SELLING STORYTELLING by Mark Canter: Elements of the Blockbuster

Monday, December 12, 2011

Elements of the Blockbuster

High stakes

Larger-than-life characters

A clearcut, highly-charged, dramatic question (the suspense factor): Will she or won’t she?

High concept (In Hollywood, "high concept" means being able to convey the concept in a single sentence. "A bus filled with passengers is rigged to explode if it slows below 50 miles per hour: 'SPEED'.")

Intense emotional involvement between several point-of-view characters

Unusual, interesting setting

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Published in 10 languages.

"Weaves a genuinely magic spell." Kirkus Reviews ---- In the blue ice of an arctic cave, a scientist has made an extraordinary discovery: a shaman woman's body, frozen for 25,000 years in a near-perfect state, with an embryo waiting to be born.... They called her Ember, the child of their heart, born to surrogate parents who refused to yield her after birth. Raised among the Quanoot Indians, Ember is as modern as those around her, a young woman struggling with a loneliness and yearning she does not yet understand. Stronger than her classmates, imbued with the power to heal, Ember's soul resounds with the cries and whispers of a time she has never seen, and of a people who beckon her home. Desperate to unravel the mystery of her birth, Ember embarks on a spellbinding journey to find the people who call to her in her dreams. Guided by a shaman who has waited for her return, pursued by the man of science who brought her to life, Ember is drawn to a place where no one else can go--where her ancestors, the golden-skinned people of her dreams, wait for her to set them free...

Published in 4 languages.

Two American scientists survive a helicopter crash atop a South American jungle mesa, where they discover a 500-year-old Chinese colony hidden in a deep valley. The city, called Jou P’u T’uan (Prayer Mat of the Body), is a society based on the Taoist practice of sexual yoga: soul-awakening through physical ecstasy. But the population is dying because of its lack of male offspring. As the scientists puzzle out the mystery of the all-female society, an exotically beautiful warrior named K’un-Chien entangles the pair in an erotic triad that could heal their souls—or end their lives.

SILVER MEDAL winner, 2013 Independent Book Awards!

A science-fiction thriller.

"“Canter weaves together exciting action, tender relationships and plausible science in this thought-provoking thriller.” Kirkus Reviews ---- Aria Rioverde, a professor of ethnomusicology, is rapidly going blind. She is renowned for her performances of Afro-Caribbean music and dance from her home island of Curacao; but how will she continue the career she loves when she can no longer see? Desperate, she submits to being a test subject in an experimental procedure that surgically implants tiny computers in her retinas and brain. The system restores her eyesight, but unexpectedly her vision keeps evolving—growing more and more powerful. When her superhuman sight enables her to spy a black ops intelligence operation hidden deep inside a mountain, the dancer suddenly finds herself fleeing from armed killers who want the computer implants that are inside her head.