Cross my heart.

I’m not a Vampire!

Frame:
Interview with the Vampire:
Begins with a journalist interviewing a man in a San Francisco apartment. The man is telling him the most important thing he knows, he wants the journalist to tell everyone.
Then you have the central story which is how Louis became a vampire, giving himself up to evil which will haunt him for eternity.
Then you go back to the frame with the journalist and Louis tells him to tell everybody, to warn all about evil, and the journalist says, “Make me a vampire!”
The central story is just an adventure story; the frame gives it depth by casting it as a story about the overwhelming allure of evil.
Heart of Darkness is another frame story. Generally, frames are lazy writing, closely allied to prologues and epilogues, but when they give the central story depth, cast it in a new light, turn it on its ear, they can be really effective.

But I don’t ever remember hearing you or anyone else talk about “frames.” Can you explain them a little more…maybe the next time you have insomnia?

and I looked for you on nano–I thought you said you were going under JennyS, but the only one there wasn’t you…

Plus, I want my granddaughter, who’s 14 and just finished her first ms., to have it. I can’t wait.

Molly is kind of a wild card here because usually beats have all the same protagonist and antagonist in a scene, but Molly’s beats are part of a frame, so they’re still beats that escalate the conflict and raise the stakes.

But I can paint. While reading your description of beats and tweaking, I kept thinking it was the same. A tweak here to draw attention where you want it. A highlight there to bring this bit into focus. And subtle shadow over this to keep the rhythm. There is a tempo to most art if you look for it.
Thanks for posting this, it’s a real eye opener for me.

Also, this discussion about frames and beats was really, really helpful–it’s a good way to think about revision. Thank you!

And thank you for all the nice words. My insomnia has not been wasted.

And I never know where the beats are until I look for them. This one just automatically broke into beats because Molly and Vince kept changing seats.

Vince. I’m not sure. Vince Vaughn may once have been a placeholder and that’s a placeholder name, it could change. I lost Vaughn quite a while ago because of acute smugness that I didn’t want in the character, but I like the name.