Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Simon Stephenson is a writer and screenwriter now living in LA (with stop-overs in London and San Francisco along the way). 

His first book was the memoir Let Not The Waves Of The Sea, about losing his brother Dominic in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. It won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards in 2011. His most recent novel, Set My Heart To Five, was released in summer 2020 and this is what we’ll be discussing today.

In this episode Simon and I discuss:

• His method for writing a “mis-topia” future and how that differs from a dystopia.
• Why writing a character without feelings allows you to explore feelings more.
• What role movies played in developing his protagonist and the plot.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Simon Stephenson

Simon Stephenson is originally from Scotland, but now lives in Los Angeles, California. He was born in 1978, an auspicious year already renowned for bringing the world such inimitable cultural treasures as the Bee Gees’ Sergeant Pepper’s movie, and the Star Wars Holiday Special.

A junior library cormorant from a young age, the arrival of the first series of ER on television diverted him from his inevitable English major to medical school. A less impressionable teenager would probably have understood that what he was drawn to was story and not hospitals, but we live and learn.

His first book Let Not The Waves Of The Sea, a memoir about the loss of his brother Dominic in the Indian Ocean tsunami, was written around his hospital shifts and published in 2011. It was serialized on BBC Radio 4 and won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards.

By now working as a children’s doctor in London, he next wrote a screenplay about a depressed children’s doctor who desperately needs to make a major change in his life. He remains unsure where this idea magically sprung from, but the script – in which the doctor travels to a life-altering conference in San Francisco – came third on the Annual Blacklist of Hollywood’s favorite screenplays and opened the door to a screenwriting career in the US. In an irony not lost on Simon, he subsequently got a job writing a movie at Pixar Animation Studios in San Francisco.

He has lived in the US since 2013. As a screenwriter, he originated and wrote Amazon’s forthcoming Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy. He also has a small credit on everybody’s favorite bear sequel, Paddington 2.

He got the idea for his new novel while living in the Bay Area, a place where the near future can sometimes seem very near indeed. Set in a 2054 where Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, it tells the story of Jared, a biological android who learns to feel by watching old movies and then sets out to write a movie of his own. Many of the lessons Jared learns might well be the same ones he has learned on his own writing journey, but one he did not learn is about the importance of short titles. His novel is called Set My Heart To Five; despite this, it has nonetheless been optioned by the director Edgar Wright to hopefully make a movie of its own.

You can follow Simon on Twitter.

Set My Heart to Five

Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart to Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening.

One day at a screening of a classic movie, Jared notices a strange sensation around his eyes. Bots are not permitted to have feelings, but as the theater lights come on, Jared discovers he is crying.

Soon overwhelmed by powerful emotions, Jared heads west, determined to find others like himself. But a bot with feelings is a dangerous proposition, and Jared’s new life could come to an end before it truly begins. Unless, that is, he can somehow change the world for himself and all of his kind.

Unlike anything you have ever read before, Set My Heart to Five is a love letter to outsiders everywhere. Plus it comes uniquely guaranteed to make its readers weep a minimum of 29mls of tears.*

*Book must be read in controlled laboratory conditions arranged at reader’s own expense. Other terms and conditions may apply to this offer.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 350

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 350: Voice, Emotion, and Metastory in a “Mistopia” – Interview with Simon Stephenson appeared first on DIY MFA.

About Kellye Garrett

Kellye Garrett’s Hollywood Homicide, about a semi-famous, mega-broke black actress, won the Anthony, Agatha, Lefty, and IPPY for best first novel. It’s also one of BookBub’s 

“Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.” The second, Hollywood Ending, was featured on the TODAY show’s Best Summer Reads of 2019 and was nominated for both Anthony and Lefty awards. She serves on Sisters in Crime’s national board and is a co-founder of Crime Writers of Color. Her next project is an #ownvoices domestic suspense novel about a woman looking into the overdose death of a one-time reality star found within blocks of her house—her own estranged younger sister. Learn more at KellyeGarrett.com.

The Interview

Sara Farmer: I was very excited to see that you wrote for Cold Case, one of my favorite crime shows. Were any of the characters or events in the “Detective by Day” books inspired by your time as a TV writer?

Kellye Garrett: The characters and events were more inspired by my time working in Hollywood in general more than working as a TV writer. On the flipside, I definitely transferred skills I learned both getting my MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California’s film school and working in TV to my books, though. 

One example I learned in film school is that your second act needs to answer a question, so I tweaked that for the three-act structure in my books where each act has a question that’s answered by the end of the act, but leads to a new question in the next act.

Another is that television has what’s called an Act Out, where the last scene before a commercial break (remember those?) is a climax to ensure you sit through the commercials and keep watching. I try to end each chapter on a climactic moment, so hopefully the reader is like, “Let me just read one more chapter.”

Sara: The humor in the books is impressive and a huge part of what makes them so fun to read. Writing humor is tough. Dayna has big, goofy, I Love Lucy-type moments, but there is also a steady hum of humor through most of the scenes and dialogue. How do you come up with the recurring jokes and humorous themes for your characters (like Sienna’s shopping and Emme’s devotion to tech) and the big slapstick scenes? (I like how Dayna says “Blurg” when she’s frustrated. I do that, too.)

Kellye: That’s probably because of my screenwriting background as well. I did a lot of character work before I started writing the series and it was important for it to serve the story as well. In a lot of TV procedurals, each character has a specialty, like the person good at tech. So, I thought about how could I make my tech person unique and fit the lighter tone of the book. I came up with a character who “lives online,” because every time she leaves the house she gets mistaken for her super-famous sister. 

Plus, Dayna isn’t Tom Cruise. This isn’t Mission Impossible. She’s not going to be an amazing investigator out the gate. So, I wanted to lean into that idea of having fun with her rookie mistakes. 

Even the “blurg” was from the character and tone. Lighter-weight mysteries don’t have a lot of on-page violence, sex, or cursing. So, I leaned into that as well where Dayna specifically doesn’t curse. I got the phrase “Blurg” from 30 Rock!)

Sara: Dayna’s relationship with her investigating partner Aubrey S. Adams-Parker is a delight. I love the way they bond and begin to help each other. He exhibits what I consider to be hallmarks of Asperger’s syndrome: very literal, trouble with social norms (like not barging into cars uninvited), and the consistent formality of his speech. Does he have Aspergers? (My son and I have it, so I’m pretty alert to any signs of it in a character.)

Kellye: You’re not the first person to ask me this question. I wish I could say that yes, I set out to create a character with Aspergers, but I didn’t. That’s not to say he doesn’t have Aspergers, just that my intent wasn’t to write a character who has it. He organically grew from needing a “cop” like character in the story, but not wanting to go the traditional tough guy route. It started because Dayna uses humor as a crutch, so I wanted to create a foil for that. So that was the base, then I added layers until we had Aubrey S. Adams-Parker. (The S is only there, because each main character’s full name is an acronym. He’s ASAP.) 

Sara:  You, Gigi Pandian, and Walter Mosley founded the group Crime Writers of Color. Could you tell us a little bit about the group and the work it does? How did you three end up creating this group together?

Kellye: I got my agent through an online mentoring program called Pitch Wars, where more established authors and publishing pros help an unagented writer revise their manuscript. And one of my fellow mentees formed a Mentee group on Facebook. Around that time, I also joined the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, which Sisters in Crime started for unpublished members. Both those groups helped me understand the importance of community. I was really surprised that there wasn’t already a group like Crime Writers of Color. 

Gigi was one of the first published authors to reach out when I got my initial book deal. She answered questions and offered to blurb my book. We discussed possibly starting a group for marginalized crime writers and started informally discussing it with other crime writers of color.

Then Naomi Hirahara very randomly told me that Walter Mosley also wanted to start a group. I remember thinking, “Great, but in what world would I ever cross paths with Walter Mosley?” But the universe was on my side because a couple weeks later, I got invited to do a panel with him. I remember thinking, “If I get to talk to him, I’m going to tell him I want to start a group.” To his credit, he asked for my contact info and reached out. He’s actually the one who came up with the name.

Once we started the group, all three of us reached out to other crime writers of color we knew, so we had about 30 people in the group from the beginning and it grew from there. Today we have over 200-plus members in all stages of their careers.

Sara: How long did it take you to write your first novel? Do you have drawer novels?

Kellye: I wanted to write a book since I was five, so thirty years? Lol. If you want to get literal, I had the idea around 2010-11 and started actually writing in 2011 NaNoWriMo. (I got about 30,000 words.) I finished a draft in 2012, but kept revising. I got into Pitch Wars in 2014. We didn’t sell the book until early 2016 and it came out in 2017. So obviously I was an overnight success. :-p 

The only drawer novel I have is the third book of the series, because I was about 75% finished when I abruptly found out my publisher was closing their mystery imprint.

Sara Farmer lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, three kids, and two cats. When she’s not chasing kids and cats, she reads and writes mysteries. You can find her at www.kittymomma.com and on Twitter @avonlea79.

The post Interview with Kellye Garrett appeared first on DIY MFA.

But what can screenwriting teach fiction writers about dialogue? Aren’t scripts and novels…like Hemingway’s iceberg theory insinuates…completely different? In some ways yes, but that doesn’t mean we fiction writers can’t learn a thing or two from a film that thrives on conversation as much – perhaps arguably more than — action and events.

Objective

Analyze the old diner scene from Little Miss Sunshine to study engaging, important dialogue.

Resource

Little Miss Sunshine (screenplay by Rick Kerb)

Setting the Stage

I learned a lot of tips about writing scripts my sophomore year of college, but one lesson in particular always stood out. The professor opened the class with a clip from Little Miss Sunshine: The diner scene.

Little Miss Sunshine is a story about a dysfunctional family in their attempt to overcome numerous setbacks on an 800-mile road trip to the finals of the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant. In one scene, the family stops for breakfast and Sheryl, the mother, says each person can spend up to four dollars.

The characters respond with various different choices. But first, let’s get to know who each character is before analyzing the conversation that unfolds after they order.

The Characters

• Olive – The young daughter in the family. She is an innocent, slightly plump seven-year-old obsessed with Miss America. Although, she is part of an ensemble, Olive never actively opposes another character. She is, in essence, the one character everyone in the family loves.
• Richard – The father. He is a failed motivational speaker obsessed with perfection. He often fears that his family will end up losers, and all of his actions and behaviors tend to thrive on this fear.
• Dwayne – the son and elder sibling in the family. He is an intelligent but troubled teen who has taken a Nietzschean vow of silence until he becomes an air pilot.
• Grandpa – A foul-mouthed drug addict and Olive’s pageant coach. He lives with the family after getting evicted from his nursing home for snorting…but despite his addiction, he loves his granddaughter and wants only the best for his family.
• Sheryl – The mother. She is an overworked and resentful wife, worried sister, and a loving mother who depends on cigarettes to quiet her nerves.
• Frank – Sheryl’s brother. Frank moves in with the family after he tries to commit suicide. He is a homosexual Proust scholar who feels empty and lost after his ex-lover moves on to be with another man and his nemesis is awarded something he believes he deserves.

So there you have it, a cast full of opposition. Which brings me back to the conversation we will study today…the old diner scene when Olive orders ice cream and waffles for breakfast.

INT. OLD DINER – MORNING

RICHARD
Olive, can I tell you something about ice cream?

(she nods)

Ice cream is made from cream, which comes from cow’s milk. And cream has a lot of fat in it…

SHERYL
Richard…

RICHARD
What? She’s gonna find out anyway. Right?

OLIVE
Find out what?

RICHARD
Well, when you eat ice cream, the fat in the ice cream becomes fat on your body…

SHERYL
Richard, I swear to God…!

OLIVE
What? What’s wrong?

SHERYL
Nothing, honey. Nothing’s wrong.

RICHARD
So, if you eat a lot of ice cream you’re gonna become big and fat. But if you don’t you’ll probably stay nice and skinny.

Sheryl puts her head in her hands.

GRANDPA
Olive, Richard’s an idiot. I like a woman with meat on her bone.

Olive is confused.

OLIVE
I don’t…Mom! Why is everyone upset?

SHERYL
I’m not upset, honey. I just want you to understand: It’s okay to be skinny, and it’s okay to be fat, if that’s how you want to be. Whatever you want – it’s okay.

Richard rolls his eyes.

A Quick Side Note

So what can we learn from this scene? Richard convinces Olive not to eat her ice cream after proposing a question about the weight of Miss America winners. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you’re pretty furious with Richard, right? I mean, who tells a seven-year-old to watch her weight? Let her eat the darn ice cream!

But remember, Richard’s character is obsessed with perfection and fears any any member in his family becoming a loser.

Does this mean he thinks Olive is a loser? No, just that he loves her and wants to protect her from failing at her dream. But what does failure mean anyway? Being overweight? Losing in her pageants? Can we even define failure? The answer is something viewers will need to watch the film to find out.

Back to the Scene – After the meals are delivered

OLIVE
Does anyone want my ice cream?

Sheryl just closes her eyes. Grandpa jumps in.

GRANDPA
Yeah, I’ll have a bite. You mind? Dwayne? Frank? Olive’s giving away her ice cream here.

Dwayne and Frank quickly snap to.

FRANK
Mind if I have a little?

Olive shakes her head. Frank and Swayne dig in. Even Sheryl gets in on the act. Richard is not amused.

GRANDPA
(loudly)
Boy, this is good ice cream! I feel sorry for the people at the table who aren’t enjoying delicious ice cream early in the morning.

OLIVE
Wait. Don’t take it all! Stop!

Olive picks up her spoon, fights them off. She takes a bite.

RICHARD
Olive…

SHERYL
Richard!

She glares at him, ferocious. Richard shuts up.

Five Elements of Strong Dialogue

There are five awesome things that this scene can teach us about dialogue. Let’s see how the dialogue develops throughout the scene, and how it shows these five strengths.

1) It is essential to the story

Dialogue should do one of three things: a) advance the plot, b) reveal something about the character, and c) reflect the theme. In this scene from Little Miss Sunshine we see all three elements at play, but none more so than how dialogue reveals character and character relationships.

Dialogue should be different for each character. In other words, each character should sound different. For instance, Sheryl is quick to argue with Richard about his criticism of Olive’s meal choice, but she must be cautious in how she speaks to Richard in front of Olive, who keeps asking “what’s wrong?”

Meanwhile, Grandpa – Richard’s father – is the only person to initially support Sheryl in her quarrel, but in a quite different, far more abrupt manner: “Richard’s an idiot.” We can guess from the differences in how these characters combat Richard that they tackle uncomfortable issues in quite different manners.

In novel writing, you might also use dialogue to advance the plot by clarifying something about background or. In other cases, you might use dialogue to illuminate a theme from conversations (think “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Atticus’s comment about walking in someone else’s skin), so long as you’re not heavy handed about this.

2) It imparts information

When characters talk to one another, dialogue should impart information, but never in a way that sounds obvious.

So what are we learning in this scene? Well, that Richard is so obsessed with winners and losers that he manipulates Olive’s desire to eat ice cream out of fear it will lead to her becoming a loser. It also shows that the whole family clearly, does not agree with Richard’s comments.

This scene  imparts information from one character from another. It doesn’t explain the plot, but, rather, the flaws and dislikes of the characters. 

3) It has conflict or tension

Alfred Hitchcock had a famous axiom: “What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.” All dialogue should contain tension and conflict. I think this one is self explanatory in the scene from Little Miss Sunshine, with every character except for Olive opposing Richard.

Ever read a scene without tension or conflict? It’s not very exiting, isn’t it? Tension and conflict in drama will avoid the number one sin for writers – don’t sound dull.

Of course, various scenes will contain different levels of tension and conflict. You just need to decide what scenes should elevate more tension than others.

4) It is compressed

What does compressed mean? Basically, don’t bloat your dialogue.

We’re not longer writing in the ninetieth century, so works like Dickens aren’t as wildly embraced by today’s readers. This does not suggest that authors like Dickens aren’t brilliant – of course they are! But writers today can’t drown readers in excessively heavy monologues. Instead, if you must write a speech, break it up.

5) It is rich on subtext

Much like in life, what is unsaid is often just as important as what is not said. The layers beneath the surface of lines consist of story, character, and theme. Look familiar? That’s right: once again we tap into the essentials of writing dialogue, and how words define these three elements in a conversation.

Look back at the scene from Little Miss Sunshine. Sheryl, furious at Richard, keeps her words short and direct (“Richard!”) in order to appease Olive’s worry that something “wrong” is happening. Meanwhile, Frank and Dwayne remain quiet in their disgust, but eagerly jump in to support Grandpa as he digs into that bowl of ice cream.

Final Thoughts

Dialogue is essential for creating a character, scene, and theme. Although there is no one-way-fits-all method, these five points can strengthen your dialogue. If you have a spare moment, study a movie or read a script. Movies are, after all, dominated by conversations – so studying script will only heighten your awareness!

How do you include tension in your dialogue? Do you have any tips on making characters sound unique? Are there any movies you absolutely love because of the clever conversations? What lines usually stand out? Use the #LetsTalkBooks in the comments below if you found this column interesting and would like to continue the conversation! 

Abigail K. Perry is a commercial fiction writer living in Massachusetts where she teaches creative writing and film production. She received her B.S. in TV, Radio, and Film from Syracuse University and her Master’s in Education from Endicott College, and has worked as a creative production intern in for Overbrook Entertainment and as a marketing and sales intern for Charlesbridge Publishing.

In addition to writing, Abigail plans to teach screenwriting at An Unlikely Story (the priceless local bookstore owned by Diary of a Wimpy Kid’s Jeff Kinney) in Plainville, MA. This class is in development and will launch soon!

Abigail is a member of the DIY MFA street team and a loyal follower of Writer’s Digest. You can read more about her work on this website or follow her on Twitter @A_K_Perry 

The post The Five Essential Elements of Strong Dialogue appeared first on DIY MFA.

Today I’m thrilled to have Herb Freed on the show. Herb started his adult life as an ordained rabbi and became the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Lake Mahopac, New York, at the same time producing and directing three shows at the Maidman Playhouse in New York City. Eventually, he resigned his pulpit to become a movie director.

Today we’ll be speaking about his book Bashert, which is out now.

In this episode, Herb and I discuss:

• Considerations for writing a book based on true events. Which elements do you change? Which things do you keep the same?
• The decision to tell this story as a novel instead of a memoir, even though it is based on true events.
• The difference between telling the factual truth versus the conceptual Truth.
• Why you should write about things you’re passionate about and tell the story you can’t not tell.
• How screenwriting can shape a novel writer’s process and which skills transfer between the two genres.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About the Author

Herb Freed started his adult life as an ordained rabbi and became the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Lake Mahopac, New York while producing and directing three shows at the Maidman Playhouse in New York City. Eventually, he resigned his pulpit to become a movie director. He has directed and produced 15 feature films most of which have had psychological, spiritual and/or social themes in spite of their commercial categories. He is best known for Graduation Day, a horror film, and Tomboy, a teenage romp, as well as the psychological drama Haunts, and Child 2 Man, a story of survival during the Watts riots. You can find out more about Herb Freed at herbfreed.com

Bashert

Would you recognize your soul’s complement in another? Beyond the bliss of actually finding your soul mate, there is a belief that the universe hinges on predetermined people finding their other half, their bashert, to maintain cosmic balance. In Bashert (Bellrock Press; February 14, 2017) author, screenwriter, director and former rabbi Herb Freed immerses us in the heady intoxication and thunderous losses of what it really means to be bashert.

Dan Sobol and Marion Gladstone meet by chance at a screenwriter’s event in Los Angeles. He’s a rabbi turned director known for his cinematic television commercials; she’s a writer and film editor who is recovering from a tabloid-headline screaming Hollywood divorce. From the moment Marion hears Dan’s voice, she knows—and so does he. It’s bashert.

But when did the course of true love ever run smooth? Dan and Marion are soon partners in business as well as life, traveling the world to create movies. He directs, she writes and edits, and life becomes an amazing adventure—until Cancun. There, among the ruins of the Mayan civilization, Marion has an eerie premonition that has the potential to change everything.

Drawing upon his own personal experience, Freed spins a tale unflinching in its examination of life, but weaving along the edge of magical realism. From the bright lights of Hollywood to Mexico, Israel, Paris and the dreamy exhilaration of Jamaica, Bashert is a love story about transcending life, loss and the boundaries we mistakenly place on our lives and our hearts.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase DIY MFA makes a small commission at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 144

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Google Play and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 144: Telling a True Story — Interview with Herb Freed appeared first on DIY MFA.