(A primer on writing a good tagline for your company brand)
Copyright © 2010 by Max Nomad for Bohemian Griot Publishing, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

When it comes to building your company’s brand name recognition, coming up with a good tagline is second only to adopting a good company logo.

And just like with the logo, many small businesses make the mistake of overlooking its importance. At first glance, a tagline just looks like a clever turn of phrase associated with a company logo. While this is true to an extent, there is far more at work beneath the surface. A tagline is a short sentence that, when used in conjunction with your logo, communicates a single but powerful brand message designed to resonate strongly with your target market. In short, a well-thought out tagline is designed to make potential customers decide to spend their money with you instead of your competition.

Whether abstract or literal, serious, humorous, or stoic, a good tagline should be used to do one or more of the following:

• Convey the major qualities of your brand
• Express your company vision or mission
• Emphasize your competitive advantages or what sets you apart from the competition
• Align your message with your target market
• Draw attention to a new direction your business is taking
• Make a promise to fulfill a deep-seated need or desire

The level of complexity behind these deceptively simple phrases is the reason why copywriters and advertising agencies are often hired to come up with them. Below are a few approaches that are commonly used while brainstorming taglines, followed by some memorable examples:

• Call to action (most memorable taglines use this method) – Nike’s “Just Do It.”
• Single words (always good in threes) as benefits — Pepto Bismal’s “Coats, Soothes, Relieves.”
• Connecting a product/service feature with an abstract need — Dasani’s “DASANI water. Can’t live without it.”
• Make a promise — General Electric’s “We bring good things to life.”
• Attention to the risk of not using product/service — Michelin Tires “Because So Much is Riding on your Tires.”
• Connect the tagline to logo’s imagery — Allstate Insurance “You’re in Good Hands.”

While there is more art than science involved with creating a tagline, the great ones always have several of the following attributes:

• Simple
• Original (uniquely yours)
• Memorable
• Unconventional
• Positive
• Personable
• Believable / Authentic
• Succinct
• Relevant
• Humorous
• Provocative
• Persuasive

Along with the tagline creative process, here a few other pointers to keep in mind:

• If you’re brainstorming your own tagline, keep a dictionary and thesaurus handy and note every idea, no matter how silly or irrelevant it may seem. It’s a mystery how the human mind makes associations between words and concepts. Some of the best ideas are born out of seemingly unrelated sources.

• If all else fails, include your Unique Selling Proposition in your tagline—what your company does best and why anyone should care. This is an especially good move if your business name doesn’t adequately say what you do.

• A company tagline is subject to change every so many years, especially if a company has changed or needs to showcase new services. A good example of this is UPS and how they changed from “What can brown do for you?” to “We [heart] logistics” with the goal of bringing attention to their new non-shipping related services.

• Regardless of what your business does, your tagline creates a first impression. People will remember a good tagline even before a company name. On that same note, having years of equity built up in an old tagline can work for or against your company. Ultimately it’s a promise of some sort, and if your company’s product or service doesn’t live up to that promise, your company image is in serious trouble. An example of this can be seen with the oil company BP. They adopted the tagline “Beyond Petroleum” back in the early 80s and successfully groomed it over the next three decades — until the catastrophe in the Gulf during the summer of 2010. BP’s reputation has, figuratively and almost literally, become mud in the aftermath of that ecological, financial and public relations disaster. People hear BP and think incompetence and massive oil spill. And in all three cases, no one is certain how long it will take to clean up the mess.

• Taglines with words or phrases that can become “dated” should be avoided. An example of this can be seen with the iconic Hip-Hop music label “Def Jam Recordings” (even though it’s a company brand and not a tagline). Founded in the early 80s, the company was originally named “Def Jam Records” with the intention of reaching young Hip-Hop fans by using New York City B-Boy slang that was in vogue at the time (Def was synonymous with “excellent”, and a Jam referred to a great song, party, or a concert). The only reason the company name is still relevant these days is because of the legendary status of the brand itself and its artists. The original impact associated with the meaning of the name is largely lost on the youth of today. While the word “Jam” is still valid slang in some circles, anyone that still uses “Def” to praise something (and isn’t being sarcastic) is probably either an overzealous fan of early 80s Hip-Hop or old enough to have grandchildren.

• If the impact or meaning of a tagline becomes dated it should be put to rest, regardless of how memorable it is. An example of this is AT&T’s “Reach out and touch someone” slogan. Originally introduced in 1979, anyone of school age or older can probably still sing the jingle. Today, thanks to the emergence of the Internet, cell phones, and other radical shifts in communication technology, talking to people on the other side of the planet is just as cheap and easy as talking to someone in your neighborhood. In a way that no one could have foreseen, technology took away that tagline’s impact, relegating it to an afterlife in nostalgic memories and Pop-Culture Trivia questions.

• Never use an exclamation point at the end of your tagline. Doing so cheapens your message and weakens your brand, regardless of how strong they are.

When it comes to your brand, don’t rush the process of coming up with a good tagline. A bad tagline is far worse than no tagline at all. If you’re unable to come up with a smart tagline, there are copywriters who specialize in just that. To begin your search, start by Googling for ‘tagline copywriters’. There is always time to update your brand with a good tagline at a later date.

In summary, the secret life of a great tagline is simple: when it is combined your company name and a well-designed logo—and all three work well together—they can become the best (and least expensive) form of advertising for your company.

#####

One afternoon while Karl and I were hanging out in his backyard talking about nothing in particular, Luther quietly walked up to the grill and glared at us. His glossy brown eyes, Marlon Brando demeanor and low stocky stature gave him a lovable, almost commanding presence that was hard to dismiss. Hungry and a little aggravated, he made a low grunt as he started to pace. Karl paid him no attention as he reached for a spatula.

“Go somewhere and chill out.” Karl said as he flipped a few burgers. Luther groaned then circled the patio three times, stretched out and raised a leg to scratch an itch. He was unusually obedient — even for a Bassett Hound.

“The Truth About Luther”
by Max Nomad

Originally, I met Karl and his girlfriend Jeanine through a mutual friend. The first time I met Luther was a few months earlier. I arrived just after Karl and Jeanine had finished arguing. She drove away as I stepped up on the porch. Just as he began to vent, the phone rang. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he walked inside.

Out in the yard Luther meandered about, sniffing around in the grass as he pondered whatever dogs think about. I assumed this was Luther because Karl had mentioned something about a new dog on the phone. Soon after Karl stepped inside, clouds rolled in and unleashed a downpour. He trudged up to the porch steps and stood at the bottom looking up at me with droopy-eyed expectations.

“C’mon, Luther,” I gestured for him to come to me. “C’mon boy!”

With quiet desperation he looked at me, squinted up at the rain, studied the first step, and then glanced at me again. When it was apparent that I expected him to come to my side, he took a few paces back, turned, and with a high-spirited gallop charged for the steps. The first step was easy. Step two he hurdled without fail. Step three stopped in mid-stride with a dull fleshy whack. His eyes tumbled. A choked “Roorlawl” followed, something I instantly understood to mean ‘Go Get Help!’ And after a brief hang-time, he fell to the first step on his back. I found myself apologizing profusely as I hoisted him into my arms. His teeth were gritted as if he was biting his lip. That’s when I discovered the shocking truth: Luther was blessed. I mean really blessed. He was endowed in a way that most human males couldn’t measure up to. Even biologists would have agreed — it was as if his body was a life-support system for his penis.

Karl walked back out, paused, and shook his head. “Not again,” he sighed as he carefully took Luther from my arms. “I gotta hurry up and build that walk ramp for him.”

Regarding his breed, Luther was heavier than most. Karl’s rationale was that he couldn’t take the little guy for long walks. The last time he took him to the boardwalk they had to come home early; Luther’s piece brushed up against curbs, fire hydrants, Pine bark in flowerbeds, and occasionally when he got happy and tried to trot he stepped on himself. And as if that wasn’t weird enough, we were all in agreement that Luther knew he had The Extra Length. There were times when he flaunted it.

Back then, Karl was a Deadhead — so much of a fan that he had followed the Grateful Dead on stretches of their tours for a few years. As a means of subsidizing his income in between stints as a brick layer while off tour, he sold natural products, the kind made for peace pipes, chuckles, or red-eyed discovery of God in a slice of pizza. As a result he made friends of all kinds along the way. His fenced-in acre had become secluded a safe heaven in the middle of quaint suburbia. There was always someone visiting from somewhere, usually either resting or sitting in the den puffing more smoke than Cheech & Chong. If Luther wasn’t out in the yard or locked in a bedroom, he’d feel the need to express himself. He’d strut out to the middle of the floor and take a seat on stage. Sometimes he’d roll over on his back as if trying to get a tan, letting his ears flop down along with whatever else. Other times he would look around then casually start to lick his manhood. Everyone that knew Luther paid no attention. Those that weren’t ready for him paused. Particularly women. Usually they would giggle, make a comment, or sit back in a puzzled-almost-uncomfortable silence as if what they were staring at something that was staring back at them.

Early one afternoon Karl had a caravan of friends stop in on their way to a Dead show in DC. During the excitement of everyone parking VW Buses and cars and reeling in a joyful reunion with him, someone forgot to close the gate. Luther escaped. Someone had poured a Heineken in his water bowl before the caravan arrived — and it was almost empty when we discovered it. Instead of going with his friends to the Dead show, he gave his ticket to someone else in the caravan along with a brown paper bag and stayed home to find Luther. The rest of us weren’t going to the show and had nothing else planned, so we split up and set out to search the area for our favorite hound. The thought of him getting picked up by a dogcatcher was bad enough. Pleading the case to a judge for a dog charged with drunk and disorderly conduct was even worse. Luther was gone for two days before he finally popped back up. Aside from needing a bath and a worn out look as if he’d done Spring Break in Cancun, he was fine. Months passed and eventually we forgot all about it.

One day we were over at the house hanging out over at the house with some of Karl’s friends, a band on break from tour. They had been gigging with Merl Saunders, a musician that had been known to sit in with the Grateful Dead on tour. The fact they had been on tour with someone who had played with the Dead on tour made them royalty by association in Karl’s mind. As a result, Karl had a mound of weed on the coffee table. Smoke filled the den as a bong passed between hands and they shared their stories from the road with us. A knock came at the front door. We tucked everything away except the fog before Jeanine greeted the unexpected visitor. It was an older lady that identified herself as a neighbor from up the street. She asked to speak to the owner. When she said the owner wasn’t there, the lady turned to leave and mentioned that she’d be back with a cop and a dogcatcher. The word ‘cop’ made Karl jump up to find out what the problem was. He talked to the lady who adamantly refused to discuss the matter until she showed him something at her house. He went with her. A stone curiosity made me follow.

A 6-foot tall wooden privacy fence enclosed her yard. She unlocked and opened the gate. Over in the far corner was a Great Dane in front of a doghouse nursing some pups. When the lady called out to her dog Martha, the pups stood up to follow. They almost looked like they were still at rest until they started to trot. As they got closer we noticed their unusual features, but it was their familiar strides that left Karl and I speechless.

Apparently Martha was from a champion bloodline of show dogs, registered with more papers than a Harvard Ph.D. As a part-time breeder, the lady mated Martha with another pedigree twice a year and sold the pups for $700 apiece. Then somehow Luther came along, not even tall enough to sniff the female’s butt if she was standing beside him. It was easy to see hints of Luther in the lot but there was one last thing that would eliminate any further questions.
Karl knelt down and started to play with the first male he came across. Slowly he rolled the pup over and glanced at its underside.

“Well?” I asked.

“Like father, like son.” he sighed. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the hound had sired these little Great Dane low-riders. With a single chance left to breed that year, the lady didn’t hold back on letting us know she’d never be able to sell the litter. Her lawyer’s name came up a few times as well. We figured the chances and the math. It wasn’t pretty.

Later that evening after everyone left Karl, Jeanine and I discussed the matter. Luther paced around as if he was well aware of the situation. Unlike the typical playboy worried about a one-night stand that ended up with unexpected child, Luther and Karl were faced with something worse: seven children, a pissed off owner and a case twisted with unexplained phenomena in front of what promised to be a really baffled judge. That was the first time I’d ever seen a real dog sweat over a paternity suit.

Two days later the phone rang. I was on the couch taking a nap. After some random talk, I realized it was Karl. From the background chatter and slow easy lilt in his voice, I could tell he was still finishing off that mound on the coffee table with a little help from his friends.

“Luther is off the hook bro,” he said with a happy lilt.

“What happened?”

Apparently the caravan that came through before on their way to the show returned the next day. The paper bag Karl had given the guy was full of happy herbs and psychedelics, all of which sold out before the concert. The profit went toward a Free Luther fund. That, a few phone calls, and a little extra cash sealed the deal to purchase the pups and give them away to some good-hearted souls willing to provide loving homes.

I lost track of them as years passed, particularly after the Dead stopped touring. Jerry Garcia had made that final trip to join Janis, Jimi, and Morrison. Many of the Deadheads either took on lives in everyday society or went on to follow Phish on tour. Life had carried me into a wild entrepreneurial foray through Corporate America. Once in a while I bumped into someone from those times. Usually there was small talk, a few questions about life since then, and in the end we parted ways with promises about a rendezvous that never seemed to happen. Luther’s name came up every time. Each of us had a story about him. Mine had a weird lesson to it: While having a good time, no one ever thinks about the consequences until things go wrong. Luther’s fling led to seven kids and a paternity suit settled out of court. He didn’t have a job and wasn’t really able to take care of himself; the kids ended up in a good place once everything panned out. Luther got lucky, even for a dog. Not many stray men could brag about an ending like that.

> If any of you have some ideas or things that you
> do to keep you motivated, would you please share them with me?

Greetings,

Before I go any further, please forgive me if the paragraphs seem disconnected. I’m answering this on the fly between working on other projects throughout the day as the thoughts come to me. Whenever my motivation has been low for whatever reason, I’ve always found it best to take it back old school: Write in baby steps. Set aside at LEAST 10 minutes a day to writing, whether it’s working on a manuscript, notes regarding parts of a manuscript, researching stuff for your manuscript, ideas for other stories, random thoughts, or even reading about writing as a craft and thinking about how to apply it to your manuscript. The beauty in setting aside this 10 minutes a day is that even if you’ve got a family and kids it can be done–just take a notebook or a book with you into the bathroom. The trick here is to come to terms with the fact that no matter how high your personal standards are, everything you write CANNOT be “Hemmingway” — so don’t try to make it as such. Some days you will write great stuff, other days it may come out garbage. Don’t be afraid to delete anything from a manuscript, whether it’s a single word, paragraph, or an entire chapter. The key is to just write like it’s a nervous habit. I’m constantly learning that the more you write and learn about the craft by reading about structure or analyzing other books and movies based on books, the better your writing will become.

Think of writing like acting, singing, or even weightlifting — it’s essentially a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. Start with that consistent 10 minutes a day and you’ll be up to an hour a day and beyond pretty quick. Once you’re at that point, even on the days when you don’t physically write, your mind is still at work on the manuscript. For me it kinda feels like what I’d imagine how a Director visualizes shots while storyboarding a movie. Another thing that I’ve found that helps me is to take time out from writing prose to developing the characters that are going to be in the manuscript. I used to scribble character notes on index cards; now I just keep all that in a string of notes files. There are also programs floating around out there like “New Novelist” that can help with this fleshing out the dimensions of your characters. If you’re into the basics and writing something other than simple genre fiction, define your character’s Hopes, Dreams and Fears. Once you’ve got that, you’ll notice that your characters will come to life because now they have purpose beyond just names on a page. Once they have purpose you’ll probably find it harder to have “writer’s block” since even if you’re not working on the manuscript itself, you’ll be consciously and unconsciously digging up all sorts of things that will make your characters grow. One thing that has worked for me was putting together a Writer’s Kit. Mine has been “The Black Bag”, a Black leather [laptop] backpack. It contains the following:

• a digital notebook (used to be a laptop, now just a PocketPC),
• a digital recorder (the Olympus DM-1 with 10 hours of recording time has proven to be invaluable for on-the-spot interviews and taking mental notes when I’m unable to stop and write),
• a journal-style notebook with 3 or 4 pens (including a highlighter and red pen),
• a printed copy of my current manuscript for markup,
• an MP3 player (that also doubles as a portable data storage device),
• misc batteries and power adapters,
• and sometimes a digital camera (when traveling or for special occasions).

The Black Bag has enabled me to capture sights and sounds and write almost all of my manuscript away from home–in airports, trains, planes, bars, and restaurants from Virginia to California to New York to the Virgin Islands and everywhere between. I can’t say what will work for you, but this has enabled me to consistently work on my manuscript at *least* 2 hours a day, whether it’s writing, compiling info, or research. Anyway, hope some of those thoughts and ideas help.

Good luck with it.

– Max

> I’m interested in hearing any response to this question. I’m looking
> into publishing for myself…going through the research phase for the
> best solution. My question to you: have you looked at multiple
> quotes to compare prices? The price quote below seems really
> expensive for 120 pages (especially since their only using 60 pages
> since it is double-sided). For those of you who have went through
> this process, please give feedback. My head is spinning right now
> because I’m looking into self-publishing…getting everything all
> twisted up since their is so much information out their. Are POD
> services the right way to go? You’re not really self-publishing
> since the POD owns the ISBN and not you!

FYI, there’s a common misconception between POD printers (Print On Demand, the technology) and a POD publishers. Self-publishing through a POD publisher you are essentially publishing using their resources and ISBN number but you’re paying for it. It’s essentially a cousin of subsidy or vanity publishing.

POD printers refer to print houses that utilize POD technology to produce books and offer other services to customers ranging from self-publishers to larger independent publishing houses. Many don’t offer any support as far as ISBN numbers, editorial, or graphic design support — all they want is your finished layout in electronic format, how many you want printed, and your payment for those copies. Once you’ve gotten your book set up with a POD printer, basically you’re always just a phone call away from getting another batch printed and shipped, whether it’s sent directly to you, distributor/wholesaler or a bookseller, usually ranging from between 1 and 1000 copies at a pop. If you’re looking at self-publishing and really want control over your destiny, this is the way to go. Set up your own company, get your own block of 10 ISBN numbers from Bowkers (I think they only sell them in minimums of 10-blocks now), and read up on all the do’s and don’ts of the endeavor. A book you definitely want to read before embarking on this trip is “The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book, 14th Edition” (by Dan Poynter, Para Publishing, ISBN #1568600887). If you’re serious about self-publishing, don’t bother checking it out of a library; the book itself is a must-have. You’ll end up reading and rereading it till the pages begin to curl.

Even though some might disagree with this, but when it comes to looking at self-publishing as a means to get your book in print, approach the entire project as a labor of love versus a strictly money-making venture. Unless you’re someone who is actively touring and can sell your books in the back of the room (e.g. – poet, self-help/motivational speaker, subject expert, etc), you’ll find that the toughest part of the equation is distribution. Although larger distributors like Ingram have special programs set up for small publishers, they still shy away from the one-shot self-publishers because, well, most self-publishers only have one book to sell and many haven’t put their book through the rigorous editorial and quality controls that established publishers tend to. With that in mind, that might contribute to the collection of horror stories that are circulating around. Producing a marketable book (cover design, layout, proofreading/substantive editing, printing) can easily cost a few thousand dollars minimum, not including miscellaneous fees, marketing, promo and shipping expenses. Most people that make the self-publishing trek eventually run into the Distribution Problem; effectively it’s the main Barrier to Entry into the Publishing Game that keeps larger publishing houses and POD publishers (e.g. – Xlibris, etc) in business. Once encountered, the self-publisher will find him/herself at an interesting crossroads where they end up doing one of a few things:

1. Selling copies while doing speaking engagements or readings with varying degrees of success (depends on the subject, the author, newsworthiness, quality of content, etc),
2. Occasionally selling copies online or by word of mouth, sometimes giving them away to friends and family as gifts,
3. Decide to grow a small publishing company (starting out as a side business) by building up enough of a catalog of works by other authors (including themselves), and using this as a means of leveraging their way into some good distribution deals,
4. Luck into a deal to sell the book to a larger publisher after having made the proof of concept work,

- or -

5. They get impatient or completely turned off by the whole publishing idea and walk away from it pissed, never looking back.

I started as #2 and ended up steadfast in slot #3. Again, as a labor of love, the expense just to reach those crossroads isn’t that bad. You love what you do, what you’ve written about, and by taking that self-publishing journey you’ve probably learned alot of things along the way about yourself, the craft, and God knows what else. Now, embarking on self-publishing as a task to serve a strictly as a money-making business venture, it’s a different story.

The Publishing industry isn’t exactly barnstorming CNBC with stories of high yield profits, especially these days with all the shifts between old and new technologies and business practices. Larger publishing houses are running on shoestring budgets to get maximum profits, wholesalers are still getting their books at a fraction of the cost from the publishers, and once technologies such as digital ink and e-paper become stable enough for widespread use in the marketplace, the publishing industry is going to undergo other sweeping transformations as rapid as those that hit the music industry after the invention of MP3s and the iPOD. Hope that helps. Whatever is going to happen over the next 10-20 years, it’s going to be interesting. Enjoy the ride.

Good luck with it.

– Max

Thanks to a pretty vicious attack from spambots (imagine the digital equivalent of brain tumors), currently I’m in the process of rebuilding the BGP website. Going through the damage done to the previous CMS’ database was like editing footage from the L.A Riots of ’92.

Although these spambots were good, luckily it was Amateur Night when they found and used that exploit. Aside from all the garbage and spam they jammed into the backend database, my articles and stories were still intact! As a result I’ve managed to recover them and will be slowly reposting them again over the coming weeks.

My mother taught me how to see everything as either a Blessing or a Lesson Learned. Everything happens for a reason. As this new site comes together I feel it is also indicative of new vision onboard this merry ship on the high seas. Amidst the financial mayhem of 2009, BGP and its associates will thrive.

Take care and thanks for your patience.

– Max Nomad

(Repost, originally published on the BGP site in Summer, 2007)

NOTE: As of this writing, this blog entry is way over a month late. When I started writing it I knew it wasn’t going to be on time. I knew it had to be right, as well as next in the sequence or I’d regret it. Well, as usual, real life got in the way but it’s finally done. It’s long as hell but there was much to say. Ironically, I finished editing this blog entry just after midnight on 8/8/07, minutes after Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run, topping the record set by Hank Aaron.

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. SOMETIME AFTER 3AM, JUNE 23RD, 2007 — Juneteenth is one of those unofficial ‘official’ holidays that comes and goes among African-Americans. It’s not on most calendars, nor am I sure it will ever be. The occasion is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, originally commemorating the abolition of slavery in Texas on June 19th but has slowly spread to other states. Here in Virginia it’s usually celebrated in some fashion on the 19th or the closest weekend. I got word from my mother that WICU (Women in Christ United), a local group based out of her church, had put together a day trip to Baltimore for a Black History tour. The ringer about the trip was that most of the passengers were WICU, comprised of ladies well into their 50s and 60s. This wasn’t your granddaddy’s kind of church ladies either. They were a new breed, the generation that grew up in Jim Crow, fought for Civil Rights, and now that many of them are grandmothers and great-grandmothers they have a feisty, sense of not-giving-a-damn that elders seem to be entitled to. The fact that each one of them moved at their own speeds, including slow motion, was going to make the trip even more interesting, especially since a bus trip of this nature couldn’t have happened a little over 40 short years ago. Because of them and the day looked like it was going to be a kinetic time-traveling experience between the past and present, this Juneteenth promised to be one to remember.

Being one of the few adult males on the trip, I was introduced to George, one of my mother’s friends and member of her church. By the time I finished helping him load up the refreshment coolers and was able to get on the bus I had no choice but to take a seat in the back. It seemed ironic for this kind of trip since many of the passengers. The bus ended up with just the right number of passengers. Much to my surprise I had plenty of space and legroom, a rare treat on these Greyhound-style tour buses.

Once everyone was on board, the bus driver, a short, brooding brotha about as old as most of the WICU members, caught everyone’s attention and began his dissertation. Balding on top with the scowl of a seasoned Black Shakespearean actor, after I noted that his first name was Isaiah, I struggle hold back from laughing at the rest of his 20-minute speech. He covered every conceivable rule on his bus right down to instructing passengers how to properly urinate in the bus bathroom — plus standing up at the toilet or taking a dump was strictly prohibited. The only thing he didn’t do was demand DNA samples. I would bet money that Mr. Isaiah had already broken his cherry as far as leaving a passenger on the side of the road for breaking more than one of his bus rules.

It was near sunrise by the time we all said a group prayer and the bus was finally under way. Immediately the music switched from diet jazz to gospel. I said another quick prayer, this time for a few hours of sleep. It’s not that I don’t like listening to the Lord’s message put to music or anything like that. Truth be told, the closest sound to gospel that I feel any spiritual connections to are groups out of Africa like Ladysmith Black Mambazo. I knew it was gonna be a long trip if I didn’t get some sleep. Luckily, after sunrise the music stopped and someone popped in a DVD, Tyler Perry’s “Daddy’s Little Girls”.

Figuring the movie was probably a typical Feel Good movie that bordered on being a Black-Chick-Flick, I scrambled to find a comfortable position — the kind that’s almost impossible for a big guy like me to achieve on a bus. Without giving away the story, aside from a few tear-jerker clichés it turned out to be pretty good, especially for general audiences. As I watched a blue-collar brotha working to hold his family together and make his way in the world, I found myself reflecting on all the scenarios I’d encountered where some sistahs would overlook the “nice” brothas because they either weren’t so-called thugs or ballers flush with bling or they weren’t working in some white-collar field where they could be earning six-figures or more — and then they’d complain after they’ve hooked up with a smooth-talking jerk that ended up doing them wrong. Although the movie had a happy ending, I thought about how it rarely worked out that way for brothas faced with those situations.

Sometime around mid-morning the bus pulled up at the Great Blacks on Wax Museum in Baltimore. After a few minutes I noticed some kind of drama begin to unfurl. I had no idea what was happening but it had both Mrs. Goode and Mr Isaiah outside on their cell phones, furiously pacing back and forth like disgruntled executives. That’s where Greg(?), our tour guide, boarded the bus and we headed out on the tour.

As the bus wheeled through town Greg told us stories about the ‘Then and Now’ of parts of Baltimore. ranging from tales of once-thriving venues where people like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald used to appear on the Chitlin’ Circuit (a loosely-knit route of venues where Black musicians could performed along the east coast) to where the original NAACP building once stood to the projects where HBO’s show “The Wire” were filmed on location. I don’t know about the others, but I found myself amazed at the contrast. I could see it all, then and now, as if I was watching two films recorded at the same places 50-years apart and projected on a screen at the same time. I saw phantoms walking along the streets that were once thriving nightlife scenes and hubs of cultural Black pride amidst more than a few of the spots that were either now something else or the evidence of their existence had been reduced to boarded up buildings or empty lots with historical landmark signs. We might as well have been riding past archaeological digs filled with rare dinosaur bones — except those bones were more likely to be reconstructed to their full glory.

Eventually we pulled up and stopped in front of Orchard Street Church. Built in 1837, rebuilt in 1859 and rebuilt again in 1882, legend has it that this church was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, sometimes headed up Harriet Tubman. I was the last to exit the bus and as I paused beside my mother next the door to get my camera ready for indoor shots, Mr Isaiah began to vent. Apparently the original bus driver’s bus broke down so the tour bus company hired him as a replacement and, due to some communication breakdown, he thought he was going to just drop us off back at the wax museum. Well, not only did this conflict with the plans and the contract, Mrs. Goode wasn’t having it since the group had paid for an entire day trip. Because Mr Isaiah had been up since 3am, this conflicted with some new safety law that drivers had to either have a relief driver or sleep after so many hours on the road. Long story short, he was pissed and had the attitude of a rattlesnake. He was stuck with us and it was the fault of the tour bus company. I’m not sure why he decided to share all this with me but based on his initial speech I had a feeling he wasn’t going to take this turn of events with ease. Any old man named Isaiah with Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies wasn’t prone to bullshit around.

Once I caught up to the rest of the group inside the church, we were led down many flights of steps to the basement level. Already packed with people, on one side of this cramped space was the half-bricked up remnants of a huge furnace; the other was an opening to a long dark crawlspace, referred to as ‘tunnels’ by our tour guide. Since the tunnels were pitch black in each direction, I stuck my camera inside and took a few snapshots.

Upon looking at photos of the illuminated crawlspaces I knew I would have died trying make it through. I’d seen coffins with more elbow room. Apparently slaves used to come in from the outside through these small heating ducts and emerged here in the bowels of the church — or this was how they left the sanctuary. Either way, after a bunch of people walked down all those steps only to crowd around down there it was hot. I couldn’t conceive how it must have been with a raging coal-stoked fire that was fierce enough to heat the entire church without the aid of electric blowers, straight out of Dante’s “Inferno” with temperatures well over several hundred degrees. It reminded me of the kinds of sacrifices African-American ancestors made just to survive and be free — and how many Blacks today take it for granted as if it happened a thousand years ago. Admittedly, sometimes I did too.

After seeing the tunnels we were guided back upstairs to the main seating area of the church. A two-story tall brass pipe organ loomed overhead as we slowly entered one by one; with each step even the wooden floors creaked with hollow reverence as if they had their own secrets to tell. With a loud hush to his tone, Greg announced that if we were all quiet enough the Ghost of Harriet Tubman might come out and speak to us — and once everyone settled into their seats, an eerie silence swelled. Just then, a waif of a woman slowly peered in from a dimly-lit entrance near the organ. As she walked toward the open floor it was impossible not to notice her face, gaunt with the pain of ages in every wrinkle except for the steel in her eyes.

As she captivated the audience with her story, I thought about how everything Greg had pointed out there at the church began with “Legend has it that–”. My logical side started to wonder why. Was it because historians lacked proof? Was this some sort of tourist-trap scam? Or was it because of some legal issue, like being liable for false claims? For such an old frail woman, as Harriet Tubman’s ghost gave her speech her presence swelled to that of a Goliath, echoing high into the ceiling as if she was an impending thunderstorm. For those few minutes I forgot that this was an actress. She was Harriet Tubman. The power behind her delivery was intense enough to make me realize something: We were listening to the history of people fighting against oppression, surviving during a time where paper trails could get them killed, Blacks and Whites alike. It didn’t matter that she had on shoes with heels that no one would even consider wearing while running through pitch-black forests. It didn’t matter that the musket gun she held was a souvenir sold at gift shops near Colonial Williamsburg — a cheap child-size version of a musket from a period almost 100 years before the real Harriet Tubman was born. Something about it all reminded of a quote from the movie ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’: When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. I realized that it didn’t matter whether or not Harriet Tubman regularly used this church as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The truth was that it happened constantly all around these parts and Tubman was an icon, just one of many helping slaves escape to freedom. Not to take anything away from her amazing courage but when heroes don’t exist, sometimes it’s necessary to invent (or appoint) them just to keep the spirit of a story’s meaning alive to impact future generations. In cases like this, the power of the story and the moral behind such great accomplishments mattered most. The actual details of who did what, where, and when bordered on irrelevant.

Once Harriett Tubman finished addressing our group, Greg made sure to introduce the actress and tell us about her achievements. I didn’t catch her real name or most of her details but she was an 84-year old still delivering her lines with the heart of a Lioness a third of her age. As I took a photo of my mom with her, I had a hunch that somewhere, somehow her work was appreciated.

Shortly after everyone was back on the bus and we were under way, one of the WICU ladies squealed “Ohh Lawd” somewhere up front just as the bus swerved hard to the right. Mr. Isaiah was busy speeding through crosstown traffic, inventing lanes where there were none. He was pissed. At any given instant we were at the mercy of high g-force turns that sent passengers plowing face-first into each other and the backs of seats. Cars that once felt entitled to cutting in front of the bus suddenly honked in terror. Pedestrians scattered like frightened kids. Occasional screams and curses squawked outside as the bus engine revved and streaked onward. All of it seemed to happen at the same time. Watching the church ladies up front endure all the near accidents, suddenly the back of the bus was the place to be. Because of their reactions, I almost felt guilty laughing at every near miss. George and his wife were sitting in the back with me. He seemed completely comfortable with the ride as we discussed the philosophical aspects of dealing with being Black in Corporate America and laughed every time the bus swerved to avoid an accident. Ultimately we arrived at our next destination in record time.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Baltimore, our second stop was Hampton National Park, once one of the biggest plantations of the south, if not America. Owned by the Ridgely family during 1700s and 1800s, by comparison this was the equivalent of the Trump Towers back then. In its heyday the estate covered 25,000 acres, about half the size of modern day Baltimore. Compared to other plantations I’d visited, this place was a resort. The slave quarters were small condominiums. The overseer’s house was bigger than some restaurants I’d visited. Up on a hill about a mile off in the distance was the Hampton Mansion itself, the master’s house. From our vantage point the building was mostly obscured by trees and it still looked bigger than the Governor’s mansion in Virginia.

The Hampton tour guide was a white park ranger, which I found odd and even a little awkward at first. Although I had no problem listening to a white man sharing history of slave life, I could also tell he was probably a genuinely nice man. The plantation was about 18 miles away from Pennsylvania, a Northern free state; it was a little over half a marathon to freedom for any slave that wanted to make a break for it. I had no idea where the Orchard Street Church was in proximity to this plantation but it didn’t matter. Standing out in the midday summer sun, my problem with listening to the ranger describe life on the plantation I couldn’t help but feel the lingering presence of countless slaves that tried to escape — and failed. Just like with the other plantations, I was anxious to leave.

The next stop was a buffet lunch at some hotel where I had the privilege of listening to my mother and Mrs. Goode vent their frustrations about Mr. Isaiah while conspiring to take him down along with the bus company and anything else that was evil in the world. Mr. Isaiah was in earshot but he didn’t seem to care. He felt he was in the right. Mrs. Goode and my mother felt we were in the right. Both sides were at the mercy of the tour bus company’s mistake, albeit I sensed that the company knew exactly what they were doing. As I ate lunch the only thing I hoped for was that tensions didn’t continue to mount. Something about the WICU ladies was the AARP’s equivalent of street gang from ‘West Side Story’; some carried canes. Mr. Isaiah didn’t seem like a man that would back down, either. All I wanted to do was make sure we all got home without incident.

Our final stop, The Great Blacks on Wax Museum, turned out to be both an inspiration and a bit of a letdown at the same time. To clarify, I loved the concept — a non-profit dedicated to teaching African-American history and allowing people to put past lives into perspective by showing people that only existed in books and films for most of us. I found it humbling to stand almost face to face a few feet away from folks like Benjamin Banneker, Bill Pickett, James Baldwin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ida B Wells, and Marcus Garvey — people that either contributed to civilization as a whole or gave their lives to change my life — and I’d never get a chance to thank in person. The person that made me pause was George Washington Carver. Aside from the fact that he reminded me of my late grandfather John Lee (my aunts and uncles called him ‘Judge’, Mr. Carver always appealed to the 8-year old in me, when everything was possible for a Mad Scientist that stayed true to his game plan. Even though I’d heard about Mr. Carver in school, it wasn’t until Judge told me about meeting him one afternoon that the legend came to life. Judge was a porter on the railroad in the South at the time. The train had just pulled out and one of the cooks was bragging about shaking Carver’s hand as he boarded. Judge, apparently awestruck by the possibility of meeting any Negro he’d read about in the papers, wasted no time going to meet the man. “Mr. Carver was reading a book when I walked up; he closed the book, looked up and smiled,” Judge said as he patted my head and wistfully re-lit his cigar then continued, “After some small talk he admitted that in his travels through the south he wasn’t used to seeing too many Negro cabin porters. He said it was good to see me in that position; it meant that times were changing.”

Judge went on to explain how he became a porter. It was sometime in the 1942 when he landed his first job with the railroad; the only reason he knew that was because Grandmomma Jesse was pregnant with Aunt Shirley, about two years before my father was born. Because he had come from the farming world and needed the money to support his wife and four (soon to be five) daughters, he accepted a starting position as a janitor. Eventually, he set his sights on becoming one of the porters, mostly because he needed the raise. When he asked his boss about the position he was told that he wasn’t qualified. By the way his boss responded without a second thought, he could tell they weren’t trying to make the job available to him because he was Black man that barely had an 8th grade education. In order to get that job he had be able to read as well as know all the stops on their route between Shreveport, Louisiana and Kansas City. Determined to get that position, Judge decided to train himself. Night after night, as he cleaned the offices he rummaged through the garbage and collected notes from all the office memos and read through them at home. Soon he learned what tests we required for the porter position so he began studying in secret until the day he got the job. That was how he provided for his family. His wife, Grandmomma Jesse, was a teacher that earned her Masters and eventually became a Reverend, engaged her own things like ghostwriting to support their children — but that’s another story for another time. Although Judge never explained how he learned everything necessary for the position, as I grew older and wiser over the years I came to suspect that he did it by taking manuals home at night and returning them early the next morning. Years after he passed away I ended up employing the same techniques to learn many things that I didn’t know that would enable me to land jobs I wasn’t supposed to win. Chalk it up to a genetic trait. After all, he was my father’s father.

When I returned reality, Mr. Carver’s statue was still staring my way as if lost in thought. Ever since my grandfather told me about meeting the man that took a peanut and used it to change the face of American agriculture forever, I’ve always believed that if I worked toward my dreams and goals I could make things happen, too.

The museum basement was a steamy, cramped parlor of perils dedicated to every conceivable horror Black people have endured in this since we reached these shores. It was a menagerie of brutal lynching photos that was on par with the Hall of Fame for most professional sports teams, surrounded by statistics of body counts that rivaled the total casualties from Hurricane Andrew. Since I’d already learned this aspect of Black History on my own, seeing it again was like a trip back to when I flunked pre-Algebra in 8th-grade and had to take it again in summer school — painfully uncomfortable to relive but necessary in some unseen way. The only thing that bothered me about this museum was that half the exhibits looked like strange mannequins with blank faces with unnatural skin tones and the other half were nothing short of masterpieces. Because the statues in both the slave ship and lynching galleries resembled life-size Negro lawn jockies with the facial expressions of zombies, part of me wanted to see them have the same real sense of identity like the named historical figures. After leaving the museum I figured out a possible artistic reason for these poorly done sculptures: — they weren’t being treated like humans to begin with.

Back on the bus, silence prevailed on the trip back to Virginia Beach; everyone was spent. Even Mr. Isaiah had chilled out with his Road Warrior driving tactics after he got a nap while the rest of us were inside the museum. Two movies were played during the trip back — “Pursuit of Happyness” and “Dream Girls”. “Pursuit” reminded me of my own crazy “all or nothing” business dealings over the years and how I couldn’t have made it to this point without my family. I would have been flat broke and homeless without them. “Dream Girls”, in all its musical glory, struck me as a cautionary tale about how fame and fortune can tear people apart if they’re not well-grounded, almost an extreme parody of what’s happened within the Black community since the Civil Rights movement. Although my grandfather’s story helped me understand that I could achieve the American Dream, both movies reminded me that anything could happen and if my soul wasn’t right with God, it would be easy to fall to the dark side without warning.

Back in Virginia Beach at the parking lot we departed from, everyone slowed filed off the bus and went their separate ways. Aside from being happy that we all made it back safe without incident, I felt bad because no one wanted to take up a tip collection for Mr. Isaiah. When I brought up the fact that short-changing on his tip was a very un-Christian-like thing to do, several of the WICU ladies begrudgingly began to reconsider. I took the initiative to give him a tip. He said thanks and turned it down. When I pushed the issue he said something to the effect that he’d be alright and that if the customer wasn’t satisfied he didn’t deserve a tip. Although his name would live in infamy among the WICU ladies, I have to admit I had to respect the man — he was a brotha that lived by a code and stuck to it.

A little later I went to my favorite watering hole to begin my late night writing ritual and organize my thoughts for this blog entry. The first thing I glanced at was my backpack as I dug out my PDA and sketchbook as I glanced around the bar — it was wrapped with with chatty people of all races but still sparse, mostly filled employees that just got off work from nearby restaurants. Bob Marley’s “Redemption” song eased its way into the music mix, something that prompted me to dedicate my first drink to those ancestors that got us here. I miss my grandparents but I won’t get into that now. This blog is already long as hell and I didn’t want to get misty-eyed while sitting in a bar.

After watching Harriet Tubman’s ghost speak at a church along the Underground Railroad and see tunnels slaves probably had to crawl through to get in and out, walking through the remains of one of the biggest slave plantations in the South, seeing images of past lynchings, perils endured by escaped slaves, the various tools of inhumane punishment and revisiting my late grandfather and George Washington Carver, I felt a renewed sense of pride. When visions of my grandparents — Ford and Essie, Judge and Jesse — came to mind, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of invincibility. Somehow my family lines survived it all to raise me and my younger brothers — and based on our mindsets, had we been born just a few generations earlier I was pretty sure we would have lived very different lives — nowhere near the comparatively easy lives we enjoy today. Even in the worst way, this was a reminder to be proud of my bittersweet heritage AND the life here in America. Today I’m free, or as Sly Stone once said in a song, at least in my mind if I want to be.

On my backpack I always keep an antique skeleton key hanging from one of the zippers. An older computer hacker associate gave it to me 20 years ago, shortly before he vanished without a trace. Since then it has always served as a reminder that I can always retain my personal freedom no matter what the circumstances are. All I had to do is put my mind and heart into it.

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]]> http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/juneteenth-judges-story-and-mr-isaiahs-immaculate-bus-a-strange-trip-back-into-my-black-experience/feed/ 0 http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/memorial-day-reflections-and-thoughts-of-the-missing-bell/ http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/memorial-day-reflections-and-thoughts-of-the-missing-bell/#comments Mon, 28 May 2007 22:36:26 +0000 Max Nomad http://www.bgpublishing.com/bgp/?p=104

It’s a balmy 77 degrees this morning, expected to rocket into the 90s within a few hours. There’s alot going on in the area but chances are I’ll skip most of it. The heat, the crowds, and the hoopla seem to have much less appeal with each passing year. There’s a Sopranos marathon being shown on A&E and something tells me I’ll probably be watching it off and on and reading up on writing screenplays until after sunset.

Memorial Day to me, for whatever reason, always comes with a combination of optimistic Summer expectations and a hint of reflective melancholy for simpler times and those who couldn’t be here. Of course there are marches here and there to honor the fallen vets but what I never hear about are the other casualties of war — some of the vets who returned psychologically and emotionally scarred from putting their lives on the line and their families and marriages that ultimately paid the price.

I think back to Memorial Day weekend, 1975. My father was a Chief Petty Officer on the USS Belknap at the time. He was in his early 30s and most of the guys under his command were in their late teens to early 20s. That weekend he decided to have a cookout and invite all his friends, my adopted uncles and aunts, and his guys. Everyone partied like, well, like sailors. Blow-out afros, women wearing shorts and skirts with pretty legs, and dudes with open-chest shirts with most of the buttons undone. Funk, Jazz and Soul music seemed to be everywhere I went, inside and out. Beer and booze was flowing. Anything that ever had feathers, fins or hooves ended up on the grill.  There were even a few people smoking joints here and there, including enlisted men and a couple of people I’d swear were officers at the time. As some of the guys got nice and wasted, they began to relive sea stories about their collective adventures while on shore leave in different countries. I remember that in more than a few of the tales there was a drunken brawl of some sort and my father would end up jumping into it to pull his guys out of the fire, get them safely back to the ship, or in some other way scramble to pull one of them out of trouble. By that time they didn’t care that I was a 6-year old kid hanging out listening to the unadulterated mayhem of grown folks, although anytime my mother or father walked up on a conversation they’d send me to my room. Once they were gone I would sneak back in to listen to their stories, and they had no problem telling them with me around, almost as if I was a little brother in some strange way out of respect for my father. The next morning I remember walking downstairs to watch PBS, the only pre-cable TV source of children’s shows on a Sunday, and discovered that most of his guys had just passed out wherever they found a spot — on the floor, on the couches, in chairs, in doorways, and even on the patio.

I don’t remember whether it was days or weeks later but the next thing I recall is the Belknap heading back out to sea for what seemed like it would be forever. Unlike today where there’s instant communication through the Internet, I remember we, as in Navy families, were lucky if we could speak to our loved ones once every month or so. Since a 10-minute international phone call was more expensive than some utility bills, letters were the cheapest way to go. The seasons had gone from Summer to Fall. Thanksgiving was a few days away. My mother, little brother Jason and I were over at Aunt Montrose’s house. Jason and I were downstairs playing and watching TV when a news bulletin flashed across the screen, something involving the Belknap. I didn’t fully understand what was being said but it also involved The John F Kennedy and I could tell by the news anchor’s expression that it wasn’t good. When I ran upstairs to tell the adults they thought I had seen one of the “Bicentennial Minutes”, on which the Belknap was supposed to be featured at some point. I kept repeating that it wasn’t one of the Bicentennial Minutes and that something bad had happened. My adamant attempts to get them to take me seriously were brushed off as the mistaken musings of a then 7-year old boy. The problem was that I didn’t catch all of news cast to repeat it verbatim. Had I remembered the word “collision” it would have put everything into perspective.

As it turned out, the U.S.S. Belknap (a guided missile cruiser) and the U.S.S. John F Kennedy (a supercarrier, the largest of the aircraft carriers) had collided just off the coast of Sicily, Italy. A few days had passed before we got confirmation that my father was alive and well. Soon after that all the men were flown back to one of the local Naval bases. I was the first to run up and jump into my father’s arms and, somehow, that was the first time I’d sensed that he wasn’t the same man he was when he left. In the days and months to come I learned that it was my father’s men were on watch that night and were the first to begin fighting the fires when it happened. They also comprised most of the seven casualties on the Belknap side, many of the very same faces that had been partying at the house that past Memorial Day.

These days, the doctors probably would have diagnosed my father and many others from that fateful trip with some form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder shortly after they returned home. I’m almost positive of this because my father was never the same after that. Without getting too deep with the family dirty laundry, a few years later my parents separated, the beginning of a long ugly divorce and my brothers and I growing up alienated from our father for years. Echoes of those times constantly remind me that every military casualty has collateral damage, sometimes that carries on for years, the kind that is rarely acknowledged at the parades.

My father rescued the Ship’s Bell from the wreckage, smuggled it back stateside, had it acid-dipped and re-engraved, and placed it inside of a custom-made maple cabinet. Along with the court marshal of Captain Shaffer, the Navy searched high and low for the bell amidst rumors and speculation. As far as I know, the missing Belknap bell is probably among one of the US Navy’s longest running unsolved mysteries. Outside of maybe answering a question or two about the incident itself, my father never talked about the fires or his lost comrades again. Their memories reside in the bell cabinet, beneath the bell in his last Belknap yearbook on a memorial page for the seven Belknap casualties and one on the Kennedy.

So, for this Memorial Day, I also dedicate my thoughts and prayers to the families and friends who were forever affected by loved ones who were lost or wounded in the U.S. military in service to our country.

> Here’s my dilemma: I start a new novel every two years. I get 50-75
> pages into it and I start to lose interest or get a new job or start
> exercising again or get a new flat-screen or …. Ok. You get the
> picture. I’ve started working on a new novel now. I’m determined.
> I even unplugged the television. Any advice??????

First piece of advice, don’t start at Page #1.

Make sure dramatic structure applies to the basic structure of your story…

If Freytag’s Triangle is new to you, click here and start reading.

One of the things I’ve been seeing consistently with novel submissions from many first time novelists is that they’ve put together a story with some interesting scenes and character sketches but has no actual structure to it. Simply put, when that happens the characters don’t know where to go, what to do, or even WHY they’re doing it. Once at that point the writer runs the risk of having everything feel forced or, more commonly, the novel’s momentum completely stalls out and ends up in a proverbial desk drawer.

> Ok. Max. This is some good stuff. I took a look at the Wiki article also. I’ve
> generally approached novel writing as an “attack the head first” approach. But
> perhaps a “soft underbelly” may be the most efficient point of inital attack.
> Max, and others, are you suggesting perhaps writing the climax first?…

Glad the approach is working for you…

Personally, I tend to write stories alot like a film production. Movies are rarely ever filmed in chronological order but schedule their shooting based on a variety of factors. Sometimes major actors have prior contractual agreements (e.g. – also on a TV show) and the shooting schedules partially overlap so they shoot scenes that particular actor isn’t in. Sometimes if a movie takes place across several remote locations the production team will spend up to a few months in each location, shooting all the applicable scenes, then shoot the remainder on sets in a soundstage.

When it comes to your question about writing the climax first I’d say that’s more of a judgment call on your part. If your main climax is built up from a complex chain of events that cause all the characters and events to converge, then yes, writing the main climax first might be the best move. By writing that climax first you can define all the contributing factors then work backwards with each element.

Let’s take that movie “Castaway” (starring Tom Hanks) for example. Because this was about him being stranded on a deserted island, the first major climax in that story is when the flight he was on crashed into the Pacific ocean. By writing that climax first (or very early on in the writing process) you could define what items he has on him at the time of the crash (like the pocketwatch heirloom his girlfriend gave him with her face inside) and then work backwards to define the girlfriend and their relationship as well as all the events leading up to why he was on that fateful flight. Because a majority of the rest of the movie takes place on that island, this climax also defines some of the pieces of civilization that wash ashore with him, establishing certain themes that carry through the rest of the movie (e.g. – Wilson the volleyball).

At other times I’m prone to map the basic chain events but write the most powerful scenes first. Sometimes it’s because they’re critical lynch-pins to the rest of the story. Other times it’s because the scene required research and all that reading is fresh in my mind. Still, other times I might write that first major climax before anything else because it also affords me the chance to make the story leading up to that climax less predictable and I can better control the pace leading up to that climax. another thing I’ve noticed is that if I’m writing a story in a linear fashion, sometimes I have a bad habit of “telegraphing my punch” as far as the upcoming climax is concerned. Not sure if I do it because I’m anxious to get to the climax or that it’s hard to keep it a secret, but when it comes to working backwards it’s easier to remember “Okay, the reader wouldn’t know _______ at this point.” so it’s easy to conceal things (even verbiage that hints at something coming) and make for a bigger surprise once the reader reads it linearly.

Hope that helps… good luck with it.

> Hi I am not a professional writer; however, I have a class project in
> which I am suppose to interview a professional writer and was wondering
> if some one would be willing to answer the following questions:
>
> * What kind of planning do you do before you write? do you make a list?
> Formal or informal outlines?
>
> *How do you compose your drafts? do you dictate? Draft with a pen and
> paper? Compose on screen?
>
> * when you want advice about style. grammer, and spelling what
> source (s) do you consult?
>
> * Do you ever work with other writers to produce a single document?
> If so describe the process you use
>
> Thanks

Simple answers:

*How do you compose your drafts? do you dictate? Draft with a pen and paper? Compose on screen?

Dictation is for doctors and dentists. Speaking your thoughts into a digital recorder is a different thing entirely. With the professional writers that I associate with, a pen and paper doesn’t play much of a role in the drafting process beyond taking down journalist-style notes when away from a computer. Matter of fact, outside of an occasionally meeting a writer born between the late 30s and early 60s, drafting with a pen and paper is typically reserved to poets/spoken word artists/lyricists.

* when you want advice about style. grammer, and spelling what source (s) do you consult?

(1) The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. (this is a must)
(2) The Copyeditor’s Handbook
(3) Dictionary.com
(4) Webster’s Pocket Style Guide (I keep this in my laptop backpack)

* Do you ever work with other writers to produce a single document? If so describe the process you use

I’ve only participated in one collaborative writing effort and, even then, it was only because I was hired to come in after two other writers had been taking turns writing installments for a piece of serial fiction. I took on the project because I wanted a simple part-time challenge and I believe in what this brotha has put together (I write for the online drama the site is Jamal Washington:CEO, a feature on Blackmoneymatters.com. Admittedly, getting started with it was a huge pain because Paige and Sonja, the two writers that handled it before I took over, had completely different styles. One was pretty consistent, the other was all over the map like she was transcribing conversations from that show “The View”. Neither did that good of a job at maintaining consistency with what the other wrote. What I ended up doing was spending a few weeks actually studying everything that was written beforehand so I could get a fix on what the main character had been through, who was in his life, and where to possibly take it from there. I also had to deal with taking care of all the continuity errors, factual errors and anything with the plot that didn’t drive the story forward — all while building a solid foundation that I could conceivably hand-off to another writer someday and eliminate their need to go through the same process. Collaborative writing efforts seem to only work best for non-fiction; for anything else it’s just a pipe dream.

Hope that helps… good luck.