We all have faces we show to certain people, roles we play. We are one person in the workplace, another with family, another with friends and another with strangers. This isn’t us being deceptive in a bad way, it’s self-protection and it’s us upholding societal norms.
Tag: generating dramatic tension
Aug 01 2013
What "Finding Nemo" Can Teach Us About Story Tension
Storytelling is in our blood, it binds us together as humans. On some intuitive level, everyone understands narrative structure, even little kids. All good stories have a clear beginning, middle and end. Ever try to skip parts of a story with a toddler? Even they can sense on a gut level that something is wrong if we miss a fundamental part of the story.
Jul 25 2013
The Bookpocalypse–What to Do When You Realize Your Story Might Be DEAD
- By Kristen Lamb in Antagonist, Uncategorized
Characters were talking to each other with no conflict, no scene goal. Melodrama filled in the gaps. Characters were psychologically inconsistent and half I would have recommended seek therapy and get medication. Their emotions were all over, namely to manufacture tension that couldn’t be created any other way (because no core story problem/antagonist).
Aug 20 2012
What Star Wars "A New Hope" Can Teach Us About In Medias Res
On Friday we talked about using setting as a literary device. Setting is one of those tools that helps writers to do more showing than telling. Today, we are going to tackle a highly confusing subject for many writers—In medias res. In medias res quite literally means in the middle of things. This is a literary tactic that …
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Rise of the Machines—Human Authors in a Digital Age
What is a brand? A platform? Why do we need one? How do we get one? Better still how can we create a brand with the power of driving book sales and still have time left to do THE most important part of our job? Writing more books.
This book demystifies branding and social media and harnesses the same passion and imagination we authors use to write books, then uses that to locate and cultivate a devoted fan base. The methods taught in this book can weather any technological upheaval, and is virtually fad-proof. The new cool social site might change, but your platform will remain.
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About Kristen Lamb
Kristen Lamb is a #1 best-selling author, international speaker, blogger, and branding Jedi who briefly dated Cthuhlu freshman year. (They broke up—Cthulhu was a bit “clingy,” and Kristen didn’t realize that a “long distance” relationship really meant inter-dimensional travel.)
Her highly acclaimed mystery thriller, The Devil’s Dance, is in no way related to the amount of true crime podcasts or tv shows she consumes. Also, no animals (other than maybe some chocolate bunnies) were harmed in the creation of her new horror anthology---written in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock and Black Mirror---WTH Did I Just Read?
She’s the creator of the perennial branding and social media guide book, Rise of the Machines–Human Authors in a Digital World. Additionally, she is the author of the #1 best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer.
When she’s not on the road speaking at conferences or teaching online writing seminars, she is rescuing kittens and bringing coffee to the guys in the NSA van parked in front of her house.
Writer, kitten-rescuer, and NSA subject since 2005.