When people are looking for ideas for their stories one of the most popular is repurposing old stories. What this entails is taking an old story, say romeo and Juliet, and making it more modern and spitting out West Side Story. Or maybe taking an event or story and try looking at it through another's point of view.
For example do you recognize this story?
A child is very god at building things, and wishes to be the top driver in the local race circuit. Two members of a secret and mysterious paramilitary organization comes by and takes him away from his mother, whom he loves very much and leaves her alone.
They put him into a special military school, and he watches them fight a few battles along the way. After he graduates he falls in love, but is told that in his special unit they are not allowed to have families or any attachments. He disobeys and marries his love after saving her in a battle.
Later he is harassed by his comrades because of his marriage and he feels isolated and alone. He also learns that his mother has been kidnapped and murdered by bandits and he was not allowed to save her. He finds solace in that the President feels for him and befriends him as he is a good soldier. His old comrades start a revolution and an aborted coup leaves them on opposite sides with his old friend and mentor.
His mentor kidnaps the wife and she dies just as she is giving birth to a son and a daughter. The old friend steals away with the children as the hero is left ding in a barren rock and lava strewn field. Wounded, burnt and in despair he is rescued by government forces who succeeded in putting down the revolution. He is permanently injured and scarred, but is able to function and becomes a top military leader.
Fast forward 18 or so years and the son is asking questions about the missing father and runs into the old friend, now in hiding. They go off on quest and the friend tells the son lies about the father and starts brainwashing the son to his own way of thinking and recruits him for a revival of the older revolution. He of course rails against the father, but call shim by another name so the son doesn't catch on to his true purpose. They hook up with a known murderer and smuggler and stumble across the sister (though they don't know nor realize it) who is running from the father, unknowingly. All the father wants is to reunite the family and have a strong family unit.
After a few battles the father informs the son that he is in fact is his father. This causes the son to scream in disbelief, because of his brainwashing by antigovernment forces. At the end he realizes that the woman he loves is his sister and in a final battle the son slays the father, but as he lies dying the father forgives his son, and vice versa. They express their mutual respect and the son gives his father a proper and respectful funeral service.
Recognize this story? It's the Star Wars saga told through the eyes of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Who says his point of view is wrong or invalid?
That is all it takes to come up with original stories out of older tales. Obviously one would change the names etc. of copyrighted characters. But think of the possibilities of taking historical events and put them through the eyes of someone who doesn't get written about.
Come back next time for more tips, tricks and techniques to assist you in your writing,marketing and sales efforts. Remember we're all in this together and I'm pulling for you.
Mahalo.
********************************************************************
For environmentally smart resources to help you with your Online Business check out
http://www.renspubhouse.netii.net/products.html
Fast easy resources to help you with your marketing, save a tree by not wasting paper, be environmentally correct and have some fun and learn something to boot!
********************************************************************
Monday, September 19, 2011
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Your journal can be your guidebook to lifelong success!
Are you keeping a journal? As a writer you should be and it can be your best friend.
A journal is a working tool that you can, and should, refer to each day. It can be a source of ideas and opportunities that will increase the power of your life and grant you a fulfilling year.
Here’s how to create one that’s truly powerful and will be a source of pleasure to work with.
To start, realize that you want your journal to be more than a diary. You want it to reflect the daily occurrences of your life, true, but you also want it to be a learning tool for both yourself and those who use it after you. You want to refer to your journal for ideas and strategies that you’ve thought of, but you don’t want to wade through the dozens or hundreds of pages just to find the idea you’re looking for.
So let’s start with the physical structure of your journal. Any collection of paper will do, but to get the very most from your journal, you should have a perfect bound book. That means we’re not talking about three-ring binder paper, or high-school notebooks. You can use these if you want to, but they’re not going to help you to achieve your goals.
The more professional your journal looks, the more likely you are to bring it with you everywhere.
By the way, if anyone asks you what it is, tell them it’s the most important life tool you’ve ever created. It’s your journal. Be proud of the fact.
Number all the pages in the upper right hand corner. Any location is fine, as long as you can get to a page quickly. Make sure you identify the book with your name and your contact information.
Yes, a reward will be offered for the safe return of the journal. As you create your journal, you’ll find it’s worth a lot more than you think it is right now.
Page one is the index of your journal. This will take two or three pages of your journal, so give yourself enough room.
On page four you have the section called General Notes. I’ll explain what this is in the next few moments. You’ll need to leave about seven hundred to eight hundred lines for the entire year.
And that’s how your journal starts. It’s just that simple. Now let’s get to the nitty gritty. At the end of the day (or the middle of the day or at the beginning of the day) whenever you’re ready to put something into your journal, just go to the General Notes Section, and write down the date. Now, what are you going to write about? Is it something that happened to the kids, or your business, or your family, or your cooking, or your leisure time, etc.? It doesn’t matter what it is. Just ask yourself what the main topic is for this item. Let’s suppose it has something to do with your weight-loss project.
Write down, “Weight Loss, Page 5”
Go to your Index page and just below the line that says, General Notes Page 1, write Weight Loss Page 5.
Now go to page five. Title the page Weight Loss, date the first line and write about your weight loss experience.
Hey, something just happened with your business. Go to the General Notes page, write the date on the next line and follow it with Business, page 6.
Business isn’t in the index yet, so, go to the index and write just below Weight Loss, “Business Page 6.”
Turn to page 6, title it “Business” and write down what you want to say.
When you get to the end of a page but still have more to say (but the following page is another topic) just write “Continued on page…” and then write the page number of the first available page. Go to that page and continue writing.
Of course, all of this last little bit could be eliminated if you were using a binder and could add pages, but it doesn’t look nearly as sophisticated and binder paper has a tendency to tear, fall out of the binder and get lost forever.
Of course every entry is interesting and it makes for a delightful hobby. It might even be more than a little interesting to those generations yet to come. But you’ve got to make your journal more than a collection of diary entries.
Every time you write something in your journal, you should ask yourself two questions: What can I learn from this? And, how can I use this immediately to improve my life?
These are two separate sections of your journal and they may well be the largest ones. You don’t have to refer to the event that caused the revelation. The fact that you’re writing the information down in one of these two sections means you’ve already proven it to yourself and verified it with your own experience.
If you fell to the floor because you used a chair instead of a step ladder you don’t have to write about the event a second time. Just say you must use the right tool for the job. What are you going to do? Each time you have a job to do, you’ll go though a written list of the right tools needed, and you’ll make sure you have them before you begin.
Go through a painful experience with the dentist? You now decide proper cleaning and flossing will become an absolute commitment not only for yourself, but for your family as well.
Within a couple of days you’ll start to realize just how helpful a journal can be to improving your life, your health, your wealth and to achieving your goals, too.
Every week, review these two sections. Are you maintaining those decisions? If you do, your life improves. If you don’t, it won’t. That’s the real magic of a journal.
So get it started and keep it going and you will find the joy and usefulness of this wonderful tool.
Come back next time for more tips, tricks and techniques to assist you in your writing,marketing and sales efforts. Remember we're all in this together and I'm pulling for you.
Mahalo.
********************************************************************
For environmentally smart resources to help you with your Online Business check out
http://www.renspubhouse.netii.net/products.html
Fast easy resources to help you with your marketing, save a tree by not wasting paper, be environmentally correct and have some fun and learn something to boot!
********************************************************************
A journal is a working tool that you can, and should, refer to each day. It can be a source of ideas and opportunities that will increase the power of your life and grant you a fulfilling year.
Here’s how to create one that’s truly powerful and will be a source of pleasure to work with.
To start, realize that you want your journal to be more than a diary. You want it to reflect the daily occurrences of your life, true, but you also want it to be a learning tool for both yourself and those who use it after you. You want to refer to your journal for ideas and strategies that you’ve thought of, but you don’t want to wade through the dozens or hundreds of pages just to find the idea you’re looking for.
So let’s start with the physical structure of your journal. Any collection of paper will do, but to get the very most from your journal, you should have a perfect bound book. That means we’re not talking about three-ring binder paper, or high-school notebooks. You can use these if you want to, but they’re not going to help you to achieve your goals.
The more professional your journal looks, the more likely you are to bring it with you everywhere.
By the way, if anyone asks you what it is, tell them it’s the most important life tool you’ve ever created. It’s your journal. Be proud of the fact.
Number all the pages in the upper right hand corner. Any location is fine, as long as you can get to a page quickly. Make sure you identify the book with your name and your contact information.
Yes, a reward will be offered for the safe return of the journal. As you create your journal, you’ll find it’s worth a lot more than you think it is right now.
Page one is the index of your journal. This will take two or three pages of your journal, so give yourself enough room.
On page four you have the section called General Notes. I’ll explain what this is in the next few moments. You’ll need to leave about seven hundred to eight hundred lines for the entire year.
And that’s how your journal starts. It’s just that simple. Now let’s get to the nitty gritty. At the end of the day (or the middle of the day or at the beginning of the day) whenever you’re ready to put something into your journal, just go to the General Notes Section, and write down the date. Now, what are you going to write about? Is it something that happened to the kids, or your business, or your family, or your cooking, or your leisure time, etc.? It doesn’t matter what it is. Just ask yourself what the main topic is for this item. Let’s suppose it has something to do with your weight-loss project.
Write down, “Weight Loss, Page 5”
Go to your Index page and just below the line that says, General Notes Page 1, write Weight Loss Page 5.
Now go to page five. Title the page Weight Loss, date the first line and write about your weight loss experience.
Hey, something just happened with your business. Go to the General Notes page, write the date on the next line and follow it with Business, page 6.
Business isn’t in the index yet, so, go to the index and write just below Weight Loss, “Business Page 6.”
Turn to page 6, title it “Business” and write down what you want to say.
When you get to the end of a page but still have more to say (but the following page is another topic) just write “Continued on page…” and then write the page number of the first available page. Go to that page and continue writing.
Of course, all of this last little bit could be eliminated if you were using a binder and could add pages, but it doesn’t look nearly as sophisticated and binder paper has a tendency to tear, fall out of the binder and get lost forever.
Of course every entry is interesting and it makes for a delightful hobby. It might even be more than a little interesting to those generations yet to come. But you’ve got to make your journal more than a collection of diary entries.
Every time you write something in your journal, you should ask yourself two questions: What can I learn from this? And, how can I use this immediately to improve my life?
These are two separate sections of your journal and they may well be the largest ones. You don’t have to refer to the event that caused the revelation. The fact that you’re writing the information down in one of these two sections means you’ve already proven it to yourself and verified it with your own experience.
If you fell to the floor because you used a chair instead of a step ladder you don’t have to write about the event a second time. Just say you must use the right tool for the job. What are you going to do? Each time you have a job to do, you’ll go though a written list of the right tools needed, and you’ll make sure you have them before you begin.
Go through a painful experience with the dentist? You now decide proper cleaning and flossing will become an absolute commitment not only for yourself, but for your family as well.
Within a couple of days you’ll start to realize just how helpful a journal can be to improving your life, your health, your wealth and to achieving your goals, too.
Every week, review these two sections. Are you maintaining those decisions? If you do, your life improves. If you don’t, it won’t. That’s the real magic of a journal.
So get it started and keep it going and you will find the joy and usefulness of this wonderful tool.
Come back next time for more tips, tricks and techniques to assist you in your writing,marketing and sales efforts. Remember we're all in this together and I'm pulling for you.
Mahalo.
********************************************************************
For environmentally smart resources to help you with your Online Business check out
http://www.renspubhouse.netii.net/products.html
Fast easy resources to help you with your marketing, save a tree by not wasting paper, be environmentally correct and have some fun and learn something to boot!
********************************************************************
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