Mentoring Authors One Scene at a Time – Thriller/Military/Non-Fiction/SF/Fantasy
Posted on October 28, 2020 by Randy
National Novel Writing Month is upon us! What to do, what to do?
Why, open up your Scrivener program and get to work! What work you ask? Stick with me, I’ll show you the ropes for getting your Scrivener platform comfortable, personal, and ready to go.
I’m going to walk you through personalizing the colors and fonts for your Editor, Inspector, Binder, and Corkboard. Make it your own. Import photos. Choose fonts and colors that calm you, motivate you, and inspire you.
Use the Labels and Status to help plan your strategy to finish your 50,000 words.
Use Keywords to help you track your POVs, Settings, and Sub-plots on the Corkboard and get a bird’s eye view of your whole manuscript.
Use the metadata to outline your scenes before November first.
I made my first YouTube video walking you through Scrivener and showing you how to set up and prepare. Enjoy! I hope I’ve helped you.
Posted on June 7, 2020 by Randy
My name is Randy Surles, an Editor certified by Shawn Coyne in the Story Grid Method of story editing. If you need structural editing for your novel, help with a couple scenes, or mentoring as you write, please consider contacting me for a free consultation (and free scene analysis).
Check out my Testimonials to see what other authors think.
If you want to see more applications of the Story Grid methodology, below are links to my analysis of various novels and television shows in blog posts and podcasts:
Story Grid Showrunners Podcast – Parul, Melanie, and I analyze hit TV series using the Story Grid methodology.
My blog posts analyzing other Television series – my person take using the Story grid 5 Commandments to look at my favorite TV series – Jack Ryan, Batgirl, For All Mankind, Hanna, and more.
Novel analysis – I analyze some of my favorite books using the Story Grid 5 Commandments and 6 core questions – First Blood, Old Man’s War, Waylander, and more to come!
Parul, one of my fellow Story Grid Showrunners hosts, and I teamed up to host a webinar on Reedsy in order to discuss the Anti-Hero?
What is an Anti-Hero/ Anti-heroine? How do You create one? Why do we love them?
If you want to learn more about writing a story using the Story Grid methodology, go to the Story Grid Webpage to find free videos and articles on how to implement the methodology.
These articles contain information about the 5 Commandments of Storytelling and the Editor’s 6 Core Questions from the book The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne. They also give details on obligatory scenes and conventions for specific genres, such as the thriller, love story, war story, crime story, and more.
For an example of how these techniques are used, read Jane Austin’s The Pride and the Prejudice with annotations by Shawn Coyne.
If you are interested in hiring me to edit your manuscript or if you need help writing a novel, check out my editing services. Also, see my Testimonials page for comments from previous clients.
Thanks!
Posted on May 16, 2020 by Randy
Hey all, It’s been almost a year since my first post about how to use Scrivener and the Story Grid together to create an incredible writing experience. They were some of my most popular posts! So, after using Scrivener for my editing projects for the last year, I’ve learned a number of new, nifty ways to use the tool in conjunction with the Story Grid Methodology that I’d like to share.
Read MorePosted on April 10, 2021 by Randy
This post may contain affiliate links for products and services I recommend. If you make a purchase through these links, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
I read this book when I was in high school and I really loved it. I was really excited when I heard they would make it into a movie, and I was a little disappointed in the result. Besides the fact that they changed a lot of the plot and the ending, it wasn’t until now, as a Certified Story Grid Editor, that I can put my finger on why the ending was so unsatisfactory. More on that at the end of the post.
He was a survivor—a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war.
Fate touches him one chill winter’s day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery.
This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. A timeless novel as urgently compelling as War Day or Alas, Babylon, David Brin’s The Postman is the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream, from a modern master of science fiction.
Genre: Action; Epic; Savior
POV: Third Person Limited, Gordon; Some Third Person Omniscient
Theme: Life is preserved when Gordon faces the villain and upholds an organized society
Object of Desire: Wants: to survive; Needs: to protect the American way of life
Obligatory Scenes
An Inciting attack by the villain: Gordon is attacked and robbed by other survivors
Hero Sidesteps responsibility to take action: Gordon poses as a Post Man but only as a survival tactic
Forced to leave the ordinary world, Hero lashes out: When forced into the role of hero, he acts selfishly initially
Discovering the Antagonist’s MacGuffin (Object of Desire – OOD): The militant survivors want to run the United States in their own despotic way
Hero’s Initial strategy against the villain fails: Gordon can’t gain the support of George
Realizing the hero must change his strategy to salvage some time of victory, he reaches an All is Lost Moment: Gordon is captured after George turns him down
Hero at the mercy of the victim: Gordon is captured again after he escapes, and his only friend is killed
The Hero’s sacrifice is rewarded: Gordon doesn’t take the bribe and betray his people, then he is rescued from an impossible situation by George
Conventions:
Hero, Victim, Villain clearly defined: Gordon is the hero; society is the victim (especially the helpless); the villains are those who don’t want to live in a democratic, organized, fair society
The Hero’s Object of Desire: Gordon ultimately wants to preserve the American way of life and save the innocents and helpless people in the world
The power divide between the hero and the villain is very large: The militant survivors have better weapons and tactics and are stronger than anything Gordon’s people can put together.
Speech in praise of the villain: There are numerous references to how strong the militant survivor forces are, and Macklin is a super soldier that is stronger and faster than normal men.
Act 1: Gordon escapes an attack and robbed, finds an old post truck, uses the guise of the postman to get food and supplies and has to decide whether or not to keep up the lie of the postman and a restored American Government or not.
Act 2: Gordon discovers the existence of Cyclops, the last working supercomputer, but then finds out that it is a lie and he decides to help the innocents and scientists to fight against the Holnists
Act 3: Gordon is a military leader against the Holnists and knows they are losing, so he goes looking for allies, but is turned down at the end and also receives a letter that his lover, Dana, is about to do something foolish to stop the war, so he rushes back to stop her.
Act 4: Gordon is captured by the Holnists, learns about their super soldiers, escapes and tries to get back to warn his people, but is captured again. He is offered a deal if he betrays his people, but doesn’t take it and is rescued by George. Gordon’s people push back the Holnists and Gordon leaves to look for more allies.
What I liked
1. The patriotism and belief in the American way of life
2. While I like the ending, it’s a little disappointing that the hero has no part in the defeat of Macklin, but ultimately I can’t think of way to make this happen either because Macklin was so much stronger than Gordon.
3. I like the evolution of the legend of the restored republic and the postal service
What I didn’t like
2. The reason it was slow is because there were a lot of crisis questions missing in the individual chapters. While Brin mostly hit the 5 commandments for the 4 quadrants, a number of his chapters were weak.
As I mentioned, this is one of my favorite books from my childhood, but when I reread it I did notice a lot of slow parts.
As far as the movie was concerned, there were some good parts, but the ending was not very satisfying because there is no reason to believe that Gordon could overpower the head of the Holnists, who had a lot more experience in fighting.
I did enjoy that Costner brought in his whole family to star in the movie.
Here’s a link to the movie trailer:
If you enjoyed this post, You can tip me by buying a coffee or purchase the book using my affiliate link.
Thanks for your support!!
Posted on March 15, 2021 by Randy
Meet your editor Randy Surles who was interviewed on the All Things Possible podcast/ radio show by Victor Marx.
Posted on March 15, 2021 by Randy
Meet your editor Randy Surles who was interviewed on the All Things Possible podcast/ radio show by Victor Marx.
Posted on February 8, 2021 by Randy
by Laura Graves
Have you heard of Living Writer? A quick Google search for Scrivener will bring up Living Writer’s website. While Scrivener has long been a staple software for authors everywhere, I had never heard of this new option, so I decided to check it out. Here’s what I thought:
Living Writer’s main distinction and selling point is how intuitive their product is. From start to ready, it really does take no time at all to figure out. The app includes helpful tips and tutorials to help you get familiar with the features quickly and easily.
Scrivener, on the other hand, is notoriously difficult to navigate. Classes, YouTube videos, and blog posts abound to help novice users muddle through the complex software. The learning curve is steep, and can be incredibly frustrating.
Living Writer is a subscription service as opposed to a one time purchase, and comes in at $9.99/month.
Scrivener is a one time software purchase of $49.
Living Writer is, simply put, beautiful. The visual appeal is undoubtedly superior to the clunky, cluttered look of Scrivener.
Living Writer’s “Editor”
Scrivener’s “Editor”
Thanks to its cloud-based, all online structure, Living Writer is able to provide updates on a continuous basis, which means users will not have to purchase an updated version to access new and improved features. It is also available on any computer or smart device with internet access, meaning you can work with the same app on whatever device you have.
Scrivener is software, and as such must be purchased and installed on your Mac or PC only. Updated versions may be released every few years and made available for purchase, but users will have to wait until that happens to see any improvements. Additionally, the Mac software comes out much sooner than the PC version (at the time of this writing, only the original Scrivener is available for PC, whereas MacOS is already on Scrivener 3), so if you are a PC user, your software is already out-of-date in comparison to your Mac using friends and colleagues.
In this area, Scrivener is the clear and obvious winner. A big part of what makes Living Writer so ‘intuitive’ and easy to use is the fact that it does not do much. Other than the “Board” function (pictured below) and “Notes” bar (shown on the right hand side of the picture above), it really is no more useful to an author than Google Docs. In fact, in some ways, Google docs is superior thanks to its commenting feature (also present in Scrivener).
Living Writer’s “Board”
Scrivener’s “Corkboard”
As for the “Notes” bar, this is the Living Writer version of Scrivener’s Inspector. Unlike the Inspector, however, the “Notes” bar is specific to each chapter, which means if you want to track the same information for each chapter/scene (such as Shawn Coyne’s Five Commandments) you have to add those boxes to the notes bar of every single chapter.
After I contacted customer support, a representative told me that both the commenting and ‘scratch pad’ features are forthcoming, but until then, writers will have to do without.
While Living Writer is very aesthetically pleasing, it is not customizable. With Scrivener, options for text, color, background, etc. abound. Just take a look at my Scrivener compared to Randy’s (I’ll let you guess which is which):
Everything from our fonts, background colors, presence of rules, width of the binder vs. the editor, toolbar and more is different. If you care to take the time to play with it, Scrivener has seemingly endless options for adjusting the appearance to fit your personal preferences exactly.
Living Writer | Scrivener | |
Intuitivness | ✓ | |
Cost | ✓ | |
Appearance | ✓ | |
Updates | ✓ | |
Features | ✓ | |
Customization | ✓ |
Ultimately, it will come down to your personal priorities. For me, while Living Writer excels in the areas visual appeal and ease of use, Scrivener’s abundance of features and customization means that it offers both authors and editors more bang for their buck, making it the clear winner. While it does take a minute to get the hang of, I think Scrivener is worth the effort.
Have you tried Scrivener or Living Writer? Both? Which did you prefer? Let me know in the comments below!
For More Information on Scrivener and the Story Grid, check out my Scrivener Post Page to see all of my posts on the subject.
I started out learning Scrivener on my own, and I loved the tools I found. I eventually paid for an online course called Learn Scrivener Fast. It was very thorough and professionally done, and I learned even more tips and techniques. I really loved the course, and I became an affiliate, this is my affiliate link to Learn Scrivener Fast. I do receive a percentage of anything spent through that link.
About the Author
Laura is a wife, mother, editor, blogger, and aspiring author. She spends her days chasing children, reading manuscripts, pretending her house isn’t a wreck, and Googling every question that comes to mind. She uses Scrivener to apply The Story Grid to manuscripts she edits, as well as for her own personal writing projects.
I work hard on my webpage content, so if you learned anything, please buy me a coffee. Thanks!
Learn more about writing a story that works at storygrid.com.
Let me help you tell a better story. Check Out My Editing Services.
Posted on January 27, 2021 by Randy
by Randy Surles and Laura Graves
★★★★☆ 4 out of 5 Stars
With Randy being a Story Grid Certified Editor, and me his protege, we can’t help but apply The Story Grid to every book we read and movie or TV show we watch, and The Daily Wire’s Run Hide Fight was no exception. Overall, it was a great movie, packed with action, tense scenes, and engaging characters. The protagonist, Zoe Hull, was compelling, well developed and interesting to watch as she fought back against the quartet of school shooters. For their part, the antagonists embodied perfectly my thoughts on school shooters. The chubby social outcast, mentally ill and easily manipulated sidekick, and lovestruck girlfriend made a believable band of accomplices for the main villain, Tristan Voy. As for Tristan, he was one of the most interesting and compelling villains I have seen in a long time. Too often in action movies, audiences watch the hero take on a large but seemingly incompetent group of bad guys. Tristan, on the other hand, had a well thought out plan that he carefully and competently executed from start to finish. At the end of the movie, audiences are really left feeling like if it weren’t for Zoe’s keen observation, instincts, and skills that Tristan would have killed the entire student body and then walked away a free man.
The reason for the missing star comes in with some lacking obligatory scenes and conventions. While the movie was very tense and exciting, it could have been made better by the inclusion of a few key scenes, and as such, we are only able to award it 4 out of 5 stars.
What is The Story Grid?
The Story Grid is a method of analysing and editing stories. It focuses on many different parts, but for the purposes of this article, we are going to focus primarily on Obligatory Scenes and Conventions. Obligatory Scenes and Conventions are the necessary elements of each Genre that audiences expect to see. Leaving out even one will disappoint your readers (or in this case viewers) and leave you with a story that does not work as well as it should. Each Genre, as identified by The Story Grid, has its own set of these Obligatory Scenes and Conventions. Let’s take a look at them for the Action Genre, how they were used (or omitted) in Run Hide Fight, and our ideas for how they could have been better implemented in order to reach that 5 Star rating.
Tristan and his gang attack the school by driving a van into the cafeteria and killing some students.
This was a great inciting event that effectively ratcheted up the tension quickly and set the tone for the movie.
After realizing what is happening, Zoe tries to escape
This scene was believable and realistic. Of course Zoe would try to escape, of course she would want to save her own life. The viewers cannot even fault her for this decision, as we would surely do the same thing in her position.
Zoe’s ordinary world is a normal High School where ‘nothing that happens matters’. Once this turns into a dangerous world, she becomes very assertive and tells students on smoke breaks not to go back in unless they want to die. Her attitude and demeanor is harsh, impatient, and frustrated.
This too is believable and compelling. Her classmates are a little put off by her attitude, but the viewer cannot really expect her to use a calm and reasonable tone in this situation.
Tristan wants fame and notoriety, Kip wants revenge on classmates who teased him, and Chris and Anna just want to please the boy they love.
All of these MacGuffins are interesting and effective. It is also really compelling that Kip, who has the least valid reason for participating, is talked into switching sides by Zoe. I also found it interesting and refreshing that the main Villain, Tristan, did not have any grievances, but rather was seeking fame, attention, and notoriety for his genius and the execution of his carefully crafted plan. This piece was made even more interesting and compelling by the fact that, unlike most school shooters, Tristan was not suicidal, and actually had a carefully crafted exit strategy.
Zoe recruits Kip to help her, but Kip dies trying to stop Tristan.
This was a great sequence. When Zoe is able to talk Kip into seeing the evil of his actions and changing sides, the audience feels like she might finally have the advantage against Tristan, only to hit another low when Tristan kills Kip.
Missing
The lack of this scene is part of the reason we subtracted a star. There isn’t much of an all is lost moment here. Zoe never gets to a point when she feels she won’t be able to make a difference and stop Tristan and save more students. She never gets to the point of almost giving up. When she realized Lewis had been shot, there was definitely an opportunity for this. Zoe could have debated whether to give up her goal of stopping Tristan in order to get Lewis out of the building and to the EMTs, but this thought does not seem to cross her mind. Instead, she just gets him somewhere safe and gets back to business.
Missing
The closest we come to this is the scene where Chris is about to kill Zoe, and she is saved at the last minute by her father shooting him with his sniper rifle. The problem is that Chris is not the Villain, he is only a lackey. There is also a point when Zoe and Tristan meet in the last quarter of the movie, but Tristan doesn’t have a chance to threaten her. Chris is actually more threatening, with Tristan protecting her (at least temporarily), and then Kip comes in and starts an exchange of fire. Ultimately, there is no showdown between just Zoe and Tristan (think Die Hard ending).
This also isn’t realized well, her reward is survival and she saves her friend too, but without the showdown with Tristan, this is somewhat watered down.
Hero: Zoe
Victim: everyone at the school
Villain: Tristan (and his gang)
Zoe’s goal throughout the movie is to stop Tristan and save as many of the people in the school as possible.
Tristan has a team of four, bombs, and guns; Zoe is alone and initially unarmed.
This is not really present in the movie, no one speaks about any advantages or specific ruthlessness that Tristan had before this attack.
This is another place where the movie could have been stronger. Information about how dangerous Tristan is and how thought out his plan was is sprinkled throughout the movie, but never compiled in this way. When the Sheriff puts all of the pieces together, he just makes the comment that this kid is always one step ahead. Instead, he could have listed off everything Tristan and his crew did, like starting the fires to clog the roads and tie up emergency services, calling in the fake bomb threat 30 minutes away so that SWAT was unavailable, and the ruthlessness of slitting his own mother’s throat while she sat in her chair watching television, and how all of that shows that they were not just dealing with some bullied kid, but an intelligent, sophisticated criminal.
The other big change that we wish they would have made was to the ending scene. As is Zoe’s Crisis Question was “Should I tell the police or go after Tristan myself?” We think it would have been much more interesting and tense if it was, “Does Zoe believe that Tristan is dead or not?” As she talked to the Sheriff and he explained that they found Tristan’s body burnt to a crisp, Zoe can question him, feeling unsure that Tristan is really dead and institing that SWAT continue to look for him to be sure. When the Sheriff then dismisses her, she could decide to go hunt Tristan down. We think this would have been a more satisfying ending. We did really enjoy the ending where she makes Tristan think that she is going to crush his head, and she repeats the speech that her dad gave her.
As a former Special Forces Green Beret, Randy also had some thoughts to include about some of the tactical details of the movie:
As a book editor with no sort of military experience, I just enjoyed all the shooting and blowing stuff up.
Despite the changes we would make to strengthen the plot, this entertaining movie was definitely worth the watch.
Posted on December 26, 2020 by Randy
This post may contain affiliate links for products and services I recommend. If you make a purchase through these links, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Image: http://www.storygrid.com
A Crash Course in World-Changing Nonfiction Writing
Do you have a book idea that you know the world needs? Whether it’s self-help, business, money, health, or some other topic, how do you put it together into a book that people will read and tell their friends about?
What I liked
What I Didn’t Like
I know that they have an example of a Big Idea Book in another Story Grid Masterwork Analysis Guide book called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, however, I would have liked to see a couple foolscap summaries of 4-5 non-fiction Big Idea books (like Saved the Cat Writes a Novel has) at the end of the book in the appendices for example, for comparison sake.
Posted on December 26, 2020 by Randy
This post may contain affiliate links for products and services I recommend. If you make a purchase through these links, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Michael Gresham is a criminal attorney with a client accused of murdering a judge’s wife. As the story progresses, the judge whose wife was murdered suddenly tries to hire Michael Gresham for himself. New revelations have the judge backed into a corner in this legal and financial thriller. Can an attorney battle the system and win the notorious case other lawyers turned down? Can Michael Gresham turn the tables on those who would see him dead? And who is going to pay for the injury and disfigurement they left him with?
A legal financial thriller that introduces the first in a ten-book series about Michael Gresham, the Chicago lawyer who defends hopeless cases every day. Watch from your front-row seat as Michael walks into this courtroom drama a huge underdog. Cheer him on as he uses all his wit and cunning to defend the indefensible.
Genre: Thriller; Legal
POV: First person, Michael Gresham
Theme: Life is preserved when Michael outwits the villains and brings them to justice
Object of Desire: Wants: get his life on track; Needs: to see justice done
Obligatory Scenes
An Inciting Incident indicative of a master villain. There must be victims: Mextel poisons thousands of Mexican citizens and some Americans
Speech in praise of the villain: Mextel supports the cartels communications and uses them for security, hit men
Hero becomes the victim: Gresham stands accused of Federal crimes and faces up to 20 years in jail
Hero at the mercy of the victim: Cartel kidnaps Gresham and burns him alive, kills his girlfriend to be, and hurts his brother
All is Lost Moment: Top defense lawyer drops his case because she fears he will lose in a trail; Gresham decides to defend himself and gathers his allies (his gift is he is his best lawyer).
False Ending: The judge was dirty from the beginning and hired Lamb to kill his wife who in turn tried to squeeze the judge for more money.
Conventions:
MacGuffin: Mextel wants to get off Scott free from knowingly poisoning people
Investigative Red Herrings: ex-wife drama, Judge and Lamb case, brother’s Mextel case, FBI fraud, cartel involvement, Crips
Making it Personal: Mextel and the Judge want to put Gresham in Jail and/or kill him especially so Mextel can get to his brother
Clock: Dates for court appearances
Act 1: Gresham defends Lamb in what appears to be a losing case until he gets a hold of video showing the FBI beating a confession out of Lamb and Gresham wins his case
Act 2: Gresham appears to be having good luck when he is hired to defend the judge for $250K against accusations he tried to hire a hitman against Lamb, but then Gresham is tricked and charged for federal crimes
Act 3: Gresham is kidnapped and burned and his brother is hurt and his would be girlfriend is killed, then his lawyer drops him and he decides to defend himself but Marcel discovers Ramons don’t plan on testifying so he appears safe.
Act 4: Gresham succeeds in negotiating $60 million from Mextel and screwing them over by revealing their scandal, then teams up with the Judge to bring Lamb down and finds out that the Judge hired Lamb to kill his wife the whole time
What I liked
1. Constant twists and complications and obstacles
2. I couldn’t see the ending coming
3. He tied up all the loose ends
What I didn’t like
I have to tell you, I don’t usually read Legal Thrillers, but I actually loved the whole things and couldn’t put it down. Read it now!!!!
Posted on December 24, 2020 by Randy
This post may contain affiliate links for products and services I recommend. If you make a purchase through these links, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
In this compelling, heartwarming parable, Bach and his bestselling coauthor John David Mann (The Go-Giver) tell the story of Zoey, a twenty-something woman living and working in New York City. Like many young professionals, Zoey is struggling to make ends meet under a growing burden of credit card and student loan debt, working crazy hours at her dream job but still not earning enough to provide a comfortable financial cushion. At her boss’s suggestion, she makes friends with Henry, the elderly barista at her favorite Brooklyn coffee shop.
Henry soon reveals his “Three Secrets to Financial Freedom,” ideas Zoey dismisses at first but whose true power she ultimately comes to appreciate. Over the course of a single week, Zoey discovers that she already earns enough to secure her financial future and realize her truest dreams—all she has to do is make a few easy shifts in her everyday routine.
The Latte Factor demystifies the secrets to achieving financial freedom, inspiring you to realize that it’s never too late to reach for your dreams. By following the simple, proven path that Henry shows Zoey, anyone can make small changes today that will have big impact for a lifetime, proving once again that “David Bach is the financial expert to listen to when you’re intimidated by your finances”
This story is a fictional narrative of how an ordinary person, with an ordinary income and life, can make extraordinary decisions about how to live their life and ultimately live the life of their dreams. As such, whit is not a normal non-fiction David Bach book, but a parable. The last 25% of the book includes charts that support the theme of the parable.
Genre
Worldview: Revelation
POV
3rd person limited, Zoey
Theme
Wisdom prevails when Zoey learns that she is already rich
Object of Desire
Zoey wants to earn more money; Zoey needs to be financially free
Obligatory Scenes (Worldview)
An Inciting Opportunity of Challenge: Zoey is burdened with student loans and credit card debt
Protagonist denies responsibility to respond to the opportunity or challenge: Zoey questions Henry’s advise and listens to her friend Jeffrey and her mom.
Forced to respond, the Protagonist lashes out against requirement to change behavior: Zoey listens to everything Henry says, but ultimately thinks that she needs to take the higher paying stressful job to make her life better
Protagonist learns what their external Antagonist’s Object of Desire is: The antagonist is the society that promotes this way of life, and she learns that those around her live that life and so embrace it and can’t escape and influence others to live the life of debt (friends inviting her to lunch and out for after work drinks that she can’t afford)
Protagonist’s initial strategy to outmaneuver antagonist fails: Zoey caves to her friend’s judges to take the new job at her company
During an All is Lost Moment, Protagonist realizes they must change their black/ white view of the world to allow for life’s irony: While on her deathbed, her mom makes Zoey promise not to settle in life
The action moment is when the protagonist’s gifts are expressed as acceptance of an imperfect world: Zoey takes the steps suggested by Henry, sets up her 401K and automatic savings plans
The Protagonist’s loss of innocence is rewarded with a deeper understanding of the universe: Zoey gets closer to her mom in the last six months of her life and her dad after her mom’s death, goes on her vacations, learns photography. Her gift is that she is richer than she thinks, and she can be rich on her income doing what she loves.
Conventions:
Strong Mentor: Henry
Big Social Problem: Not having enough money
Shapeshifters as hypocrites: mom
Clear Point of no return: after her mom makes her promise not to settle in life
Ironic win-but-lose or lose-but-win bittersweet ending: mother dies of cancer, but Zoey gets to spend quality time with her and life her dream life in the end
Act 1
Zoey is in oppressing debt when her friends gets her an interview for a higher paying, more stressful, and less fulfilling job which she pursues in order to overcome her debt problems.
Act 2
Zoey meets a barrister named Henry who mentors her that she already makes enough money to meet her needs if she just thinks about money a different way, but she remains set in her beliefs that she needs more money to be free.
Act 3
On the verge of telling her boss that she wants to quit to take the other job, she finds out that her mother has cancer, and while visiting her mother in the hospital, her mother tells her not to settle in life. Zoey decides then to follow the advice of Henry and sets everything in motion to reach the financial freedom that Henry said can be hers.
Act 4
Zoey returns to work, sets up her 401K and automatic savings dream accounts and credit card payments on automatic, and asks her boss for 6 weeks vacation every year. He mother dies of cancer, but Zoey is able to spend quality time with her beforehand, and she starts spending quality time with her father. 3 years later she is living her life on her terms, eradicating debt slowly and saving for retirement.
What I liked
1. Everyman/ woman idea overcoming their financial problems
2. I like the parable and the narrative is told well
3. The ending has a bittersweet ending, her mother passing away, so it’s not all rainbows and butterflies
What I didn’t like or thought could have made the book better
1. I almost want to say it could have gone a few more chapters and shown the struggle to keep on the right track, the temptation to take money out of your accounts to address emergencies and the alternate options during those times. No doubt her mother would have large medical bills that her dad would need help to take care of, so there are some real issues that will plague her until her mother’s death, and more bills that she will have to pay after it is all over. I think there was an opportunity to show those difficult decisions that people have to make in the real world.
Posted on December 20, 2020 by Randy
This post may contain affiliate links for products and services I recommend. If you make a purchase through these links, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Title: Legion of the Damned
Author: William C. Dietz
Published: 1993
Publisher’s Summary: When there’s no hope for the terminally ill or a condemned criminal they have one last chance to survive. And that’s to join the Legion and become a cyborg. Both more and less than human, these warriors are the most elite fighting force in the Empire, they are the Legion of the Damned.
Genre: Action/ Science Fiction
POV: 3rd person omniscient, Over 12 POVs
Theme: Life is preserved when the Legion doesn’t give up and defeats the alien invasion
Object of Desire: The Legion wants to survive; The legion need to save the human race
Obligatory Scenes
Conventions:
Act 1
Aliens attack the human race with he help of a human traitor. The emperor of the human race debates with his military chiefs whether to defend the worlds of the outer rim, or withdraw all military units to protect the center of the empire, then he finally decides to withdraw, leaving those in the outer rim to fend for themselves.
Act 2
The Commander of the legion (based on the French Foreign Legion of old, made up of criminal and terminally ill who are remade into cyborgs) is taken prisoner before she can initiate a coup because she disagrees with the strategy the emperor has chosen. The Legion’s hombres comes under attack and they successfully fend off the aliens to everyone’s surprise.
Act 3
The Emperor and his lead military chief initiate an attack on the legion’s homeworld, but have to withdraw when a band of rich businessman, calling themselves the cabal, hire elite security forces to the Legion commander and all of her imprisoned legion soldiers to begin a coup. The emperor’s forces are deposed, but the emperor escapes with his senior military commander.
Act 4
The emperor attempts to negotiate with the aliens but is immediately destroyed and the aliens again attack the homeward of the legion. Meanwhile, the human race launches a space attack against the alien fleet, denying their ground forces air support. The legion and the human race fleet defeat the aliens and take many prisoners.
What I didn’t Like
1. I read the digital/ Kindle version – there were many different scenes in each chapter, and the book did not divide the scenes with ***, but only an empty line. Because of this, it was difficult for me to determine when a scene was changing and was somewhat frustrating.
2. Omniscient POV – I remember a lot of science fiction being told in 3rd person omniscient back in the 1990s. There are so many POVs in this book it is hard to empathize with any one of them. I think that if this was rewritten, I would advise to select a few specific POVs to tell different parts of the story from the ground, the politics, and the fleet in order for the reader to settle into the characters.
3. Plotlines note fully developed – there are some plot lines that don’t have a beginning, middle and end. There are two separate love stories that develop super fast. Dietz put a lot of technology, love stories, politics, and war into this book and some of the scenes are great and the ending is great, but the middle build is a little hard to understand sometime.
What I liked
1. The action scenes are top notch!
2. The technology is super interesting.
3. The Legion history and honor is very well written and believable.
Posted on December 5, 2020 by Randy
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Afghanistan 2002.
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