UFTS: Step 1

Okay, I think I have the beginnings of an approach now, thanks to Karl Iglesias.

1. Concept

Duh. This is actually a no-brainer. OF COURSE you have to know what you're story's generally about before you start writing it.

But since I usually don't have the desire to start writing before I have a Concept, I sort of overlook this as the first step in my writing process.

However, for purposes of clarifying for myself the process, I'll go ahead and call this Step 1.

Now, I know that the concept has to be both original and yet somehow familiar.

Well Mr. Iglesias has an approach to help make it so.

a. Hook - What's the wierd, new, exciting aspect of my story? What makes people want to stand in line and pay $8-$12 to see it opening weekend?

Write a sentence (ONE sentence, if it is AT ALL possible; if it's not, rewrite until it IS possible) that describes the story concept and particularly emphasizes the Hook.

b. Human Emotion - Iglesias goes into great detail in his book WRITING FOR EMOTIONAL IMPACT to explain and illustrate how movies ARE the business of providing emotional experiences for the audience. What emotions does my story PROMISE TO THE AUDIENCE? Whatever this is/these are, that's also the emotional journey of my main character.

Write a sentence that describes what emotional experience I am promising to provide my main character/audience.

Now, rewrite this one/two sentence description of my story's Concept until the description EXCITES ME. If Im not absolutely excited about seeing how this story plays out, I have NO HOPE of exciting anyone else.

If it's just not working out, try to make the emotion more extreme and the hook more specific -- "specific" DOES NOT mean "complicated".

Think about my Inciting Incident or my Climax -- what kicks my story off or what am I building toward? Either of these might help give my Concept description the "umph" that makes it exciting.