How to write in 3 lines.

[Lester Curtis]

How to write in 3 lines:

Act One—Get your protagonist up a tree.
Act Two—Throw rocks at him.
Act Three—Get him down.

I have a writing friend (local) who is very enthusiastic about Jerry Cleaver's "Immediate Fiction" writing course, and he says Cleaver pushes this point a lot, though Cleaver uses slightly different terms:

Want
Obstacle
Action.

Actually, it's pretty obvious (or should be; sometimes writers forget). Then again, the Real World is never that simple.

Personally, I'm skeptical of any formulaic approach to writing, since it could lead to -- well, writing that comes off as being formulaic (and therefor monotonous). We need to maintain flexibility, and sometimes we need to introduce story elements that don't resolve directly, but can add interest in sort of an oblique way. To make our fictional world seem believable, we have to pattern it off of the Real World by introducing some randomness.

I'm skeptical of Cleaver, because, as near as I can tell, "Immediate Fiction" is the only book he's ever gotten published. To his credit, he created The Writers' Loft in Chicago, which seems to have a good reputation.

[Lester Curtis]

I came across a simpler "how to write a novel" today:
1. Think up a story
2. Using about 80,000 words, write the story down.

Nowhere does it promise that this will produce a *good* novel

I think I like yours the best!

[Lester Curtis]

This is not a slap to Nate, is it?

I would expect editors at Aphelion to have been the first in line to offer assistance to Nate, being he has done so much for the site (book deal, flash challenges, critiques to aspiring writers). You, me and Lester are all I've seen so far on the forum, maybe Davidson. I guess it's easier to sit back and throw doodee (the true definition of critic)! Double Yikes!

Well, I'm sure there was no insult intended. Nate has some very good material there, with definite potential.

I have a local example to compare other writing to . . . a friend in two local writers' groups. He can't be beaten for ambition; he's got something like five novel projects in the works now, but -- I hate to say this, but, out of every hundred words he writes, he could only make the work better by throwing out a good third of 'em. He does have one stand-out, but the rest . . . suffer from advanced " -ly-itis." WAY too many modifiers.