I'm always dipping into different theory books and trying to extract little nuggets from people who have worked hard at the craft and learned many ways to approach it.

One thing I'm working hard on is structure at it's different levels.  Sometimes you have it at one level and at another:  It winds up like some kind of mystery food which you find in the freezer after what seems like a year.  "Was that the garlic cheese sauce?  Or the vanilla pudding?"  (Yes, you can freeze it.  I freeze cheese.  Changes the texture, but you can still use it in casseroles and quiche ...  You should always label the food you freeze) but how do you label structure?

It's not so easy because you can't see the layers like you can with a trifle or one of my favorites: an Eclair Refrigerator Cake.

So my last excursion into the theory of writing is from a book entitled: "Writing For Story" by Jon Franklin.

It's first focus in its part on structure is on focus.  There's two elements in a very strict sense that one can define in literature and that's focus and transitions; that makes it sound so easy, but that's another story.

What I'd like to focus on in this post for a moment is the idea that we might tend to think that words are like the smallest unit after letters that we use as writers; but in truth, it's not the words, but it's the "image" as Jon so well explains.  The image captures "The Human Thing."  It's the kind of emotional response that is generated by the subject/predicate image that appears on the screen or in words on the page.

If an image creates a response, then it works as an image.  Very basically: "An apple" is an image, even if it lacks the verb portion since it's "just sitting there" and it isn't doing anything, but it still contains all that is appleness; so it qualifies as a simple image at the very least.  And then there is  "A rotting apple" and that's an image.  "A bloody rotting apple" is different again.  "A sliced apple covered with sugar and cinnamon and fried in a pan by Grandma Ella" is quite another story-- and finally, "An apple taken by Eve in the garden" is my last example.  Apples as subject matter and the images they produce are varied indeed.  

Now we're just talking about a little apple.  I can't even imagine what goes through a director's head when he's dealing with all of the input that he deals with: the actors, the lighting, the story itself... and on and on and on...

And Jon goes on to explain further that it's not just the "noun" of the image, but the important part is the "verb" of the image.  That's the critical part.  That's the emotional reaction that we see when the camera zooms in on one single individual in a crowd of excited teens at a concert.  It isn't necessarily the panning shot of the crowd that does the trick-- that's a blur and captures a sense of scale in one sense, but it doesn't capture the emotion that a close-up does.

I think the important thing to take from this-- whether you're focusing for a novel or for screen, is to narrow down the image that you're trying to work and WORK it.  

Don't wander all over the place narrating endlessly about the weather and... vanilla pudding versus garlic-cheese sauce in your freezer... Wait.  That had focus.  Didn't it?

Better get back to the theory, and generating another 7,000 words tomorrow... This is ridiculous.  I think I'll go and get my guitar and write a Nano jingle.

Sandra

Sandra, intriguing post -- particularly the paragraph on apples.

In one of our features, we placed an apple in the hands of the antagonist because one of his primary motivations was to punish consumerism.  So we thought why not dial things back to a time way before iPods to the Garden of Eden?  The apple seemed to carry an ominous weight, or so we would hope.  What I find especially interesting is that same apple would convey an entirely different meaning in the hands of a child who looked like they stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.  

In the prior case, the image of the apple gains power through juxtaposition -- much like how a character can come to life when we supply them with conflicting character traits.  In the latter case, the apple may add to the scene by accentuating the mood - say, of traditional family values.  Any way you slice it, an interesting post indeed.  ;)

Tony