Don't write anything unless you have a point/plot!!!!

Don't write anything unless you have a point/plot.

This can apply to anything: essays, articles, stories, and - yes- movies. An essay is pointless if it doesn't have a point. If you there is nothing you are trying to prove, no knowledge that you are trying to reveal, your essay will be worth nothing more than rambling. The same applies to articles; why would someone want to read a nice long article, and afterwards, not be able to tell you what the point of it was?

Though essays and articles are occasionally written without their vital nucleus, I find that stories and movies are the worst violators of number 1. Trust me, don't write a story without a plot, or at least a theme that will make an impression on your readers! And don't think that special effects and people falling in love and falling out of love in muddling ways will make up for the loss of a basic plot in a movie. When your audience leaves the theater after a movie like that, they might just possibly be carried away by the thrill of the moment, but that thrill will soon dwindle, and the movie will be revealed as having been worthless. Others of the audience might feel confused and bewildered at such a waste of time, or they will be utterly emotionless having been deadened to this sort of movie as it is so unfortunately common.

So, please: "If you're going to make a statement, make it a good one!"

Our Visitor

We watch it as it flies about, bits of dry grass and twigs in its mouth. Back and forth it goes with more and more loads. It brings the little bundles to a comfortable hollow in our window box, so we can watch its progress close up, through the window. The little structure it is so intent on building gradually grows....

It is tomorrow now. We spot three speckled, round objects in the very base of the structure. She who built the structure is no where in sight. We hope we have not scared her away. We hope she will come back soon. We hope the round objects stay warm...

It is tomorrow again. She has come back. She is sitting low in her little structure, hiding the round objects from view. And if we stand at a careful distance from the window, so as to not scare her away again, we can see her body rise and fall in a steady motion as she breathes. Her head is down, curled up on her chest. No, now she is looking nervously around, her small, beady eyes looking for danger. We can see clearly her yellow beak contrasting with her grey body.

The question is, will she stay or will all hope for those helpless round objects be lost?

Using the SM: Step 1

Here I have applied step one of the Snowflake Method (SM):

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Step One: "....write a one-sentence summary of your novel."

An old, crippled farmer must stop the world-conquest of a vicious tomato.

"Worthy" Writing...

I am surrounded by windows on my desktop. Word processors to be exact. I have picked up writing again as school begins to wind down, and have become fascinated with a new method of writing called the "Snowflake Method," introduced to me by my sister who is equally enthusiastic about it.

Of course, I had to start applying it right away to all of my previous writings, and it is going very well, despite the fact that I have not gotten past step 2 yet.

I found step one most amusing and challenging: "...write a one-sentence summary of your novel." For some people, this might be easy, but for me, trying to condense a novel into a sentence seems a bit difficult. After all, if you can explain a novel in a sentence, what is the good of writing the novel?

Anyway, my sentences kept turning into ads:
"A group of evil aliens are invading planet Earth. Can Richard Jones stop them and save planet Earth before its too late, or will he fall victim to molten lava? Find out for yourself by reading this great new book about an all new adventure: Molten Rock, coming to a book store near you!"

I just made that up for an example, but... you see the picture. And now I am taking a break from aliens and epidemics and huge volcanoes to write this blog post and get some better ideas. I will be taking up journalism, meaning that I will give posts periodically showing how each step was worked out using an example plot. That will be fun. I hope you think so too.