Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling

These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coates, Pixar’s Story Artist. Most can apply to writers in all genres.

1. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
14. 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.
15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

The Most Useful Websites and Web Apps

• ctrlq.org/screenshots – for capturing screenshots of web pages on mobile and desktops.
• dictation.io – online voice recognition in the browser itself.
• screenr.com – record movies of your desktop and send them straight to YouTube.
• goo.gl – shorten long URLs and convert URLs into QR codes.
• unfurlr.come – find the original URL that’s hiding behind a short URL.
• qClock – find the local time of a city using Google Maps.
• copypastecharacter.com – copy special characters that aren’t on your keyboard.
• codeacademy.com – the best place to learn coding online.
• lovelycharts.com – create flowcharts, network diagrams, sitemaps, etc.
• iconfinder.com – find icons of all sizes.
• office.com – download templates, clipart and images for your Office documents.
• followupthen.com – the easiest way to setup email reminders.
• jotti.org – scan any suspicious file or email attachment for viruses.
• wolframalpha.com – gets answers directly without searching – see more wolfram tips.
• printwhatyoulike.com – print web pages without the clutter.
• ctrlq.save – save online files to Dropbox or Google Drive directly.
• ctrql.rss – a search engine for RSS feeds.
• e.ggtimer.com – a simple online timer for your daily needs.
• coralcdn.org – if a site is down due to heavy traffic, try accessing it through coral CDN.
• random.org – pick random numbers, flip coins, and more.
• pdfescape.com – lets you can quickly edit PDFs in the browser itself.
• tubemogul.com – simultaneously upload videos to YouTube and other video sites.
• scr.im – share you email address online without worrying about spam.
• spypig.com – now get read receipts for your email.
• myfonts.com/WhatTheFont – quickly determine the font name from an image.
• google.com/webfonts – a good collection of open source fonts.
• regex.info – find data hidden in your photographs – see more EXIF tools.
• livestream.com – broadcast events live over the web, including your desktop screen.
• iwantmyname.com – helps you search domains across all TLDs.
• homestyler.com – design from scratch or re-model your home in 3d.
• join.me – share you screen with anyone over the web.
• onlineocr.net – recognize text from scanned PDFs – see other OCR tools.
• flightstats.com – Track flight status at airports worldwide.
• wetransfer.com – for sharing really big files online.
• hundredzeros.com – the site lets you download free Kindle books.
• polishmywriting.com – check your writing for spelling or grammatical errors.
• marker.to – easily highlight the important parts of a web page for sharing.
• typewith.me – work on the same document with multiple people.
• whichdateworks.com – planning an event? find a date that works for all.
• everytimezone.com – a less confusing view of the world time zones.
• gtmetrix.com – the perfect tool for measuring your site performance online.
• noteflight.com – print music sheets, write your own music online (review).
• imo.im – chat with your buddies on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk, etc. from one place.
• translate.google.com – translate web pages, PDFs and Office documents.
• kleki.com – create paintings and sketches with a wide variety of brushes.
• similarsites.com – discover new sites that are similar to what you like already.
• wordle.net – quick summarize long pieces of text with tag clouds.
• bubbl.us – create mind-maps, brainstorm ideas in the browser.
• kuler.adobe.com – get color ideas, also extract colors from photographs.
• liveshare.com – share your photos in an album instantly.
• lmgtfy.com – when your friends are too lazy to use Google on their own.
• midomi.com – when you need to find the name of a song.
• google.com/history – see your past searches, also among most important Google URLs
• bing.com/images – automatically find perfectly-sized wallpapers for mobiles.
• faxzero.com – send an online fax for free – see more fax services.
• feedmyinbox.com – get RSS feeds as an email newsletter.
• ge.tt – qiuckly send a file to someone, they can even preview it before downloading.
• pipebytes.com – transfer files of any size without uploading to a third-party server.
• tinychat.com – setup a private chat room in micro-seconds.
• privnote.com – create text notes that will self-destruct after being read.
• boxoh.com – track the status of any shipment on Google Maps – alternative.
• mondrian.io – create vector drawings in the browser
• draw.io – create diagrams and flowcharts in the browser, export your drawings to Google Drive and Dropbox.
• downforeveryoneorjustme.com – find if your favorite website is offline or not?
• ewhois.com – find the other websites of a person with reverse Analytics lookup.
• whoishostingthis.com – find the web host of any website.
• labnol.org – software tutorials and how-to guides.
• disposablewebpage.com – create a temporary web page that self-destruct.
• urbandictionary.com – find definitions of slangs and informal words.
• seatguru.com – consult this site before choosing a seat for your next flight.
• unsplash.com – download images absolutely free.
• zoom.it – view very high-resolution images in your browser without scrolling.
• scribblemaps.com – create custom Google Maps easily.
• alertful.com – quickly setup email reminders for important events.
• picmonkey.com – Picnik is offline but PicMonkey is an even better image editor.
• formspring.me – you can ask or answer personal questions here.
• sumopaint.com – an excellent layer-based online image editor.
• snopes.com – find if that email offer you received is real or just another scam.
• typingweb.com – master touch-typing with these practice sessions.
• mailvu.com – send video emails to anyone using your web cam.
• timerime.com – create timelines with audio, video and images.
• stupeflix.com – make a movie out of your images, audio and video clips.
• safeweb.norton.com – check the trust level of any website.
• teuxdeux.com – a beautiful to-do app that looks like your paper dairy.
• deadurl.com – you’ll need this when your bookmarked web pages are deleted.
• minutes.io – quickly capture effective notes during meetings.
• youtube.com/leanback – Watch YouTube channels in TV mode.
• youtube.com/disco – quickly create a video playlist of your favorite artist.
• talltweets.com – Send tweets longer than 140 characters.
• pancake.io – create a free and simple website using your Dropbox account.
• builtwith.com – find the technology stack to know everything about a website.
• woorank.com – research a website from the SEO perspective.
• mixlr.com – broadcast live audio over the web.
• radbox.me – bookmark online videos and watch them later (review).
• tagmydoc.com – add QR codes to your documents and presentations (review).
• notes.io – the easiest way to write short text notes in the browser.
• ctrlq.org/html-mail – send rich-text mails to anyone, anonymously.
• fiverr.com – hire people to do little things for $5.
• otixo.com – easily manage your online files on Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.
• ifttt.com – create a connection between all your online accounts.

A name: The Turkey’s Turkey Connection

 

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From the New York Times, November 27, 2013

 

By MARK FORSYTH

Thanksgiving is the all-American holiday. Turkey is the all-American bird. It was here long before Columbus or the Pilgrims. Early explorers reported vast flocks of turkeys nesting in the magnolia forest. Turkeys are a lot more American than apple pie. But they’re named after a country 4,429 miles away.

It’s not a coincidence. It’s not that the two words just sound alike. Turkeys are named after Turkey. But there is a connection. You just have to go to Madagascar to find it. Let me explain.

Once upon a time, English mealtimes were miserable things. There were no potatoes, no cigars and definitely no turkey. Then people began to import a strange, exotic bird. Its scientific name was Numida meleagris; its normal name now is the helmeted guinea fowl, because it’s got this weird bony protuberance on its forehead that looks a bit like a helmet. It came all the way from Madagascar, off the southeast coast of Africa, but the English didn’t know that. All the English knew was that it was delicious, and that it was imported to Europe by merchants from Turkey. They were the Turkey merchants, and so, soon enough, the bird just got called the turkey.

But that’s not the turkey you’ll be serving with cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. As I said, that’s an American bird. When the Spanish arrived in the New World they found a bird whose scientific name is Meleagris gallopavo. But the Spaniards didn’t care about science. All they cared about was that this bird was really, really delicious. It tasted well, it tasted just like turkey, only better.

They started exporting the birds to Europe, and soon enough they arrived on English dinner tables at just about the same time that the English were setting up their first colonies in America. The Pilgrims didn’t care about any subtle distinctions. They just tasted this great bird and thought, turkey. That’s the way the English language goes.

That’s why the bird you’re going to eat is named for a country on the Black Sea. Other languages don’t make the same mistake. They make different ones. In France it’s called dinde, because they thought it was from India, or, in French, d’Inde. And in Turkey a lot of people thought that, too, so it’s called Hindi.

There was a 19th-century American joke about two hunters — an American and a Native American — who go hunting all day but only get an owl and a turkey. So the American turns to his companion and says: “Let’s divide up. You get the owl and I get the turkey.” The Native American says: “No. Let’s do it the other way round.” So the American says, “O.K., I’ll get the turkey and you get the owl.” And the Native American replies, “You don’t talk turkey at all.”

That’s where the phrase let’s talk turkey comes from. Let’s do real business. Then, in the early 20th century, people got even tougher and started saying “Let’s talk cold turkey.” And then when people tried the toughest way of giving up drugs they went cold turkey.

It’s got nothing to do with the leftovers you’ll be eating for weeks and weeks and weeks. Happy Thanksgiving.

Good design-10 things

by DIETER RAMS   

1.   Good design is innovative
2.   Good design makes a product useful
3.   Good design is aesthetic
4.   Good design makes a product understandable
5.   Good design is unobtrusive
6.   Good design is honest
7.   Good design is long-lasting
8.   Good design is thorough, down to the last detail
9.   Good design is environmentally friendly
10. Good design is as little design as possible

Recipe for success

From Bernard Mannes Baruch (19 August 1870 – 20 June 1965), American financier, stock market speculator, statesman, and presidential advisor.

Recipe for success: Be polite, prepare yourself for whatever you are asked to do, keep yourself tidy, be cheerful, don’t be envious, be honest with yourself so you will be honest with others, be helpful, interest yourself in your job, don’t pity yourself, be quick to praise, be loyal to your friends, avoid prejudices, be independent, interest yourself in politics, and read the newspapers.

Life is like Camera

Greek Castles (gif)

23 Signs You’re Secretly a Narcissist Masquerading as a Sensitive Introvert

source: Scientific American/  Scott Barry Kaufman | August 26, 2013

♦  I can become entirely absorbed in thinking about my personal affairs, my health, my cares or my relations to others.
♦  My feelings are easily hurt by ridicule or the slighting remarks of others.
♦  When I enter a room I often become self-conscious and feel that the eyes of others are upon me.
♦  I dislike sharing the credit of an achievement with others.
♦  I feel that I have enough on my hand without worrying about other people’s troubles.
♦  I feel that I am temperamentally different from most people.
♦  I often interpret the remarks of others in a personal way.
♦  I easily become wrapped up in my own interests and forget the existence of others.
♦  I dislike being with a group unless I know that I am appreciated by at least one of those present.
♦  I am secretly “put out” or annoyed when other people come to me with their troubles, asking me for their time and sympathy.
♦  I am jealous of good-looking people.
♦  I tend to feel humiliated when criticized.
♦  I wonder why other people aren’t more appreciative of my good qualities.
♦  I tend to see other people as being either great or terrible.♦
♦  I sometimes have fantasies about being violent without knowing why.
♦  I am especially sensitive to success and failure.
♦  I have problems that nobody else seems to understand.
♦  I try to avoid rejection at all costs.
♦  My secret thoughts, feelings, and actions would horrify some of my friends.
♦  I tend to become involved in relationships in which I alternately adore and despise the other person.
♦  Even when I am in a group of friends, I often feel very alone and uneasy.
♦  I resent others who have what I lack.
♦  Defeat or disappointment usually shame or anger me, but I try not to

Some personal objections:
- These 23 items are completely independent of whether one is extroverted or introverted.
- You can be an introvert and a narcissist. You can be an extrovert and be a narcissist too.
- These signs apply, more or less, to all human beings

But it is a smart list

THe Presidents of the USA

A widget (to add in a web page or blog) from the website The Presidents of the USA:

The Presidents of the USA

get this widget!

300- Greek Castles

A video from the site Greek Castles: