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Two Different Stories from the Same Story Premise

AN OVERVIEW OF THIS COURSE:

I recently saw the movie entitled "The Big Clock" which was made back in 1946. It was a psychological thriller noir and noticed that it was the same story premise as another movie from 1987. The premise of the stories are the same and they are both based on the original book entitled "The Big Clock" by Author Kenneth Fearing.

I believe doing a deep dive on these two films has a lot to teach about story engineering and brainstorming new stories. One reason is that the underlying premise of the story is exactly the same, but the whole story is different in each movie. Not just slightly different. Very different.

I will break up this mini-course into a crime spine to demonstrate how the clues are dropped into the storylines and how the authors' choice for locations, and twists made for the completely different story.

The Big Clock was about 1 hour and 30 minutes, and No Way Out is about 1 hour and fifty minutes. But there is a lot packed into the movies.

THE BIG CLOCK WRITERS, PRODUCERS, DIRECTORS AND ACTORS:

The Big Clock – 1946 Movie was produced by Richard Maibaum and directed by John Farrow. As stated above, it is based on the novel entitled "The Big Clock written by Kenneth Fearing.

The movie has several stars from the 1940s in it, but the main parts are played by Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, and George Macredy.

Other Stars: Elsa Lanchester and Rita Johnson

THE BIG CLOCK LOCATION:

I want to take a moment to talk a little bit about the building that serves as the location for the drama. Janoth Publications Building in located in New York City. The building's clock plays a small part in the story but anyone under 40 probably won't know why. Research revealed that this movie was shot mostly in Los Angeles on sets, but the magazine company is set in New York.

At one time, digital clocks were the latest in technology. So this building that had a digital clock like above, that could be read from outside by anyone in the city, was a big deal. I believe that's why it was chosen as the location for the story. By today's standards, it's a riot, but in 1946, it was the state of the art!

I will put the clues as they drop in red text. This way, you can see how they are sprinkled into the storyline.

THE STORY HOOK - THE MOVIE OPENS WITH A FLASH FORWARD

George Stroud is running around the building, up in the clock area, and you can tell he's hiding from someone. He is frantic and sweating. He is thinking out loud and asking himself how he got himself into this mess. This gives the viewers a glimpse of what is to come.

NEXT SCENE: THE STORY PREMISE IS LAID DOWN:

The Premise: George Stroud is the Editor in Chief of Crimeways Magazine. He's rushing around at work with his staff trying to get his work done because he's going on a honeymoon with his wife -- and son.

He was called away from his original honeymoon due to a work emergency at Crimeways Magazine. This trip has been planned for him to make it up to his wife. He's a good guy, gets along at work, and is a great crime investigator -- which is why he is editor in chief of the magazine.

NEXT SCENE: Earl Janoth, the big boss at Janoth Publications, is a slave driver and he sends his right hand man, Steve Hagen, in to talk George into postponing his honeymoon again because they need to solve the Fleming case before the cops do. Hagen goes in and delivers the news, but George is adamant that he is not missing another honeymoon. He then tries to get Steve to understand how his wife feels about things.

NEXT SCENE: A smartly dressed, beautiful blonde is rummaging around in Janoth's office, the big boss, and she also has the intercom on. The intercom is a device that allows Janoth to listen in on his employees. The woman's name is Pauline York and we find out in short order that she is Janoth's mistress. Pauline hears George trying to reason with Steven Hagen as to why he can't cancel another honeymoon.

Earl Janoth walks into the office and catches his mistress in his office and he's not happy. He doesn't know how she got in and she brags about taking his private elevator up and flirting her way through security. Not liking to be out of control, Janoth walks her out of his office to the public elevators, but not before telling her he will see her later at 10:50 PM. There is tension between them. We also find out that Janoth is paying her bills, including her singing lessons.

NEXT SCENE: Back in George's office, Hagen is still putting pressure on George to postpone the honeymoon, but George refuses. He eventually storms out of the conversation and he leaves.

PAULINE'S SCHEME - WHAT SHE WANTS:

In the next scene, it's lunchtime and Mistress Pauling walks into a fancy restaurant where George is sitting at the bar with another man. George orders them two more stingers and the mistress saddles up to them and says, make it three. The man then excuses himself because of an appointment with a psychiatrist. Pauline slips into his seat.

She tells him she wants to tell his fortune and reads his palm. She then repeats everything he was complaining about regarding Janoth, the boss. He now knows she overheard him. She claims her and Earl are old friends. She suggests that maybe she and George should put their heads together to get even with Janoth. However, at the time this suggestion comes out of her mouth, George's wife, Georgette, comes in and walks up and is not happy about her husband sitting next to and talking with this beautiful blonde.

After a tense moment between the two women, Pauling leaves. George smooths down his wife's feathers by showing her he has reserved a table for them to have lunch, and he has ordered champagne, and they will toast their honeymoon.

The wife settles down and she confirms that she has the tickets for the train and they both toast to their honeymoon.

Back at the office, Hagan tells Janoth he was not successful in talking George into postponing his honeymoon. Janoth is not happy, but says that he has another idea, another approach.

NEXT SCENE - AFTER LUNCH - JANOTH'S SETUP

George is engaged with co-workers taking care of everything so he can leave on time. Janoth strolls out of his office at 4PM and joins George in front of his Crimeways Crime Board and he proceeds to compliment George about being able to solve the crimes even before the cops in most of their cases. Janoth is not the type to compliment anyone and George takes the bait.

Then George goes into a long explanation of how he uses the blackboard to add all the clues, and he focuses on an 'irrelevant clue' and that's always the one that helps him solve the crime.

During the conversation, Janoth slowly walks with George during their conversation into his office. He then tells George how happy he is that they are comrades at work, and they can always count on each other. George is enjoying having his ego stroked. Then Janoth tells him he wants him to work non-stop on this Fleming case and it will increase the circulation by at least ten percent.

George then wakes up and realizes that Janoth is trying to get him to postpone another honeymoon. But this time George refuses.

After the buttering up didn't work on George, Janoth resorts to threats and tells George if he doesn't stay, he will be fired. He also tells him he will blacklist him and he'll never work in this town again. George still refuses and he's mad because he knows Janoth was manipulating him. He says, fine, I'm going anyway. He walks out and goes back into his office.

PAULINE'S SETUP - WHAT SHE WANTS

His secretary calls in and tells him there's a woman on the line who wants to tell his fortune. George knows it's Pauline, so he picks up and blurts out that Janoth has just fired him. Pauline is shocked and she asks him what he's going to do. He says, right now, I need a drink. She wants to join him, but he says no. She then says that she knows a way to make Janoth give them both what they want. She tells him it will be worth his while to at least listen to him. He agrees.

PAULINE REVEALS HER PLAN:

George and Pauline meet in the bar and they have a drink. She begins to talk about confidential files and lets George know she has the goods on Janoth. She suggests that they put their heads together to get even with him.

George hears her but he doesn't really take the bait from her. He's still angry and he starts drinking pretty fast; one drink after another. During this time, George knocks one of the green drinks over and it spills on Pauline. He gives her his handkerchief and she dabs it up as best she can. It doesn't stop either of them. They continue partying and then decide to go to some other bars.

As they are walking the avenue, it dawns on George that the time has gotten away from him. He wakes up and runs to a phone booth and calls his wife, but is told she left without him. He knows he's in big trouble. He decides to take a plane there later, but in the meantime, he continues drinking and carousing around with Pauline.

They stop on the avenue and George sees a painting by an Artist by the name of Patterson in the window. He is a collector and he pulls Pauline into the antiques store. Another customer is ready to purchase the painting he wants, so George goes up and starts bidding with the store owner and he decides to pay $30 for it. The original customer is rebuffed and she leaves. George then goes out with the painting under his arm.

They go to Burt's Place, a sort of sleezy guy's bar down the avenue. Burt prides himself on always having whatever anyone asks for. Trying to stump Burt, Pauling and George ask for a green clock. Burt takes out an old sundial and ties a green scarf around it and passes it off as a green clock.

A drinking buddy of George's comes in and he introduces him to Pauling as Jefferson Randolph. Then he introduces him as President McKinley. The guy was an old radio star. They are all still drinking, laughing, and partying.

LATER IN THE EVENING - AFTER THE PARTYING ENDS:

In the next scene, we see George asleep on a couch. He's in Pauline's apartment. She looks out the window and sees Janoth has just arrived. She quickly wakes George up and tells him he has to go. George is hung over, but he gathers himself and leaves the apartment, but he waits over by the staircase in the shadows. He watches as Janoth comes out of the elevator and stands in the light.

Janoth sees a man at the end of the hallway, but he can't tell who it is -- but he knows it's a man. He is suspicious that this man came out of Pauline's apartment as she has a history of flirting with other men. Janoth goes into her apartment and she is acting nonchalant. He asks her who just left. She says, oh, no one just a friend. Janoth doesn't believe her and the two of them start arguing but it quickly descends into a nasty verbal fight. He just about accuses her of being a whore and she tells him he's a disgusting fat slob -- or words to that effect. During her tirade, she picks up a small clock from her table and throws it at Janoth. It misses but smashes against the wall and falls to the floor.

She continues her tirade telling Janoth that he's revolting and everyone hates him. In anger, he reaches over, picks up the sundial with the scarf and hits Pauline over the head with it. He kills her and leaves her laying on the floor next to the couch.

JANOTH TALKS TO STEVE HAGEN, HIS RIGHT-HAND MAN:

Janoth leaves and he goes to Steve Hagen's home where he casually tells him that he killed Pauline. He said he didn't mean to kill her, but something came over him. He tells Hagen he just wanted to talk to a friend before he calls a lawyer and turns himself in. He assumes he will be going to jail after that.

HAGAN OFFERS AN ALTERNATIVE:

Hagan tells him maybe he's acting too fast. Since only he and Janoth know about his affair with Pauline, maybe he doesn't have to admit to it. Janoth tells him there was a man in the shadows outside Pauline's apartment that saw him. He doesn't know who the man he saw was, but he knows the man saw him standing in the lighted hallway.

Hagan tells him all they have to do is find this man and 'take care of things' and he will be fine. Janoth suddenly thinks this can work. He tells Hagan that he left his hat over in Pauline's place. Hagan agrees to go over there, retrieve the hat, and then he will be in the clear.

HAGAN VISITS THE CRIME SCENE:

Hagan goes to Pauline's place and he retrieves Janoth's hat. He also sees the clock on the floor, and he turns the time back about 40 minutes. He looks around and finds the sundial. He turns the sundial over and on the bottom it says: "Stolen from Burt's Place" with the bar's address.

Hagan is getting ready to leave and he spots Pauline's purse on a table. He rummages through her purse and sees a handkerchief with a large green stain on it He puts the handkerchief in his pocket. He then leaves.

Formatting a Book Series Bundle

CREATING YOUR FIRST BOOK SERIES BUNDLE:

How exciting! I just recently put together my first book bundle for my Newport Vampire Series and decided to put together a how-to blog and video for anyone else who wants to learn how to do it. I've organized the process and I've posted it below and will have a video to accompany it. I hope it saves you several hours of research!

It turned out to be easy enough, but when I first set out to figure out how to do it, it was nerve wracking! I think I figured out an easy way to do it for next time, and I off that to you now with this blog post. Below I have organized how to put it together easily without the worry of ruining your original manuscripts.

HOW TO SET UP EACH OF THE BOOKS:

You will be stripping out front matters and back matters from all the middle books, but leaving the front matters, with a few changes, on the first book, and keeping the back matters on the last book. I'll go into a little more detail below.

The biggest tip I can give you is to make a "bundle-copy" of each of your final eBook manuscripts so that when you alter them, you are not ruining your original manuscript. This is a little bit of a tedious process and the more organized you are from the beginning, the smoother it will go.

THE FIRST BOOK:

Using the new bundle copy you have saved, go into the eBook and change the title of the book to the title of your series. For example: My book was called Darius - A Vampire Story so I changed it to Newport Vampire Stories Series, and listed all five books followed by my author name. I was happy with the way it looked in the final manuscript. If your books have subtitles, I would just put them under the title of the books.
If you want to have a Title, Subtitle, and then add language about the bundle, you will make this change on the two title pages.
Leave the copyright page and change any language about the book to the book series.
On the line above Chapter one, add in the Name of the book and give it a style -- from the style gallery -- of H1. (See graphic below)
Then change all of the Chapter names to H2s.
Strip out all of the back pages. The last page should be the last page of your first ebook.

THE MIDDLE BOOKS:

Strip out all front matters and back matters.
Add the name of the book above Chapter 1. Give the book name an H1 Style. See graphic below.
Go through the document and change all chapter headers from H1 to H2.
These books should begin with the Title of the book, Chapter 1 through the last chapter and end after the last word in the last chapter.

THE LAST BOOK:

Strip out all front matters but leave the back matter, the acknowledgement page, the thank you for reading my book page, the other books by page.
Add the Name of this last book right above Chapter 1 and give it the H1 style.
Then change all of the chapter headers from H1 to H2.

ASSEMBLING THE BOOK:

Open up Bundle Book 1 document. This will be the ultimate final manuscript, so save this now with the series name. For example: NVS-Bundle-Manuscript.
Add a page break after the last word in the last chapter.
Open the second book document and copy everything. Paste as the next book in the Bundle-Manuscript document.
Copy and past the next books in line, ending with the last book that has all of the final pages still in it.
Go back to the top of the document and check for any and all extra spaces or other errors.
Save as the Bundle Document.

RUN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Run the table of contents and check it. Check and make sure all of the chapters are accounted for. If any of them are missing, it means you didn't add the H2 to the Chapter name.

If you find that not all of the chapters are underneath the Book Name, this means you didn't change a chapter name from H1 to H2.

SAVE AND PREVIEW IN KDP PREVIEW WINDOW:

Once it is finished, be sure to check the book page by page in the KDP Preview window.

VIDEO OF PROCESS BELOW:

I will post the video of this process below so you can see the Table of Contents being created. I have other videos on creating the Table of Contents, but I find it less nerve wracking when I can see the process done in real life.

I'm planning to do a video on how to create a 3-D version of the series for Amazon, so be sure to check out my blog and/or my YouTube Channel.

The video will be posted below when it is available!

https://youtu.be/Z2_yazSjWGo

Coloring Page – March Lion and lamb

Coloring Page – Easter

Coloring Page – St Patrick’s Day Fairy

Another Reason to Build an Author Website

Most of you will be familiar with Derek Murphy as a self-published author as well as an influencer within the self-publishing community. If you click on the graphic I made for his website above, you can visit one of his websites. He also organizes writing seminars all over the world, some of which are in old castles. So if any newbies are interested in that, he would be a great mentor to write with.

Derek has another website called CreativindieCovers.com for any of you who are struggling with book cover ideas. He has a lot of free resources and even templates.

When I was new, I watched hundreds of his videos and learned so much, not only as a writer, but also as a self-publishing marketer. He has great advice on early marketing techniques for new self-publishers and also other ideas about running Amazon ads and even using the free online book websites. Be sure to visit his websites and subscribe to his YouTube Channel.

I happened to catch a YouTube Short he posted today-- which I have posted below -- and it was great advice for those of us who have built up a reader list of about 3,000, and have created a website and are starting to get some reliable traffic. He has suggested a way to get book influencers to feature your books, and what he says is great advice. I will post his video and let you hear him state it himself.

As a quick review for the newbies: The first order of business in promoting your books is to build a reader list, also known as a newsletter. That should be the first step of any new self-published author. Put all of your energies there.

Once you have built the reader list up to a couple or few thousand, then you will be able to swap book features and mentions with other authors who belong to the same promotion websites and have a sizeable reader list as well.

The third level of marketing is about building an Author Website. With a website, you can brand yourself along with your books. In the video above, Derek is targeting those authors who are already a little further on from their first day as a self-publisher. But it's important information to keep in the back of your mind. It will give you a goal to shoot for.

It's important to know any author can build their book brand and author brand by following the steps that have worked for those who came before them. Derek has been a great leader in the entire self-publishing field. I hope you enjoy the video!

Coloring Page – Springtime Rabbit

Iron-On T-shirt Design – Free Download

How to Create a Hi-res Paperback Cover from a low-res eBook Cover

HOW TO CREATE A PAPERBACK COVER FROM AN EBOOK COVER

I just finished a how-to create a paperback book manuscript from an eBook manuscript so I thought I would make a sister video showing how to make a full high resolution paperback book cover from a low-resolution eBook cover.

The focus of the video is on the creation of the book cover, so I won't be going into too much detail on how Gimp works. However, I pepper the tutorial with some of the keyboard shortcuts or the names of the tools I am using. This should make it easy for Gimp beginners or others who like to work in Canva.

However, I do have a playlist on my YouTube channel teaching new writers ow to use Gimp, which is a free photo manipulation tool and you can use it to create book covers and other book marketing graphics.

WHAT IF I ONLY HAVE A LOW-RESOLUTION?

If you only have a low resolution, you can upscale it for free at the this website: Upscale.media

This will make sure you have a high resolution image before you begin.

YOU WILL ALSO NEED A PROPERLY-SIZED TEMPLATE:

Each paperback cover will need it's own customized book cover template. The reason for this is because the number of pages of the book determines the spine width and that controls how wide the paperback cover needs to be.

KDP has a paperback calculator on it's website, and if you've never used it before, I do demonstrate it in the video on this subject below.

NEXT – YOU WILL NEED A PROPER PAGE COUNT:

Here is a picture of the last page of my Betrayal Paperback from my last video. It shows two different page counts. The top one is what will be printed on the last page of the book. However, this leaves out the front-pages that use roman numerals and it also includes all of the skipped pages in the document. This is not the correct page number for a book cover.

Below on the left hand side, you can see another page count that is shown at the bottom of the actual Microsoft Word manuscript. This is how many actual pages are in this document. This is the page count you will need to run the Paperback calculator and get a proper sized paperback template.

Write down the proper page number before you go to the KDP calculator and run the template. You will need to click through the questions and choose your answers, including the size of paperback you will use. I use a 5.06 x 7.81 and demonstrate this choice in the video below if you want to see it done. Otherwise, you can go straight to the KDP calculator here.

NEWBIE TIP ON BRANDING BOOKS IN GENERAL:

Above is a graphic panel showing you four back-cover examples that I pulled form Amazon this morning by searching for paperbacks in the vampire genre. I also pulled two other back covers just for comparison. You may want to think about what type and style of back cover you want to create before starting. You will follow the same procedure I've demonstrated in the video below, but you may choose another style for your book.

The book featured in my video is Betrayal and this is my 14^th published book and it's the 6^th book in my Newport Vampire Stories Series. So the branding for this series is already established. While I create my Paperback cover from the eBook cover, I will show you how to follow a style template as I work.

Once you choose a style for the back cover of your own, you can bring in that photograph and use it in the same way I use my series book template.

Because my style is already established, I have a list of everything that I will need from the cover, including the layout, all the color numbers, the font names and sizes, and even the size of the font I will use in the spine of the book.

QUICK SUJMMARY OF THE VIDEO:

If you are not a newbie and have no need to see it done, I will just summarize what I do in the video:

I bring in the series paperback template as a 'style template' and add guidelines to the downloaded KDP calculator paperback template.

I pull in and align the ebook cover between the guidelines.

I then pull in the back cover picture and align it accordingly.

Then one by one, I start at the top and create each text layer after another, using the series style template along with the customized margins from the paperback template.

Then using the text tool along with the rotate tool, I create the spine text and align in the center of the guidelines.

I save the finished paperback as an .xcf file so that it saves it as a gimp file with all of the layers in tact.

Then I export the same image as a .jpg file.

I then pull in that .jpg from the recent list and save the .jpg as a pdf. Gimp had a glitch at one time going from an .xcf file straight to a .pdf. So I just save the jpg first, which I will need anyway, and then I save the .pdf file.

That's everything in a nutshell. I'll post the video below for anyone who wants to watch the cover being created in real time.

Check out my new Brainstorming Workbook!

Free Download for a Limited Time

Check out my Book Series!

THE BIG CLOCK & NO WAY OUT

AN OVERVIEW OF THIS COURSE:

THE BIG CLOCK WRITERS, PRODUCERS, DIRECTORS AND ACTORS:

THE BIG CLOCK LOCATION:

THE STORY HOOK - THE MOVIE OPENS WITH A FLASH FORWARD

NEXT SCENE: THE STORY PREMISE IS LAID DOWN:

PAULINE'S SCHEME - WHAT SHE WANTS:

NEXT SCENE - AFTER LUNCH - JANOTH'S SETUP

PAULINE'S SETUP - WHAT SHE WANTS

PAULINE REVEALS HER PLAN:

LATER IN THE EVENING - AFTER THE PARTYING ENDS:

JANOTH TALKS TO STEVE HAGEN, HIS RIGHT-HAND MAN:

HAGAN OFFERS AN ALTERNATIVE:

CREATING YOUR FIRST BOOK SERIES BUNDLE:

HOW TO SET UP EACH OF THE BOOKS:

THE FIRST BOOK:

THE MIDDLE BOOKS:

THE LAST BOOK:

ASSEMBLING THE BOOK:

RUN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS:

SAVE AND PREVIEW IN KDP PREVIEW WINDOW:

Check out my Book Series!

Check out my Book Series!

Check out my Book Series!

For a Limited Time Only!

Check Out My YouTube Channel

Check out my Book Series!

Here is a little gift for my Readers or Web Visitors!

WHAT IF I ONLY HAVE A LOW-RESOLUTION?

YOU WILL ALSO NEED A PROPERLY-SIZED TEMPLATE:

NEWBIE TIP ON BRANDING BOOKS IN GENERAL: