Some Good Reasons to "Weave My Tale"

Think of this as Practice!

I believe everyone has multiple stories inside of them just waiting to get out, and the goal of Weave My Tale is to help writers find catalysts that will cause unformed stories to emerge--stories that are buried deep within the fertile soil of their unconscious minds. What a better place to inspire your creative catalysts than by participating in a living, breathing story fueled by the opinions and life experiences of so many other writers. The experts say that to write good stories writers need to glean inspiration by reading as many stories as possible and by experiencing as much of life as possible. Weave My Tale attempts to combine the two practices together by telling the same story a hundred different ways by a hundred different writers, each with different life experiences.

Another but equally important part of this process is the experience of story telling that is so similar to how great tales of the past were spread and created orally, slightly changing and adjusting over time as each story teller added a little of themselves to the telling. Not only is the idea of this exciting, but imagine the learning curve of testing each story telling decision you make against the collective input of your writing piers. The benefit this will have for your own writing can only be impressive.

And finally, hopefully you enjoy The Preacher's Son.  If you get nothing more out of it then that, Weave My Tale has accomplished one of it's goal, to get the story out of your host's mind and into a format for people to enjoy. 

Thanks for following!

The Preacher's Son - Characters of Act One

Every story begins with an idea. It doesn't have to be long or complex, and it doesn't even have to be that good, but it does have to begin. And it does have to have it's players. 

The characters of Act One:

The Preacher: 

An impassioned Methodist preacher, who followed the call of God to bring a message of peace to the people of Utah whose embattled souls are being eaten away by violence.

The Preacher's Wife:

A dutiful, quiet woman, tough at heart, and willing to sacrifice her happiness to serve her husband's calling and ultimately God's will. Part of this sacrifice includes exposing her young son to the violence of the Wild, Wild West.

The Preacher's Son:

Age four, a child destined to be a gunfighter, obsessed with guns. Things may have turned out differently for him had his father stayed alive, but they didn't.

The Abused Woman & Bandit's wife: 

A once wealthy, stunningly beautiful woman who married the wrong man. All her money is gone, her desire beaten out of her and now she hides behind her dark bonnet and black lace embroidered clothing as if attending a funeral. She finds the courage to leave her violent husband and surrender at the one place she hopes to find peace and safety, the Preacher's church.

The Bandit: 

A slob of a man with nothing left of his morality. He only exists now to rob, steal and murder the innocent people of Utah. His wife has become a possession to treat as he wishes.

The Gun: 

A shiny silver pistol dug out of sand of the Utah desert by the Preacher's Son, who can't seem to put it down. It shouts of destiny and has a strange iridescent quality that seems to betray the laws of light and physics, reminiscent of Lancelot's armor. Despite the fact that it was found buried under the desert sand, it is fully loaded and magically fires straight and true.

Locations:

The Preacher's home and town
The Preacher's Church

The Preachers Son … Idea, Premise, Concept and Theme

The name of the Tale is The Preachers Son. It is a story that took place long ago, around 1870, in the deserts of Utah. It is a story about cowboys and bandits, judges and villagers, preachers and sons. At the start of the tale (which I will also refer to as "weave" from time to time), the character's names will start out as simple descriptions of who they are: The Preacher, The Preacher's Son, The Bandit, The Judge, The Bandit's Wife, The Preacher's Wife, etc. But later I will ask your assistance in creating their real names.

Before we give them names, however, we must first determine what our story is about, and to do that we need to create the first weaves of our story--these are the weaves that the remainder of the novel will be built upon: Idea, Premise, Concept and Theme.

Some writers call "premise" and "concept" what other writers refer to as "concept" and "theme."  Most writers agree that an "idea" is just an "idea," but not everyone agrees with this. In the weaving of this tale, I will waste no time arguing over the meanings of such words, as that will slow down the process. I would rather, for expediency's sake, just jump right in.

Idea 

The initial idea for The Preachers Son was inspired during one of many viewings of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, a movie that is ultimately about redemption. At the climax of the film William Munny, played by Eastwood, shoots up a bar full of men responsible for the death of his friend. It is a brilliant and violent scene, and while watching it for the fifth or sixth time, I asked myself how the scene would change if a child was in the bar. From this question was born the idea for The Preachers Son, a story about a gunfighter who had experienced horrible violence as a child, but not violence in the way you would think. In this weave, the child shoots Bill Munny.

Premise of Story

The defense of the innocent ends in self sacrifice

Concept for the First Act

What if the four-year-old son of a peace obsessed Preacher, pulls a gun on a bandit trying to take his father's life and the four-year-old must choose between obeying his father's message of peace or satisfying his early fascination with violence.  

Theme of First Act

Sacrificing oneself for the greater good.