's it for today. I know this probably won't make as much sense as if you heard it being explained, but there's a lot of good stuff here that makes sense when you look at it in comparision to a movie like Shrek (which Michael uses as an example quite frequently.) More tomorrow!
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Michael Hauge Notes - Part One
*Your hero (and hero is a broad term basically used to describe the protagonist) must be introduced at the point of changing destiny.
*The primary objective of any story/movie/work of fiction is to illicit emotion. As such, all stories are based on the foundation of three things:
1. Character
2. Desire
3. Conflict
*There are two levels of hero desire/conflict. These two levels are the hero's two journeys - the Inner Journey and the Outer Journey.
The Outer Journey is a journey of accomplishment. It has a visible goal, visible obstacles, visible finish line. The outer motivation is this finish line that the hero must cross by the end of the story.
There are four basic goals in almost every movie/story:
1. To escape (a bad situation)
2. To retrieve (find something of value and bring it back - could be person or object)
3. To stop (something bad from happening)
4. To win (a competition or LOVE)
What was our main goal? To illicit emotion. Emotion grows out of conflict. Remember that. More to come soon. Questions so far?
Monday, February 04, 2008
I'm Home!
I'm back from the writer's retreat and it's really an understatement to say it was a fabulous weekend. It was SO much more! It was energizing, enlightening, fun, concentrated, connecting, relaxing, hilarious, bonding perfection. In short, a perfect writer's weekend with no pressure.
Michael Hauge really presents his info a way that is easy to grasp and makes sense. Sure, he's talking about screenwriting to some extent, but he's tailored it to books and it still rings very true. And his examples (mostly movies we've all seen) make his techniques crystal clear.
Now, I'm still recovering so I'm not posting any notes yet, but I will soon. Let me reorganize a bit and I'll talk about what I learned and what resonated the most for me.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Have An Awesome Weekend!
I hope you all have a great weekend! I'm off to a writer's retreat with pals Roxanne St. Claire and Lara Santiago. The retreat is sponsored by the TARA (Tampa area) chapter of RWA (which we're also members of) and features special guest, screenwriter Michael Hauge.
