What the Room taught me about writing

 What The Room taught me about writing:

Characters.  They have to be real.  They have to be realistic. And they can't be creepy as hell.

Ok step 1 watch this:




Now there's a lot of things wrong with this scene. In fact you could probably write a doctoral paper on all the errors in this scene.  But we're going to focus on DENNY ( or is name MIGHT be Danny- it changes depending on who says it)

Denny is super creepy.  He likes to watch. He walks right in to a private moment because apparently Johnny and Lisa don't know how to lock a door.   He asks SUPER inapportate questions like "How much was it?"  refering to a red dress that Johnny bought Lisa.  Then he sneeks into their bedroom and here's where it gets SUPER gross, he has a pillow fight with him.

WOW. I mean WOW.
But here's the thing, I know why Denny does EVERY ACTION.
He walks in to show the viewer- he's comfortable with Johnny and Lisa.
He asked how much the dress is to show that Johnny makes a lot of money.
He sneaks into the bedroom because well he's a little prevy and to show the viewer that he's lonely for a family and extrememly desperate to be part of one.  And judging by the way Johnny and Lisa act, they "love" him too.

Denny's roll in the movie is to show the viewers that Johnny is a great guy.  Johnny is so great that he adopts an 18 year old kid... (Yep that's weird).

Then there's the drug scene.




Yeah, um yeah.  So we've all done this haven't we?  We've written an entire scene where the whole point is to do one thing.  The point of this scene is so Johnny can get the gun for the climax of the story.
This useless and over dramatic scene might even be your baby.  It's so clever, it so your depth as a writer. 
But one wrong step and you end up with THAT MESS.
Denny deals drugs for one scene.  But he assumes it's going to be ok because "that guy is going to jail."It's sort of the if I close my eyes the problem isn't there.  In reality he just walked off the scene.  The character assumes a lot of things. 
But I'll admit it, I've done that with my writing.  Who hasn't?

Then there's Johnny's good advice to Denny.



Denny wants to know what movie they're going to see then drops a bombshell, he's in love with Lisa, because she looks hot in a dress. Johnny is tell Denny, that Lisa loves him as a son. That's not all creepy, nope.
But then another bombshell is drop, Denny has a girlfriend named Elizabeth and he wants to marry HER and have kids with her. WHAT? All of this in a two minute scene?

But look at what the scene does, presences a problem, an inner conflict Denny loves Lisa, and poses a solution, "nevermind he loves Elizabeth" While it's EXTREMELY badly written, it also has every aspect needed for a good scene. It does push the overall plot forward, um if the room has a plot.

After watching The Room  three times I think the plot is Johnny is a nice guy but his girlfriend is cheating on him.

What The Room taught me is that EVERY character needs to be there for a reason. And if you try too hard to show something then it can come off creepy.

Subtlety is the secret to good writing.


Go check out the other Weekend of Awesome blogs for more What the Room Taught me about writing tips.

Pam and Quita, Kat and Alicia.

Five Best parts of WOA

This weekend was Weekend of Awesome and it was AWESOME.

Some background on the weekend.
Alicia and Holly wanted to do a meet up with a bunch of bloggers, then I barged in and took over. We came up with meeting in June at Hilton Head because my Dad has a timeshare there.  We were able to get the house super cheap.   The weekend was designed give writers time to write, to giggle with our friends and to hone our skills. 


Alicia, Pam, Marquita, Kat and I all had an amazing time.

Here is my top five most awesome part of the weekend.
1) Meeting everyone.  I've known and hang out with Alicia a bunch of times.  I heart her.  But Kat, I've gchated with but never met in person.  And Pam and Quita, I had never really talked to at all.  Would our personalities match?  Would they think I'm too loud or not nearly as funny as I am on my blog?
Everyone was super cool.  Seriously.  We walked in as not quite strangers and we left as friends.  Yep it was like very special episode of Saved By the Bell in here.

2) Chatting with Brendan Halpin.
We chatted with author Brendan Halpin for 45 minutes.  It was beyond awesome.  Brendan was so  nice and down to earth.  He told us about the real struggles of being an author as well as the successes.  He was also piss you pants funny too.  We were all really impressed by him and couldn't stop talking about it for the rest of the night.  Stay tuned to our blogs all months for Brendan Halpin giveaways!

3) The Room.
I've seen the room 3 times-- an impossible task in itself.  But the best part of watching the room is watching it with people who have seen it and with someone who hasn't.  The wonderful badness of the movie, it's... well there are no words for it.  Stay tuned  What the Room Taught be about being a Writer.

4) Chating about books.
I'm a comic book geek, I'm a book geek, and I get excited about books.  But I rarely don't get to talk to be people about books.  It was so cool to hear about book recommendation, things that drove us nuts about books but we would never blog about,  spoilers about books that again we could never blog about.  We spent HOURS talking about books, the industry and twitter.   Stuff that in the real world, no one else but me cares about.

5) Time to write.
I came up with a shiny new book idea and I was able to outline, world build, create character sheets and bang out a couple of chapters.  I've never been this organized for a book before.  I'm pretty excited about it and I don't think it's going to take 16 drafts like another book that I won't mention.


On Friday all of us are doing a Weekend of Awesome Giveaway!  4 different prizes from 4 different blogs.  But one giveaway isn't enough.  NOPE we're also all doing a BRENDAN HALPIN givaway too.  Keep checking back on Fridays to see what it is.

But the BEST NEWS OF ALL:

We're doing WOA again. 

But next time we're going to meet up at a conference- mostly likely on the East Coast.  We'll do a conference and then have one day for all of us to hang out.

WHO WANTS IN?

As soon as we figure out which conference we want to do, we'll let everyone know. 

Because let's face it, you want to be awesome too.

Me, Kat, Quita, Pam and Alicia - we are WOA girls

2011- Year of Awesome

There's a lot of things I'm looking forward to in 2011

There's a bunch of books I want to read-- lots of sequels.

1) The Queen of the Dead
Ok HOW AWESOME IS THIS COVER!!!!

Look at that cover-- Look at how annoyed Will looks. 

It's coming out on June 7th.  Here's the description.---- CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR GHOST AND THE GOTH.


After being sent back from the light, Alona Dare - former homecoming queen, current Queen of the Dead - finds herself doing something she never expected: working. Instead of spending days perfecting her tan by the pool (her typical summer routine when she was, you know, alive), Alona must now cater to the needs of other lost spirits. By her side for all of this - ugh - “helping of others” is Will Killian: social outcast, seer of the dead, and someone Alona cares about more than she’d like.

Before Alona can make a final ruling on Will’s “friend” or “more” status, though, she discovers trouble at home. Her mom is tossing out Alona’s most valuable possessions, and her dad is expecting a new daughter with his wicked wife. Is it possible her family is already moving on? Hello! She’s only been dead for two months! Thankfully, Alona knows just the guy who can put a stop to this mess.

Unfortunately for Alona, Will has other stuff on his mind, and Mina, a young (and beautiful) seer, is at the top of the list. She’s the first ghost-talker Will’s ever met—aside from his father—and she may hold answers to Will’s troubled past. But can she be trusted? Alona immediately puts a check mark in the “clearly not” column. But Will is - ahem - willing to find out, even if it means leaving a hurt and angry Alona to her own devices, which is never a good idea.

Packed with romance, lovable characters, and a killer cliffhanger, Queen of the Dead is the out-of-this-world sequel to The Ghost and the Goth.


Seriously how can you not LOVE this? It's fluff wrapped in more fluff being hugged by a baby kitten.  YES!

2) Plague  By Michael Grant
It's the fourth book in the Gone series.  I'm still behind in the series but I plan on reading Hunger and Lies... but if it's anything teh first book, it will be brain exploding awesome.

3) The Power of Six-  the sequel of I am Number Four.
I finished I am Number Four two days ago and instantly ran out to amazon to find out of there is a sequel coming out... yep there is.  Awesomeness--- There's no cover art released yet and it's coming out August 23.

4) Delirium--  
Holly reviewed this on her blog a few weeks ago and I'm still cleaning off the brain explosion from my computer. I"m sure there's lots of Buzz about this book already but still I can't wait to read it.

But the thing I'm MOST EXCITED FOR IS WEEKEND OF AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

You can tell I'm excited by all the exclamation marks.

BIG NEWS WILL BE HITTING YOUR EMAILS ON MONDAY!!!

2011 LOOK OUT.  

It's going to be made out of awesome... instead of dates and times and numbers and stuff.