Watching an interview with Brad Pitt on Inside The Actor’s Studio, an acting student asked, “What are your processes and how have they changed?” Pitt wisely answered, “My processes is always changing.” He talked about the journey of discovery, of finding truth. As an actor, or in our case, writer, grows and changes, they should be able to hone the process of finding a the heart of a character, of discovering the truth. Pitt went on to say, “Find a moment of truth and the character will come.” This is a profound truth for all of us who deal in character. Find the truth of your character and let it breathe, let it come. Let it shine on the page. We talk a lot about processes and tools here at […]
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The self-publishing journey of a MBT author
Yesterday we posted part one of an interview with a self-published author that MBT had the priviledge of coaching this past year. Read that post here: Today is part two of the journey. SMW: Dennis, you’ve written a delightful Christmas novella, South Pole Santa! Can you take us through the history of this story and help us understand how you went from idea to finished product? Dennis: The first draft was a really rough draft. Bear in mind it was already December and I was only starting to write the story. So I really hurried to get the first draft done and I completed it on December 7 and it was about 10,000 words. You and I discussed did a couple of days later and I’ll never forget that first […]
Read the RestConversations: The journey of a self-pubbed author – part one
Today, on Conversations, I’m excited to talk to another author (Sorry Sally – you’ll be back next week) who I was privileged to work with this year. This is a long interview, so I’ve broken it into two parts (today and tomorrow!) You might not know that a big part of MBT is helping authors through our private coaching program. We work with new authors to multi-published authors, coaching them through their stories. I’m thrilled that many of them have landed on best-seller lists and won awards. Often, they are traditionally published stories – but occasionally we work on a self-published story. One of my favorite self-pubbed projects came to me about a year ago. I loved it immediately – a story of a family caught in technology, who needed […]
Read the RestConversations: Understanding Turning Points
“I’m so sorry,” Sally said, sitting down and unwrapping her scarf from her neck. Outside, ice glazed the puddles, the sky a slate gray. The first hint of snow hung in the air, the world of northern Minnesota in crisp expectation. It was a perfect day to teach Sally about how to understand Turning Points in a novel. I love the change of seasons. I blew on my candy cane mint mocha. “Why?” “Our high school football season is over,” she said. “I know how you love to go to the games.” I do. I live for the Friday night lights. “It was a tough game. A number of game-changing turning points that could have turned the game our way. Our boys fought a tough fight.” “I heard that on […]
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