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How to write an essay

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:46:39 +0000

In a succession attempt, you are essay to give an account of a series of events or a answer in some sort of order. Usually, this order is based on time. You organize the dissertation by way of script helter-skelter each move of the process in the importance it occurred.

Case enquiry: Disparage an take a crack outlining the stages of the salmon mortal cycle.
Introduction: Identify what a salmon is like.
Supporting paragraphs:
1. Describe young salmon.
2. Traverse grown-up salmon.
3. Recite what salmon do in the forefront they die.

Summary paragraph: Summarize the foremost steps of the salmon life cycle.

The introduction paragraph is the pre-eminent paragraph of your essay. It introduces the foremost intimation of your essay. A good cranny paragraph captures the rate of your reader and tells why your area of study is superior:

1. A note the assumption statement. The main recommendation of the attempt is stated in a single sentence called the premise statement. You requisite limit your whole effort to the subject-matter you have introduced in your thesis statement.

2. State look after some background information about your topic. You can fritter away exciting facts, quotations, or definitions of prominent terms you see fit manipulate later in the essay.
Warning (if you were writing up hockey)
Hockey has been a element of individual in Canada for exceeding 120 years. It has evolved into an bloody stylish pastime watched and played by millions of Canadians. The distraction has gone via dissimilar changes since hockey was inception played in Canada

Supporting paragraphs insist upon up the main stiff of your essay.They develop the primary position of your essay. This is a critical part of knowledge how to indite an essay. Like all competent paragraphs, each supporting paragraph should include a field sentence, supporting sentences, and a summary sentence. These are most conspicuous when wisdom how to compose an essay.

How to a postcard them:

1. Index the points that develop the prime doctrine of your essay.

2. Place each supporting apex in its own paragraph.

3. Develop each supporting point with facts, details, and examples.

To fit your supporting paragraphs, you should hate special transition words. Metastasis words connector your paragraphs together and give rise to your paper easier to read. Capitalize on them at the dawning and outclass of your paragraphs.

Examples of development words that can assistants you to link your paragraphs together: On listing different points :

Initial
Defective
Third

In support of disc examples:
Notwithstanding
Parallel with however
On the other involvement
Nevertheless

As far as something additional ideas :
Another
In addendum to
Kin to
Furthermore
Also

To plain cause and impact:
Consequence
Consequently
As a fruit of
Accordingly

The pr‚cis paragraph comes at the goal of your make an effort after you fool finished developing your ideas. The summary paragraph is often called a “conclusion.” It summarizes or restates the main impression of the essay. You thirst for to give up the reader with a feel that your essay is complete.

How to write everyone:

1. Restate the strongest points of your article that take up the cudgels for your major idea.
2. Conclude your endeavour before restating the dominant idea in another words.
3. Convey your bosom appraisal or suggest a delineate in favour of action.

Ultimately, the editing stage. The editing echelon is when you stop your venture after mistakes and discipline them.

An well-connected call to mind when lore how to communicate with an have a go: The internet is an irredeemable resource an eye to knowledge—regardless of source matter.

The developers of custom essay writing service Essay-911.Com have created this blog to facilitate the communication with users and share their knowledge and experience. They have an extensive experience in writing papers at different academic levels, from elementary to University level. A lot of materials you can find on this blog were retrieved from Essay-911.com too.

How To Write A Enlist

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:40:06 +0000

Varied people flight of fancy of writing their own book. The lamentable fact is that pro every 500 people who miss to inscribe a libretto, there superiority be only 1 or 2 who actually do it. By hook, we assemble b assemble it stuck in our minds that we “can on no occasion do that” and that writing “should be heraldry sinister to the professionals”. Nothing could be over from the reality! I am 100% convinced that anyone … even YOU, can set a laws successfully if they precisely take a couple of elementary principles. In this article, I’m successful to include the careful steps that anyone, including you, can expend to detract a rules, take a crack, or article of any length.

Harmonious with 1 – Pile up

Heap up what? Accumulate everything. If you are chirography nonfiction you resolution collect poop there your topic. You capacity collect ammunition clippings, newspaper articles, along with miscellaneous notes and quotes from any selection of sources. You might also collect things like sights, sounds (report audio), and smell (take notes everywhere how things fetor). If you’re writing a different the things you amass wishes be contrast a infinitesimal from this. Instead you’ll meet thoughts, ideas, emblem ideas, and scenery ideas, along with any news (be like to the more than) that involves research for your novel. If you’re correspondence a crime novel you clout amass communication primarily the criminal justice system. If you’re writing a true love you strength collect notes and ideas from relationship books, dating websites, and your own relationships and experience. The prominent possessions to do is to collect, and to do nothing but rack up at this phase. Don’t analyze impedimenta; don’t appraise to figure out-dated the instruction of things too early. Just heap up!

Tread 2 – Rank

In this to, you are released to unleash your inner direct freak. Coordinate, section, analyze, find fault with, hypothesize… I think you make the point. The mostly drive of this stage is to put in writing what you at ease in the foregoing stage and initiate it into an non-functional that makes sense. Know the articles and books, bolt your notes down to the finest details, and family it all into public notice into tied up areas that steer a course for sense together. In the good old days you prepare the akin areas grouped together, put those “categories” into an order from anything else to last. If you from a ton of notes and other controlled belongings, don’t tenseness relating to annoying to tackle the unbroken onto at once. Honest deprecate say of it, and magnum opus on EXCLUSIVE that part until you have it organized and sorted. Then seize some more notes and do the unchanging opportunity with those. You can tote up to either if you extremity to later. At a go you be suffering with the whole kit analyzed, described, and sorted you can then shake up on to the third move in the process.

Step 3 – Relate

This is the hold up to ridicule part! This is simply the dissimulate of as a matter of fact communicating all things that you’ve set before together from the beginning two steps. In other words, put down it down! The sorted, organized amassment that you be suffering with from steps united and two is at the moment your outline. All you get to do is realize your notes in pattern and notation close by each note and point in turn. If you secure your notes out of kilter in to sub-categories, care of each a particular as a engage in itself. This allows you to bring into focus on nothing but one undersized part at a lifetime willingly prefer than trying to tackle an entire book all at once. Just come down with to one department, and then, make on to the next.

If you own done this right, alongside route 3 your book is practically written pro you.

“What about grammar?” Here’s a itsy-bitsy secret about grammar and punctuation: 90% of your grammar and punctuation problems will court away if you will pay attention to your theme (and by criticism, I mean your sentences) short, trenchant, and to the point. Jail it short. Victual it simple. The best professional writing services aren’t the ones who take sentences three paragraphs long. The most outstanding writers are those who can be paid the just the same bumf across in just a not many words—no difficulty how complex the issue potency be. As someone is concerned novels, if you can “emigrate” people with 5 words as opposed to 50, you are doing a excessive thing.

Knowing and applying these four-square steps can be the metamorphosis between having a vision of poetry a reserve and having a volume of books that you’ve written. I get written five books so everywhere a beyond using this method.

You’ve even-handed au fait individual of the easiest systems of journalism op-ed article in existence. Whether you’re 40 years enduring or 10 years full of years you can avail oneself of these steps to accomplish just nearly any writing call to account that is drop in advance you. Operate winning and check out it and you’ll see. Your modish journalism op-ed article fly starts under!

No More Generic Cover Letters!

Essays — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:14:46 +0000

Creating a job search cover letter doesn’t need to be a laborious process. Effective cover letters are short, skimmable and easy to read (a good rule of thumb no matter WHERE your cover letter is going) &ndash three to four paragraphs tops.

If you are answering an ad, address the requirements in the ad and speak to how your experience relates to each. If you are sending the letter cold, make sure your letter reflects some research on the company, how your background relates, and why you have an interest in that company.

But instead, what generally happens is this. Bob is looking for a job. He looks through the paper, finds a bunch of ads that sound interesting, and circles them all with red pen. Then he sweats out the cover letter, personalizes each address, attaches his resume, mails them out, and congratulates himself on a job well done.

Then nothing happens. He wonders why. He shrugs his shoulders and starts all over again. On the other hand, Bob could take control of his career and set out to find his perfect job.

First, he gives some careful thought to his previous jobs: which ones he’s liked and why, which ones he hasn’t liked and why, where did he excel – or not, and why he left each one, what his supervisors were like, what his job description was in each place. That begins to give him a clue about what motivates him, who he is, under what circumstances he functions productively, and what he’s looking for in his next job.

Then he begins to look for companies that fit this profile – whether they have ads in the paper or not. Not all companies advertise their openings. Frequently openings are still in the contemplative stages, such as an expansion or confidential replacement. Then he sits down to write his cover letters.Two would suffice, with a bit of personalization in each: one for companies actively advertising their openings, and one for companies that he’s researched which sound appealing to him.

In the first paragraph, Bob says why he’s writing to that particular company. Instead of “I am writing because I saw your ad,” he writes, “I am responding to your ad because…..”. For the letters he’s sending cold: “I am sending you a copy of my resume because in researching companies that I feel I could be of benefit to….” (as opposed to “…companies I think I’d like to work for…”) Emphasis goes on the benefit to the company. Not the benefit to you.

In the second paragraph, Bob personalizes it. This is the paragraph (or two) that varies with each company or ad. Two or three sentences will do it if there’s one paragraph, or add another

paragraph of about the same length. This part comes from the heart. Why are you writing this company? What’s it got to do with what you do and who you are? It needn’t be a long introspective story – but if there’s something specific in the ad or about the company that appeals to you, speak to it.(And if there isn’t, why are you writing them?)

The third paragraph winds everything up. And don’t forget to be pro-active. Give the person to whom you are writing about 10 days to receive the letter and contact you (which probably won’t happen because things usually don’t move that fast), and then follow up. State the date you will be doing so, and then DO IT on that date!

Don’t think you can get away with a generic cover letter. You can’t. They’re spotted at 100 steps, especially by recruiters and human resource people. And they don’t put you to the top of the pile.

Is all this a lot of trouble? Yes, it is. But that’s how you stay in control of your career: by going those extra steps. A personalized cover letter gets you remembered. Writing to the person by name gets you remembered. Saying you’ll follow up and then doing so on the date indicated, gets you remembered.

That gives you much better odds than ending up at the bottom of some pile on a desk. Because if you’re called in to interview, then YOU are part of YOUR deciding process. If you go generic, skip the salutation, and wait around, you blend into the woodwork. You won’t even have a chance to reject the company if they’ve already rejected you.

From Writer To Author – A Self Published Author

Essays — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:27:47 +0000

As a newly self published author, I am amazed by how many people have told me that they have a novel or idea for a book that they always wanted to have published. I usually tell these aspiring writers that it can happen and, if they are willing to listen, I tell them my story about how I self published my book. I have always enjoyed writing, mostly for my own enjoyment, but knew I had a talent for creative writing. My first audience was my co-workers at a bank I worked for in Seattle, where everyday, I filled in for the receptionist while she when to lunch. During that hour, I wrote installments to a suspense thriller, set on the Oregon coast, which I shared with the other assistants on the floor who eagerly awaited my new chapters. Years later, I moved to Hawaii and sent regular email updates of my adventures to my friends, which I called “Memos from Maui.” Living in Hawaii is kind of like living in a foreign country and I had fun sharing my observations of life on a tropical island. “Memos from Maui” were well received and I knew then that I was hooked; I had to do something with my writing. Like the aspiring writers I mentioned earlier, I too was engaged in making a living as well as dealing with life’s other distractions. I have had a number of different careers, but none gave me the satisfaction I felt when I had people tell me that they liked my writing.

Returning to the mainland, I settled into a familiar routine of working for a living. One day, I picked up a Learning Annex catalog and came across a screenwriting class and decided to enroll. The instructor’s name was Lew Hunter, who for years taught his “Screenwriting 434” at the UCLA Film School. His method for writing a screenplay is a formula based on the three-act Greek play. His class taught specific methods of story and character development. It gave me an entirely different set of tools as a writer and I began to write my first screenplay. After 3 months of writing, I completed Dance of the Heart. The method of writing I learned from Lew made the process of writing much more structured and as a result, made writing easier. I sent my screenplay off to a couple of screenwriting competitions and readers, but like most screenplays that are written, it didn’t get noticed. My story sat in my files for about 5 years until I decided that I believed in my story and that I would rewrite it into a novel. I took me about a year, but I finally finished Dance of the Heart as a novel.

When I was ready to explore how to get published, I again picked up a Learning Annex catalog and found a daylong “Book Camp,” which was a workshop on how to publish a book. It was an informative day and I quickly realized that getting my book published by a traditional publisher was as likely as my screenplay being made into a movie. The good news was that the instructor, Penny Sansevieri, a self-published author of “From Book to Bookseller,” had representatives from companies at the workshop that offered self-publishing services to writers. They provided me the technical support and expertise that I lacked and made it possible for me to publish my novel. So with motivation and dedication, and a little help from the Learning Annex, I am now a published author and am quick to share with others that they too can realize their dream of seeing their words in print. It’s just a matter of being committed to your dream; believing in your work and not letting anyone say it can’t be done. I am proof that it can!

Write Better And Faster Using The Index Card Method

Essays — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:00:15 +0000

In this article I’m going to discuss the “index card method” of writing. If you haven’t ever tried it, you should know that using index cards to write is a very good and useful way to get the job done. It’s easy once you get the basic idea, and if you practice it regularly you’ll be able to produce better results and faster results on a consistent basis.

For the purpose of this article, an “index card” is the little 3×5 or 4×6 lined paper card that you can purchase at your local office supply store. They provide just enough room to write some notes but not so much to let you go off on a tangent!

Now for the methodology…

You’ll need quite a few index cards on hand. You’ll need anywhere from 50 to 500 depending on the size of your book.

Step 1 is to get your notes onto the cards. Go through your sources, your thoughts, your notes, and write a little bit of text for each topic on each index card. The more detailed you are, the better… but you don’t want to over-do it. If you find yourself needing to turn the card over and write on the back you’re probably getting carried away.

Once you have moved all of your project-related notes onto the index cards, you sift through the cards and start categorizing and organizing them. Break them up into groups of related topics. It’s easiest just to create a few stacks and sort through them on your kitchen table or a similar surface.

The next step is to start to organize each individual stack into an order that “works”. This is the point where you need to consider the FLOW of your story, and how the order of events in your writing is going to affect your audience.

Finally, once you have ordered each individual stack, you need to sort them into order from beginning to end. I usually like to think of each stack as a chapter or section of the book. Depending on how you’ve worked up until this point, the precise divisions and the meaning of a group of cards might be different for you.

Now you have your complete project in a collection of ordered, organized index cards. This is the point at which you begin the traditional “writing” process, of actually typing the manuscript using your index cards as a guide. I would not sit down with the whole stack of cards at once, but would instead use “divide and conquer” to tackle one group at a time, and in each group take things one card at a time.

You’ll probably find at this stage that the writing process itself becomes more of a process of copying from the cards, paraphrasing, and “gluing” things together. If you have followed these steps faithfully to this point, your project will probably start to seem like it’s writing itself! The only thing left to do at this point is to focus on style and form, and making your writing flow together well.

To review, for this method to work, you need to take the following simple steps:

1. Transfer your thoughts and notes to index cards

2. Categorize the cards into stacks of cards that can be grouped together based on topic, etc.

3. Order the cards in each group into an order that makes sense

4. Order the groups themselves into an order that makes sense

5. Write your first draft straight from the cards, “gluing” things together here and there where necessary.

If you practice this method faithfully, you’ll probably find that it takes the difficult parts of writing and simplifies them, and allows you to spend more time on the parts of writing that you enjoy.

How To Write A Murder Mystery

Essays — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:11:39 +0000

The murder mystery genre’ is alive and well and living at an on-line bookstore just a mouse click away. How is it that this over-utilized method of story-telling has remained so fresh and compelling after well over a hundred years? The answer lies in the basics of writing.

Grab Them Where it Hurts and Their Minds Will Follow

An author must first and foremost always tell a compelling story, involving, to one extent or another, recognizable three-dimensional characters. The fact that the story takes place against an otherwise formulaic backdrop, involving the effort to solve a murder mystery is just icing on the cake.

A reader needs to care about at least one of three people: the person who was murdered; the murderer; or the person searching for the murderer. Unless the reader can identify with at least one of them, the story will generally not coalesce. Reading a book utilizes our time, and in the modern world, that is frequently our most precious resource. The author must have a compelling answer to the question: why should I waste my time reading your novel?

The answer to that question is that the story is about someone the reader will find quite interesting: himself. The reader needs to recognize parts of himself in one or more of the characters. Though he will see them in situations that are different from his every day life, he needs the opportunity to ponder whether he would react the same way under those circumstances?

The Murder Mystery Must be Solvable Only When the Story is Concluding

Readers love to guess at the ‘who done it’ aspect of a murder mystery. Yet they are generally disappointed if they can figure out the answer too easily, or at least too early in the story.

Life is about obscurity. We never really know the secrets held by the people around us, even our most trusted loved ones. That is what makes murder mysteries so compelling: in truth, our own lives are informed by mysteries that are never solved.

Yet, unlike real life, in the novel everything is explained by its conclusion. Hence, we find comfort in the difference between our real lives and the novel; the satisfaction of finding out the answer. Psychoanalysts have a term for this: repetition compulsion. It is the need to duplicate the essence of an earlier trauma and this time, control the outcome. The reader knows there are secrets being withheld by the author, but unlike in the messy and traumatic chaos of real life, if she reads on to the end, all will be explained.

Those Who Can Teach, Write

Some of the best murder mysteries involve discourses on unrelated esoteric topics. This usually leads the reader to learn some obscure subject matter having nothing to do with the murder itself.

The act of reading involves a commitment to inhabit the mind and feelings of another person. Sometimes, that person’s expertise and erudition is an integral part of understanding them. Hence, in the course of reading a murder mystery, one might learn the evolutionary symbiosis between butterflies and orchids; the esoterica of military strategy and tactics of the Civil War; or the protocols for DNA identification of human remains.

Another example is that in my recent novel, Point and Shoot, I discussed the subtle intersection of the internal and external martial arts, using the Okinawan art of Shaolin Kempo Karate and the Chinese art of Tai Chi Chuan as an illustration:

I went to the dressing room and put on a Kung Fu uniform that I always used for Tai Chi Chuan practice: simple, loose black pants and jacket with a white collar. When I taught Kempo, I would wear the black Karate uniform with the rainbow of fighting animal patches and under that, the black belt with six stripes, but for Tai Chi, this understated garb was the uniform of the day. It was a tacit reminder that, although admittedly they were both derived from the same original Chinese Shaolin Temple forms, the two arts had developed in wholly distinct ways. Diverging branches from the same tree.

My practice of Kempo Karate had been merely adequate through my mid-adolescence. I had dutifully memorized the movements and their names, making my way up through the belt rankings. In five years, I had reached brown belt level. However, like so many martial arts students at that rank, I felt discouraged by the fact that I performed the movements so inadequately when compared to the black belts. I had reached technical proficiency, but that was all. There was obviously something more, and I had no idea what that might be.

I shared my misgivings with Grandfather, and he suggested that I learn the basic 24 posture Tai Chi short form and after that, the 108 posture long form. At first, I simply learned the Tai Chi as I would any other Kempo form. In fact, the postures and strikes were very similar to the crane form I knew so well from Kempo Karate. I executed them the same way: with focused force, albeit at a slower pace.

But over time, he painstakingly helped me unlearn everything he had taught me about the Kempo. It was a very Eastern undertaking: a Master taking his disciple back to the beginning to start fresh. This was the man who had taught me to move with blinding speed, now urging me to slow down; who had taught me to strike with devastating, focused power, now urging me to be soft and gentle with those same movements; who had taught me to prevail decisively over my attackers, now urging me to yield to the attack. In short, it was the man who taught me the external aspect of the Kempo, now helping me switch to the internal.

It was the hardest thing I ever learned, mostly because it involved unlearning. But I stuck with it, and eventually, it started to come to me. I began to immerse myself in the river of the Tai Chi form. I began to move with the flow and relaxation I had often read about in the writings of the ancient Chinese masters, but had never understood. And my martial arts practice finally started to blossom.

The Tai Chi enhanced my Kempo Karate into something beyond simple punching and kicking. I began to understand the difference between learning the martial arts and being a martial artist. I had spent so many years memorizing the Kempo combinations and forms with my head, so much time training my hands and feet to execute them, that I had completely neglected to apply the most important part of my body: the heart. I had never connected with the martial arts as a passion, a life enhancing undertaking. Like Grandfather had.

After that, he suggested I re-learn the entire Kempo Karate system from white belt on up. They were the same Kempo combinations and animal forms, but now they felt and looked different. It was like first learning a beautiful poem through translation, and then because you loved it so much, re-learning it in the original tongue. I was finally learning Shaolin Kempo Karate in its original tongue.

I still cannot adequately define what exactly changed. But somehow, I had tied into something deep and eternal. I had developed a balance and centering that extended well beyond my practice of the martial arts. I found myself becoming a different person: less angry, less anxious, more forgiving and embracing of other’s failings, their weaknesses. In a word, the internal arts enhanced me.

Conclusion

In essence, a murder mystery should be a story that could stand alone without the murder and without the mystery. The characters should not be tangential to the story, but instead, drive it forward. They should at least have some characteristics with which the reader can identify. In other words, the reader must care enough about these characters to want to stick around and solve the mystery.

Great Technical Writing: Tell Your Users What To Expect

Essays — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:18:51 +0000

OVERVIEW

In your User Documentation, you direct your Reader to perform tasks with your product. If you don’t tell your Reader what to expect when performing those tasks, you will have a baffled Reader, resulting in dissatisfaction and expensive calls to technical support.

EXAMPLE: REVERSE OSMOSIS WATER FILTER

I bought and installed a Reverse Osmosis water filter. The instructions told me to fill, and then empty (the instructions foolishly used the term “dump,” which would have caused the destruction of the system) the tank.

The filter had a capacity of about 100 gallons per day. Thus I expected the initial fill (4.5 gallon tank) to take less than one hour. After about an hour the tank was still filling. Worried, I called the technical support. I was told that it takes about two hours for the tank to fill.

One line in the User Documentation would have eliminated that call: “The tank initially takes 2 hours to fill.” Not knowing what to expect I, and perhaps other Users, wasted the time and money to call the technical support line.

EXAMPLE: UPGRADING A ROUTER’S SOFTWARE

I had some problems with my Cable/DSL (Internet-Ethernet) router. The internal control panel made it easy to check for and download updates to the internal software. The system told me that it would take a few minutes to check for updates (good), but it did not tell me how long the update would take to perform once I downloaded the file.

Not telling the User what to expect in terms of time is a mistake. I started the update and after a few minutes of operation (was it working?) I canceled the process. I re-started it again, and decided to wait longer to see what happened. It took a few minutes longer, and successfully completed.

It would only take a simple phrase such as “the software update can take up to five minutes to complete” to reduce the User’s anxiety.

PROGRESS INDICATORS (as displayed in a windowing environment) are often useless. Some go beyond 100%, others are logarithmic: they move quickly in the early processing and wait, seemingly at the end, for a long time while processing is completing. Consider making progress indicators relate to the time of operation, not number of files.

Some progress/activity indicators have nothing to do with the program they are associated with. I have used virus checkers that have abnormally terminated, yet the activity indicator kept on moving. Make sure that progress/activity indicators do reflect activity of the associated program.

FILE DOWNLOADS DO IT

Telling the User what to expect is not a new concept. If you have ever downloaded files, the download site will often tell how long the file will take to download, based upon your Internet connection.

EXAMPLE: YOUR PRODUCT’S INDICATORS

While most examples of “telling the User what to expect” deals with the time needed to complete an activity, others can be related to the indicators and performance of the product.

I have a small smart battery charger that has a red light for each of the battery positions. Unfortunately, the operation of these lights is impossible to understand, and there is no description of how they work.

Here’s what happens. When you first insert the battery, the light illuminates. A short while later (the charging still has many hours to go), the light goes off. Sometime toward the end of the charging cycle the light may go on again.

This is clearly confusing to the User. The User’s expectation is that when the light goes out, the charging is completed. This would result in a lot of User frustration, as Users would try to use “charged” batteries that were not charged. The developers of the battery charger should explain the operation of these displays.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Tell the Users what to expect as they use your product. Often this information is the amount of time it will take for an operation to complete. For other products, you may have to tell the User what the indicators mean.

Don’t leave your document Readers confused or left to figure things out on their own. Doing so will reduce your Users’ comfort with your product, and increase your technical support costs.

What Does Stories Like Conduct In Question Have To Do With Joseph Campbell And The Hero With A Thousand Faces?

Essays — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:18:10 +0000

WHY WE LOVE STORIES

Tell me a story! Just one more story!

Okay, here’s one for you about a forty-six year old lawyer.

Harry’s stuck in the backroom of a creaky, old law firm and under his senior partner’s thumb. Life is going nowhere and his chances of making real money are fading fast. His wife plans to leave him because, she claims, they are ‘in different worlds.’ Wishing his life were different, he has no idea how to change it.

Next day his senior partner comes into to his office and drops dead. Soon a brand new client arrives to sucker him into a money-laundering scheme. Although highly principled, he has new money troubles and consequently turns a blind eye to the scam. [Be careful what you wish for.]

When he finds his elderly client dead, just after she has asked to change her will, [suspicious circumstances for sure!] he is forced to hunt down a serial killer, dubbed the Florist. To do so, he must go down into the psyche of this serial killer [and, more importantly, into his own] to understand this psychotic killer with an artistic flair. And he must stop him. Just as his wife is about to pack her bag, a beautiful woman, Natasha, comes to Harry’s aid.

At the end, Harry has discovered undreamed of powers within himself and this new woman, who actually loves him. And if that’s not enough, he’s laid waste to the Florist plus a corrupt firm of lawyers at the heart of the money-laundering scam.

What story is this?

It’s the story of Harry Jenkins in Conduct in Question, the first in the Osgoode Trilogy, which I wrote.

The hero, Harry Jenkins, also appears in Final Paradox and a Trial of One, the second and third novels in the trilogy.

Just click .maryemartin.com to learn more about Harry and see a slide show of settings in Conduct in Question.

After almost thirty years of law practice, why didn’t I write essays, setting out the machinations of money-launderers, replete with diagrams, statistics and charts? [Strange as it may sound, lawyers here can even take courses on money laundering.] I could have written about estate law and quoted sections of the Wills and Estates Act. But I bet you’d never read it.

Why not? Because you’d much rather hear a story, which brings all these problems to life, with exciting conflicts between good and evil and all the ‘in between’ shades of gray. Only with real characters acting upon one another do these problems jump off the page and get interesting. That’s why we tell stories.

In high school, many of us studied Greek Mythology -those fabulous stories about gods, goddesses and heroes. Tales of high adventure! But no one ever explained who made these stories and why. Where did they come from?

The great mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero with a Thousand Faces that,

Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestations…The symbols of mythology are not manufactured: they cannot be ordered, invented or permanently suppressed. They are spontaneous productions of the psyche and each bears within it, undamaged, the germ power of its source. [Pg 3&4]

Are myths, dreams and stories living ‘things’ springing up from within? So it seems, according to Campbell. For me, stories are the outpourings of our psyches from mysterious sources. Like dreams and myths, they are individually and collectively an expression of our deepest sense of what it means to be human.

But isn’t it interesting! Reading Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, we learn that story formats and plot lines are also embedded in us. In so many myths, the hero is lifted out of his everyday life and called or forced to do something dangerous. Confronting tremendous obstacles [of a huge variety limited only by our imaginations], he must find help along the way and call upon powers within himself to reach his goal. Once he has reached it, he must return to his world with his prize. Isn’t that the basic plot of innumerable Hollywood action flicks?

Back to our lawyer. A lawyer as a hero? [I’m not joking!]

Events drive Harry from the dull safety of his usual life. Next, he is battling strange forces never confronted before. He discovers within previously unknown powers and abilities. Then he must return to his ‘normal’ life with the prize, a good woman and a new understanding of himself. And all the bad guys are gone! Sounds like a hero’s journey to me.

Did I purposely set out to write a hero’s journey? Hardly! Only after literally innumerable rewrites, did I begin to recognize that indeed, this was a tale of the hero’s journey. My point is that the hero’s journey and other variations are our innate grammar, language and structure for myths, dreams and stories. It is through them that we express our human ways of being.

All the big questions, which are fundamentally meaningful to us, are asked in stories. In a way, each story is about birth, growth, death and redemption. And so, it is through story telling that we satisfy our very human need to understand one another, our world and ourselves. At least that’s the way I see it. How about you?

Write A Novel Out Of Your Dream

Essays — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:15:00 +0000

Everyone might have a dream, but what would you do when you get up in the morning? I’m sure almost everyone forgot about as soon as they washed their face in a bathroom. What’s so important about your dream? The answer is easily made, because I’m sure that you sure had an great experience in your dream something like adventured in the deep jungle, chased by terrific monsters and anything else. And I know that not all of you could remembered all of your dreams. Yes, me too, but I have got some techniques to dig your dream out of your unconscious mind and it will give you a new nice idea for your new novel.

Writing a novel is really hard. It hard to find a new idea to write it in your book. So, I recommend to use your dreams. Why your dream is gonna work, because I believe that what inspired (or terrified) you can also inspired the others. But the difficult things is to remember your dream. Almost everyone forgot their dream right after they wake up. Someone can still remember what they had dream but not very exactly.

Let’s me tell you something about the “dream” that some of you may don’t know. When we sleep, our eyes will move very rapidly, this is called REM (Rapid Eyes Moving) period and when our eyes will not move, this is called no-REM period. Our body will change from REM to no-REM from time to time. I’m not sure about exact periods time but it’s about one hour and a half. When we are in REM mode, we will begin to dream. This theory can explain why our dream is not continuous and change very differently in one night. The other things about the dream is beyond the scope of this article and you can find more detail on the net.

Now, how can i write out my dream? you may ask. The answer is simple, grab a pen (or pencil) and write. It may be sound ridiculous but to write something at the moment you wake up is difficult. You have to practice to write after you wake up. Here are some tips:

1. Find some pen (or pencil) and some paper or notebook and put it right after your body before you go to sleep.

2. When you wake up, try to write down anything you can remember as much as possible. For example, when you dream of a monster that had chased you in the forest. Try to write down the very detail of that monster, does it has a horn?, does it has a crawl?, what color is it?, what detail of the forest you were running? Try to write down the detail of anything you can remember as the detail will help you recognize the other part of your dream.

3. After you finished you daily cleansing (or anything) sit down and revision what you wrote.

4. Repeat the process.It will take a bit time to practice until you can remember all of your dreams. Don’t give up !

Lastly, I want to say that don’t underestimate your dream. Dream can be a warn from the future, can be a new innovative creation, can be a new technology. And I’m sure it can be a new bestseller novel, too!.

Enjoy writing

Poom

Writing A Novel On Your Lunch Hour

Essays — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:42:48 +0000

Okay, so I didn’t really write a whole novel on my lunch hour. But I did develop a lot of the characters, locations and plot by taking a half-hour out of each workday to sketch some ideas. You’d be surprised with what you can get done in just thirty minutes a day.

First, a little background. I had a job that was driving me crazy. Corporate priorities at the company I worked for changed on a weekly basis. Projects I managed got cancelled halfway through development, blew up on the launch pad, or went on indefinitely without any measurement of success. My job had become more about shuffling papers and schedules than creating great work. I was frustrated. My thoughts turned to that novel I’d never managed to write.

But how was I going to write it? I never had time. When I got home from work every day, it was late. I was tired and cranky, unable to do much but eat dinner and go to sleep. Weekends were filled with taking care of the house, doing laundry, seeing family. I needed to come up with some kind of plan if I was going to get anything done. I began by promising myself I’d take a half-hour break each day at work, pick up a notepad and pencil and write down whatever came into my head.

Some days I went out for lunch, sat by myself at the juice bar or taco stand and wrote as I ate. On days when I’d brought lunch from home, I’d drive to a distant parking lot or side street and sit in my car, making notes. And on days when I couldn’t get out for lunch, I’d make sure to reserve a private half hour slot in the corporate calendar so no one could schedule me for a meeting. At the appointed time, I’d pick up my notebook, find a cubbyhole in some corner of the building where staff rarely went, sit down and start writing.

At first it was difficult to put aside thoughts of work. But soon enough, by implementing some simple strategies, I was able to write at least a couple of pages each day. Some days I just scrawled out lists of phrases, adjectives, names and on others I managed a few paragraphs of tolerable prose. But the more I did it, the easier it became. After three months I’d filled two notebooks with ideas for characters, situations, locations. My novel had shape. Rough shape, to be sure, but shape nonetheless.

There were other benefits, too, ones I hadn’t expected. Writing in my notebook for half an hour gave me a sense of satisfaction that helped alleviate the stress of my job. My afternoons became lighter, less dreary. I dare say I developed a spring in my step that hadn’t been there before. It also gave me the confidence to look for a new job, one with less time load, so I could dedicate myself to completing the work.

So if time is a problem for you, here’s ten suggestions on how to start a lunch-hour writing routine, including some tips to keep you on track.

1. Character sketches

Pick a character you’ve thought about. Or invent a new one on the spot. Start with a name. Is the character male or female? How old? Single, attached or married? What color eyes? What color hair? What do they do for a living? Where do they live? Start with the city or town, then add details. What does their house or apartment look like? Details make a difference. Keep adding as many details as you can. What kind of car does your character drive (if they drive)? What do they eat for breakfast? What kind of clothes do they wear?

2. Location sketches

Again, start from the general and work your way down to the details. You can start with a real location or imagine one, or start with a real one and move to an imagined one. Is the location outside or inside? Who’s there? If it’s outside, what kind of plants and animals might there be? Once you’ve come up with the idea, take a tour of the location in your mind. Walk through it, pause, look around. What do you see? Step through your senses as you look around. How does it smell? What does it look like? What do you hear?

3. Mix it up

Once you have a dozen characters and locations or so, try putting them together. What would happen if character A and character D met at location C? Why would they be there? Are they meeting there for the first time or do they already know one another? How does each respond to the meeting?

4. Schedule your sessions

Put it in your calendar system. It’s easier to make yourself write when you treat the process like all your other business meetings.

5. Get out of the cubicle

There’s too many distractions in your workspace. How are you going to be creative with all those responsibilities staring you in the face?

6. Turn off your cell phone

There’s nothing so important it can’t wait a half hour.

7. Get a pad of paper, and a pencil or pen

Computers are great for making things look nice. They’re not great for brainstorming. A pad of paper allows you to write in the margins, scrawl anywhere.

8. Pause, but don’t stop

Don’t spend twenty minutes deciding if your character prefers donuts to bagels. That can come later. Just pick one and see what happens. Writing things down, anything, pushes you forward.

9. Don’t worry about “writing”

This is not the time to critically assess the quality of your prose. In fact, you may not want to “write” at all in this first phase. Make lists of character qualities or location features. Make lists of names for characters. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to start writing, either. Go with whatever feels right that day.

10. Don’t worry, period.

If nothing much happens at first, don’t worry about it. It’s just a half-hour out of your day. At worst it was a quiet break. And you get to come back again tomorrow.

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