Mommy's Pen

A writer's notes on family

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Archives for November 2018

The Mommy’s Pen Podcast: S3, E3 – The Affair of the Diamond Necklace

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Season 3 is continues! We’re combining Nora’s passion for history with Sue’s passion for story structure — giving you a historical story and pointing out the structural elements that make it compelling.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 3, Episode 3: The Affair of the Diamond Necklace

The plot of this story kind of sounds like a Billy Wilder movie, except that it took place just four years before the French Revolution. And it involved Marie Antoinette, but she knew nothing about it until it was way too late. Some even say that this event was one of the biggest factors in causing the French Revolution. Nora and I will tell you the story of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace and I’ll point out story structure elements along the way.

To look at the story structure, I’m using what Shawn Coyne calls the “Five Commandments of Storytelling.”

Here are the five commandments:

  • Inciting incident – An exciting thing that kicks off a story
  • Progressive complications – a series of events that make the story more, well, complicated –these can be either negative or positive
  • Crisis – a question that must be answered by a choice being made
  • Climax – what happens when the choice is made
  • Resolution – the ultimate results of that choice

Things we mention that you should check out:

  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material and artwork, including an advance copy of my forthcoming novel, The Cat, the Cash, the Leap and the List.
  • Shawn Coyne and the Story Grid. There’s a whole story grid universe: website, book and two podcasts: The Story Grid and the Story Grid Editors Roundtable.
  • If you want the super detailed version of this story, check out this wikipedia entry.
  • Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald — go see it! And then buy the script to help you figure out what you just saw.

This post was lovingly sponsored by our Patreon supporters (you can become one, too!). 

The Mommy’s Pen Podcast – S3, E2: Empress Matilda versus Stephen

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Season 3 is continues! We’re combining Nora’s passion for history with Sue’s passion for story structure — giving you a historical story and pointing out the structural elements that make it compelling.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 3, Episode 1: Empress Matilda vs. Stephen

Here’s how this season will work:

Nora will tell a story from history, and I’ll interject at various points to point out story structure elements. This week, we look at some British history from the 1100s. Matilda was supposed to be England’s first female monarch but tings went a bit sideways. Still, Matilda’s brilliance shines through.

To look at the story structure, I’m using what Shawn Coyne calls the “Five Commandments of Storytelling.”

Here are the five commandments:

  • Inciting incident – An exciting thing that kicks off a story
  • Progressive complications – a series of events that make the story more, well, complicated –these can be either negative or positive
  • Crisis – a question that must be answered by a choice being made
  • Climax – what happens when the choice is made
  • Resolution – the ultimate results of that choice

Then we get a bit off topic and talk about our excitement over the new Fantastic Beasts film Crimes of Grindelwald. But no spoilers — promise!

Things we mention that you should check out:

  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material and artwork, including an advance copy of my forthcoming novel, The Cat, the Cash, the Leap and the List.
  • Shawn Coyne and the Story Grid. There’s a whole story grid universe: website, book and two podcasts: The Story Grid and the Story Grid Editors Roundtable.
  • If you want to learn the whole story behind Matilda and Steven, check out the documentary “She-Wolves: England’s Early Queens.”
  • Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald — go see it! And then buy the script to help you figure out what you just saw.
  • Kristin Glasbergen – a YA author and big Harry Potter fan. You can get her serialized story, Red Magic, by signing up for her mailing list.

This post was lovingly sponsored by our Patreon supporters (you can become one, too!). 

The Mommy’s Pen Podcast – S3, E1: The Rise of Cleopatra

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Season 3 is here! We’re combining Nora’s passion for history with Sue’s passion for story structure — giving you a historical story and pointing out the structural elements that make it compelling.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 3, Episode 1: The Rise of Cleopatra

Here’s how this season will work:

Nora will tell a story from history, and I’ll interject at various points to point out story structure elements.

I’m using what Shawn Coyne calls the “Five Commandments of Storytelling.” These need to exist at both the macro and micro level of a long-form story. In other words, you need the five commandments in every scene, but also in every section of the story (the beginning part, the middle part and the end part) and over the story arc as a whole.

Here are the five commandments:

  • Inciting incident – An exciting thing that kicks off a story
  • Progressive complications – a series of events that make the story more, well, complicated –these can be either negative or positive
  • Crisis – a question that must be answered by a choice being made
  • Climax – what happens when the choice is made
  • Resolution – the ultimate results of that choice

Things we mention that you should check out:

  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material and artwork, including an advance copy of my forthcoming novel, The Cat, the Cash, the Leap and the List.
  • Shawn Coyne and the Story Grid. There’s a whole story grid universe: website, book and two podcasts: The Story Grid and the Story Grid Editors Roundtable.
  • “The Discovery of King Tut” exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science Industry (OMSI).

This post was lovingly sponsored by our Patreon supporters (you can become one, too!). 

The Mommy’s Pen Podcast: S2, E11 – Status Stories

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This is our final episode for season 2 and we’re looking at the Status genre. It’s all about characters trying to come up in the world and whether we glory in their success or pity their failure.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 2, Episode 11: Status Stories

This week we’re looking at the Status genre. It’s all about characters trying to come up in the world and whether we glory in their success or pity their failure. Season 3 will start next week and we’ll be going back to stories from history!

Things we mention that you should check out:

  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material and artwork, including an advance copy of my forthcoming novel, The Cat, the Cash, the Leap and the List.
  • Shawn Coyne and the Story Grid. There’s a whole story grid universe: website, book and two podcasts: The Story Grid and the Story Grid Editors Roundtable, on which they’ve covered the morality genre a number of times.
  • The five leaf Genre Clover, or as Nora likes to call it, the Genre Flower.
  • Spirit Riding Free from Netflix. Specifically, S2, E4: Lucky and the Competition Conundrum 

This post was lovingly sponsored by our Patreon supporters (you can become one, too!). 

Are You a Writer, Too?

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I happen to know there are more than a handful of writers who read this blog.

Which makes me so happy. It’s said that writing life is isolating, but I don’t find it so. One of the most satisfying things about being a writer is connecting with — and learning from — other writers.

So here’s a few writing related things I hope you’ll find useful and interesting.

Writing Groups Might be Terrible
Here’s an article written by my dear friend Anne Hawley. She’s a writer, an editor and (lucky for me) a member of my writing/editing group. She and I founded it together, in fact. And then she wrote an article about how we set up it so it would actually be amazingly helpful (and not terrible).

How to Write a Heroine’s Journey
This is a free course I’m taking and really enjoying. It’s put together by a lovely and fierce woman named Heather Jo Flores. It’s for writers who find the hero’s journey a bit, well, violent and patriarchy-reinforcing. Flores makes the point that whereas the hero’s journey is launched because a character wants to conquer something, a heroine’s journey begins with a desire to answer a question about a new way to live. (I’m thinking my next kids book needs to be a heroine’s journey — start ’em young!) Flores also offers a yearlong manuscript workshop for this type of story which I’m considering taking.

How to Grow Your Author Platform While Doing NaNoWriMo
I wrote this article one with my book marketer’s hat on. If you’re doing NaNoWriMo this year, it only makes sense to use the experience to grow your author platform simultaneously. (And no, it’s not smarmy to think this way as long as you use Tim Grahl’s definition of marketing: building long-lasting connections with readers.)

5 Writing Tips: Barbara Kingsolver
My ears tend to perk up when an experienced writer is willing to dish up advice. Publisher’s Weekly just put out this listicle from veteran novelist (and biologist, who knew?) Barbara Kingsolver. Never mind that her number 3 item totally conflicts with what I just said about not feeling lonely as a writer. But then again I’m not an introvert, so maybe I make it more sociable than it needs to be.

I LOVED this nugget in number 5:

“Readers come to books for many reasons, but ultimately they’re looking for wisdom. That’s something writers can offer only after we’ve accrued it, like scar tissue, usually by surviving things we didn’t want to deal with—a process otherwise known as aging.”

I probably love this because I was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to actually getting my writing done — even though I wanted to be a writer since second grade.

The Mommy’s Pen Podcast: S2, E10 – Morality Stories

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This week it’s morality stories. Which sound lame, but can be incredibly fun if done right.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 2, Episode 10: Morality Stories

Few kids are going to knowingly sit down to a Morality story, so you better add lots of humor to make it worth while. We look to Spirit Riding Free to show us how to make a morality story lots of fun using episode 3 of season 2: “Lucky’s Super Amazing and Fun Cousin Julian.”

Things we mention that you should check out:

  • Our mailing list! Sign up today and you’ll get cool subscriber only perks like bonus material and artwork, including an advance copy of my forthcoming novel, The Cat, the Cash, the Leap and the List.
  • Shawn Coyne and the Story Grid. There’s a whole story grid universe: website, book and two podcasts: The Story Grid and the Story Grid Editors Roundtable, on which they’ve covered the morality genre a number of times.
  • The five leaf Genre Clover, or as Nora likes to call it, the Genre Flower.
  • Spirit Riding Free from Netflix. Specifically, S2, E3: Lucky’s Super Amazing and Fun Cousin Julian.

This post was lovingly sponsored by our Patreon supporters (you can become one, too!).