LTUE 2024 Writing Presentations

Yesterday, I gave two presentations at Life, The Universe, and Everything, a SFF writers conference in Provo, Utah. A number of the attendees wanted copies of the presentations. I’ve linked to them below.

There are two types of plots that power almost all successful commercial fiction. Are you using them in your stories? Do you know how they work? In this class, you learn both plot types, their key beats, the 3 big mistakes writers make, how to generate scenes, and much, much more. Come learn how to make plotting easier and deliver the ride your readers are looking for.

My lecture notes.

The #1 thing that slays more writing dreams than anything else is the writer’s own head games. In 2005 I fiddled with death. Cognitive therapy (and God and a good counselor) saved me. And gave me an explosion of insights about writing stories and the distortions that sabotage so many of us writers. In this class, you learn the distortions, the truth, and a tried-and-true technique for removing the distortions that anyone can follow. You don’t need to struggle anymore. Banish your writer’s block, fear, imposter’s syndrome, comparisonitis, and more. Come learn how to unleash your awesome creativity and have a blast writing.

PDF of presentation slides.

The First Step to Being an Entertaining Storyteller

What’s the first step to becoming an entertaining storyteller?

In a recent ZOE Nutrition podcast, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, suggests the key to starting a new behavior, like telling entertaining stories, is doing four things:

  • Make the cue to the behavior OBVIOUS.
  • Make the behavior more ATTRACTIVE.
  • Make the behavior EASY.
  • Make the behavior SATISFYING.

But what’s the FIRST step?

It’s mastering the art of showing up.

That’s it.

What does that look like?

He shared an interesting story in the section where they were talking about making the behavior easy.

START

Let me give you two examples that’ll probably help clarify. So the first one this is just a really simple tactic, a very actionable thing, that you can use for building better habits. I call it the two-minute rule, and it just says take whatever habit you’re trying to build and you scale it down to something that takes 2 minutes or less to do.

So read 30 books a year becomes read one page. Do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat.

Now sometimes people resist that a little bit because they’re like, okay buddy, you know I know the real goal is not to just take my yoga mat out. I know I’m actually trying to do the workout, so this is some kind of trick, and if I know it’s a trick, then why would I fall for it?

I have this reader his name is Mitch. I mentioned him in Atomic Habits. He lost over 100 pounds. So what is that? 40 or 50 kilos? And he kept it off for more than a decade. And he had this strange little rule for himself where he first started going to the gym, and for the first like 6 weeks he wasn’t allowed to stay for longer than 5 minutes.

So he would get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, and drive home, and it sounds ridiculous. You know? It sounds silly. It’s obviously not going to get the guy the results that he wants, but what you realize is that he was mastering the art of showing up.

He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week even if it was only for 5 minutes, and this is a pretty deep truth about habits. Which is that a habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you can scale it up and turn it into something more. You need to standardize before you optimize.

And so the two-minute rule kind of helps push back against that perfectionist tendency that we have sometimes, or against that tendency to try to do too much, and encourages you to master the art of just showing up.

END

That’s the answer!

If we want to be entertaining storytellers, the first, most powerful identity we can adopt is being the creative who shows up every day to work on his or her entertainment. Or maybe it’s five days a week. Or six days, four days, whatever your number is.

The first identity is that I’m the kind of creative that shows up to work. This awesome work of entertainment.

So what’s a two-minute behavior that might go along with that?

Here’s mine. After I come back from weighing myself in the morning, I set my writing session timer, open my writing document, read a bit of what I wrote in the previous session, and identify the task for this session.

That’s it. Nothing more.

That’s showing up.

If I show up and do that, I’ve shown up.

If, for some reason, I miss showing up. I identify the next slot in that day to get it done.

I can master all the other parts of writing entertainment later. But I must master the art of SHOWING UP first.

So tell yourself you’re the kind of creative who shows up to write entertainment every day.

Make that your identity. You can expand that identity later. But let’s start here.

Write your two-minute behavior. Get specific on the time and action.

Then be like Mitch. Show up and celebrate showing up.

And if, like Mitch, it takes you six weeks to master the art of showing up, then it takes six weeks. Big whoop.

Writing fiction is a long-haul game. That means the name of this game is playing the game until you win the game. And to do that you first have to master the art of showing up.

This is the key. When you master this, everything else is possible.

“I am the kind of creative who shows up every day to create.”

Tell yourself that. Repeat it when brushing your teeth. Make that your identity. Be that guy.

If you have a two-minute action for showing up, share it.

If you don’t have one yet, identify one and share it. And if your action doesn’t work? No biggie. Act like a scientist and tweak it until it does.

NOTES

ZOE Nutrition podcast with James Clear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcdzK8BOfBY or https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-how-to-master-healthy-eating

Good Stuff! Jesus Revolution

Jesus Revolution poster

In 1969, Greg Laurie, was seventeen and going to high school Newport Harbor High School in California. Fourteen miles from Disneyland. Just one mile from the beach.

Laurie was raised by a single mother who had seven marriages and struggled with alcoholism. They moved often, sometimes to very different locations such as New Jersey and Hawaii. He was not raised in the Christian faith or a church environment.

He began participating in the hippie movement, doing drugs, dropping out, because it was fun and because maybe this was the way.

The 1960s and early 1970s was the height of the hippie movement, which sought love, beauty, honesty, freedom, and fun. Hippies felt that “The Man” (the establishment, the authorities, those in charge, Big Brother) had caused huge problems. And they wanted to drop out of that society. Leave it utterly. Find a new way.

Why? What was the problem?

The 1960s was the decade of the Vietnam war. It was the decade when we came to the brink of a nuclear World War 3 with the USSR over the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was the decade when a huge portion of the United States strove for equal rights for minorities and women against a lot of opposition. There were riots. Protests. Beatings. This was the decade when Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy were assassinated. There were problems galore.

Now the 1960s was also a terrific decade. We passed civil rights legislation, men landed on the moon, super nerds introduced BASIC computer code which opened the door to the computer revolution. It was a decade of many good things, including the year when Lovely Wife was born. Let’s not forget that.

But it was certainly a tumultuous decade. And the hippies offered a counterculture. A different path.

A lot of youth followed that path. For example, in 1969 half a million hippies showed up at the Woodstock festival to protest the war, capitalism, and convention, and celebrate peace, love, and individual freedom.

This is the world young Greg Laurie was living in. And he was heading down the drug-hippie path.

But then he met a man named Lonnie Frisbee who looked like a hippie, had been a hippie, right at the epicenter in San Francisco, but was now inviting fellow hippies and youth to a different path.

A path that featured Christ. But not in the way of many of the churches at the time.

How was this path different? Did Greg turn around?

There’s a new movie out that is based on these true events. You can watch it and find out.

It’s called Jesus Revolution.

Nellie and I enjoyed the heck out of it. We laughed. We were on the edge of our seats, moved, and inspired. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I want to watch it again.

It’s a great entertainment for the whole family.

If you’re looking for a terrific, feel-good show, I think you’ll love Jesus Revolution. Give it a try.

Good Stuff! The audio production of Lockwood & Co.

I’m excited to share the Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud. It’s a delightful audiobook experience for the whole family.

Nellie introduced me to it on our road trip to Yosemite last October.

And, oh my gosh, how we’ve enjoyed listening.

They’re young adult paranormal thrillers with a good dose of humor and English charm.

Yes, Netflix, launched a show based on the books, but Nellie and I tried it, and the Netflix productions don’t hold a candle to the audiobooks.

It’s not even close.

If you’re going to do this series, listen to the audiobooks or read them.

The story is set in England in, I’d say, the 1980s, before cell phones and the internet became a thing. The problem is that ghosts, specters, tommy knockers, etc. are appearing all over the place and causing havoc. Because, in this world, when you’re touched by a visitor from the other side, you can easily become ghost locked, basically put in coma, or die.

And while the ghosts can touch anyone, children and teens are the only ones who can see them. And so it’s children and teens who must fight them. Of course, large ghost protection agencies are formed, but our story is about Lucy Carlisle, who joins a tiny agency run by a daring young man named Anthony Lockwood.

There are five books in the series, which translates to about fifty-nine hours of delightful listening. Perfect for the long road trips, cleaning, fixing dinner, walks, etc.

Miranda Raison is the reader for the first book, Katie Lyons the second, and Emily Bevan for the final three. And they’ve all been a joy to listen to.

I’m not normally a paranormal kind of guy, but this is making me reconsider. We loved Stroud’s Bartimaeus series. And he brings the same fast action, interesting characters, and wit to these. 

If you enjoy delightful characters and derring-do leavened with some humor, give these a try. I think you’ll be glad you did.