29 November 2012

Knowing Your Screenplay Concept



You are about to write a screenplay. You've got the characters, plots springing up in your head and you can't wait to start churning out of all these ideas. Before you write your script, I want you to ask yourself this simple question, is my story a marketable concept?

All right let's look through this writing lesson article.

All compelling screenplay starts with a concept. The concept is the invented idea behind a screenplay. This is usually a short outline which tells the characters that the story is about; their conflicts and their story goals. The concept is the first thing in screenwriting or novel writing progression. The industry identifies two kinds of story concepts, succinct concept and soft stories. The first stresses action and the second highlights character.

 Marketable High Concept Stories

The majority of producers in Hollywood are looking for high concept screenplays. A high concept scripts are usually point out in a few lines. They are exceptional and have wide audience charm. A high concept script will often have all of these elements present to make it worth its class and they will always get you as the writer in production companies that don't look at unsolicited scripts. Their selling peak is often the story, and not the characters, so their review will contain a minimum of description. But this doesn't mean that great characters cannot be built into a high concept scripts.

The Soft Story Concept

They are the opposite of the emphatic character with IMMENSE problem and the three word logline a high concept story has. They are motivated by many characters interaction, captivating events and dialogue which is the key to their breakthroughs. 

Finding The Hook

All stories are worth telling, and they have been told, so what's the spectacular twist on your story which will make the universe roar? What's that unique idea in your story that will grab the attention of the script reader to keep her turning pages till fade out and your later audience to stay glue to their TV or not willing to depart from the theatre after watching your movie? In the film business this is what they call the hook, beacause it hooks audience into watching the movie.

That's it on Knowing Your Screenplay Concept. I hope you find this article useful as a guide when deciding your concept. Till I come your way again, take care!

27 November 2012

Paulette Mahurin's Interview with Darmie Orem

 

The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap in my opinion is a novel written in promoting the freedom of being whomever you want to be - having what you ordinarily deserve as a person - freedom from hatred, expectations and opinions of others of what they expect of your life to be. The novel exclusively focuses on the horrors of prejudice. Not everyone can pull such an idea off like the author of this book has done.

In house with me today is the author The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, Paulette Mahurin. Auntie Paulette, permit me to call you that - welcome to I Am Darmie Orem's blog as well as Authors' Curtilage with Darmie Orem. I am glad and honor to have you here before my audience and follower, and your future readers.


Please let us meet you - your place of birth, things you like most about this place of birth, your family background, hobbies and interests.

Please let me first say a wholehearted thank you, to you my lovely host. It’s been really great getting to know you.

I was born in Chicago, Illinois and moved to Los Angeles with my parents when I was two. I grew up in west Los Angeles and went to UCLA all the way up through
my Master’s Degree in Nursing. I loved growing up in this area for the weather and
spread out location, never a lack to things to do; theater, restaurants, social diversity, schools close, and the wonderful ocean within driving distance. I loved to swim and spent many days down at the beach body surfing and hanging with friends. I love to read, write, but my greatest passion is rescuing dogs, helping to bring dogs to their forever homes.


When did writing begin for you? Is it a gift or something you just picked up?

I can never remember not writing. I have images of times when I was ten, with my little notebook, jotting down prose, poetry, and short stories. I don’t have to think about writing and don’t suffer from writer’s block; it just comes through me, as natural as breathing. It wasn’t until I penned The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap that I had the time to write and that was due to an unfortunate twist of fate. I had rescued a dog, Tazzie, who came to me with ticks. One latched on and gave me Lyme disease. I was down for the count and virtually useless. But, I could write and write I did. In some ways it was a great part of my healing. I’m happy when I write; it’s my place a freedom and sanctuary.



Please, tell us a little about the novel The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap.

The story takes place after the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde and the impact this has on a small Nevada ranching town, in particular a lesbian couple. It's a chronicle of hatred and prejudice with all its unintended and devastating consequences and how love and friendship heal.

While reading through this book The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, I feared the worse for the protagonist Mildred Dunlap. At some point, I thought she would be caught and persecuted in a gory way for her love life or suffer cancer like her mother Sadie Bell did.

However, as I kept reading and came to the end of the book, the persecution of Mildred came to me bits by bits. I think I had tears in my eyes. The last time I read a book which I couldn't get off my mind in awhile, was a year ago until this book.

This is an intriguing concept; I would say not many writers could pull off. Everything about the book was absolutely perfect. The story world was smooth and sublime! It was like some events playing out in the real life. Well done Auntie Paulette.

Thank you, I am deeply humbled by your words.

How did the idea for the Persecution of Mildred Dunlap originated?

I do a lot of pro-bono work with women with health issues. One of the people I dealt with through the years was in the closet, tormented by assault and molestation, fearful of coming out, into the sunshine to just be. When I took ill, I had a lot of time to chat with this person, to listen, to be there. As I started to get better, I took a writing class in town. The teacher came in one day with a stack of photos and told us to pick one and write a ten-minute mystery. I picked a photo of two women huddled together very closely, wearing turn of the twentieth century garb, looking fearful, it screamed lesbian couple afraid of being found out. Whether the photo itself generated the seed for the story or the seed was already planted from the earlier work I had been doing, I’ll never really know. That was the original idea. That seed blossomed when I started to do research into that time period and found Britain had just changed its laws on homosexuality to make it a criminal offense, with a prison sentence of two years hard labor. Oscar Wilde fell victim to this unfortunate change.
The news of his imprisonment would be the impetus to cause Mildred Dunlap, the protagonist to become fearful of being found out. It was perfect.


What were the efforts - research, literary, psychological, and logical you put into bringing this book to publication?

I spent six years researching same sex relationships in history. I consulted with
LGBT readers and educated people to help me gain as much a subjective perspective of what it must have been like. I read books on the topics of lesbians in history, the impact of Wilde’s imprisonment on society, etc. Once I really saw what shoved people in the closet, or got a strong cellular sense of it, the writing began to flow.

When I read about lesbians in history, for instance, I discovered that women could have relationships, friendships, cuddle and be affectionate, if they were considered “women friendships”, they could even live together and be considered spinsters, but were two women to be labeled lesbian then they were deemed, diagnosed insane, and forced into mental institutions. Their treatment was rape, to help them enjoy sex with a man. When I read these things, tortuous and conscionable, my emotions were in tune with hearing Mildred and Edra’s voice.  The other characters in the story were familiar, including Josie, and I could hear them easily, it was Mildred and Edra’s fear I needed to feel organically. I doubt I fully achieved that but certainly all the research changed me, opened me, to feel a greater compassion but what it must be like to not be, simply not be oneself, which can no more be helped than a seed from flowering, a dog from wagging its tail, a bee from buzzing, all natural, all authentic.


The successful playwright, novelist Oscar Wilde in this book, I must say most of his quotes were inspiring that I had to share them on my Facebook and twitter pages. Is he a real person or a fictional based character?

He’s very much the real deal. All the quotes and every aspect of his mention in the story were all accurate, from my research.

The town of Red River Pass, is that a real place or something you fabricated on your own?

That one is fictionalized.

What are the challenges you encountered building a mean-spirited, vengeful, hateful character like Josie? There is not enough excuse for anyone to be that extremely evil as she was to Mildred, to a fellow human being regardless of color and accomplishments.
 
Josie walks among us every day, in our own shadows, and in the hearts where hatred lives and polarizes. When we see something in another and we say it is bad or even it is good, that judgment is divisive. What tilts us to the good or the bad is our conditioning, society value systems, our belief systems, that of our parents, taught ignorance, etc. When we can look at these things, another human being with differences from our own, as simply different and not bad or inferior, then we are tasting tolerance. I’ve worked in the medical profession for more years than I can recount, in the second busiest emergency room in Los Angeles County, with the highest census of child abuse, believe me I saw it all. I’ve faced unspeakable evil and had to deal with it. It wasn’t hard for me to write Josie at all. She’s the teacher that walks among us, to help us see that part of oneself that says someone else that is different is bad, and bad must be destroyed. When we can see different for what it is, including Josie, and not judge it, to have compassion for it, then tolerance has found its light.


Mildred Dunlap is a woman everyone should emulate in their every day lives. As the creator of this blameless character, how has her life affect you positively?

She’s the charitable good soul we all aspire to want to emulate in our finer moments. She has shown me, reminded me once again, that to love another, to accept another, you have to let go, move on, not harm or take action against them, to continue to do right despite temptation to not want to. She wouldn’t let someone starve because they were mean to her. This speaks to the heat of ethical compassion that may live in all of us to varying degrees that comes out unexpectedly, a man jumps into a river to save a child from drowning, a woman pulls someone out of a burning car, we give money when we barely have enough because something moves us.

What is your opinion on homosexuality?


To each his own. Live your life, love who you want, do what you want, as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, I have no issues with it. I’m all for human rights and tolerance, equal for all. For me really it’s a non-issue.

Some of your characters like Gus believed the Bible is another story book written hundred years ago after Jesus died, and Mildred and Edra preferred hearing their sermons from the birds than sitting in the church with congregation of hypocrites who called themselves Christians. What's your perspective on the Holy book the Bible and Christianity?

There are some topics better left alone. Religion and politics are two examples of things I don’t openly discuss. What I will say is this that in the heart of compassion there is no right or wrong way, just different. I have no issue with anyone believing anything, religion, faith, is a very personal thing, just as preference is. Have your beliefs but don’t use them to hurt, demean, or put down another. I am an advocate of tolerance for all. Gus was one viewpoint, one character in the story. Mildred and Edra two others. Then there was Amos, the minister, who lived with Jesus in his heart with a passion. I tried to be fair in giving equal representation to the different
perspectives.

If you have to re-pick your characters, which character would you not pick and why?

I honestly wouldn’t change any of them. They all had their place, their part, and fit with the town, the clicks, the groups, the scenes. I can’t think of one I would cut.

What's the moral message behind The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap that you would like your readers to make use of in their lives?

That we as humans are all different, and different is neither good nor bad. I’d hope that a new light might shine on tolerance for the differences we all possess, to see them as just parts of what it is to be human in all of us.

What encouraging message do you have for aspiring writers?

A writer writes and to feel a part of the process that’s all that has to happen. Don’t judge it, leave that to the editors, just sit and do it. Doesn’t matter if it’s for ten minutes or ten hours, sit your butt in the chair and write, then you can say, I’m a writer, because in fact you are.

What are the social networks people can find you? - your blog - Facebook, etc.





Any new project cooking up?

I'm heavy into promoting this book because all profits are going to animal rescue,
the first and only no-kill shelter in Ventura County, CA, Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center. (see link above) Along with this I continue to write, do pro-bono work with women, and help with dog rescue.


Anyone, or group you would like to give praise for supporting you along the way to bring The Persecution of Mildred to life?

You here for starters, a humble and heart felt thank you for taking the time to read my book and review it. And, to anyone who has read it, purchased it, reviewed it, had me to their sites, or spread the word in any way, I thank you from every cell in my body, in the name of tolerance and animal rescue.

All right Auntie Paulette, thanks very kindly for granting this interview. I hope you will be here again soon.

I would love that!

16 November 2012

Stonebridge Student Course Review







 
Stonebridge Student Course Review


Online schools are heaven sent help in these busy days when we have job and a home to manage leaving us little time to upgrade our academic lives. Schooling online not only provides easy way to study but also leaves room to enroll on many courses as possible. One of the online schools which encourages its students to give themselves a meaningful future through education is Stonebridge Associated Colleges and here is what I have to say about them, what you can expect when you enroll with them and my experience as a student in the Faculty of Communication and Language.


Stonebridge Positive Offers


Stonebridge gives students from all over the world who are committed to building the best career possible for the future the integral opportunity for greatness in their various areas of specializations with their rich programs which offers groundbreaking learning goals to succeed in any field.


The Scriptwriting Course at Stonebridge College


The Scriptwriting – TV, Film, Stage and Radio course planned for those willing to build their careers in these categories offers a profound knowledge of writing for TV, film, stage and radio with importance on present industry practices and serviceability, enriching students with the most essential writing skills. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions from their tutors which can provide help to whatever they don’t understand in their lessons.  My tutor Hilary Clark was academically gifted, patient, loving and encouraging. Though I was not in a live class I could feel the deep connection between an appreciative tutor and valued student.


This course could last for a year or less depending on how less busy and smart you are. It requires you to be a dedicated student, not only basing your learning on what you are taught at the college but exploring the field if you are pursuing the course as a career. As part of your project at the end of this course, you as a student would be encouraged to produce a feature length film and other write-ups which could garner contract if you are lucky.


My Experience  


I completed my program for the Diploma in Scriptwriting – TV, Film, Stage, and Radio in the year 2008/2009 and today I’m glad I did. Before I stumbled on Stonebridge College online and enrolled on the course, when I showed my write-ups around to family, friends and those I barely know, they were wowed! Everyone said I was a born writer. I appeared so good that one of my manuscripts entitled Just another Lie got stolen. It was my first actually. However, in this career I hold so dear to my heart lots of professionalism were missing…


Stonebridge College changed all that – set my foot on the path of proficiency and today I’m a proud published author with a fantasy – paranormal – fiction book under the name Darmie Orem. And two of my screenplays got fascinating story-notes from Hollywood.  


In my years of exploring this field since I’ve chosen it as my career, many things I stumbled across wouldn’t have had much impact in my writing career if I hadn’t had Stonebridge College as a solid foundation. When I attend scriptwriting workshops, fellow attendees look at me with awe with my brilliant responses to questions. And I can swear some of the acclaimed professional writers who are still mediocre in hearts gets jealous for seeing a young woman have so much knowledge as I do. I’m not saying I’m all best in this field. The learning is not restricted to some certain level or some degree. The field is broad and so you learn every time.

Stonebridge Associated Colleges is where you want to lay a good academic foundation for yourself. I give this course a five star as a student and a blogger.


Disclaimer: I do not receive compensation for writing this review, and all opinion are my own.

09 November 2012

My Book Project

                                      TALES OF DEBORAH WORKING BOOK COVER



DEBORAH OLAKOTAN, a London trained nurse, has been badly hurt – wrongly jilted by a man who she used to love and gave her all and betrayed by a best friend she trusted with her heart and her man. She throws her life away to take revenge on men, becomes cynic believing a lie that all men are the same but someplace within her still harbors her romantic desire about finding true love. JIMMY OSAGIE on the other hand, has turned his own hurts into a coldly game, becomes a cold-hearted, self-centered and calculating womanizer who hurts tender-hearted women.

When they each met on their voyage of self-vengeance, Deborah wants a man she could maltreat, use, pay off as usual but Jimmy seeks a deceptive romantic relationship in order to get a woman’s money and properties and then dump her. Of all his conquests, Deborah was the weirdest and toughest so he has to marry her to later walk out on their relationship. 

One of them would exceed the time set to quit the vengeance, and tumble into the world of tragic consequences, they had wished they considered well before taking the truncheon to wade into a wrestle that might take a great deal out of them both. Hard insistent hitting, someone’s teeth broke loose, bones ruptured, eyes jarred out of its sockets, skull crushed, bleeding blood. Someone pays a price for revenge with his life and the other end up with a child...

STORY BACKDROP

Scenario
Battered lovers decide to seek revenge

Status Quo
Their lives before they were betrayed

Hero: Deborah Olakotan

Sidekick: Bimpe the close friend of the hero with qualities to compliment her

Mentor: The mother, the older wise person who guides hero to maturity

Antihero: Jimmy Osagie

NEED = FEAR = LIE

NEED: The core need for Deborah is to find true love.  She wants more than anything to love and be loved back, but this she believes impossible.

THE GREATEST FEAR: She is scared of being betrayed and heartbroken over again since she had already suffered this misfortune in her past. 

THE LIE: The lies she tells herself is that all men are the same because the father left the mother for her friend and the first man she gave her heart did the same thing to her. Thus she couldn’t find true love because she blocks her own way.

Core Truths for the Hero

Values: Deborah believes no man should hurt a fellow human being and anyone who does should be greatly punished. Life, enjoyment, and the pursuit of riches and love, the hero believe are the ordinary right all men must have even though she herself struggles with all these things.

Contradicting Value: She believes nothing is better than to be without riches so she squanders her income as it comes in

Ambition:  To be rich, love and be loved back

Story Goal: How this hero plan to achieve her ambition 

This book is for readers of all ages. It has varieties of genre so I’m yet to determine the Dominant Genre. Hopefully before I am done with the finished product I will.
The moral message behind this book, which is the theme, is that, revenge only lead to the destruction of a person and society and no one should embark on it. 

Jimmy is indeed a rigid character. He refused to communicate his fear and a lot of things about himself to me. And I don’t want to go mechanically on him, but leave things organically around him. However, since he is an antihero, I let him be. After the heartbreaks he suffered back in his days at the University and the rustication, he traveled to the U.S furthered his education and found love with a White woman Caroline Kendall.
It was after this fulfillment Jimmy returned to Nigeria to look for Flora mother of his twins given to another man who happened to be his best friend back in the University days in Nigeria, and he began seeking his revenge. 

He was supposed to have quit on conquest number five and go back to his family but sin can be pleasurable so he continued to make women cry. 

One of the women he had hurt ran mad, and then one day escaped from the asylum where she was being taken care of to be run down by a car on the highway. Though she didn’t immediately die, however she passed on after some days in the hospital. The brother of the victim and gang located Jimmy and murdered him brutality.  
  
I think Jimmy deserves what he got. What do you think?

Hello everyone, 

Writing a book is way tougher than anyone could think it could be. This is my second book and I’m still drafting, drafting, reversing, editing, editing again before I will turn it over to an editor who will do the final editing for me before it goes into release. I’m creating a talk space for my readers and audience old and new to offer their inputs so that this book is exactly what you all want to see in the finished product. Please crowd-better my book with your ideas so that it can be a worthy copy for you to grab in the end.
Without all of you I’m just an entertainer, in an empty theater…  

So what do you think about this concept? Click on comment to leave your contribution.

Thank you.