Today is the 106th Anniversary of My Grandfather's 3rd Death Sentence

For a reading today, I had coincidentally chosen a section about my grandfather's 3rd death sentence, not realizing that today was the anniversary of the date he was to be executed:

"...My advocate comforted me with the forecast that I was almost certain to be sentenced to death. Therefore, the only thing worth doing was pleading, in view of my military record and my obvious youthful ignorance, to be let off with ten years of hard labor.

"I can’t say I was charmed by his readiness to bury me alive, although in time I would learn that getting a 'tenner' was practically the equivalent of being found 'not guilty.' But from the moment the trial got under way, I could see that my lawyer had been, if anything, overoptimistic.

"My three judges put on their spectacles to study the charges. Wasting no time on what I might have had to say for myself, they retired to consider their verdict.

"After a leisurely five minutes, they returned and pronounced sentence.

"The blood raced in my ears, but I had no trouble hearing the words, 'firing squad.'

"Rather than dawdle about it for months or years as the courts did in Columbus’ Country, the appeal my lawyer had wisely prepared in advance was already scheduled to be heard the following day.

"Late the next morning, I was marched back into the courtroom, this time attached to three other prisoners who were also appealing their death sentences. Not a good sign.

"One look at the bench and my heart sank. Th e judges who would rule on my appeal were the same three antiques who, only yesterday, had sentenced me to death. It would have surprised me very much if, overnight, each of them had had a miraculous change of heart.

"What’s more, there was no sign of my lawyer. Instead, I was furnished with a military advocate, a pudgy-handed captain whose middle bulged like a pregnant barmaid. Barely glancing in my direction, he explained to the judges that he had not had time to study my file and asked for a recess for a quick consultation with me.

"He took me to the adjacent room where he favored me with a well-fed smile, and said, “To defend you against these terrible accusations, I must have the full truth, you understand?”

"Since I had no idea who this man was or which side he was working for, I was not quite ready to take him at his word.

"'How many men have you killed?'

"I did not find this a very encouraging question. Still, I answered as best I could. 'Probably dozens.' His eyes brightened. 'In combat,' I added, 'it’s difficult to keep an accurate count.'

"'Fool, I meant in Warsaw. On orders from the Party.'

"'What ‘Party?’'

"He raised his voice. 'Do you or don’t you want me to defend you?'

"'Against what?'

"'Don’t you know you’ve been sentenced to death?'

"'What has that to do with you?'

"'I’m your lawyer. I want the truth. All of it.'

"'I told the truth. Yesterday. And look at where it got me.'

"'You’re a damned Jew-faced liar!'

"This, I confess, provoked me. 'I want nothing to do with you. If they won’t let me have a proper lawyer, I’ll defend myself.'

"My defender sucked in his breath and apologized for having, perhaps, expressed himself a little too heartily. What he would not do was admit that his only job was to extract a confession from me so that the judges

could put away my comrades, too.

"Sulking, he delivered me back into the courtroom where things had begun without us. Of the prisoners to whom I had been chained, two had already had their death sentences confirmed and were weeping. My turn

was next.

"The clerk read the charges against me once more. This time I listened more attentively to his monotonic recital of killings, robberies and such, each listed according to date and location. 

"It took me some moments to realize that nearly all of these charges dealt with crimes committed long before I arrived in Warsaw. I tried to interrupt and point this out, but the clerk told me to be silent.

"It was my lawyer’s job to speak for me. I looked at my defender, who was goggling at a fly that had settled on his briefcase.

"I called out to the court, 'I don’t accept the man you have assigned to me. I want a civilian lawyer.'

"'This is a military court. Here you can only be defended by an officer.'

"'What happened to the lawyer I had yesterday?'

"'That was a mistake. The man had no right to defend you. He will be severely punished for misrepresenting himself.'

"While my doomed fellow prisoners looked greatly impressed by the depth of my depravity, my alleged lawyer went through the motions of pleading with the court to show some leniency to a man who had, in battle, repeatedly proven his love for, and loyalty to, the Czar.

"True, he admitted in the same breath, I might have murdered some people in Warsaw, although perhaps not as many as the honorable Court had been led to believe. But surely the real criminals were the Party leaders

who distorted my young mind and sent me out to commit these deeds without my fully understanding their seriousness.

"He driveled on like this for I don’t know how long while the judges listened with all the patience of old men whose bladders were about to burst. The moment he was done, they scurried out to confer.

"A few eternal minutes later, about as long as it would have taken each one to have had his turn at the urinal, they were back. The general, himself, read the verdict. It confirmed yesterday’s sentence – death by firing squad – to be carried out on the twenty-fifth of May, 1907, a date that has somehow stuck in my memory.

"Much as I hated to give them the satisfaction, I staggered for a moment and nearly lost consciousness."

Now Available: RASPUTIN: MEMOIRS OF HIS SECRETARY

Rasputin: Memoirs of His Secretary, the book I worked on with Delin Colon (author of Rasputin and the Jews: A Reversal of History), is now available on Amazon (http://amzn.to/12U3X9lV). Based on the diaries of Aron Simanovitch, Colon's great-granduncle and Rasputin's personal secretary, Rasputin: Memoirs of His Secretary, gives a rare glimpse into the lives of the Romanovs, Nicholas and Alexandra, who were beset by threats from both within and without.

You'll have privileged access to the royal palace beside one of the most interesting characters (previously mostly a caricature) in history: Grigori Rasputin, the so-called "Mad Monk," who had rare access to the royal family. Read the fascinating account of the multiple attempts on Rasputin's life; he was stabbed, poisoned, shot, bludgeoned, and thrown into the freezing Neva river before finally succumbing. And as I've written earlier, there is one chapter that leads me to wonder whether he might have been part of the inspiration for Obi Wan Kenobe...

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling: Rule #17: The Heart of the Story

Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it. 

Focus is one of the most important elements in fiction. By focusing your story on certain characters, events, and ideas, you are choosing to not focus on other characters, other events. You’re saying “these specific elements matter most.” You’re cutting out all the people, events, years, and themes that don’t matter to your story. Without focus, readers would simply be taken on a rambling journey through tons of material that has no apparent relevance. Focusing your novel to discuss certain characters at a certain point in time dealing with specific experiences and held together by specific ideas (loss, grief, revenge, first love) allows the story to have meaning and impact. Focus gives clarity. It allows the reader to see what’s important and why.

Here’s the part I find fascinating: focus often helps the writer to see what’s important and why, and then shape the story to explore those ideas more deeply. Knowing the focus as you write can help you cut tangents, limit your themes to give the ones you have to have room to breathe, and challenge your characters with experiences that push them in meaningful ways.

So how do you know what the focus of your story should be? Rule 14 is the answer. When I start concepting a novel, there’s usually something that originally drew me to that idea. Something that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. Something about the idea has emotional resonance with me. Maybe it’s the trauma of powerlessness, or the wearing effect of daily life on relationships. Maybe it’s the strength of innocence. Use that detail, that idea, to shape the whole story.

Finding out why that idea grips me so strongly helps me figure out what’s at the heart of the story. This is what makes it MY story. It’s what makes it different from how anyone else would write it. And it’s what keeps me writing when it gets difficult, when I’m busy and tired, and when I’m not sure if I can do it. That bit of an idea shapes the characters and events, keeps me going, and makes the story unique. It’s the heart of the story.

(http://katebrauning.com/blog/)

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling: Rule #16: Stakes and Sweat

What are the stakes? Give us a reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

This is going to sound silly at first, but bear with me: I think the best part of Rule #16 is the word “stakes.”

Stakes are everything in writing. I mean, of course there’s good character, story, crescendo, climax. But to me that all sounds like wah wah wah without some serious stakes.

What are “stakes”? I mean, other than things with which you stab vampires and they explode and cover you in gooey bits?

I propose this definition:

Stakes are the potential consequences to failure; what could or will happen if the hero does not succeed in his or her mission.

Think about this: you have a great hero. A complicated hero that we both love and hate a little. She’s quirky. Her flaws are funny at best, and tragic at worst. We want to be her. We want to be with her. She’s smarter than us but sometimes we think, “What are you thinking? No! Don’t do that! Why would you do that?!”

But what is she other than a quirky hero we love to hate, if she doesn’t struggle a little? How will we ever know her flaws and her virtues unless she’s put in a position where she has to use them?

You can build the best character you like, but unless we see that character under duress, we readers won’t fall in love with her. We won’t root for her.

Stakes invest the reader in the character. Stakes give her meaning, purpose, and conflict. What happens if she succeeds in her mission? What happens if she fails?

And now, my second-favorite part of Rule #16: “Stack the odds against.”

A lot of writing is really just clinical abuse. I’m pretty sure that if our characters were real people, most of us writers would be sitting behind bars.

Think about it: when are you most thrilled in a story? When do you find the pages flying by? When the hero is under stress; when it seems like there is no possible way this will all work out, and you keep reading in hopes that it will. (You know, because you’re invested?)

Not only does it seem like the hero going to fail now, but the consequences of her failure have just doubled. No, tripled! Not only will her best friend die, but the world will implode because of that mistake she just made. And then not only will the world implode, but it will also set off a chain reaction resulting in the total destruction of the universe.

And then? Make it look like she’s going to fail. For real. The hurdles between the hero and her best friend have multiplied ten-fold. Literally, she cut the head off the hydra and it grew ten more. Then, each head grew wings and became independent hydras and she is super, super screwed.

Now we really get to see our hero sweat. We get to see her smarts and her courage and her talent with a bow-knife, and we are floored when she has some clever, sneaky little solution and somehow manages to succeed. She kills the hydra, saves her best friend, and the world is safe again.

Stakes unite your work. Good stakes set up conflict, imply the consequences, and make your hero’s success (or failure! Failure is a fine way to end, too) vindicating and enjoyable for the reader.

And don’t forget that characters aren’t real people! You don’t have to feel bad about grinding them into the pavement before you let them win.

(http://katebrauning.com/blog/)

Pxar's 22 Rules of Storytelling: Rule #15: How Would You Feel?

If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

Think about how you would feel if your sister disappeared. How would you feel if your brother was running for mayor, but you knew he wasn’t the right man for the job? Put yourself in your character’s shoes and track those emotions for a while. Jot them down so you can see what fits your character later on, but give it some time first. Really daydream about how you would react. Of course, don’t create your characters as yourself, but doing this will add a layer of believability and genuine emotion to them.

The flip side of this whole “give your characters opinions” thing is that your characters are going to disagree with each other. Mary likes olives. Claudia does not. Father thinks John should support his brother’s campaign regardless of political differences, because they are family.  John can’t support him in good conscience, brother or not. Adding real-life texture to your characters through preferences and opinions and disagreements will deepen your characters. It’s also going to make their world more complex- small conflicts, things to enjoy, preferences people surround themselves with that start arguments or create inside jokes. And of course, all of this is going to  complicate the main conflict. The good guys aren’t all agreeing on what to do. Not all of them are 100% good. Rivalry between the bad guys means things don’t go as planned.

So think about what you prefer, what things you argue with others over, what conflicts you have with your friends and family. Listen to the opinions that crop up that guide people’s lives. Work bits of those things into your characters, and they’ll be more active, more complex, and more enjoyable.

(http://katebrauning.com/blog/page/2/)

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling: Rule #14: The Heart of the Story

Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it. 

Focus is one of the most important elements in fiction. By focusing your story on certain characters, events, and ideas, you are choosing to not focus on other characters, other events. You’re saying “these specific elements matter most.” You’re cutting out all the people, events, years, and themes that don’t matter to your story. Without focus, readers would simply be taken on a rambling journey through tons of material that has no apparent relevance. Focusing your novel to discuss certain characters at a certain point in time dealing with specific experiences and held together by specific ideas (loss, grief, revenge, first love) allows the story to have meaning and impact. Focus gives clarity. It allows the reader to see what’s important and why.

Here’s the part I find fascinating: focus often helps the writer to see what’s important and why, and then shape the story to explore those ideas more deeply. Knowing the focus as you write can help you cut tangents, limit your themes to give the ones you have to have room to breathe, and challenge your characters with experiences that push them in meaningful ways.

So how do you know what the focus of your story should be? Rule 14 is the answer. When I start concepting a novel, there’s usually something that originally drew me to that idea. Something that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. Something about the idea has emotional resonance with me. Maybe it’s the trauma of powerlessness, or the wearing effect of daily life on relationships. Maybe it’s the strength of innocence. Use that detail, that idea, to shape the whole story.

Finding out why that idea grips me so strongly helps me figure out what’s at the heart of the story. This is what makes it MY story. It’s what makes it different from how anyone else would write it. And it’s what keeps me writing when it gets difficult, when I’m busy and tired, and when I’m not sure if I can do it. That bit of an idea shapes the characters and events, keeps me going, and makes the story unique. It’s the heart of the story.

(http://katebrauning.com/blog/)

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling: Rule #13: Flip-Flops and Sexism

Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

Your characters, especially the character through whose eyes we’re seeing the story happen, have to have opinions. Until recently, their whole lives didn’t revolve around the main conflict. Chances are, not too long ago, they were fairly normal people. Even if they weren’t, they still have a complete personality- or they should. How do they feel about global warming? Flip flops? Sexism? Onions? Preferences and opinions on even small things will help add real-life texture and believability to your writing. A passive character who is just a lens through which we watch the story, reporting what happens around them, would be even less fun than watching the evening news (hey, look an opinion!).

Of course, opinions about what’s going on in the plot need to be included, too. Do they think justice is being served? Do they think, even as rush to rescue her, that their sister brought most of this on herself? Your characters should personally react to the events going on around them, and that means they are even going to disagree with each other. I’m going to jump ahead to rule #15 here because it applies so well:

If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

Think about how you would feel if your sister disappeared. How would you feel if your brother was running for mayor, but you knew he wasn’t the right man for the job? Put yourself in your character’s shoes and track those emotions for a while. Jot them down so you can see what fits your character later on, but give it some time first. Really daydream about how you would react. Of course, don’t create your characters as yourself, but doing this will add a layer of believability and genuine emotion to them.

The flip side of this whole “give your characters opinions” thing is that your characters are going to disagree with each other. Mary likes olives. Claudia does not. Father thinks John should support his brother’s campaign regardless of political differences, because they are family.  John can’t support him in good conscience, brother or not. Adding real-life texture to your characters through preferences and opinions and disagreements will deepen your characters. It’s also going to make their world more complex- small conflicts, things to enjoy, preferences people surround themselves with that start arguments or create inside jokes. And of course, all of this is going to  complicate the main conflict. The good guys aren’t all agreeing on what to do. Not all of them are 100% good. Rivalry between the bad guys means things don’t go as planned.

So think about what you prefer, what things you argue with others over, what conflicts you have with your friends and family. Listen to the opinions that crop up that guide people’s lives. Work bits of those things into your characters, and they’ll be more active, more complex, and more enjoyable.

(http://katebrauning.com/blog/page/2/)