What can Star Trek, Star Wars and J.J. Abrams teach us about setting goals?

Time for a little change of pace and today is going to be a short blog.

Did I just hear a huge sigh of relief? :-)

I saw a news article this morning where J.J. Abrams talks about helming both the Star Trek and Star Wars blockbuster franchises. In two words: he's excited. He's thrilled at being able to mold both fictional universes into visions that make him want to see the upcoming movies. As you all know, I blog about issues that inspire, excite and fill me with optimism. And what could be more optimistic than the human race spreading into the stars (maybe in a more Trek than Wars way :-)?

Imagine that. J.J. Abrams is in control of building both his real and imagined futures. If he does his job right, not only will he be able to cram even more money into his already bursting bank accounts, he'll also be able to enjoy the fictional realities that he creates.

Some day soon, I will get into production notes about both sci-fi extravaganzas, but for today I want to ask you one thing: don't you have the same control over your future as J.J. Abrams has over his?

A few days ago, I talked about what the new tech billionaires can us teach about choosing a life's direction and succeeding. It's not crazy, it's fact. Each of us is in control of his or her future, so why not make it one that thrills you and fills you with anticipation?

Sit down today and write down your wildest, craziest dreams...the ones that excite you, that make you wish somehow, someway you could be that person, do those things. And when chills are coursing up and down your spine and a smile is pasted across your face--

Promise yourself you'll do it!

Now, write down a step you can take today to make those dreams come true. Ignore your doubts, because you can find solutions to every challenge. You can find a way to make your own perfect movie.

Do one thing today. Do it!

Tomorrow? Just one more thing.

'See you in the theaters :-)

What can tech billionaires teach us about success?

Hi, Everyone:

I want to talk with you about something that can change each and every one of our lives, right now, today. But you'll have to give me a few seconds of geekdom to explain the thinking behind this life-changing information. I've been blogging and spreading my optimism about the recent explosion of futuristic technologies for a while now. The emergence of viable space exploration plans, solar power, electric cars, Google's virtual reality glasses and Martin's real-life jetpacks are all going to change our lives...soon. Apple's iPads and iPhones and even Facebook have already changed the landscape of human life. Before that, there was the advent of the PC computer, video games and, of course, the internet.

But today, I'm not here to talk about technology. What I want to discuss is the mindset of the new technical entrepreneurs that have begun to push mankind's future forward at a much faster pace than ever before. And I believe that by sharing this mindset, we can all live and function like mini- or maybe even full-fledged billionaires.

First, let's start with my version of a series of charts that Peter Thiel shared at 2013's South by Southwest (SXSW) convention. SXSW is a music, film and interactive conference that takes place every spring in Austin, Texas. It has become a huge magnet for the tech geniuses of our time. Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, was also the first outside investor in Facebook, way back when it was just a tiny startup. As President of Clarium Capital, Managing Partner of The Founders Fund and Investment Committee Chairperson for Mithril Capital Management, he is now involved with dozens of similar tech companies. In short, Peter is worth an estimated 1.5 billion dollars and, being only in his mid-forties, seems to just be getting started. Here's a version of Peter's chart from the convention:

(concept courtesy of Peter Thiel and SXSW)

 

I have been saying for a long time that these new tech entrepreneurs have a different worldview than the rest of us, and this is largely it. Let's talk about the text in the pink. For the longest time, the US and populations of other developed countries saw the world through a prism of everything getting better. Each generation felt the future was bright and getting brighter. They had optimism and a clear vision of good things to come. That can be found on the above chart in the upper left: "Positive with Direction." To US citizens, that was the way our world looked for most if not all of the 1900s and even into the early-2000s. People in this mode had a clear and positive view of the future and worked steadily toward it.

 

But then something happened. Our world economy began to sink, and today most US citizens have moved into the mindset in the upper right: "Positive but Aimless." We are still optimistic (largely because it's a habit, I suspect) but we aren't really sure why.

 

Bear with me, I promise the theory will be over in a just a few more words. Then we'll talk about changing our lives, right now!

 

According to Peter, most of the rest of the developed world, China, India, Europe, etc... feel much less positive about the future. They believe things will probably get worse, even if they're not exactly sure how. These people fall into the lower right hand category: "Negative and Aimless."

 

Now the worst category of thinkers would be in be the lower left: "Negative with Direction." These people are not only pessimistic about the future, they are also certain that it's going straight to doom and gloom. They have a vision...but it's for disaster.

 

The terms within the quadrants describe which types of companies/systems generally thrive in each of the four environments. Of course, we all understand that "Wartime Rationing" means that almost no company is doing well.

 

The "Insurance" section also makes sense. People that believe the future is bleak and uncertain will likely invest in insurance to cover those losses. In that quadrant, insurance companies will be the big financial winners. Peter Thiel believes this is why Warren Buffet's largely insurance-centric companies have done so well, because so many countries currently have a bleak outlook on the future.

 

The upper-right quadrant is for companies that are optimistic but lack vision. They tend to spread their product development out among many lines (think Sony) and assume that some percentage of their goods will sell well. In truth, those successes are not at all certain, and the companies earning most in this environment are the legal and financial firms in the background.

 

Finally (yes, we're near the end of the background stuff), companies that are "positive with direction" have a clear vision for the future and develop specific plans to get there. Pixar's and Apple's high-quality successes come to mind.

 

The exciting thing is that anyone with clear vision and direction can not only survive but thrive in any of the four environments. That means that simply by changing our mindset we can enjoy the same bright and definite futures as those positive tech companies.

 

 

I hate to complicate the issue, but there is one more key difference in the way modern tech entrepreneurs think. Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla Motors, SolarCity) says that his successes largely boil down to a single thing: he does not reason by analogy; he instead reverts to the scientific method. What that  means is that his companies do not look to the success or failure of any other company or product to manage their own plans. They instead assume a strong direction and then focus on solving whatever problems they need to to get there. Tesla Motors, for instance, doesn't care that GM's Volt can only travel 40 miles on a charge. Nor does it care that Toyota's RAV4 EV has a range of only 100 miles. Tesla started from scratch and built an all electric car that can travel an average of 240 miles on a single charge. One man traveling at 18mpg actually went 400 miles on a single charge, recently. The Tesla Company set out to solve the need for one-charge traveling range from the ground up. It created an all-new aluminum frame, new battery designs and the most light and streamlined chassis it could conceive.

 

What does this mean for us? Two things. First, there are companies--dozens of them--that are pushing the edges of science and are perfecting products previously believed impossible (aforementioned Martin Jetpacks and Google virtual reality glasses, are two good examples) so there is reason to believe that whole new industries with hundreds of thousands of jobs will continue to emerge.

 

More importantly, what if each and every one of us were to examine our lives? What if we decided to be in the quadrant of optimists with a clear direction for our future? What if we followed Elon Musk's advice and ignored all the outside evidence about what was possible or impossible and instead focused on the maximum possible that we can accomplish? You might be the next JK Rowling, Tom Cruise or Elon Musk. You might have the most amazing idea for creating a bakery, a garden or an industry that could change the world. What if you decided to unleash all of your talents in a planned and positive way and that you were not going to take 'no' for an answer? What if you could find a way to truly make your core dreams come true? 

 

I sincerely think you can. 

 

How about we both start right now?!

 

 

How to write tension: hooking readers from the opening line…

Don Maass , author and literary agent, says that tension is one of the most important and misunderstood factors in fiction. Michael Halperin, novelist and Hollywood screenwriter extraordinaire, felt tension was so important that he actually included it in the title to his 2003 how-to book “Writing the Second ACT: Building Conflict and Tension in Your Film Script.” If you were to do a Google search for “writing tension,” you would have months of homework before you got to the end of the most applicable pages.

So what does all of this mean? First, let me give you my standard disclaimer: I’m just a guy who writes. Though twenty-five years behind a keyboard and a quarter million books downloaded in the last couple of years might suggest some credibility, the truth is that for every idea I have about the craft of building stories and novels, there are dozens of authors who have done exactly the opposite and have hit one or more bestseller lists. Please trust your own judgment and voice first, because ultimately that is what will earn you a place on national bookshelves. The ultimate goal for every mainstream author should be individuality that resonates with a large audience.

Merriam-Webster’s first definition of tension is:  the act or action of stretching or the condition or degree of being stretched to stiffness/tautness. I think this is an apt description of tension in story. It would be the act of stretching out a plot. Hook the reader with a mystery, a crises, a fascinating detail…then stretch that point throughout the next few pages, chapters or maybe even the entire book. Piers Anthony says that the key to being a great novelist is learning to hook a reader like a fish, and then slowly but inexorably reel them in. They should be gasping for breath on the beach by the end of the book.

Let’s look at Merriam-Webster’s second definition: either of two balancing forces causing or tending to cause extension. I also like this definition as applied to story. Two balancing forces might be your antagonist and your protagonist, and the tension might be a tug of war between them. I could go on to describe how successful novels might have the antagonist winning that game right until near the end of the book when our hero comes out ahead. But we’re creeping too far from our original discussion.

 Merriam Webster’s sixth definition for tension is: a device to produce a desired tension (as in a loom). Of all the definitions, this is my favorite because I think a loom is a perfect visual comparison to every story. Imagine a loom frame with threads stretching from left to right. Other threads are also stretching from top to bottom. Each thread represents a facet of your story.

Let’s say we’re writing about a poor family struggling to survive after the disappearance of the bread-winning father during the depression. In this story, one thread might be grief, another fear, another hunger. Other threads might represent different bill collectors, broken items in the house, and altercations between the children, the mother, and maybe even the equally poor neighbors. No matter what the ingredients are, all must be stretched tightly across our loom…all must have tension. What does that mean exactly? Let’s illustrate with our depression story while we use Piers’ fishing analogy. First and foremost, we must hook our reader early. We must come up with a unique opening that will intrigue our reader. Maybe something like this:

“I’ll have another!” Darrel Babcock yelled to the barkeep. He slammed his whiskey glass down on the polished wood counter to make his point.

“You’re usually the most broke feller in the place,” the balding bartender said. “So where’d you get that wad tonight?”

Darrel glanced at imaginary blood on the backs of his hands and shook his head.

“You don’t want to know, Mitch. You don’t want to know.”

So what have we done? By making our reader ask, “Where did Darrel get the money?” and, “Who did he have to hurt to do it?” we have set our first hook.

Now our job is to reel our reader further into the story. We might slowly reveal details of Darrel’s potential killing. We might introduce two thugs in the bar who pay particularly close attention to the “wad of money” comment. No matter what we do next, it’s important to remember that this early in the novel we should not give the reader a break. We need to keep on reeling them into the story until there is no turning back. What that means is we must continually, paragraph by paragraph, add more tension. How? Let’s say we devote the next scene to Darrel’s wife:

Seeing her neighbor through the kitchen curtain, Abigail Babcock wiped her eyes and opened the door a crack.

“Are they gone?” she whispered.

Widow Nelson gasped. “What did they do to you?”

Abby’s hand fluttered to cover her swelling cheek.

“I think Darrel’s in trouble!”

So what we hope to have done is set yet another hook by increasing the tension. Now our readers (notice we now have more than one J) are worried for Abby while also being reminded of the mystery surrounding Darrel’s possibly ill-gotten windfall. We have successfully pulled our readers closser to the end of our story. If we wanted to return to our second analogy, we could also say that we have now begun stretching a second thread of tension across our loom.

Next, we should scene-by-scene continue to create tension that will draw our reader further and further into our fictional world. In short, tension is simply a reason to keep reading. Of course, there are many kinds of tension: fear, loss, mystery, anticipation, dread, curiosity, and the romance writers’ favorite...sexual tension. Effective novelists use a mix of most if not all of the above. In the case of our depression story, we could and should continue to unravel the mystery of what Darrel has done, but a new type of tension might introduce shame when he leaves the bar…maybe something like this:

Darrel stumbled out into the back alley. Blurred eyes peered both ways. He knew he had to return home to Abby and the kids, but after only two steps he collapsed to his knees and cried.

Now we’ve introduced a new aspect to his mystery. Did he kill an innocent man? We could still ramp it up:

Visions of a stuffed dog falling from lifeless hands flashed across his mind.

Did he kill a child?

We can continue to play out this mystery and keep our readers enthralled, but as we switch from scene to scene we also need to introduce other types of tension. Maybe he could be attacked (violence/survival). Maybe the wife could receive an eviction notice (dread). Maybe Abigail’s parents could get wind of some malfeasance (more shame). Maybe Abby sees the Widow Nelson laughing and whispering with the thug who hit her (mystery/betrayal).

Obviously, we have endless ways to keep the reader enthralled and wanting to read onward. But what if we come to an important scene that doesn’t involve the obvious tensions of violence, mystery or new questions? Let’s say we want to have Abigail play blocks with her baby boy. Fisherman will often say the challenge to catching a big fish is to reel them in slowly, while occasionally letting them have extra line so they will get tired and won’t break free. That toy block scene might be that extra fishing line. BUT let’s remember how easy it is for a fish to get away and a reader to close a book. Wouldn’t it be best to endow those slower story moments with more tension? Maybe the toy block’s color remind Abby of the dress she had to sell to pay for groceries. Maybe the baby cries because of an ear infection, an infection Abby has no money to cure. Maybe…maybe…maybe…

If we are continually looking for moments to ramp up the tension, we will pull our readers to the very last page…where they will happily gasp for more.