One Day Intensive Lightbox Workshop – July 23rd.

  Join us for one day intensive workshop on the Lightbox Method. This is a great introduction to this fresh approach to writing. While most writing approaches concentrate on developing plot, character and market driven books, the Lightbox Method will show you how to write a powerful meaning driven story.

Our one day workshop runs from 9 am to 4 pm, includes light lunch and is only $35 ($25 for students.) We will be meeting at Pacific Bible College in Medford, Oregon on Saturday July 23 and we hope to see you there.

For more information contact Sandy Cathcart who is organizing this event in cooperation with Pacific Bible College.

Need An Introduction?

The Lightbox Method will be presented in a one hour session at the upcoming “Writers of the Way (WOW)” Conference. The theme is Faith & Culture —A Writing Seminar and will take place Saturday, June 18, from 8:45 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Pacific Bible College, 409 North Front Street, Medford, Oregon. This seminar will focus on Christians writing and creating art for the general market without selling our souls.

I have been asked to sit on a panel discussing the questions regarding how to “speak” into our culture, build cultural bridges and recognize the difference between “good” and “bad” art. Cost of the conference is $35 for regular attendees and $25 for full-time students and seniors. Cost includes a continental breakfast and lunch.

11:00-12:00 Culture & Faith Panel

1:00-2:30 Lightbox Workshop

If you are in the area and curious about the Lightbox Method, why not drop in and get a taste for what this creative approach to writing can do in your life. Maybe you just need to be re-focused on what you have already discovered from previous Lightbox Method Seminars.

For whatever reason you will feel led to come, I am looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones on that Saturday. Sorry for all of those you who are not in the area and can’t make it, but maybe soon we can come to you part of the world. Keep watching this Blog for more upcoming Lightbox Method events.

Facing a Door with Lightbox Illumination

Being incurably right brained, I tend to write whatever comes to mind, only to find myself trapped in the corner of a room by a wet-paint floor—like a painter without a plan. Recently, however, when my character faced a door, danger on the other side, I used the Lightbox Method and slowed myself. I joined my mind with hers and we pondered and imagined. I tried to sense how she might feel. What could possibly be on the other side of the door? And given the various scenarios she imagined, what would the consequences be, emotionally and in reality? How would they fit into this particular story? When she opened the door, we stepped outside together. As the author I thought I knew what she would find. But then I experienced an aha Lightbox moment—together we discovered something more, something that surprised us both.

Thanks, John, for the wonderful Lightbox Method that allows us to go deeper—with clarity, to unearth the story that already exists and awaits our discovery, the story with plausibility and ongoing possibility.

Technical Writing & the Lightbox

Sarah attended our most recent Colorado Christian Writers Conference (May 2011) and was kind enough to send us this note:

The Light Box Method put this left-brained technical writer back in her right mind. Okay, I know that’s corny. But it’s true. Before I felt like I was shut in a box and couldn’t see beyond its walls. My world had grown smaller and smaller. My creativity had gone flat like an opened and forgotten can of soda.

In high school I aced both AP English and AP Chemistry. At the University I was torn between Speech Pathology and Creative Writing. When I returned to work after a long hiatus to raise my children, technical writing seemed the ideal niche. My work was satisfying. But it wasn’t fun. More and more, I found myself missing the free-wheeling world of advertising where I began my writing career. The wildly creative people I worked with then kept my own ideas flowing, and together we came up with wonderful, wacky, sometimes even award-winning stuff.

As a technical writer my right-brain side has been slowly starving to death. I tried feeding it by writing fiction and personal experience stories on the side for magazines. All of my pieces came out prim and preachy. Oh, some have been published all right. One was even anthologized. But many more languish unwanted in my files.

Perhaps a sensible person would have just given up on creativity, would have decided to be satisfied with satisfactory. Instead, I went to a writers’ conference where, pardon another cliché, I saw the light. The Light Box Method, that is.

Light Box Method. What in the world is that? My curiosity was piqued when I saw the continuing session listed at this May’s Colorado Christian Writers’ Conference, but not so much so that I rushed to sign up. Yet I kept going back to it. Maybe it was the spark I was looking for. The jump start that would get my novel moving forward again. Or maybe it was just plain weird. I decided there was only one way to find out.

I attended first session and discovered the inside of a box indeed comes alive when you turn on the light. I could hardly wait to try it out for myself. I had a moralistic little piece with me I hadn’t been able to sell. So I tentatively started light-boxing the first scene. Wow! Where did all that come from? I sure hadn’t seen it before. I worked out scene after scene until my roommate cried, “Enough! Turn out the light. I want to sleep.”

Now I’m down off the mountain and back in the real world where the Light Box Method enables me to write out of both my right brain and my left brain. Even my technical writing is better. Now I look at the data given me and seek out its meaning instead of just trying to interpret it for the layman. The sense of it comes into focus bright and clear without a struggle. Better yet, my novel is moving along too. Writing is fun again.

A More Exciting Read

The Lightbox Method helps me discover specific details that make the story more authentic. It enriches both characters and plot by showing me aspects of them I haven’t yet learned. When I, the author, uncover the story this way, it’s more exciting for the readers, because the characters and plot are less predictable. The Lightbox enables me to write with deeper meaning, because it reveals the universal truths that undergird the story. Jinny Sherman

Coming Back to the Lightbox

The following is a comment from a participant in a past Lightbox Seminar. I hope this will be helpful to us all. Thanks Sue for sharing.

John

Sue Roa

John–just read your Lightbox blog–it’s terrific! I’m ashamed to admit that even though you sent the intro to me last year, I didn’t implement it. Nevertheless, I’m excited to put it into practice now–I’m sure it’s exactly what I need to kick the depression (over not writing) out the door. Thank YOU!!! The Lord has been impressing me to become more involved with the Pro-Life movement and work to end abortion, something I’ve supported before, but still kept a distance. I’m planning to use the LM to help me tell my personal story and develop curriculum to reach wounded men and women with God’s grace and hope for the future.
Thank you again. God’s grace continue to abound over your work.

Calling all Scops!

The Lightbox Method is touching and changing lives of writers. If you have been to one of our seminars, you know the power of this approach to writing. This innovative method impacts our writing by changing how we approach the world and giving us  a fresh perspective.

One of my greatest joys is to see how versatile the Lightbox Method is in the hands of students who have taken up the challenge to be modern day Scops. I am amazed at how this method is being adopted and transformed by the unique applications of people with varied expertise.

This is a call to all Scops to send your comments and insights to our blog. I would like to hear how you plan to use or are using this method in your writing and in other areas of life. Some are using this approach in education, counseling and even in technical writing.

Many students of the Lightbox Method have something unique to offer to the development and growth of this powerful tool. Consider sending me an email of what you want to share with the world. Who knows, you might just encourage another writer to take up the challenge of being a Scop in a world badly in need of meaning-driven books.

Send all submissions to lightboxmethod@charter.net, and I will respond to every one of you. Thanks in advance for your contributions.

What drives your next book?

Colorado Christian Writers Conference is a mountain-top experience (literally,, at 8,000 feet, as well as professionally and emotionally) for writers seeking to exalt God in the world. I am just now returning home after our second continuing session on the Lightbox Method. More people signed up for this session than last year, and some came by to just check us out.

The most common question we received was, “What is the Lightbox Method?” I have struggled to define this rediscovered approach to writing. But at lunch during the conference, a group of us finally were able to sum up this life-changing approach in a few words:

“You have heard of plot-driven, character-driven, and even market-driven books. The Lightbox Method teaches you how to write a meaning-driven book.”

This does not mean we ignore plot, character or the market, but rather we ensure that all these elements are taken to the next level when meaning is the focus.

The Lightbox Method comes at a time when the Christian book industry is in a state of shock from the changing market, wondering what will be the key to selling in the future. Our argument is that we need to focus on what has always drawn people to books. We need to deliver meaning that will last through the ages.

In a Lightbox Seminar you will learn the essential tools used to write a book that is meaning driven so the readers can experience what they really need and want. Watch this blog for announcements about upcoming seminars! We are sorry if we missed you at CCWC, but our hope is that you will be at the next event.

If we are not close enough, why not organize an event and invite us to come?

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Storyboard to Lightbox

The storyboard example shown here is by Ling Zhou as a class assignment in his first college quarter. Each frame of this classic storyboard shows parts of the Heroic Journey narrative.

As we look at each picture in succession we create a narrative in our mind of what each image means and what the progression of the story indicates. In other words, we make something up to make sense of the sequence of frames.

What is interesting about this exercise is that each of us will create a different story to explain the frames. Without words and only images we impose a meaning on the storyboard that comes from our own experience.

When I started working with the Lightbox Method I pictured in my mind how animators and film artists will lay out a storyboard. Each frame is a snapshot of an important event in a story that logically flows from one action to another. I realized that is exactly what I am doing as a writer, whether I am composing a fictional or non-fictional project. Laying out my story in frames just seemed to make sense.

The trouble is, I am no artist like Ling Zhou, and I don’t want to make a film. I want to write a story. Artists will tell me a picture is worth a thousand words, but there are emotions, smells, and taste I can describe in words that an artist cannot.

That’s when I began to use my own frames, but instead of pictures, I used words. I briefly described what the main character experienced but without interpretation. I just wanted to see the story through the characters’ five senses. Like the frames illustrated on the left, the description was left open for interpretation. I wanted to see the story before I tried to understand what it was all about.

Moving from frame to frame, I told in brief, sketchy notes what was happening, moving logically through the actions. Free from interpretation, I just sketched out in words what I saw. We can do this with a real event as well. We might be surprised what we miss while trying to impose an interpretation on the events we witness.

As I worked I began to realize that I can’t really begin to understand the story until I have seen the entire thing, frame by frame. Just one frame could change the meaning of the story. If I missed a frame or got them in the wrong order I could misunderstand the story completely.

This is the first task of the Lightbox Method: to see the story without interpreting or imposing your desires upon it. This very simple idea is a powerful first step in paying attention to the world around us. It sounds simple, yet I found reporting what was actually happening very hard, because I wanted to impose on the story my point of view. When I realized I was imposing an uninformed point of view on each frame, it became easier to suspend my judgments until the end.

There is so much more to the Lightbox Method, of course. If you learn this method you will discover how to ‘light up’ each frame with a depth and meaning that will be surprising. Once you have done both, you will find it difficult not to write with passion and purpose.

You can take the first step now and start sketching out your story with frames, moving from one frame to another and just see where the story will take you. Go to www.lightboxmethod.com and download the free introduction tutorial to get started.

Lightbox and Life

I discovered the Lightbox Method last May, 2010, when John Wiuff and Sandy Cathcart presented it at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference. I was fascinated, and immediately started trying to apply it to my writing. And it certainly does provide clarity when I’m crafting a story or essay (primarily, I write devotionals and inspirational nonfiction stories).

So I was using John’s Lightbox approach to find out how the Lord sees the story, what shape the story should be in, and how that fits with Scripture. Then I made another discovery: This approach makes an amazing difference when I apply it to my relationships!

Say I’m dealing with a friend who’s being, shall we say, prickly. I get irritated, and I’m prickly in return. Now we’re both unhappy, and both of us are busily making the situation worse. However, when I start asking how the Lord sees my friend, what the underlying issues are in her prickliness, and how this aligns with Scripture, everything changes. For starters, I’m no longer judging her, and I’m no longer reacting to her words and tone. Instead, I’m looking into her heart, caring about her needs, reaching out in agape love to her. Another one of our Lord’s miracles in action!