As I mentioned yesterday, I’m re-reading Scene and Structure and taking notes. I’m hoping the notetaking will help it stick in my head better, as taking notes in school always seemed to do. One interesting tidbit from today’s reading was the idea that a story is moved FORWARD by having each scene move the protagonist further from his story goal, indeed going BACKWARD. That seems odd at first, but when you think about it, it’s true. If the protagonist got what he wanted out of every scene, the reader would soon be catching up on his sleep. He has to meet roadblock after roadblock to keep the reader interested until the end when he finally achieves his story goal.
Another night of Olympic coverage just concluded, and the USA’s Sasha Cohen is in first place in figureskating after the short program. Yay! But she’s only 3 one-hundredths ahead of Russian skate Irina Slutskya. Should be a great night of competition in the long program on Thursday.
February 21st, 2006 at 11:47 pm
One interesting tidbit from today’s reading was the idea that a story is moved FORWARD by having each scene move the protagonist further from his story goal, indeed going BACKWARD.
That’s so TRUE, isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing that Trish. It’s totally amazing that something that sounds so odd can really help when writing a novel.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:39 am
That’s a great bit of insight – going backward instead of forward…
Sasha Cohen was awesome last night — I thought she should’ve been place a bit more than 3 one-hundredths over the Russian skater. I hope Sasha keeps it up through the next round and wins gold.