…

(Cause you know, I’ll totally be able to come to his book signings. In Utah. Yeah. *shifty eyes*)

http://www.mcphee.com/resources/april/items/bacontux.html

I think the urge to sing some ditty when I tell people my name is the result of some force of nature. About 30% of people I meet in person can’t contain themselves. It always makes me smile. And so in my bio http://johndbrown.com/about/ I pause at the beginning to allow people to sing their favorite John Brown song (there are actually three different ones). And because it IS a force a nature, I link to lyrics so those souls can sing with gusto. And why not? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if everyone were to one-little-two-little-three-little-Indian their way through it? Heck, I think it might even help with greenhouse gasses.

Raethe: Don’t worry, I hate pickles too. Also, I’m vegan.

John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave… (You can’t tell me no one else thought of that song. I’m sorry, John Brown.)

John Brown, as stated here http://johndbrown.com/about/, is another bacon guy whose “debut as a novelist includes the forthcoming epic fantasies from Tor (an imprint of St. Martin’s): Servant of a Dark God, Curse of a Dark God, and Dark God’s Glory. The first should appear September of 2009 at your local bookstore. Brown currently lives with his wife & four daughters in the hinterlands of Utah where one encounters much fresh air, many good-hearted ranchers, and an occasional wolf.”

As for reading him.

“Brown’s short work has appeared in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Best of the Rest 4, and The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. He also received a first prize in the Writers of the Future contest and was published in vol 13 under the name Bo Griffin.”

You can look them up or, much easier, gaze at them online here: http://johndbrown.com/shorts/

As for the quality of his work, well, of course, it fabulous. Truly fabulous.

http://mbarker.livejournal.com/87737.html

Though in my defense, I DID say one or two things that tried to be on topic. Besides, Dan started it.

I think we should all appologis to Mr. John Brown for drooling on his fine efforts and knowledge.

Great minds think alike, of course. Or pyschotic ones, but same diff, right?

(And we’ll just gloss over the latter half of that expression… anyone up for some rouladen?)

Glad it wasn’t just funny in my psychotic mind…

Am I just really tired, or is that actually funny?

I haven’t even written for pay yet.

I’d settle for having written for food. Rouladen, for example.

One of my favorite back stories about stories going unexpected ways comes from Tolkien. He set about writing a sequel to The Hobbit, where Bingo, the nephew of Bilbo would take the ring on an adventure. Tolkien wrote his son one day explaining that Bingo had met a Black Rider upon the road, and that he didn’t know what it meant. Upon reflection, Tolkien realized that The Hobbit, and consequently its sequel took place in the third age of his Middle Earth mythology (The Silmarillion and other stories cover the first and second ages), and that the ring was the One Ring. And so was born The Lord of the Rings, and the rest is, as they say, history. Or Bacon. At least, that’s my recollection of the facts.

Just curious, Karl – do you write for stage at all?

http://www.script-o-rama.com/

Drew’s been around for over 13 years, and has quite a good collection of scripts available. I would avoid anything described as a ‘transcript’ and stick to actual scripts. Some are listed as ‘early drafts’ which can be a fun read to see how a film might have been before a re-write.

A favorite of mine it the early draft of Aliens 3 by William Gibson. I would have much rather seen his script produced than what finaly came out. It follows the story of Hicks and Bishop instead of Ripley.

Okay, all seriousness asside…

Darren, since I’ve labored to write several screen plays, I have found that setting is mostly just a suggestion. The screenwriter can loosly describe how a place should look, but ultimately the production designer will, well, design the look. And of course this is all at the discretion of the producer and director.

Several texted I’ve read on screenwriting suggest only giving minimal stage direction and location description. This can be as siimple as “Ext — street corner, night” or “INT — long metalic corridor, dimly lighted.”

The bulk of the script will then be what happened and what was said.

This is, of course, horribly over simplified.

I would start by reading books by Syd Field:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Field

Also, spend some time reading exisiting screenplays to get a feel for them.

Todays episode is “/Writing_Excuses_Episode2-1.mp3″

Because of the way computers sort files, could you label the with 2-digit numbers? eg: “Writing_Excuses_Episode_02-01.mp3″
This means I don’t have to generate a customised play list for the computer.

Hmmm, the difference between novels and screenplays. Well, for one I don’t know if I would say that screenplays are *necessarily* more setting-driven than any other form of storytelling, really. Setting is still present in stage and screenplays, though I think you kind of have to be aware that the writer’s vision on the page isn’t necessarily going to translate directly to what the director envisions on a stage. (Or a screen. We all have our mediums.)

This is going to sound extraordinarily trite, but you know that “Show don’t tell” maxim that we’re all so sick of hearing? It becomes especially important in writing for stage or screen, I think, because unless your characters really like to soliloquize your opportunities to “tell” are pretty darned minimal. Your dialogue has to really drive the story and the characters forward. And you have to be careful what details you put in the dialogue versus the stage directions, because directors can and will change your stage directions to suit them, while it seems (in my limited experience) that they’re at least somewhat less free about changing dialogue.

Of course, I’m only just getting into writing plays again after about three years of, erm, not writing plays, so I’m not really the best person to answer this. Where’s our resident expert on the subject? Karl? Kaarl! You’re up!

(Just kidding, I’ve never tried them.)

I … I guess I’m the only one that doesn’t like pickles, then. Well, FINE!

Dan, don’t let these guys get to you. You made a fine and sensible choice for this dish. But I do hope you also used onions and mustard? Without them I wouldn’t call what you had rouladen.