Diary of all blog posts – Page 11 – Read First Chapter.com

Writing a Novel in 8 Layers – Explanation and Time-Saving Tips

LAYER 1 - Putting Together the Skeleton of the Mystery or Crime

In a mystery, crime novel, or thriller, the clues and their revelations need to be planned so the story clues can remain disjointed in the beginning, but then slowly come together like a jigsaw puzzle. This keeps the reader guessing -- which is part of the mystery readers' enjoyment.

Layer 1 requires the skill of story engineer, not so much an author. In my humble opinion, trying to write around this initial phase of story scaffolding is is one reason why novels can take authors years to finish. Scaffolding-panel.png

So the first layer is to storyboard only the crime or the mystery of your novel. This layer can look like a long list of crimes and clue elements,
or it can look like a mind map sketched in pencil on the back of a large piece of wrapping paper, or it can be done in a mind-mapping software.
But there will need to be initial planning of where the mystery begins, where it leads, and how it ends. That's what goes on in this layer.

WHAT TO FOCUS ON IN LAYER 1:

An example for a Layer 1 crime mystery would be the following:

1. Lay out the chronology of the crime.
2. Who is or are the Victims?
3. What is a list of clues that could lead to the solving of this mystery?
4. Determine what the final clue will be that reveals the true culprit and think about how you can hide this clue in plain sight. This will be the clue that solves the mystery.
5. Determine what the first three or four clues will be that will bring in multiple suspects. Give each suspect a motive for the crime and decide how and when you will reveal this motive
6. Choose an unlikely suspect and give this person a good cover story.
7. Even at this early stage, figure out how the mystery or story will end. This can be changed during the creative process, but knowing where your story will end, will give you a writing destination. This will prevent you from winding up writing yourself into a corner somewhere or writing yourself into a tangent that will have to be nixed anyway.

WHAT ABOUT OTHER GENRES?

Now, sometimes you will be writing a story that has a mystery ribboning through it but it's not as organized or as detailed as an actual crime mystery. Your outline will be shorter but will contain a skeleton of all the action. Below are two examples of writing a ghost story and writing a Gothic scary-house story.

LAYER 1 IN A GHOST STORY:

1. Who is the Ghost? Why has the Ghost arisen? Why is the Person not Resting in Peace? What is the Ghost's purpose for appearing? This is the backstory that will be dropped like breadcrumbs throughout the storyline. (Ghost-Story.png)
2. How can the Ghost first appear that will raise the question that maybe the viewer is just crazy? Or maybe the viewer is just paranoid? Give them a reason for this paranoia.
3. How will the Ghost appear and what clues will the ghost drop in order to trigger more of the mystery behind the Ghost's restlessness to play out?
4. Choose how the story will end and if the Ghost will achieve its goal and whether the ghost will now rest in peace or will the Ghost be back for another book in the series?

LAYER 1 IN A SCARY-HOUSE STORY:

1. What is it about the house that's creepy?
2. What is the House hiding? Is there a secret room? Is there a hidden person?
3. What happened in the house to make the house haunted or unsettled?
4. How will the mystery of the house play out? What is the chronology of the clues about the history of the house and why it is haunted? These are the breadcrumbs in this kind of a storyline.
5. Choose how the story will end and if the house is destroyed or if the house destroys someone, etc.

FORMAT OF LAYER 1:

Layer one can be done in a list format or with a mind-mapping software, or even with a pencil drawing your own game board or storyboard on the back of a large piece of wrapping paper. Choose whatever format helps you the most. If you're new, try each one. Finding the right tools for the right job is very helpful.

If your Level 1 looks like any of these, you get A+ Layer 1.

LAYER 2 - Break up the Story into a four-part structure or 3-act structure.

Open up a fresh manuscript document and split the clues and events into a four-part novel structure or a 3-act-story structure, whichever one you prefer. So this layer is easy and takes about five minutes.

LAYER 3 - Writing the Scene Outlines (Scaffolding & Storyboarding)

In Layer 3, you will refer to the Skeleton of the crime outline you already created. Following the chronology of the crime and the clue drops, write an outline of each scene. This is nothing more than another list of what needs to happen in each scene. You are not the writer yet. You are still the story engineer or the storyboard creator. This is the second phase of scaffolding that is setting the story up for when the writer comes in. The list should be concise, more like a list than big paragraph chunks.

Below is a Scene Template I use. I don't worry about the Point of View in this layer because you can wait to choose it. I wait to see who "steals the scene" when I'm actually writing. But I include it in a Scene Template.

POV:
TIME/LOCATION:
PURPOSE/CLUES:

CHOOSE A TIME AND LOCATION:

Choose a time and location, but don't describe any locations or characters yet. Purpose and Clues is a reminder that everything written has to have a purpose and every scene in a mystery should have some clues or a crime.

In the video on this subject matter below, I go into a few extra tips on using the scene template to help you in other ways.

LAYER 4: DOWN-AND-DIRTY FIRST DRAFT - NOW YOU'RE THE WRITER!

In Layer 4, you are finally the writer. The scaffolding is in place and now it's time to start writing the story. The first draft is the hardest layer of writing.

It may help to think of yourself as more of a Town Crier.

Your job in this layer is to blurt out the entire story. Just get it down in paper. Don't worry about spelling, grammar, descriptions of people. Like the cops say -- Just the facts. Write out the story and don't look back. Don't re-read anything. Don't get lost in verb tenses. Write and don't look back. Only look at your scene outline to make sure you have covered everything. That's the only concern.

THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT IN THE FIRST DRAFT:
Choose a location for the scene and a time. (Nothing is written in cement)
Make sure all of the clues and anything else from your scene outline gets into the scenes.

THINGS THAT DON'T MATTER IN THE FIRST DRAFT:
Spelling, grammar, sentence structure, too many adverbs, scene or character descriptions, foreshadowing, cliffhangers, quote marks, etc.
Just write what happens in each scene with whatever dialogue comes to you.

In the video below, I go into some detail about why this is important and how it can save you time in the end.

LAYER 5: 1st Proofread (The Read-through)

I call this the first proofread but it's really the first readthrough. Run a grammar and spell check in the beginning. This will clean up some of the down and dirty mistakes.

Begin to read through the novel as a writer. This is the layer that you will put in the descriptions of your main characters and the scene descriptions. You are not line-editing in this layer. You are reading for context and to make sure that your sentences flow one to the other and that the chapters flow from one to the other.

LAYER 5 CHECKLIST:

1. Are there any descriptions you need to add to this scene?
2. Is there any surprise in this scene? If so, can you rewrite it to make the surprise be a cliffhanger at the end of the chapter?
3. Has the POV been established?
4. Check on head-hopping.

SCRIVENER TIPS FOR LAYER 5:

Using Scrivener Find and Replace feature, set things up where you will automatically focus on your weak points. For example: I make all "ing" endings capitalized. I also capitalize the words BEGIN and BEGAN as well as the phrase IN ORDER TO. This way, I can't just scan over them without noticing them. It forces me to check whether I can change the format of the verbs or the sentence structures to past tense, etc.

Then I proofread the entire novel and focus on these changes. Here is a checklist for the scenes in this layer:

LAYER 6: The 2nd PROOFREAD

This is the layer you start polishing your prose in. Spellcheck and grammar check again before you begin. Then read through the entire novel for context and this time look at your sentence structure and verb choice.

SCRIVENER TIP: USING KEYWORDS FOR A CONTEXT CHECK:

Layer 6 is where I add the keywords in Scrivener. By using keywords, you can isolate certain scenes and then see them isolated from the rest of the novel. This is a great way to check on certain things in any story. Examples: Romantic Subplot, wedding talk, vampire events, interviews, clues dropped, etc.

Layer 7 - The Hardcore Proofread

Below is a list of things I do in Layer 7:
1. List Troublesome words - Just, like, adverbs. Compile a list of your favorites. I have compiled a long list of words that trip me up and I go over them in this layer.
2. Check your chapters in Grammerly for grammar verb tense.
3. Then I compile from Scrivener to a Word .docs file and paste it into an eBook template and save it as a Manuscript. I file it in a folder called Pre-Publication. Then I open it in Word and run Word's spell check and grammar check on it again.
4. Then I read it as a final proofread (even though it's not the final proofread!)
5. Check all Chapter Names are in Heading 1's for the Table of Contents
6. Fill in the Other pages: Title Page, Other Books By Page, Title and Author Page, Copyright, Table of Contents, Note to Reader, Acknowledgements, About the Author, Other Books By Page)
6. Find and check all quotes to make sure your quotes are in sets.

LEVEL 8: - FINAL PROOFREAD AND NARRATION

1. Using the read aloud feature in Microsoft Word, I read the book aloud as I read along with it. This gives you an idea of how the book will sound in the reader's mind.
2. I make any final corrections in this last proofread.
3. From here the manuscript goes to an Editor.
4. Then I forward it to myself as an ePub and while it's being edited, I read it again on my Kindle to see how it looks and feels from the reader's perspective.

VIDEO ON WRITING IN 8 LAYERS IS BELOW:

Movie Review – Gosford Park

https://youtu.be/wLlW23L2q

Above is my movie review of Gosford Park from an author's perspective. I started watching mostly older films to see what I could learn about plotting, foreshadowing, keeping my dialogue tight, etc. It has become a labor of love!

QUICK PLOT SUMMARY WITHOUT SPOILERS:

In 1932, wealthy industrialist Sir William McCordle, his wife Lady Sylvia, and their daughter Isobel hold a shooting party at their country estate, Gosford Park. Lady Sylvia's sisters and their husbands and a few friends are invited to the party as well. The invitees all show up with their lady's maids or valets and the movie gives an inside look at how the division of the classes is handled in a situation like that.

Sir William's cousin, Ivor Novello, who is a movie actor and matinee idol, also comes to the party and gets an invite for a Hollywood Producer, Morris Weissman, who wants to attend the party for his own reasons. That's the setup.

There is a crime that occurs, with a subsequent police investigation that plays out in the movie, but there's much more going on than that. This is really a study of the British class system during the 1930s and how these two classes needed each other, used each other, and what they really thought of each other.

I won't rehash everything I say in the movie review above, but I will say that I would recommend this movie to writers or authors who are interested in learning about:

Writing social commentary - this movie was written by Julian Fellows who wrote Downton Abbey and he's a master writer. For new writers, pay particular attention to how he writes very serious lines for the actors but sets them up to be comical in his overall social commentary.
I heard an author say -- and I can't remember who it was unfortunately -- that every storyline needs a mystery of some kind going on to hold the reader's interest. I have since seen this play out in all the best movies. There is a crime that occurs in this movie, but it's not really a who-done-it. But it is enough to keep the viewer watching.
This is also a great movie to watch if you are planning a large ensemble cast. The more characters there are, the harder it is to get too deep into their character. However, in this movie, Julian Fellows writes dialogue where every line is giving backstory, commentary or moving the mystery plot along. This is a good movie to learn from.
Wardrobe, costuming and set decorations gets A+ in this movie too.

If you haven't seen the movie yet, above is a panel letting you know who to watch if you're a writer. These characters are very strong and there's lots to learn from their performance.

Maggie Smith plays a stuck-up aristocrat who is almost always offended and no one on the planet plays this type of role better than she does. When she talks to the actor/singer about his last picture, it's a riot.
Robert Balaban plays Morris Weissman who gets an invitation to the hunting party that is the setting of this movie. He is an outsider and represents the "Hollywood culture" amid the "British blue-blood culture". His performance is serious but he's also a riot.
Jeremy Northam played an actor in the movie and I assumed he was picked because he's very handsome. However, he sings in the movie and he was amazing.
Helen Mirren played one of the servant class and she was very reserved and controlled. However, by the end of the movie, you do see the range of her acting abilities.

WRITING EXERCISE:

There are many great sets where the action takes place in this movie. A good writing exercise would be to choose one of them and describe it in one paragraph. See how much information you can get into that amount of space.

As you watch the movie above, put the closed captions on and watch how much Julian Fellows gets into every line he writes.

5 Mistakes I Made in Publishing My Vampire Book Series

LET ME SET THE STAGE:

This post will be about 5 Beginner Mistakes I made in Self-Publishing one of my book series and what I did about it -- which was pretty much nothing. I'll also go into what I am going to do about it now that I learned a lot more about what went wrong.

Most of these mistakes were ones that were not even on my radar at the time they were made.

Let me give you a bit of context: As I came close to retirement, I decided to write a novel or two. I chose to self-publish for many reasons that I've gone over in other videos and I won't go over now. And to this day, in spite of the mistakes I've made, I still consider self-publishing a good fit for me. (Just me)

When I first got the idea of writing a novel, I did research for about a year. I read several how to books on every subject under the title of writing a novel and self-publishing. (Cat on book shelf)

I also watched hundreds of videos on the subject. Like most people, all the information I came upon, especially in video format was great advice, but none of it was curricularized. When you self-study online, you take in just a steady stream of random information and then we're all left to sort it out ourselves. That's how free education works on the internet. (Text Panel 2: Information wasn't curricularized

So above is a list of the chronology I pieced together as being the proper chronological list of how to write and publish a book:

MISTAKE NUMBER ONE:

In this big cloud of random information I took in, I got ARC Readers and Beta Readers kind of mixed up or thought they were too closely related. But they are two different animals.

Beta Readers often times read books very early in the process -- before the book is even finished to give early feedback. This is a great idea if you're not sure about your characters or if the plot is good enough, etc. Let's face it, in the beginning it's hard to think you're book is a masterpiece when it's your first one -- at least it was for me. There is a definite high-level purpose in having Beta Readers. They are worth their weight in gold.

However, here is where I made the terrible mistake and found out the hard way about this particular landmine: I offered my Vampire book Darius - A Vampire Story as a beta book but it had not been finalized, professionally edited or proofread. Now, in the ad copy for the link to download, I clearly posted it as a beta copy that had not been edited, etc. However, once a book is downloaded to an eReader, no one will remember this book is only a beta copy. And the second mistake I made here was that I didn't put anything in the book itself.

I didn't put any explanation paragraph before the First Chapter. I didn't add a watermark. I assumed my explanation about the Beta copy that invited the download was enough.

Well, when I finalized the book and released it, I got slaughtered in early reviews. I assumed as a new author that maybe it wasn't that good. However, several of the reviews referenced typos and/or grammar mistakes. When I went to the finalized copy to of course correct them -- they didn't exist.

The first time this happened, I just thought the reader was a bit crazy. But after this happened several times, it was only then that I realized that I had released hundreds of beta copies that now lived on people's eReaders. And for some reason, there are a lot of readers who take typos or grammar errors personally. It seems to trigger them and their reviews are more like rants.

So poor Darius got all beat up in the early review.

MISTAKE NUMBER 2

Mistake Number 2 was what I did about this problem -- which was pretty much nothing.

I wish I could say that I recognized the gravity of the mistake right away, but I didn't. I just thought that some people had read an earlier copy and that's a shame, but what can I do about it now? I didn't realize that there were probably hundreds of these copies out there. I had no list of who I sent these early copies to.

Now, I also didn't realize that this series was going to go on for 5 books. So, in hindsight, what I should have done was pull the first three books and re-release them as a second edition. This is what I plan to do in January of 2025 because that's when I'll be releasing the fifth book in the series. So doing nothing about this was the second mistake.

Now I have a hard and fast rule: I never give Beta copies in download format. I now only pay for beta copies and send them in Microsoft Word format. I also include verbiage that it is a beta copy and hasn't been edited or proofread.

MISTAKE NUMBER 3:

GoodReads is probably the largest single pool of avid readers and book lovers out there. But goodreads can be a tough crowd for new writers. This is where Darius's bullying started. If I had to do things over again, I would not have focused on Goodreads as a first place to release my books -- even after they were fully edited and proofread. Unfortunately, many of the videos I watched during that first year, talked about how great goodreads was helpful to find beta readers and arc readers and launch a book.

To be honest, I never found any true beta readers or arc readers there. I found mostly people who like to download free books. So I would just caution newbies that GoodReads is not the only game in town and you may need some boxing experience before you enter that ring. That's all I'm going to say about that.

A SIDE NOTE ABOUT GIVEAWAYS:

Goodreads has been purchased by Amazon, I believe, and they did offer a giveaway for $119. At least that's what it was at the time I used that service as a giveaway for edited books. However, I found the reviews very harsh or even snotty at times. I had much better experience giving the books away with Freebooksy and even Fussy Librarian for less than $119. I also got better reviews using Bookfunnel and Storyorigin free book giveaways. As long as you don't put your books into Kindle Select, you can still give them away on these websites.

MISTAKE NUMBER 4:

I didn't realize that the categories on Amazon have a hierarchy to them. It may have been because we were originally allowed to put each book into 10 categories. I had watched a video by Author Chris Fox about writing to market and he was explaining about drilling down in the categories and writing to a specific sub-category. Now, he writes sci-fi and in particular, military sci-fi.

At the time he said this, I thought writing to a specific market just to make marketing easier would be awful. It would be like pulling an assignment out of a hat and having to produce a book about it. I'm just not that type of writer. So I let that concept float away in the wind and just picked ten categories that seemed like they would be a the best fit for my books and the rest of the concept of writing to market was lost on me, at least at that time. I moved onto other things.

Over time, pretty recently, I did figure out that the categories are hierarchical and Chris Fox' advice came back to me. What he was saying was that new authors can focus on subcategories in order to dominate in those smaller categories in their to number 1 on the best seller list. In other words, you can rise to number one in a sub-sub category way faster than rising to the top ten in Romance, which is a top tier in the hierarchy.

In the video below, I do go live at Amazon and demonstrate how the categories are hierarchical and how to dig down and see which ones are available for you.

So the time to think about the categories is before you even plot out or write the book. Once you have a plot idea, that's the time to look at the categories and think about where the book would fit, and what you can tweak about the storyline to fit into a sub category or a less competitive category? Can you make the story happen in the west to be a Western Romance? Can you put the story into olden times to make it a historical novel, ore even better, put it in a specific time period? The time to think about categories is right after you have know you have a workable plotline.

In looking back, I could have tweaked a few of my books to fit them very easily into sub-sub categories without changing the storyline much.

MISTAKE NUMBER 5:

Mistake Number five requires a little explanation. My inspiration for my vampire series was the old Dark Shadows Soap Opera from the late '60s and early '70s. I never watched it as a kid but everyone I knew did. I didn't watch it because I had to walk too far to get home from school in time. This vampire series, like most soap operas at that time, was melodramatic and being a gothic and supernatural story, the storylines were completely crazy. But I loved the show anyway.

What I didn't realize at the time I watched it was that these crazy storylines came from real books. They just seemed crazy to me as they played out in this soap opera. In fairness to the writers of Dark Shadows, they had to produce 5 shows every week without fail.

So, with limited knowledge of the whole vampire genre, I went on to write a vampire book series. My vampire owns and operates a funeral home and keeps a bevy of 3 women to supply the blood he needs. He normally picks up runaways from the train and bus stations, but he winds up falling in love with the daughter of a wealthy, influential family in Newport Rhode Island. There is also a monastery of monks that live on the opposite side of the cemetery that Darius also owns.

No one in the area has any idea they are living next to a vampire and there are some supernatural events that start happening around the Balmont Funeral home, one of which is a mobster from New York looking for his daughter who was last seen with Darius. That's all I'll say about the plotlines.

Now, my series does follow the classic rules on vampirism with a tweak or two. However, there is also a little subtle tongue in cheek narrative in the story, which was more prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s vampire movies.

So how does all this fit into mistake number 5? Well, there's no category for tongue-in-cheek vampire stories. Also, fifty years have passed since this show ended and a lot has happened to the vampire genre in that time. First there was Anne Rice and her books and subsequent movies which are all dead serious and there's no tongue in cheek humor of any kind. I only read the first book and it was steeped in darkness and despair. Because I read for enjoyment, the level of despair was too much for me so I never read the other books.

Then there were the Twilight movies, the TV shows of True Blood and The Vampire Diaries, which were targeted to much younger people. Some of the backdrops were high school or college. And there was the rise of the vampire hunters. My book is a vampire book for adults or young adults who are not interested in high school or college anymore. But there's no amazon category for vampire books for adult. And my books also have no vampire hunters.

None of these were on my radar when I wrote the book. I thought books were judged on how well they were written and if people liked them. I didn't know reader expectations was even a thing!

Then I came upon two videos on a channel called Tristan and the Classics that changed that. It changed my whole trajectory and sent me on a new journey where I learned so much information that is not only helpful but I consider it crucial for newbies.

So as I realized that my books were not really fitting well in any of the vampire categories, I went on to create my own Teach Yourself Gothic Literature course based on Tristan's suggestions. This journey helped me to understand more about writing to market, and about reader expectations in particular, both are which I now feel are critical in self-publishing.

I actually took Tristan's suggestions about the self-study program one step further which I'll go into in the next blog post and video.

Coloring Page – Thanksgiving Day Scene

Movie Review – Ladies in Retirement

This will be a movie review from an author’s or writer’s perspective. The name of the movie is Ladies in Retirement and it was filmed in 1941, produced by Columbia Pictures, and directed by Charles Vidor. The writers for this film or script were Garrett Fort and Reginald Denham.

I saw it on YouTube at the below link, but if it's no longer on YouTube, you can find it on JustWatch which has all the movies.

The movie starred Ida Lupino, who played the starring role as Ellen Creed. She was an English actress born in 1918 but made most of her movies in the United States. As a point of interest, she came from two generations of theater people, but she did start her own production company in the midst of the Hollywood Studio system. That was pretty daring in those years for a woman if you ask me.

The movie also starred Louis Hayward, who was married to Ida Lupino during the filming of this movie. He played Ellen Creed's long lost nephew by marriage. He played a charming, thieving, gigaglo type and he aced the part.

Another character actress who outdid herself was Isobel Elsom, who played Leonora Fiske, an old retired showgirl who was "kept" by several men of her day. I’m not an expert on acting, but in my opinion, she stole the movie. She is a great study for writers of a rich character who moves the plot along and was great comic relief as well. Between her facial expressions, the way she moved, the singing, the scoffing, the hand-waving, and lording over her handmaidens, she was a riot.

SHORT MOVIE PLOT SUMMARY - NO SPOILERS

As the story opens, we learn that Ellen Creeds' family falls on hard times and she winds up being a handmaiden of sorts to this ex-chorus girl Leonora Fiske who now owns their family home. Ellen has been reduced to a common servant. (Regina on screen)

Ellen gets a letter threatening to throw her two sisters out of their living arrangement if she cannot get them settled. At the same time, Mrs. Fiche gives Ellen an assignment to go to London to pass a note to a Lord that she knows.

Ellen manipulates a little bit and gets Mrs. Fiche to agree that her sisters can come for a few days visit. But Ellen secretly knows she will be bringing her sisters back to live there.

While she is gone, her long lost nephew shows up needing money. All of this family dysfunction falls onto Ellen's shoulders and the noir part of the movie is about what happens when the stress gets to be too much. Slide 6

So what can an author learn from watching ladies in retirement? Let’s look at the atmosphere.

Atmosphere: There are great shots that give a very gothic atmosphere, including the horse and cart ride, as well as the layout of the mansion house Leonora and Ellen live in. New authors can slide into the ‘white room syndrome’ from forgetting about giving the characters a stage and a background. This is a great movie to steal a few stills from and write up the descriptions. This exercise will build a roster of backdrops and stages in your imagination.

Scenery/Set Descriptions: You can tell that each shot in this movie was set up and framed by the director because each scene filled up the entire shot. Unlike many modern movies that go from one closeup to the next, this movie shows the actors acting across a room, interacting with each other, each one hitting their marks and interacting with props. It can help any new writer learn about giving the characters movement within the scene at the same time they are delivering their lines and moving the action forward.

Costuming/Historical Anchoring: The next area for writers to focus on is costuming and how the film was anchored in time. This particular film was anchored ‘in the olden days’ but there was not one specific time period mentioned. The long dresses, bun hairstyles, Fiona’s shawl, and the nephew’s clothing and manners were enough to anchor this film in a generic ‘olden times’. It’s important for a new author to recognize that this anchoring takes place in every scene. There are props and backdrops in every scene that are keeping this a period piece. This is important to learn for writing in general.

Acting/Character Development: The acting was very good and I go into it in a bit more detail in the video below, but the actress who stole the show was Isobel Elsom playing Lonora Fiche. From head to toe, she acted this part and she was so enjoyable.

One writer's lesson from this movie would be how the character of Leonora was made up of her costuming, her movements, her dialogue, the hairstyle, the singing, the bossing of the servants, flirting with the young nephew, the glasses – she used everything from head to toe for this character development. Now, this character may have been this great in the script, but I never saw the actual script. I just know that the actress did an amazing job at creating a fully fleshed out character for this film noir. And when you focus on her actual dialogue, it wasn't enough to create the character that she developed.

The one area that I think was lacking in the movie was the characterizations of the two sisters. The script referred to them as unsettled, but it was unclear as to whether they were just high management or had mental issues.

I know Elsa Lanchester, who played one of the sisters, is a great actress, and she could have made the character so much better, so I'm sure it wasn't an acting issue. It could have been a directorial flaw, or maybe they were limited by the time of the entire movie and decided to clip the sisters’ characters.

But as a novel writer, I saw great potential for two more great characters in the sisters. We are not limited for time the way a scriptwriter is, so the two sisters could have been fully developed and they would have enriched the story even more.

Script, Language & Dialogue: The final focus is the script, the language and dialogue. The script was very good. It was original, concise, tight, and it had a twist at the end. It seemed like an interesting drama at first but then suddenly went noir towards the end, which was unexpected.

I enjoyed the entire movie and I would watch watch this one again. I’m sure I would pick up other things on a second viewing.

RECOMMENDATIONS: If I was asked to recommend a movie to learn about tightening a writer’s scenes, and how to add movement and interest to each scene, it would be this one. The atmosphere in this movie was also a good one, especially if you write gothic, noir or historical fiction.

I would also recommend this movie just for sheer enjoyment. The plot was good enough to hold your interest the entire way. This movie was served p on my YouTube feed as a film noir but the first three quarters of the movie played like an interesting drama. It turned into a film noir as the plot moved along.

MY MOVIE REVIEW THAT COVERS A LITTLE MORE IS BELOW:

Book Plates – How to Make a Customized Book Plate

SUPPLIES AND COMPONENTS NEEDED:

Printable Shipping Labels - 6 per page, approximately 3.5 x 4 inches
Graphic Frame of some kind (DepositPhotos or search "Fancy Square Frame" on Pixabay
Author logo or some other icon, if desired
Microsoft Word (or Google Docs)

NOTE: Any postal labels that are approximately 3.50" x 4" will do. Avery has them on Amazon or you can use the Office Depot brand. Most of them come in the color white which works well.

LET'S DESIGN THE LABEL IN GIMP:

There is a video below where I demonstrate how to pull together the design of my bookplate, but I will describe it here for those of you who like to have written instructions. I start out with an image size 4 inches x 4 inches with a white background.

I started with a frame I purchased from DepositPhotos.com. This is a paid service, but I always wait to get their 100 pictures for $100 package so each photo I use only costs one dollar. However, I went to Pixabay.com and found this frame by searching the keywords "Fancy square frames". There were several other similar ones that came up as well.

I insert the frame, then type in the text elements onto the label. If you have a website, you may want to add this onto your book plate, as well as the name of a series if your book is part of a series.

After I add the text, I decide how I want to decorate the book plate with a logo or icon or some other background wall paper.

On the bookplate above, I used handcuffs because this is for a Police Procedural book series. In the video below, I create a new one using a police badge.

Above are my three book plates as of the date of the writing of this blog post. The first one has fanged teeth at the top for my vampire books, the second one has a hint of private detective holding a camera for my private investigator series and the last one with the handcuffs is for my police procedural series. You can add whatever emblem or icon fits your brand or book genre.

CAN I USE CANVA?

I know many people use Canva these days and I do believe you can use Canva. Especially if you are advanced enough with Canva to make an image or template from scratch, I don't see why you can't do the same thing in Canva. I don't use Canva myself except for inspiration at times, but I believe it can do amazing things.

SAVE AND EXPORT YOUR IMAGE DESIGN.

If you are using Gimp, I would suggest you save your image as an .xcf file. This is a gimp file but it will save your book plate in layers. So when it's time to make another book plate for another book, you can open this file in Gimp and quickly make a second book plate.

Then you want to export the image as a .jpg or .png file. Since the background of the labels will be white, you can save as either. Next, I will explain how to create the book plates for printing.

NEXT STEP IS WORD OR GOOGLE DOCUMENTS:

GOOGLE DOCS:

Unfortunately, I don't know how to use google docs as I have always used Microsoft Word. However, I believe people who use google docs are familiar with how to translate instructions from Word into Google docs, so I will assume that here.

MICROSOFT WORD:

1. Open a blank document in Microsoft word.
2. Click on the Tab entitled Mailings. Then choose Labels.

3. Now my system defaults to a return address and your Word may default to something else, but we need to choose a setting to print the 6 postage labels. So first choose the Options button, which is at the bottom on the right hand side. The big red circle shows the small label that my system defaults to and I'm just pointing out the "New document" button for later.

4. Once you click on Options, another dialogue box will come up which should look similar to the picture below:

This is where you will choose the label,. First choose Avery US Letter from that top drop-down list.

Then you will find another drop-down list of at least a hundred labels to choose from. Labels 15664 will give you the 6 labels per page. But if your system doesn't have this number, look for one that has the same measurements as are posted on the right hand side: 3.33" x 4". That will give you the 6 postage labels per page.

5. Then go back to Gimp and make sure nothing is selected (Select >none).
Then right click on the finished design and choose copy visible
Go back to the labels, click inside the label and hit control v to paste the artwork into the first label spot. Choose the image alignment of "through" as this will give you the most flexibility. Then center the image into the center of the postal label template.

6. Then click off of that label and then click back onto it. Click Control C to copy the label in this new size, and paste into each of the other 5 template spots on the postage sheet.

7. Once they are all there, save this as your book plate file. You can print onto the postage labels and also save it so you can print again when you run out and need more labels.

YOUTUBE VIDEO BELOW:

Coloring Page – Rag Doll Cat

Movie Review – Death Cruise

I took a break from the crazy vampire, gothic and monster movies of the 1960s and watched this made for TV mystery movie entitled Death Cruise which aired in 1974. It was a murder mystery that takes place on a cruise, so like many Agatha Christie stories, it's a "locked door" murder mystery and they are always fun.

I watched this movie for free on YouTube, but in the event it is taken down, here is a link to find the movie on JustWatch.

QUICK PLOT SUMMARY: This is a murder mystery that takes place on a cruise ship. Three couples realize that they all won a free trip on this cruise. Each couple has an issue or two that arises and one by one, the people start showing up dead.

There is a new doctor on board who has to figure out the connection between them all and why they were all brought together.

STORYLINE/PLOTLINE: The plot was a good one. It had a final twist and kept me guessing all the way. Unlike many made-for-tv-movies, it wasn't just a thrown together script with no substance. It was a well-planned out storyline that could have passed for an Agatha Christie movie. It was well executed and the final twist was a surprise.

ACTING: The story moved along and all the actors played good parts. No one was trying to steal the show or hamming it up. They all said their lines and the dialogue and chronology of the story was the meat and potatoes. So no one turned in an academy award winning performance, but they were all convincing and believable.

The acting was good enough where the actors used their entire bodies in acting. This is a good way to learn how to get your characters to move within your book scenes.

ATMOSPHERE/SCENERY: This took place on a cruise ship so the atmosphere was enjoyable. Being a made for tv movie, it was more about the relationships, but there were enough cruising scenes to enjoy the vacation aspect of the story.

COSTUMING: Some of the outfits and gowns were beautiful. Even thought this movie was shot and aired in 1974, the clothing and sets were not that dated. If anything was stuck in the 197os, it was the music. All these movies and shows all had the same type of music. It screams 1970s, but the fashions were not that dated. This made the movie more enjoyable.

MOVING THE STORY ALONG:

When focused on what an author can learn, this was a great story example were the plot is the star of the show. You learned a little bit about each of the three couples, as well as the ship's doctor, but all the information that seemed like passing information was crucial to the ultimate plotline and the twists.

HOW TO DROP CLUES AND HIDE CLUES:

This is a good movie to watch to learn how to drop information and clues and yet not lose sight of there needing to be some romance and intrigue as well. This would be a good movie to watch and then reverse engineer it to see how the clues were dropped. It also shows you how some information is given to the viewer and some is deliberately hidden, but you don't realize it's being hidden at the time you first watch it. So this is a good movie to watch to learn about dropping some clues and hiding others for final revelation.

REVERSE ENGINEERING:

Because there are a few twists and surprises in this plotline, this would be a good movie to watch and then reverse engineer it. It will teach you the mind of an author, how to think about how you want to end a book on a twist and how you will need to plan and plot around that final twist. I have another blog post about reverse engineering a plotline that you can read about here.

AUTHOR TERMINOLOGY:

Above is a list of words an author would need to know to write about a cruise ship. If you click on the puzzle, you will be taken to google drive where you can download the word find with the list of words.

Movie Review – Mystery in the Wax Museum

This movie was billed on YouTube as Mystery in the Wax Museum, but when I tried to get the technical information after viewing it, the proper name is Terror in the Wax Museum.

I saw this on YouTube on a Channel named Robo-Cat Productions. In case you use this link -- which is a free viewing of the movie -- it has a short clip from another movie about a wax museum with Peter Cushing in it. I believe this short clip is from an anthology movie so if you want to get to this movie, you will need to fast forward a bit.

If this movie is taken down for copyright infringement, then you can find the movie on JustWash.com.

ANOTHER BRITISH HORROR MOVIE (MADE IN AMERICA)

This movie was produced in America in 1973 by Bing Crosby, Andrew J. Fenady and Charles A. Pratt. It came around the time the Hammer Production Gothic videos were making a splash, so this one is very similar to any of the other Hammar productions.

The story was written by Andrew J Fenady and the Screenplay was by Jameson Brewer. It was directed by Georg Fenady.

QUICK PLOT SUMMARY:

There is a wax museum owned by Claude Dupree who poured his entire life into creating the museum. All of the figures were notorious murderers, including Jack the Ripper, Marie Antoinette, Lucretia Borgia and others you will recognize. Mr. Dupress has an associate named Harry Flexner who is the sculptor of the figures. Over the years, Mr. Dupree has adopted a local freak named Karkov. I won't tell you much about Karkov other than he's a typical pathetic Dickins-type figure that helps to give the movie it's gothic ambience.

Mr. Dupree meets with a New York businessman who wants to buy his figures to set it up in New York. Suddenly Mr. Dupree is killed and there are now a few suspects. There's his partner Harry Flexner who didn't want to sell. There's also Mr. Dupree's niece who shows up with her legal guardian claiming immediate ownership of the business. And there is Amos Burns who still wants to purchase the exhibit.

WHAT AN AUTHOR CAN LEARN:

This is a great film to learn about character development and a bit about comic relief. Let's focus on character development first. In the scene below, the owner of the museum is talking about how wonderful his figures are and how much Karkov is attached to them. The businessman is hurried and has no emotional attachment to the figures and sees it only as a business proposition. There are several scenes where you can learn about how one character plays off another and how they are both coming from a different place.

This scene shows the different personalities as well as motivations. The businessman is waving his business proposals and trying to hurry Mr. Dupree along. In the previous scene, Mr. Dupree demonstrates how he has to melt down a figure due to imperfections and he's already trying Burns' last nerve. Then upstairs, Dupree goes into more of a bragathon about his business. Both personalities play off of one another and the businessman is also there to give comic relief, which he does very well.

The other character who I love is Julia, the guardian. She is played by Elsa Lanchester. I've never seen her in a movie where she wasn't hysterical. Her role is not a comedy, but her manner and cadence contributes to the continual comic relief that is masterful throughout the movie. The funny moments are peppered all through the movie but the movie itself never collapses into a spoof. It maintains a serious tone all the way to the end. I applaud the actors who played these roles as they were the ones who kept it serious at the same time as delivering a funny line or two.

MOVIE VS. BOOK SCRIPTING:

This movie is a good study in the difference between scriptwriting and novel writing. For example: The singer in the movie doesn't really move the mystery along at all. She is there for sheer entertainment which every movie needs. She plays off of the businessman and there is a tiny subplot about how Karkov the creature fancies her and protects her in one scene. But her entire appearance in the movie could be handled with two lines of background information in a novel.

The longer I watch movies from a scripting and writing perspective, the more I realize that movies need more "action" in terms of things happening on the screen. So it's important to note the difference between which characters are there for sex appeal or character development or putting on a show of some kind. In this movie it was a pub song. But other movies it may be a martial artist going into a performance. Or a fight scene that is choreographed with smashing bar stools and breaking glass.

THREE OR MORE SUSPECTS:

This movie had three suspects -- I won't spoil it and tell you who they are. There was a police investigation as well as hinting at a slow-brewing romance between the young handsome police detective and the niece. This was a good movie to also learn about keeping the script/novel tight. Each scene moved the story along and there were no long acting showcases that they now do in more modern movies. All the actors delivered their lines without any melodrama which made the movie more enjoyable.

GOTHIC ATMOSPHERE

This movie also has great gothic atmosphere. You'll see the carriage and horse in at least one scene which is crucial for all gothic movies. The bar and street scenes are also classic Foggy London.

The best shot of the movie is where Karkov interacts with the beautiful singer through the grates in the sewer. Nothing says gothic like a freak from the sewer pining over a beautiful singer.

What I love about these '60s and '70s gothic movies is the stagecraft. Many of the scenes are shot outside, but you can tell they arrived early and got the lighting right, as well as bringing along all the props needed for the background and foreground to anchor the movie in the proper historical time. The direct also framed each scene and the actors moved in the scene like Broadway actors where they are acting with their whole bodies. In modern movies, it's now a series of closeup shots one another another making sure to change the scene every 20 seconds.

SPOOKY HOUSE:

For those of you who love spook house movies, the museum has bedrooms upstairs and it becomes the proverbial scary house after hours. The niece goes tiptoeing around the house holding a candle and there's a jump scare of two for those of you who like those.

LOW BUDGET WITH HIGH END RESULTS:

You can tell by looking at the movie that it was made on a low budget. However, the costuming and stagecraft didn't lack anything. The wax tableaus were great as was the scene in the basement where one of the wax figures had to be melted down.

The actor who played Karkov was amazing. His character was a mute but he acted with grunts and used his whole body for his portrayal of the wax museum creature. He did an amazing job.

Besides a little facial makeup and a hump for his back, the rest of the character was created by acting talent. It was impressive.

A special note about the singer too. She sang with very little music behind her which is not easy to do. I don't know much about her, other than her name is Shani Wallis, but my guess is that she is a seasoned stage performer.

NO REAL MORAL TALE:

There was no real moral tale in this one other than to showcase what great men the two owners of the museum were that they both took responsibility to look after Karkov who was not able to take care of himself. But the presence of that even that little bit of virtue gave the movie a moral anchor, a positive belief in humanity.

Click here to do the crossword online

Click here to download the crossword with answers.

Movie Review – The Oblong Box

ANOTHER GOTHIC HORROR (FUN)

This is another English gothic horror movie from the 1960s. I have added the word fun into the title because these movies are not particularly scary by today's standards but there is something so charming and fun about them that I cannot resist watching them over and over again.

This movie was uploaded by the Channel entitled New Castle After Dark where two guys present the movie and talk before, at an intermission, and after the movie is over. They are just as charming as the movies. They are movie buffs and share insider information about the movies as well as the actors who appear in their movie choices.

I love their format because it feels like you're not watching the movie alone. They appear just long enough before, during and after to add to the watching experience -- at least for me they do.

If this movie is taken down by YouTube for any reason, here is a link to JustWatch where you can find it somewhere else.

THE MOVIE STATS:

The movie was produced and directed in 1959 by British director Gordono Hessler. This movie stars Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. It is the first movie that stared both actors.

The movie was loosely based on the short story written by Edgar Allan Poe entitled "The Oblong Box". I say loosely because I don't believe voodoo is mentioned in the original Poe story.

Although Vincent Price is often accused of overacting, I think he fits perfect into the Gothic Horror Fun genre! I don't see his acting as anything but great in these films.

Christopher Lee plays a co-star role in this film but as usual he is, deadly serious, but great too! Below is a snapshot from the film from Wikipedia Commons.

QUICK SUMMARY OF THE MOVIE:

I don't want to spoil the story for anyone so I'll just give a very quick summary of what the movie is about. Sir Edward was disfigured in Africa and is now hidden away in an attic room by his guilt-ridden brother Sir Julian.

Sir Edward is tired of being couped up and comes up with a plan that he forces the family lawyer into carrying out with him. If everything went as planned, it would have given Sir Edward his freedom but of course, Julian throws a wrench into the plans and everything goes haywire.

The plot, although a bit crazy as all plots in British gothic horror from the 1960s is, is a good one. It's plausible and easy to follow. This is a great pick for autumn, even Halloween season. It's a great movie for enjoyment but a good one for writers to learn from as I'll go into below.

THE ATMOSPHERE: The movie is anchored in the late 1800s and brief atmospheric scenes support his. This is a good way for authors to learn about anchoring the story in England, in the historical time period and giving it the 'gothic vibe' which I'll be referring to throughout this review.

THE SCENERY: The scenery was beautiful but it played a supportive role in this movie. It was just beautiful enough to give the movie a great look and add to the beauty of the movie in general. Any snapshot still could be a writer's exercise is describing an 1800's historical scene.

SETS/STAGECRAFT: I love the sets used in this film. I also include the lighting in this category. Although it was a gothic movie, it takes place 'with the proper stage lighting'. This means that you can see everything and every scene is well-lit for drama and atmosphere. It adds to the beauty and enjoyment of the film. Is there anything worse than a modern horror film where you're squinting to see scenes shot in the dark with only one Bic lighter?

This is a great place for writers to look and learn from the ways the background scenes and objects support the scene, transmit additional information, and just anchor the scene into the time period.

COSTUMING: The costuming for everyone is great. All of the actors and actresses in this time frame were beautiful, thin and they all looked amazing in their costumes.

GOTHIC ELEMENTS: It wouldn't be a British gothic movie if it didn't have the prerequisite mansion, candelabra, harlots showing their ankles, wild pub scene, cabriolet, mist in the woods, silhouetted horse chase or a sinister 1800s grave-robbing scientist! It's all here and it's all delicious. This one even has a grave-digging scene which I always love!

STORYLINE/PLOTLINE: This is a great movie for beginner writers to learn from as there is a crazy horror plotline that does require the viewers to suspend their modern belief system to watch. For beginner writers, sometimes it's hard to imagine that you can rely on people setting aside their logic and reason to watch, but they do.

This is also a great plotline to learn about 'the plot twist'. The original plan that Sir Edward had, although it was crazy, it could have worked. But the twist is what happens as the result of his brother Julian wanting to do the right thing.

There are also a couple of additional turns in the plotline towards the end that have a lot to teach about keeping the tension and surprises coming. This would even be a good plotline for an author to reverse engineer to see how it all needs to be foreshadowed from the beginning.

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND EMOTIONS:

Any movie with Vince Price is a good one to learn about facial expressions for an author. He is often teased about over-acting, but I don't agree. When you watch him from now almost 65 years later, his acting is perfect for this 1960s gothic horror. His face is very expressive and can teach new authors a lot about the raising of eyebrows, eye movement, and more.

Author Writing Exercise Idea: Make a gif of an actor responding to an action and then describe it. Use a thesaurus and see how many new ways to describe the facial movement you can find. Here is a gif from this movie as an example. See if you can write this scene.

And finally, this is a great script and storyline to learn about 'clipping dialogue tightly'. This storyline is a long one, and with the twists and turns, a lot is covered in each scene. Almost every word spoken -- with the exception of the romance scenes with the ladies -- are conveying important story information. It can teach a lot about how to keep scene lean and move the plot along.