Comments on The WriteRunner: Story Structure Part V – Crossing the First Thresh...

When I was about to turn thirty (a decade ago) I h...

2009-10-31T14:22:16.216-07:00

When I was about to turn thirty (a decade ago) I heard a major call to get back into long distance running and do what I had never attempted, which was to run a marathon.

Every time I ran a personal distane record it was crossing a mental, physical, and spiritual threshold.

How's your running going?

Paul: Exactly. There's only one way to improve, an...

2009-10-26T14:46:25.048-07:00

Paul: Exactly. There's only one way to improve, and that's with practice

Laura: I'd say dramatic rather than climatic. It should be pretty fun though. The point is to lead the character into the Special World, even if by force, but the character shouldn't have a viable alternative. It's the Mentor's job to kind of sell them on the Quest.
Feeling crappy...will see Dr. tomorrow. Hopefully not Swine but who knows.

No, nothing may be resolved, but it's still a clim...

2009-10-26T14:38:25.432-07:00

No, nothing may be resolved, but it's still a climatic event. Starting down that ski slope when I don't know how to ski is very climatic!
Are you feeling better?

What great questions? I guess I answered the call ...

2009-10-26T13:11:13.754-07:00

What great questions? I guess I answered the call when after having a story bouncing around in my head for two years I decided to write it down. Four years later I crossed one threshold when I resigned from my job to write full-time. The more I learned about writing the farther I seemed to be from my goal of obtaining representation. Now, two manuscripts and many revisions and rewrites later I have found representation but the journey is far from over.

I often equate this journey to running marathons. It is relatively easy to run one marathon (write a first draft of one manuscript) but if you want to improve you need to learn how to train, and put in hours and hours of workouts, often putting forth a lot of effort that sometimes results in small improvements. As a runner you can probably relate to this.