I went to a Paul Anka concert a couple of years ago and I learned something that I use now, every day, in my writing. Do you remember Paul Anka? He was a teen idol back in the days of Fabian and Frankie Avalon. He’s still an extremely popular performer, who sells out shows around the world. Paul Anka wrote the Sinatra classic, “My Way,” along with hundreds of other songs. He tours with a band of about fifteen and he delivers a terrific show. Here’s what I learned from watching him onstage. Throughout the performance, Mr. Anka communicated to…

My friend Daphne used to take riding lessons from a legendary horsewoman in Carmel Valley, California named Sue Sally Hale. Have you ever heard of Sue Sally? Sue Sally competed in polo matches for twenty years disguised as a man (she used to daub mascara on her upper lip to simulate a mustache, while tucking her long hair up under her helmet) before finally being admitted, in 1972, as the U.S.P.A.’s first female member. Sue Sally had a mantra that she taught her polo, dressage and jumping students: “Sit chilly.” I’m not a rider but apparently it can get pretty…

I wish I could remember where I saw this (it might have been in a documentary on PBS about Battleship Potemkin) but some master of filmmaking was asking a roomful of students, “Of what does the vocabulary of cinema consist?” I was guessing lamely in my head along with the students onscreen, when the master finally ran out of patience and answered his own question: “Shots and cuts.” Everything else, the man said, is just variations and refinements. The greatest cuts we’ve ever seen Let’s have a little communal interchange. Write in your fave. What is the greatest movie cut…

When I first started blogging, I wasn’t really hip to the ethic. That, I learned from Seth Godin. A blog is about giving. Or, perhaps more accurately, giving back. A guy like Seth, who has started many businesses and failed and succeeded in about equal measure, has acquired a thoroughgoing education from the University of Hard Knocks. When Seth blogs, he shares that knowledge. He’s not asking for anything, he’s giving. But one thing I didn’t know about Seth was that he has also passed along that knowledge in an extraordinary free MBA program. 48,000 people visited the announcement page…

What I love about Seth Godin is that every time he pitches a new idea to a big company, they throw him out on his butt. “That’s the craziest thing we’ve every heard. It’ll never work, you’re nuts, get the hell out of here!” Then Seth goes out and does it himself and sells a gazillion copies. [Full disclosure: I’m now in business with Seth, in a new publishing entity of his called the Domino Project, partnered with amazon.com.  The first publication came out yesterday, authored by Seth, a manifesto called Poke the Box. Take a look on amazon. It’s…

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about the Inciting Incident. I apologize for getting away from it. Let’s get back … The formula says, “The Inciting Incident sets up the Obligatory Scene.” What is the Obligatory Scene? It’s the climax. It’s the scene that, if you don’t have it, you don’t have a story. In The Hangover, the inciting incident is Losing Doug. The obligatory scene is Finding Doug. In The King’s Speech, the inciting incident is when we realize that Bertie has a terrible stutter and he’s destined to become monarch just as Hitler is starting World…

Are you familiar with what screenwriters call a “log line?” It’s an extremely useful tool—not just for writers, but for artists and entrepreneurs of all kinds. Today I’m going to interview an expert on the subject, Hollywood script consultant Jen Grisanti, who’s the author of a new book that I recommend highly–Story Line. SP: Jen, thanks for returning to the scene of the crime. Our earlier interview—The “All is Lost” Moment–got tremendous response when it appeared a couple of months ago. But let’s get down to business on a different storytelling subject: the log line. Most of us think of…

Today we launch something new on the site. Some people may hate it. (We’ve already had one high-profile colleague flee, screaming, from his first sight of it.) It’s called The Warrior Ethos. It’s an ongoing series about exactly what the title says. The primary audience I’m writing it for is our young men and women in uniform, but I hope that other warriors from other walks of life will give it a chance as well. The first Warrior Ethos post will appear in this space today, Wednesday 2/9, a couple of hours after this intro runs. After this week, the…

I’m on the road this week, visiting Robert McKee in Sedona, AZ. It’s his birthday. Bob McKee, if you don’t know him, is the guru of screenwriters and the founding force behind Storylogue on the web. His intensive story workshops, which he gives all around the world, are like four years of writer’s college in 96 hours. I’ve taken his course three times. The thing I say about Bob (and it’s absolutely true) is that he’s not just the best teacher of writing I’ve every known, but the best teacher of anything. If you saw the movie Adaptation, starring Nicholas…

Have you seen the movie, The Fighter? It’s already won Golden Globes for Melissa Leo and Christian Bale–and looks like a strong Oscar contender in a number of categories. I loved it. The movie is also–in its depiction of the psychological dynamics within the Ward family of Lowell, Massachusetts–one of the great cinematic evocations of Group Resistance, or what we might call Collectively-Enforced Mediocrity. How does Resistance play out within a family? Let’s see what the film’s writers and director–Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson and David O. Russell–have to say. A collective myth Early in the opening…