Welcome to my newsletter!

Hey, Reader,

I've got a lot to say today.

First.

You can write a taunt mystery thriller with cold-blooded culprits, brain-busting clues, and a climax no one saw coming …

If you get out of your own way.

What the heck!

Okay, before you start (or finish) saying things about my ancestry or calling me names under your breath, let me explain.

You are among the ranks of thousands of other writers on this planet who have, without knowing it, struggled to write the stories screaming in their brains since the dawn of civilization.

This is largely due to a lack of self-confidence or experience, a lack of methodology, or a plan that would make it possible for them to accomplish their writing goals.

That’s you stopping you. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Let me give you a quick story to help illustrate this point.

The Tale.

A young student of mine from another country developed this screenplay for a short film assignment. This meant he had to tell his story in 12 minutes, and so he worked really hard. I guided him and the other students in figuring out the various aspects of a screenplay: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and conclusion.

He went through the other classes and filmed his movie on a very, very, very low budget—a few hundred dollars.

The film was about two friends who applied for a job at this company. They were interviewed by the same person, and when the interview was over, Friend A shook the interviewer's hands and said, “I hope my friend and I can get a job here.” Then he went out the door.

As Friend B shakes hands with the interviewer, he slips him some money and basically says, “You hook me up; I'll take care of you.”

Well, Friend B not only gets a job, but he gets a good job.

As he rises up the ladder, he ensures that Friend A doesn't. He ensures that Friend A stays in a low-level maintenance job. He even steals his friend's girlfriend and marries her, and the two of them taunt Friend A until he can't take it anymore.

Filled with shame and hate, he decides to get revenge by killing Friend B’s wife.

He follows her to a train station, sneaking up behind her, ready to push her in front of the oncoming train. But at the last moment, he can't do it. He can't bring himself to commit such a heinous act and walks away.

Now, here’s the key part.

I asked the student where the inspiration for the story came from. He told me that when he was a little boy back in his country, he was playing on the streets with two of his friends.

Suddenly, from down the street and around the corner, there came this mob of people shouting and waving things in their hands. Before the little boy and his friends knew it, they realized that the mob was attacking people on the street, beating them, cutting them, and shooting them.

The boy and his f and friends ran. But one of his friends was shot, and the other was struck by something. He made it into his apartment house and was safe.

The next day, when it was all over, and he was looking out his window at the damage, he couldn't believe that human beings could become so evil and so dark inside that they would do something like this. He told himself, I have to do a story about this, a story where there's some hope at the end.

Years later, he was in school, studying to be a filmmaker, and he took that opportunity to make a little film. He couldn't do the magnificent huge-budget project that he would like to do, but he was able to do this to represent the feelings that he had. He was able to tell that story; he found a way.

Conclusion:

So, in the end, the only thing between you and telling your story, the only real blockade, is that you make up your mind to do it. You write that short story, that song, that poem, that film script, that play. What happens after that is another question, but until that happens, nothing else will.

How can you do this? How can you find the confidence to take that step? Well, how about with the Helping Hand? Let me help you. We'll start out with something simple: book a call, we'll talk, and if I can help you that way, fine, good, and done.

If you need more help than that, I'm a writing coach. My services are available, and I’ve helped hundreds of students of various ages, sizes, lifestyles, and cultures tell their stories. I'd love it if you would join them.

Click on the link to find out how to do it.

See you next time.

Next week, I'll discuss how to plot a mystery thriller. This will be a peek at what’s to come in my new mystery writing challenge, DEAD AT DAWN (see link below), which will be released in mid-June.

You’ll see me then … if I don't see you first.

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Best,

Alex Simmons

Join my WRITE THE CRIME CHALLENGE: DEAD AT DAWN!

It’s a five-part master class on plotting crooks, crimes, and clues, Coming June 12th.

Click here to join the gang uh … challenge.

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