Tag Archives: Aristotle

10.07.25
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A Bulletproof Beginning

Last Friday, I had the good fortune to present a workshop titled “A Bulletproof Beginning: Five Ways to Anchor Your Story in Urgency from Word One” at the annual Wisconsin Writers Association Conference, held in Stevens Point. 

I say “good fortune” for several reasons:

  • I got paid.
  • I heard the sound of my own voice—sweet music to my ears, indeed.
  • Most of all, I was with 175 friends of the Writing Persuasion—folks who have an itch they can scratch only by setting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. These friends understand one another’s need. About sixty of the 175 attended my breakout session.
Some of my good friends relaxing just before my workshop last Friday.

A lot of people have told me they got something good out of it. 

So, why keep it to myself? For readers who did not have the opportunity to attend, I will try to encapsulate a 50-minute talk in the next seven weekly blog posts.  

Here goes:

A Bulletproof Beginning

What’s the big deal about a beginning? Why the fuss?

Aristotle, right, argues with Plato (strongly resembling Leonardo da Vinci) in this detail from “The School of Athens” by Renaissance painter Raphael (1483-1520). Public Domain.

Dear Reader, a philosopher named Aristotle said, about 2,400 years ago, that every story has a beginning . . . a middle . . . and an end. That may seem obvious, but apparently nobody before Aristotle thought to write it down. 

And nobody since Aristotle has gone much beyond that simple observation in explaining story structure. If you want to hassle me about Joseph Campbell’s/ Christopher Vogler’s Twelve Stages of the Hero’s Journey, or about Blake Snyder’s Fifteen-Beat “Save the Cat” structure—sure, let’s have that argument someday. But in the meantime, consider:

Of the three parts of a story, the beginning is most important. Why?

Because if your beginning is no good, no reader will experience the joys of the middle and end. They won’t stick around.

More so, if the reader is an agent, editor, or publisher considering your story for publication or film production. Typically, such mandarins want the first ten pages included with a cold query. But that does not mean they will read ten pages. 

No. They will read maybe one page. Or maybe just the first paragraph. And if that doesn’t knock their socks off, they’re done. They have a lot of scripts to read. You must earn your way to the second and subsequent pages. 

Most of all, the beginning is important because it establishes the conditions under which the rest of the story plays out. The break into Act II, the many twists and turns thereafter, the great change of color and tenor at mid-point, the swiftening action as you move into Act III, the exciting climax and final denouement—all are present in embryo in the beginning of the story. If they’re not, it won’t work.

Studio publicity photo of Billy Wilder and Gloria Swanson on the set of Sunset Boulevard, ca. 1950. Public Domain.

Billy Wilder—the great German-American film genius responsible for Ninotchka, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Some Like it Hot, and many other classic movies, said, “If you have a problem in the third act, your real problem is in the first act.” If you go back and fix the first act, the third act will work better.

By the way, Gentle Reader, did you ever notice how many lectures, workshops, or articles about story construction for prose fiction rely heavily on movies for their examples? Here’s the reason: Owing to the format and function of film scripts, the screenwriter has nowhere to hide from the need for STRUCTURE.

A seasoned scripter can sit in a darkened movie house, discern the arrival of the Great Change at Midpoint, look at his watch, see that 58 minutes have elapsed, and predict—with dead accuracy—that the film’s total run time will be 116 minutes. It’s really that cut and dried. It’s all about structure. 

The beginning is the first great pillar of structure in any story, filmic or otherwise. That’s why it’s important. 

As I told my friendly audience last Friday, I cannot tell you how to write a good beginning. It’s your story, you figure it out. 

But here are FIVE BIG IDEAS—three Dos and two Donts—that ought to help quite a bit:

  1. Engage the reader immediately. 
  2. Do not drown the reader in information. 
  3. Introduce important characters and plots early. 
  4. Do not let INFORMATION bog down the profluence of the narrative. 
  5. Shape early action toward later plot points.

Now, Dear Reader, go ponder these things in your heart. Come back at this time next week, and we will consider Point 1: How to engage the reader immediately.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

02.18.25
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Huzzah!

I may have mentioned before now, Dear Reader, that the writer’s life is a lonely one.

Oh, sure, we are celebrated among our friends . . . if we have friends who are kind enough to celebrate us.

Gerrit Dou, Scholar Sharpening a Quill Pen. Public Domain.

We also confer among ourselves at writers’ conferences. We sit at the feet of masters and learn, if we can, a kind of self-mastery. We even may tip a tumbler or two, on such occasions. 

We have the usual allotment of spouses and children and dogs. 

So writers, as a group, are not existentially lonely. Most of us are not, at any rate.

But when it comes to writing—when we need to plot and craft and draft and re-plot and re-craft and re-draft a novel or any large work of fiction—that we do all by ourselves, in mental if not physical isolation. We may share a work in progress with colleagues: give glimpses, get feedback, gain perspective. But the actual doing of the thing is a solo gig. It’s just you and your keyboard in a room somewhere.

Thus, any victory merits a celebration. 

So it is with pride and joy I announce: Your New Favorite Writer has reached Mid-point on his current WIP (work in progress). Sorry to burden you with technical jargon, but nonetheless—HUZZAH! Please feel free to huzzah along with me.

What’s the Big Deal?

Thanks, I thought you’d never ask.

Aristotle. Public Domain.

Mid-point in a work of fiction is not merely halfway. It does not mean fifty percent of the work has been done. Perhaps the second half of the book will be much easier to write, or much harder, than the first half. 

Syd Field. Photo by thedemonhog, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Rather, the Mid-point, which always falls very near halfway through the pages, is where Something Momentous Happens. There is a major plot turn, visible or invisible, that makes the whole thing deeper and more important. The story shifts, the way a batch of fudge changes color in the pan just before it sets up into a new, delicious thing. 

This is not my imagination, Gentle Reader. You could look it up. Any number of gurus have told us about it, from Aristotle onwards. Pick up a copy of Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, by Syd Field (1935-2013). Mr. Field was one of the first to put the how-to of screenwriting into a book, so that anybody could do it. 

Charles Dickens. Public Domain.

Well, not just anybody. You have to also be a certifiable lunatic.

Actor-director Roberto Benigni, creator of Life Is Beautiful. Photo by Harald Krichel, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

But I digress. The point is, there is a fundamental dramatic structure that almost all good stories have. A beginning, a middle, and an end. Sometimes we call them Acts I, II, and III. There are vivid plot points that kick off the action (Inciting Incident), shift it into gear (Break into Act II), change the whole picture (Mid-point), set up the final confrontation (Break into Act III), and resolve the story (Climax). There are numerous lesser turns as well.

The all-important Mid-point signals a shift in tone, emphasis, and import of the story. That shift can be quite stark, as in the Italian film Life is Beautiful (1997), or more subtle, as in Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol (1843). But it has to be there, or the story resembles an uncooked fish, several days old.

Therefore I celebrate the conquest of the Mid-point.

So What?

Your New Favorite Writer has written two novels that are currently in print, The Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold! Both were very hard to write. I have been at work for some time on my third—a twentieth century historical novel that goes by the working title Brother’s Blood. It’s about two brothers who find themselves at odds but have no opportunity to fully reconcile before the Second World War sends them off in different directions. 

This one is hard to write, too. But writing the first two, as well as several unproduced screenplays, taught me a few things. Especially how important the first act is. Famed writer-director Billy Wilder said, “If you have a problem in the third act, your problem is in the first act.” What he meant is that you need to set the stage fully and exquisitely in the first one-quarter of the work (Act I), so that all kinds of situations and relationships established at the start can then pay off in satisfying ways as the rest of the story (Acts II and III) unfolds. 

Writers often talk about a character coming to life and taking the story off in an unexpected direction. It is delightful when this happens. But in a way, it’s even more satisfying when the underlying logic of the story—the line of development that flows from all the details you have packed into Act I—forces an unavoidable realignment of meaning at the Mid-point, and the rest of the story snowballs to an irresistible end from that point. 

I’ve been laboring mightily over Act I: Writing, re-writing, changing, re-adjusting to get a number of rather ordinary yet secretly powerful ingredients into the story. And I’ve launched into the wilds of Act II, grinding away at just marshaling the facts of the characters’ lives, when ALL OF A SUDDEN, SHAZAM! A major plot event, one which I did not see coming, elbows its way into the story. Right at the halfway point. It’s an event I’m not at all happy with—and you Dear Reader, may not like it either—but it shoves the invisible river of narrative into a swifter and deeper channel. There is no help for it. We must go there. 

I can’t wait to write the rest of the book.

Note: It would be very helpful at this point, no doubt, to give you a more specific idea of what happens in the book. I can’t do that. Major SPOILERS would be involved. All I can say is: look for it in a year or two, possibly by a different title, wherever fine books are sold. 

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

04.16.24
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Beast of the Moment

Great Pyrenees dog. Photo by Sharp16, licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0.

A book came in the mail last month, but it was not one I had ordered. 

It was an anthology of short prose pieces and poems, WELL READ Magazine’s Best of 2023, Volume One. It came for free as a contributor’s copy, because I am in it. 

Or rather, ahem, my short story, “Beast of the Moment,” is in it. (Page 171, if you must know.)

I am proud of this story, because it was good enough that editor Mandy Haynes deemed it worth publishing. 

It has the three chief virtues of a good story: A beginning, a middle, and an end. (See Poetics vii. 2-3, by Mr. Aristotle, noted Greek philosopher.) It also has an interesting, and humane, subject: an old woman who loves dogs. So, yes, it’s a feel-good story—yet not pollyannish. 

“Beast of the Moment” appeared in the June 2023 issue of WELL READ online magazine. If you wish, you can read it for free here.

But it also appears now in print, in this paperback anthology of 2023’s best pieces. I’m honored it is there. On page 171. I’d strongly advise you to acquire a copy, for it has not only my story but 37 other great pieces by a variety of authors. I read my way through it last week and liked what I saw. There were short prose pieces, both fiction and non-fiction, and a good sprinkling of original poems. 

One piece that made a strong impression was “A Hard Dog,” by Will Maguire, starting on p. 20. It’s a story about a hard dog, and, well, it’s a hard story about a dog. It deals with the relationships between a forlorn man, his recent girlfriend, a stray dog, and the neighbors. There are points where it’s hard to read and you want to give up on it. But if you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded. Maguire tells a hard story, but he tells it with skill and a certain amount of grace. Dog lover or otherwise, I recommend giving it a try.

The next story up is “Evolution of Love,” by the talented and persistent Rob Grindstaff. It’s a romance for the modern era, and it tells its tale with depth and imagination. I promise you’ll get involved in the developing love between positivistic scientist Steven and the faith-based nurturer Dempsey. And there’s a neat little twist at the end that could be magical realism . . . or something else entirely. Don’t miss it.

There’s a flashy story called “Silver Sequins,” by Joy Ross Davis, that will make you think twice. I call it “flashy” because, for one thing, it’s short enough to qualify as flash fiction. It has that nice quality of flash fiction, the quality of not filling you in on everything—just giving you the drift of it and letting you fill in the blanks. But it’s also flashy because its author’s narrative skills are displayed with brilliance and panache. Yeah, I confess: That’s really what I meant. And, just like the stories mentioned above, it’s about—would you believe?—relationships. A well-wrought story, worth a read.

There are pieces that may be fictional short stories but could be mini-memoirs, sprung directly from life. It’s hard to tell with “Choices,” by Robin Prince Monroe; “Waiting for a Signal,” by Jeffrey Dale Lofton; the sardonic “Obituaries,” by Rebecca Klassen; and “What We Keep, What We Throw Away,” by Phyllis Gobbell. Maybe it doesn’t matter whether they’re fact or fiction. Each of these little gems highlights a facet of life that feels as real and experiential as a dropped memory or a parent’s tear for a wayward child.

I fear that by mentioning certain stories I have slighted others. The truth is, they’re all good, all thought-provoking. And the same can be said for the many poems. 

By the way, did I mention that my story “Beast of the Moment,” about an old widow and her long-time canine companion, appears beginning on p. 171?

If you’d like to read them all, the price is certainly right: $15.00 paperback, $5.99 Kindle. Get the anthology here.

Happy reading!

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

10.03.23
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Readings for Literary Lions: A Caveat

The Literary Lion must read. This is a truism, its implications seldom drawn. 

Photo by All Bong on Unsplash.

If you aspire to Literary Lionhood at all, you are already a person for whom reading is an unalloyed pleasure. Maybe even a chief cornerstone of your life. 

But when you are a serious writer, reading is a job requirement. 

As anyone who has ever had a job can tell you, there is some distance between an unalloyed pleasure and a job requirement.

Kinds of Reading

Let us consider the kinds of things you might read.

Books for meals.

First of all, there is Unalloyed Pleasure Reading—any book or books you are so eager to read that you pick them up whenever you have a spare moment. You take such a book with you to the doctor’s office to make good use of your waiting time. You read it on the bus. Those are the books I’m talking about. For me, anything by John Grisham, John Steinbeck, or Jack Finney.

Donna Leon. Photo by Michiel Hendryckx, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Second, there are Exemplar Books. These are either so well-written or so ill-written that reading them will help you become a better writer. You can emulate their prose, or avoid it, as you evolve your own unique and compelling voice. Such a book may or may not give unalloyed pleasure. Even if it’ s a chore to read, you grit your teeth and get through it. For me, the phrase “good writing to emulate” brings to mind William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy, John Hersey’s A Bell for Adano, and Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti mysteries, among others. I won’t mention a specific example of writing to avoid. Suffice it to say, they are legion. You will discover them on your own.

Third are the books about how to write books. At least a million are in print, with hundreds more published every day. They are all above average. More than two-thirds of all writers who have written any book at all have also written a book about how to write a book.* (*Proceedings, Institute for Fabricated Statistics, Vol. X, pp. y-z.) In fact, many writers who have never written a book have nevertheless written a book about how to write a book. This could get out of hand. Take my advice: choose one or two of those listed below, and let it go at that.

  • Poetics, by Aristotle (No last name. You know: That Aristotle.)
  • Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maass
  • Story, by Robert McKee
Books to the left of my laptop.

Fourth are books about how to sell books. There are works about how to find an agent, how to get your book published, and how to sell lots of copies once it is published. It seems every writer who has written a book about how to write a book has also written one or more books about how to sell your book once you have written it; and every writer who has written a book about how to sell anything at all has also written one or more books about how to sell, specifically, books. As to recommendations: Even I, Dear Reader—your reliable Guru of Literary Lionhood, famous for rushing in where angels fear to tread—even I tremble to recommend any one of these volumes. If you are thinking of consulting any part of this 21st-century cornucopia of unsolicited-yet-pricey advice, consider this free bit of wisdom from the late Sir William of Goldman: 

“Nobody knows anything.” 

He was talking about the movie business, but it applies equally to all forms of publishing. This may strike you as dismal news, but consider it in this light: You know as much as anybody, so plunge in. Just do something. Or don’t do something; just stand there. It might work as well as anything.

Books to the right.

Fifth are the Obligated Reads. These are books by friends or acquaintances which you have agreed—perhaps unwisely—to read and review. Some are beta reads, works in progress whose authors want useful feedback from you, so they can make their work better. Others are published books whose authors want your endorsement, in the form of a published review or a blurb for the book cover. When the author is a particular friend and the book is something you just can’t hack, then you are stuck with what our cousins across the Pond call a sticky wicket. If the book happens to be the second or subsequent installment of a series, you have an easy out. “Author Johnny Johnson has done it again!” Otherwise, you’re sunk.

Sixth are books you need to read, or at least skim, as research for something you are writing. For us historical novelists, this kind of reading is broad and wide-ranging. But almost any writer* will need to do some research. 

*Well, not writers who are actually Artificial Intelligence programs. AI bots can just make something up that reads as if it is based on research, but it’s actually just pieced together with likely-sounding phrases stolen from thousands of real, and mostly starving, writers. But then, you’re not an AI bot. Are you? I feel like I should insert a Captcha box here.

Coping With the Deluge

All these reading demands can actually get in the way of one’s writing.

Books awaiting attention.

Upon becoming a Literary Lion, I increased my already liberal use of the South Central Wisconsin Library System. There’s something called LINKCAT, which is a wonderful thing. I can go online, find any book that exists anywhere within 51 included libraries, place it “on hold,” and it will be delivered to me at my local library, usually within a few days. 

Because of the numerous reading interests noted above, books—those being read, those to be read, or those already read—reside in stacks all over my house. 

I repeat, it’s getting out of hand. Last week, I realized these demands were forcing me to avoid reading what I most wanted to read, because I had to read something less pleasurable and, in the grand scheme of things, less important.

So I’ve drawn a line in the sand. From now on, I will only acquire books I actually look forward to reading, in the sense that I have a credible expectation of joy; or, those needed for specific bits of research. That’s it—only Unalloyed Pleasure or Necessary Research. Away with all other pesky categories! I hope that holds up.

A Final Word

I tell you as a bona fide Literary Lion: Get yourself a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. 

As Dorothy Parker once said: “If you have friends who aspire to be writers, give them The Elements of Style. Then shoot them while they’re still happy.” 

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

03.17.20
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Pandemic Politics

“Pandemic” was an adjective before it was a noun.

It means, “prevalent over a whole area, country, etc.; universal, general . . . .” It is usually applied to disease, thus giving rise to its use as a noun, “a pandemic,” meaning, “a disease which is pandemic.” But it could really be used for almost anything that is widely distributed over the world. 

Politics is pandemic. As was oft remarked of Chickenman, “It’s everywhere! It’s everywhere!” 

No, Fair Reader, you can’t escape it; for, as Aristotle observed, “Man is a political animal.”

In the midst of our current angst over COVID-19, President Trump has been accused of downplaying the threat. Trump’s opponents have been accused of weaponizing the fear of a dread disease. Players on both sides of the line of scrimmage are ripping up the Astroturf, wailing, “Unfair! They are politicizing a national disaster!” 

So, what else is new? 

If you read this blog regularly—a Recommended Best Practice—you may wonder, “Whence comes this commentary on current events? Is not this blog supposed to be about ‘seeking fresh meanings in our common past’?”

Okay, Dear Reader. You asked for it:

It Was Ever Thus

Politicians have made political hay out of all things sacred since the moment after time started. Many earnest combatants believe that everything is political; that exploiting all events to advance one’s political agenda is the purest form of service. (“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”—Rahm Emanuel, 2008.)

Those who seek to serve society must understand the political context in which they operate. Military leaders, in particular, often feel that war should be exempt from politics. But they would be extremely foolish to suppose that it actually is.

General Promotions

Elihu B. Washburne U.S. Congressman, Secretary of State, Minister to France. Mathew Brady-Levi Corbin Handy photo. Public Domain.

During the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant showed a canny cognizance of the political winds which blew all around him. In that conflict, almost every general, North or South, was appointed and advanced politically. Even Grant, who demonstrated the highest ability, would never have received the opportunity to demonstrate that ability without the sponsorship of his local Congressman, Rep. Elihu Washburne. The Congressman put Grant in for a brigadier general’s star, immediately began thumping for his promotion to major general, and in every possible way championed Grant’s career.

In 1863, Grant was tasked with taking the city of Vicksburg, which President Abraham Lincoln saw as “the golden key” to unlock the Confederacy. Take Vicksburg from the rebels, and you re-open the Mississippi River to Union navigation. At the same time, you dreadfully complicate Confederate efforts to get men and materiel from the Trans-Mississippi West (Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas). Vicksburg in Union hands would be the beginning of the end of the rebellion.

Major General U.S. Grant. Public Domain.

Trouble was, Grant’s first try—aided by loyal subordinates Sherman and Macpherson and the ambitiously disloyal McClernand—had come to naught, for reasons beyond Grant’s control. “The strategical way according to the rule,” Grant wrote in his memoirs, “would have been to go back to Memphis; establish that as a base of supplies; fortify it so that the storehouses could be held by a small garrison, and move from there along the line of the railroad, repairing as we advanced, to the Yallabusha, or to Jackson, Mississippi.” 

However, “At this time the North had become very much discouraged. . . . It was my judgment at the time that to make a backward movement as long as that from Vicksburg to Memphis, would be interpreted, by many of those yet full of hope for the preservation of the Union, as a defeat, and that the draft would be resisted, desertions ensue, and the power to capture and punish deserters lost. There was nothing left to be done but to go forward to a decisive victory.”

What Grant delicately omitted was that political powers in Washington wanted Grant removed and replaced with McClernand—an officer who, despite his loyalty to the Union, was unfit for high command. So long as Grant was actively campaigning against Vicksburg, it was not too hard for Lincoln to resist these demands for his scalp. But any movement that appeared to be a retreat—back to Memphis, for example—would  most likely seal his fate. I am not the first to suggest that if Grant had done anything other than what he did—go forward through the Mississippi lowlands with no established supply line, feeding his army off the land—he would have lost his job. So that’s exactly what he did.

Grant could not afford to ignore politics.

In the end, he found a way to win without losing his job.

So What?

How does this history apply to the present day? Simply in this: Those who wish to serve the country need to be entirely apolitical; but they cannot afford to ignore the politics of the situation.

There are a lot of players, political and otherwise. One is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, an interesting figure. He is on the opposite political team from the president—but neither of them can afford to make trouble with the other in facing the coronavirus challenge, both for political reasons, and for the sake of people’s health.

Cuomo, like any experienced governor, knows quite a bit about handling emergencies. I saw him on TV the other day, revealing one of the key things about emergencies—a lesson I learned years ago as a worker in Wisconsin’s state emergency operations. There are two things, Cuomo said—I’m loosely paraphrasing—two things: One is the objective state of things: the resources, the damage, the things that need to be repaired; or in the case of a pandemic disease, the infection rates, testing kits, all that operational stuff. The other thing is the public perception of the situation. The latter is what drives rumors, panics, compliance with relief plans or the lack of compliance, etc. Often, Cuomo said, that second factor, the public perception, gets to be a greater problem than the disaster scenario itself. 

Cuomo is dead accurate on that. (Your New Favorite Writer’s note to self: Write a blog post sometime about the 1996 Weyauwega, Wisconsin, train derailment.)

The only thing leaders can do about the second factor, the public perception, is to provide a steady flow of factual information from official sources. Credibility is key. People know when they’re being lied to, and it’s the kiss of death in handling an emergency.

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. NIAID photo, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Enter Dr. Anthony Fauci, and his sidekicks Dr. Deborah Brix, Admiral Brett Giroir, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams. These people are the key medical players on the President’s Coronavirus Task Force. They are physicians with impeccable credentials and experienced public health leaders. Their usefulness on the task force is based on their ability to help move key decisions. But just as important is the straightness of their dialog with the American public as principal briefers of this ongoing emergency. 

What makes them useful is that they never say anything that is not factual. Their credibility is gilt-edged. It is a remarkable feat, day in and day out, to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, from the epicenter of a hurricane of fear, anxiety, and political games. 

As Executive Branch employees, they work under the authority of President Donald J. Trump—a gargantuan figure and one who speaks in momentarily expedient approximations. Fauci ranks as a genius, saying what is true and correcting what is false, while affirming truths uttered by the president and never crossing swords with him over statements that may be less reliable. 

Without being himself a politician, Anthony Fauci knows how to survive in a tough political environment, giving good service and straight advice with an easy grace. 

He reminds me of Ulysses S. Grant, who made virtues of necessities and got the military job done without having to bother Abe Lincoln overmuch with messy details.

Funny how often parts of the present resemble parts of the past.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

Author of Price of Passage—A Tale of Immigration and Liberation.

Price of Passage

Norwegian Farmers and Fugitive Slaves in Pre-Civil War Illinois

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