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Stakes not Steaks

By on April 10, 2008 in Action and ReAction Scenes

So, I say to Rachel, hey, we’re going to talk about Stakes this week on MBT, and she says, Nummy, I like mine rare! Ha ha, very funny. No, I’m not talking about a T-bone, or Sirloin. Stakes are those things that make us see what we could lose. It helps us stand at the precipice and say, is it worth it to step over into the unknown? (Reminds me a lot of that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy has to step out in FAITH. What a great scene!) Stakes are those things that drive the story, that make the reader say, hey, I care about this story, I want to know what happens. They might not even be as big as we know starting […]

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Refusing the Call!

By on April 9, 2008 in The Hero's Journey Simplified

I know I didn’t blog yesterday. It wasn’t because I didn’t WANT to, or didn’t THINK about it. In fact, the reason sorta…tiptoed up to me, and grabbed me and pulled me in before I realized what was happening… Sort of like an…INCITING INCIDENT! I was just standing there in the parking lot, watching my son ride his bike, and my girlfriend said, “Hey, I’m going to tap class, wanna join me?” Yes, I said TAP class. Like Ginger Rogers and the clippity clop shoes. And, just like that, something grabbed me. I thought…cool! Fun! (forgetting completely that I have the knees of a 97 year old, thanks to years of aggressive skiing!) So, I went. Tapped my little heart out. Today I’m sitting on the sofa, icing my knees, […]

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I can do all things through Christ

By on April 7, 2008 in Nurturing the Soul

The commercial is right, “life comes at you fast.” And we can’t always control what comes our way. We have two choices when we find ourselves between a rock and hard place. Cut and run, or face it head on. When I was fresh out of Ohio State and hired on for my dream job – it involved traveling – life was grand. Three months into my training, a horrible awful thing happened. I was hit with fear. Really bad fear, anxiety, panic, you name it. Now this was back in, well, another decade, and things like this weren’t classified as they are now. I sort of understood how and why it was happening, but had no clue how to get rid of it. Except Jesus. One of the side […]

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The power of metaphor in a scene

By on April 4, 2008 in Action and ReAction Scenes

I first discovered the power of metaphor during my premarital counseling. We were using what (I think it was in a Gary Smalley book) was called, “Word Pictures.” The idea of taking an object or an event and using it as a symbol for something else. Okay, we as writers aren’t dumb. We get the whole metaphor idea. But sometimes we forget its power in a scene. And, I’m not talking about a direct metaphor where the main character in the scene spells it out for the others. I’m talking about the subtle metaphors that betray emotions, or revelation in the scene in the background. It’s similiar to subtexting, only in description. For example, in my newest book, I put the opening scene on a beach, the sky darkening as […]

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