Episode 21: Book Club–Invisible Ink

This week, we talk about Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald. What we loved about it, what we hated (there’s a few rants), and what we’re going to be using moving forward.

Show Notes

Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald

The Story Spine/Pixar Pitch

Three Story Method by J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon

You Are a Storyteller Podcast

Story Grid by Shawn Coyne

Links provided may be affiliate links.

Transcript

Crys: Okay. Book club meeting in session. With me, I have Lon Varnadore, JP Rindfleisch, Janet Kitto and Marianne.  My first question for everyone is: Hot take! How did you feel about the book?

Marianne: I thought it was great. I thought… so he talks about feminine and masculine and then he ends the chapter with, “I know I’m going to get in a lot of trouble. I know I’m going to get…” 

Wait, what? Everyone’s laughing now. 

Crys: Just keep talking, I’ll explain why we’re laughing in like two seconds after you’ve finished. 

Marianne: He finishes with why he describes it as feminine and masculine and why people shouldn’t be upset about that.

But what I thought was interesting was I thought he should maybe have started with a little bit of an intro or saying, I’m going to explain why I say this, or, you know, why I use these words or just done something that way. And I feel like, because I got on this call a little bit late, something was discussed before I…

Crys: No. So for the listeners, JP is physically pinching his mouth shut with his hands because, we literally recorded a half hour rant on this yesterday, on this particular topic so wouldn’t take up the whole session ranting about that particular part of the book, which is good that you’ve brought it up so that we’re not the only ones.

Marianne: At the same time, I will say because as I was reading and listening to it, I was trying to think, how else would I describe it? What other wording would I use? How would I describe it? And I’m not sure. I mean, granted, I only thought about it for like a half an hour, but I couldn’t come up with a better way of describing it.

Crys: How he uses the masculine and feminine, for the people who haven’t read this book yet, is masculine elements of story or external– they’re your plot. They are the action. And feminine elements are internal. They are emotions. They are internal desires and needs. I would literally have taken out every gendered reference and said external and internal. I just would have stuck with that. 

JP: Exactly. It was very much just it’s yin and yang. It’s active and passive. And so he could have used something different, but he wasn’t on the whole gender train. And that’s when I had my long rant. 

Crys: This is only one chapter where he really covers that. 

Lon: It’s toward the end as well.

Marianne: But I also think though, too, with the amount of work he’s probably done with archetypes and stuff, a lot of archetypes are feminine, masculine, you know? And so I could see him, especially, I don’t even know when this was written, but I could see him just extending that into this book. Because you have the whole… now I can’t even think, but all I can think of is the book called We, and it talks about the feminine and the masculine and wanting to have a virgin wife who is also a whore, all of that kind of a thing.  And so anyway,  I could see his taking that. 

Janet: This was put together almost 20 years ago. All of these notes that he put into this book. So I don’t know if that reflects at all, if that’s the difference that we’re feeling today, reading it. 

JP: Yeah, I think that makes sense. So the book was published in 2010, so I used my judgment based off of that.

Because that was roughly around the time where in college, like we were really focused on gender as a really hot button topic. So it makes sense that if he put his notes together a couple of years earlier, that yeah. That’s fair, fine.

Lon: Hot take that I have of just the book overall is it’s a great idea, but I don’t subscribe to like half of what he says. I especially really detest this whole armature thing, but that’s me. 

JP: I love that. 

Crys: I was like, so let’s get into that. Let’s start out with the things that we did find useful.

So JP finds armature useful. You want to give a rundown of what that is? 

JP: So armature is an expansion on theme and maybe it’s because I  was introduced to this book after learning about armature. So maybe I’ve imposed my own opinion on this, but armature is basically your proof, your argument for what you want to say about the book, and all of your scenes then are the evidence for that proof.

Now for someone very science brained, that’s a little stronger for me than trying to think of what a theme is, and a theme being like confidence.  Confidence is an idea. You have to say something about it. What is your argument about confidence? You know, confidence will make you stronger?

So then that’s your argument? Now how are you going to prove that? That was terrible armature, but it’s a good example, I guess. 

Crys: That’s the importance of armature, is that it be clear rather than it be awesome. 

JP: Exactly. So I guess that was one piece that I kind of liked about it, but totally fair that others don’t.

Crys: Lon is there anything you did like? 

Lon: Yeah. Yeah. I did, I actually did like the part that talks about truth. The idea of, you tell the truth, you don’t lie to the audience, you be truthful as you can to the audience, and it will make a better story. And that’s something I’ve just picked up and learned and heard again and again is, fiction writers tell the truth.  Even though you’re writing lies, you are telling the truth. 

Crys: So yeah, I actually have that in my notes as well. With the example he uses of horror movies, when the girl goes down into the basement by herself alone, we don’t believe that when she has other options, why in the world would she do that? We don’t believe that the story makers made it happen without considering what the truth would be.

Okay. How about you Marianne? What was useful for you?  

Marianne: I think that was my most useful part too, just because I’m writing a cozy mystery with a real estate agent and my whole issue with each of the books is, well, why is a real estate agent being forced to solve these mysteries? You know? And then after a while I figured everyone will just be used to the fact that she solves the mysteries.  And so it won’t matter. But the first, the very beginning few books, there has to be the truth of why she would be thrown into that. And so then I got very sad because I thought, well, it would just be way easier if I could just say, because.  Because it’s funny.

Because I don’t know any real estate agents who I can insult by making that character like that. So it made me double down on making sure that what I wrote was honest. 

Crys: What about you, Janet? 

Janet: What I liked about the book?

Crys: What you found useful? Yeah. 

Janet: What I found useful, you know, this is something that I’ve heard before, but I loved being able to read the Pixar pitch and then the bit at the end that is added. And ever since that day. 

Crys: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times on the internet, a lot of us have come across a Pixar pitch and we’ve been working on the Pixar pitch in different groups that we’ve been together. The Pixar pitch actually originates from the story spine, which is all seven questions. And does anyone have those up right in front of them where you could read them aloud for anyone who’s not familiar with them?

JP: #1 is once upon a time… 

#2 and every day…

#3 until one day…

#4 and because of this… 

#5 and because of this… 

#6 until finally …

# 7 and ever since that day. 

Crys: And those are sentences that you fill in the blank to see if your story has enough meat to it to tell it.  I agree with you, Janet, that final question kind of ties that whole pitch together for me in a way that when it’s not there, it loses a lot.

Janet: Just putting those seven steps, thinking about it. It has you thinking about act one and then it has you moving into act two, following with act three, and you have to be able to look back from act three and answer what you’ve asked and what you’ve put into act one. So definitely that . And ever since that day really helps with the outline.  

Crys: I think that also often ties into the armature, if that’s a technique that you’re using. The lesson taught is often the end ever since that day.

The things that I found useful are very similar. Armature really works for me and how he describes supporting plots, which is how he likes to rename things so that he can describe them more his way so that people’s brains don’t get confused saying, okay, theme is armature. He’s like, no, we’re just going to go with armature because I describe it completely differently from everybody else. So the armature , being the structure, the idea that you hang everything on the supporting plots and clone characters, which are characters who answer the armature or fail at the armature in different ways, just how.

This really works for my program, our brain as well. Like JP has the science view of  I’m supporting a thesis in my programming brain. Here are all the pieces that need to be put together to support each other. And if you don’t have them, then something’s going to go off into negative space.

I sense a theme there about who this book is going to work for, which is a question I have for later. So now let’s get to the fun part. 

What do you disagree with? We’ve already gone on our gender rant. 

Marianne: I want to know about Lon and armature. 

Lon: I do not mind talking about that. My biggest beef with theme, armature, whatever–the biggest problem I have is to the reader, it doesn’t matter. Because you can have this beautiful theme, this beautiful armature that is completely well thought on and is absolutely beautiful–unless you are actually going to go to the household of every single person who’s reading it, and as they’re reading it say, “Now, see, here’s the theme. Here’s the part where I’m talking about this and talking about this and talking about this.” 

And it just, it drives me insane when people are, “Oh, this is so great for writers.” It’s like for some writers, yes. But I’m also coming from an English major background and one of the things that was drilled into us forever and ever, and ever is something called death of the author: the idea that it doesn’t matter what the author was trying to say. 

It doesn’t. No one cares what the author was trying to say. The person who’s reading it is going to find their own themes, their own ideas on what is in the book. So you could say this book is about love and friendship and  you’re gonna have 15 different people have 15 different ideas.

One is, “Oh, this is about communism and how it’s completely evil.” Another, one’s going to say, “Well, this is about death because of this.” And this person is, “It’s a misogynist book because of this, or this because of this.” And it’s just… 

The idea of trying to tie in a theme is a great idea, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s just in my own personal view and opinion and also just as a writer, I will also say that if I try to write to a theme, I can’t write it. If I write, this is my theme, this is the armature, I’m going to set it up and everything’s gonna be set up. underneath this as the armature. I will look at and go, well, I can’t write.

Crys: I 100% agree with you about, once the book is leaves your hands, it is no longer your story. It is the story between the text and the reader. And I think that you’ve pointed out something: that these are tools.

These are not necessarily the way to look at story and I think that what you said though, also about the reader not seeing what any of this is really true. And I think McDonald answers that or agrees with that. 

I’m going to read a bit from the very beginning of the book that says why it’s named Invisible Ink, and it’s: 

How the events flow in a story is also writing. What events should occur in a story to make the teller’s point is also writing. Why a character behaves in a particular way is also writing. These are all forms of invisible ink, so-called because they are not easily spotted by our reader., viewer, or listener of the story. Invisible Ink however does have a profound impact on a story. More to the point it is the story. Invisible link is the writing below the surface of the words. Most people will never see or notice it, but they will feel it. If you learn to use it, your work will feel polished, professional, and it will have a profound impact on your audience.

And I meant to read that at the beginning because I thought that he named the book well, given that this is his armature for writing this non-fiction book. 

Janet: Can I ask you a question, Lon?  He talks about you have to dramatize the point. So do you feel differently than in thinking in those terms?

Lon: I’m just trying to tell a story when I’m writing. I’m simply… I’m telling a story. That’s just always how I’ve been.  I’m just going to tell a story. And most of the time it’s, this is because I’m telling a story that I haven’t seen on the shelf and if that makes me some, you know, and if that knocks me down and, “Oh, I’m not going to be this great literary person, I don’t care.”

I’m telling a story dramatizing a certain point if I want. And also that kind of brings me to the idea of the, when you have an overall theme, sometimes it can also feel like you’re drilling it into the heads of the people who are reading it to the point where I don’t want to read this anymore because you are no longer telling me a story. You are preaching to me. 

Crys: I would say that’s that combo of not telling the truth, when you just focus on making the story tell the things you want it to do. 

Marianne: Can I tag on that thought?

Crys: Yeah, absolutely. 

Marianne: So what’s interesting to me when I was learning about armature or theme is because I come from a religious background, but I don’t write characters who belong to my religion. But people of my religion will say, why do you write characters who do this, this, and this.

And my answer that I will say is, but my overall theme represents my beliefs. And so sometimes it may just be that lying is bad and it could just be just such a basic thing. But for me, theme has, I don’t know if I would use the word saved me, but been able to say, but I’m not looking for people who believe the same way I believe to read my books. 

I’m not looking for this cookie cutter kind of a thing. I’m looking for a broader audience and therefore having a theme is a scapegoat and may no one that I’ve said that to listen to this podcast. 

Crys: The other thing I have written down that I didn’t jive with is, I can’t remember how he says it and I didn’t write it down, but he kind of says genre is a lie. And I have the same problem with Story Grid in that the way they view genre as intrinsic to the story is very different than how we indie authors need to view genre.

He used it, and granted, this is the point of the book very much just in craft terms that genre does not necessarily need to matter for craft, but it very much needs to matter for us in marketing. 

He definitely takes an artists’ pure view of story, that does not match with my approach, at least in a lot of indies’ approach because we’re not just writers. We’re writers, publishers, marketers. We run the whole gamut. 

Marianne: Well, It would be fun for somebody who had a team and a lot of money would be to take one story and write it across all the genres and see which genre worked best for and be able  to do a study that way to see if that’s really true. 

Crys: I mean, he references that Star Wars is based off of The Last Samurai and The Last Samurai is based off of A Different Legend , is his example of genre doesn’t matter, the story carries over from genre to genre. 

Marianne: But would it have worked as a romance? 

Crys: I mean, you could have changed the focus,  but yeah. You could reframe it as a romance, if you so desired, you would put the focus on Leia and Han rather than Luke and good versus evil .

Marianne: Unless we were doing an incestuous romance. 

Crys: Hey, I think you’re getting into erotica there, Marianne. 

Lon: Point of order… 

Empire wasn’t actually supposed to have been that way. 

Marianne: Oh really?

Lon: Yeah.  there’s  an author who’s in the news actually, Alan Dean Foster. He wrote a book called Splinter in the Mind’s Eye, and that was supposed to be the original version of,  Empire Strikes Back. And there is no reference at all to him to Vader being Luke’s father. Lucas changed it at the last minute for, and he completely changed the script. 

That’s more about Alan Dean Foster and everything. That’s later that’s  #DisneyMustPay and all that. 

Crys: Writer drama. Yeah, I haven’t looked into details. It’s one of those things I’ve put aside, be like, that’s going to be a fun little distraction there. 

Janet, was there anything that you didn’t like about the book or didn’t agree with?

Janet: I’m just still on this last comment, thinking that the changes that you’re going to have the characters go through, that’s where genre is gonna become the answer because yeah, just thinking about those twins and what they could do,  that has nothing to do with the story that Lucas told.

 I don’t know. I don’t think there was very much that stood out for me that I didn’t like. Um I just liked that there was a lot of language he gave to concepts that I had myself. 

Crys:  Is there anything that you have picked up that you will immediately apply from this book? I know several of us read this a few months ago. A few of us, we were quite obsessed with his podcast, for a minute, which dives deeper into some of these pieces in ways that I found really helpful.

 Regardless of whether it was when you first read this book or now, is there anything that this boo, brought to your attention that you wanted to apply right away?

JP: I think , for me, I feel like I went out of order. Because I got to this book, I feel, too late, I already knew most of the pieces that he already talked about because I really listened to all of the You Are A Storyteller podcasts. And he already hits all of these notes in there and, in greater detail. And then this also has kind of been included in the Three Story Method book as well as just some of the other projects that we’ve worked on.

So I feel like I came a little too late to this, but the pieces that I do use are the Pixar Pitch and adding in that final line has really changed the way that I viewed it. 

And then also I’m still wrapping my head around armature, because even though I know what it means, I still feel like there is some type of value in it, without having to focus too hard on it. I still like the whole sciency part of it . 

Marianne: I really like in whatever he writes or the podcast or anything,  he’s been in this business for years and yet he still talks about continuously learning and giving yourself a shot. 

And what I thought too was interesting, it’s not in this book, but in his podcast, when everything was happening with Black Lives Matter, he had a podcast about that and how people didn’t give him the time of day and yet how he kept at it.

I just think how resilient, what an example of resilience he truly is, and to keep learning and to keep improving and to just keep going, even when you feel like the odds are against you. 

Crys: Yeah. The context for Marianne’s comment about that is that Brian McDonald is a black fella.

 I definitely try to use armature, and bring my focus back to that. That’s very helpful for me, cause I can very easily get lost in the muddy middle. And when I focus on armature, I find it gives me more ideas rather than freezes me up, and so that is helpful for me .

Janet: Funny enough, what’s coming to mind is every time I hear the science, I think about the art. There’s a bit in there where it first came clear to him, because it was a sculpture,  he was talking to someone who sculpts and it was everything that you needed to have underneath to make it work.

And, so I’m going to go forward thinking about the sculpture. If we speak in terms of external internal, I always think about the internal. And so the feelings that have to be expressed, that’s just something I’m really going to continue working on so that the story can be told.

Lon: As much as I talk about disliking plot and theme and all of that, I do actually do like the whole Pixar pitch, and  that the thing at the end, that last step seven, does add a little something to it. So that is something I could potentially start using, even if after I write a first draft, it’s like, okay, I’m done with that.

And just completely changed the entire thing.  

Crys: These are tools in our toolbox. Who would each of you say that this book is best for?

 Marianne: Someone who’s discouraged. 

I think I just liked the way  he’s not really negative. And someone who doesn’t have, who realizes that it was written a really long time ago and we’ll skim over the….

JP: I think this would be good for either, Outliners just starting out who are looking for an introductor, view on how to set up something. I think that this would be a really good kind of foundation that they could utilize and then grow off of. 

I also think that this would be really good for any pantsers, people that right at the seat of their pants, because this gives just enough structure that a pantser could use this, look at it to the side and then just write away and do whatever they need to. So I think that those two kinds of people would be best for. 

Lon: You stole my answer. 

Janet: I’m going to say, I think that you have to have some level of knowledge to learn something from this book. So I think you have to be writing and making the mistakes that he talks about.  That’s probably all I’m going to say on that. 

Crys:  I find that to be true of most writing craft books.

 I remember in my early writing days when I would just feel so overwhelmed and insignificant and discouraged when I read writing books, because I wasn’t even quite at the level where I could comprehend the issues and things they were talking about. So that I would agree with that.

What I wrote down is similar to JP’s. 

People who see the elements of a story as a puzzle, like to disect the elements of story, who lean a little less on the intuitive side of writing, was my thing. And, I pulled this quote out from the very end of the book tha, Marianne did not get a chance to read.

So this is all you need to know from the last chapter, Marianne. That he wrote this book with the idea that one could view a story through the lens of objectivity. 

That idea is so foreign to some that they don’t even know it’s a possibility.  I agree that that is how I view story, that we can dissect whether a story succeeded in what it wanted to do and not necessarily any bias of, is this a good story or a bad story? No moral judgment, but did this story succeed? I can agree with that. But I know that there are a lot of writers out there who would not be able to function under that kind of approach and that’s okay. 

Marianne: I also think it’s awesome that most of his examples weren’t necessarily like “literary films.”

I mean, he had Casablanca, but he also had Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Arc and just what great stories they were. And so I think that gives a lot of hope to people who write in different genres and not necessarily the quote unquote literary arts. But it still needs a good story.

Crys: Thank you, my friends, for joining this discussion. We have not yet talked about next month’s book, but we’re gonna talk after I end the recording and it will be in the show notes.