{"id":4082,"date":"2016-05-31T21:55:21","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T09:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/?p=4082"},"modified":"2016-05-31T22:21:33","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T10:21:33","slug":"go-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/go-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Go To"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Contrary to popular belief, when energy, motivation, and\/or creativity is low in the Writing <del>Cave<\/del> Keep, I do not resort to singing along with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_p_JxDGVqXg\" target=\"_blank\">Ms Krall<\/a> ad infinitum.<\/p>\n<p>If it&#8217;s a technical challenge, I turn to the writing library, top most being <b>William Goldman<\/b>&#8216;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Which-Lie-Did-Tell-Adventures\/dp\/0375703195\" target=\"_blank\">Which Lie Did I Tell?<\/a>, <b>Alex Epstein<\/b>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0805069925\/craftyscreenw-20\" target=\"_blank\">Crafty Screenwriting<\/a> and <b>Stephen King<\/b>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Writing-Stephen-King\/dp\/0743455967\" target=\"_blank\">On Writing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If a project has certain constraints or is more long-form, there&#8217;s these classics to crib from:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 20px;\">\n<ul>\n<li><b>Joss Whedon<\/b>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0118276\/\" target=\"_blank\">Buffy\u00a0the Vampire Slayer<\/a> \u2014 not just a scantily-clad teen-girl who\u00a0can kick serious demon ass<sup><a href=\"#1\">1<\/a><\/sup>;<\/li>\n<li><b>Jed Mercurio<\/b>&#8216;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bodies_%28TV_series%29\" target=\"_blank\">Bodies<\/a> \u2014 a visceral and heartbreaking look at just how little separates life and death in a\u00a0maternity ward; and<\/li>\n<li><b>David Simon<\/b>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0306414\/\" target=\"_blank\">The\u00a0Wire<\/a> \u2014 its novelistic approach to presenting a criminal\u00a0investigation,\u00a0showing us every shade of grey\u00a0between the police and\u00a0their adversaries, as well as the world in which both operate, is something to which I can only dare aspire.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Wire\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/6\/62\/The_Wire.jpg\" alt=\"The words &quot;The Wire&quot; in white lettering on a black background. Below it a waveform spectrum in blue.\" width=\"475\" height=\"346\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nAnd if <del>it&#8217;s all too much and\/or I want to procrastinate for <em>hours<\/em><\/del> I just need a little kick, I never go wrong with any of these:<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 20px;\">\n<ul>\n<li><b>James Cameron<\/b>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0090605\/\" target=\"_blank\">Aliens<\/a> \u2014 a war movie in space;<\/li>\n<li><b>Quentin Tarantino<\/b>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0119396\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jackie\u00a0Brown<\/a> \u2014 a small-time crook&#8217;s One Final Score;<\/li>\n<li>and <b>David Mamet<\/b>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.ca\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=%2Fgp%2Fproduct%2FB00022XE6S&amp;tag=medfools01-20&amp;creativeASIN=B00022XE6S\" target=\"_blank\">Spartan<\/a> \u2014 a rogue agent&#8217;s attempt\u00a0to Do The Right Thing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spartan_%28film%29\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/9\/92\/Spartan_movie.jpg\" alt=\"Spartan movie.jpg\" width=\"299\" height=\"436\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s not necessarily the <i>story<\/i> I worry about \u2014 it&#8217;s <i>how<\/i> I&#8217;m going to make it <b>interesting<\/b>. I want to grab\u00a0and hold the reader&#8217;s \u2014 and, eventually, the paying audience&#8217;s \u2014 attention, take &#8217;em for a ride, and then afterwards, drop &#8217;em back in their seat, exhilarated, exhausted, and begging for more.<\/p>\n<p>All of the above touchstones do exactly that.<\/p>\n<p>Most times, soon after referring to any of the above, I&#8217;m back at the keyboard, <em>writing<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><sup><a name=\"1\"><\/a>1<\/sup>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But\u00a0oh how The Goddess rolls her eyes when I talk about superior subtextual\u00a0story-telling amidst well-choreographed ass-kicking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Contrary to popular belief, when energy, motivation, and\/or creativity is low in the Writing Cave Keep, I do not resort to singing along with Ms Krall ad infinitum. If it&#8217;s a technical challenge, I turn to the writing library, top most being William Goldman&#8216;s\u00a0Which Lie Did I Tell?, Alex Epstein&#8216;s Crafty Screenwriting and Stephen King&#8216;s &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/go-to\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Go To&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,4,6],"tags":[350,205,381,210,355,144,46,1183,1181,90,380,49,352,820,1182,351,30,354,349],"class_list":["post-4082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-scriptwriting","category-television","tag-alex-epstein","tag-aliens","tag-bodies","tag-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","tag-crafty-screenwriting","tag-david-mamet","tag-david-simon","tag-diana-krall","tag-jackie-brown","tag-james-cameron","tag-jed-mercurio","tag-joss-whedon","tag-on-writing","tag-quentin-tarantino","tag-spartan","tag-stephen-king","tag-the-wire","tag-which-lie-did-i-tell","tag-william-goldman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4570,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions\/4570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}