Laura, I mentioned his seminar "in a few weeks". I was wrong. It's November 14th at the casino near my new place in Vegas. Anyone interested, the airfare to Vegas is not too bad & the Sunset Station Hotel/Casino has very low rates. 😉 http://bit.ly/1XgUBSH

And people, you can see from Michael's response that my bare-bones outline does NOT do justice to his brilliance. If you get a chance to see him in person, or get his book or DVD, do it!

When I went to holistic healing school I first heard the term "essence." In a decade, I hadn't thought to transfer that idea to my writing--until you talked about it. What a concept. And yes, essence is what made me fall in love with my tough, emotion-free, wrestler husband. I saw the massive tenderness under that hard exterior and knew I would always be safe with him.

Can't wait to see you at the next conference. You rock!

And to all of you who responded, and who made such kind and ego-inflating comments, my deepest gratitude. It means a lot to have my ideas garner such a strong and positive response, and to know they’re helping your writing.

And now, at the risk of commandeering Laura’s terrific blog, I’d like to respond to some of the issues the article and comments raised, to see if I can clarify them a bit. I’m not well versed in the principles of blogging, so apologies if I’m breaking ten different rules of what a comment should, and shouldn’t, be.

Laura – When you wrote in your notes that the identity/essence principle was great before sex, what I meant by that was that rather than just have the heroine and hero jump into bed because the sexual tension is so great, precede it by a moment of real vulnerability between the two – when one of them drops the mask of his or her identity and risks letting the other see the truth they have been hiding. I like to say that in great stories, the lovers have to get naked before they can get naked. (By the way, I agree completely regarding the lovers in The Hunger Games trilogy. The resolution of the love triangle seemed arbitrary to me, and very unfulfilling, for the very reason you said.)

And if you really would love to take my 2-day Story Mastery workshop like Sylvia did, you're in luck now that you're in Texas. Among my many upcoming seminars, I’ll be offering one for the Austin RWA Chapter the first weekend in February. Just stay tuned to my web site.

[And here’s another somewhat shameless plug: for those who couldn’t be there for my lecture at Nationals, the key concepts I discussed are available in a video (slide show) and audio presentation entitled ADD HOLLYWOOD MAGIC TO YOUR STORIES (http://www.storymastery.com/shop/flash-drive/add-hollywood-magic-to-your-stories-flash-drive/).]

Carol – The issue of whether a Reflection Character can also be the Romance (love interest) comes up frequently. Both characters are at times supportive of the heroine (or hero) achieving her goal, and both see beneath the heroine’s identity to her essence. But I recommend you not combine them. It will become confusing, and the tool will lose its helpfulness. And the Reflection has an important separate function to fill. Even though the Reflection wants the heroine to achieve her goal(s), the Reflection will repeatedly hold the heroine’s feet to the fire and urge her toward her essence. Toward the end of most love stories, there is a moment when the heroine has suffered a setback, become too afraid, given up on her goal and retreated back where she was at the beginning of the story – fully in her protective identity. This is when the Reflection will invariably confront her with some form of the challenge, “What the hell are you doing? You know you want him/it. Go after it!”

Laura again – Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady is a Reflection for Eliza, but never a Romance character, because she never pursues him romantically, nor him her. Even though we want them to be together, and we can infer the possibility of some romance after the play or film is over, it’s really not a love story in the traditional sense.

Jenny – The missing phrase regarding the Nemesis (the character who stands in opposition to the hero/heroine achieving his goal) was that that character embodies the hero’s Identity. In other words, even though the hero (or heroine) may look upon this character as his opposite, in some way the character’s words or actions are consistent with the hero’s own persona or inner conflict. In SHREK, Lord Farquaad makes fun of Shrek for falling in love even though he’s an ogre. But that’s just the attitude Shrek has about himself that has kept him hidden behind a barbed wire fence, refusing to get close to anyone. And in TOOTSIE, Ron, the sexist and insulting TV director played by Dabney Coleman, is Michael’s Nemesis, because Ron is having an affair with Julie, the actress Michael is in love with. But is Ron really that different from Michael, who also lies to and manipulates women to get what he wants? It’s only when Michael becomes Dorothy and discovers his essence that his similarity to Ron ends.

And finally, a word about JERRY MAGUIRE: it contains a line of dialogue that brilliantly conveys the idea of connecting with another’s essence. When Dorothy (Renee Zellweger) is chastised by her sister for sleeping with Jerry, Dorothy answers, “You don’t understand. I love him. I love him. I love him for the man he wants to be, and I love him for the man he almost is.” In a great love story, the Romance recognizes the potential the hero or heroine possesses, and will love them and stand by them until their courage is great enough, and their essence is realized.

I will now return control of this blog to Laura, with deepest thanks to you all. Keep writing, and Stay in Your Essence!

- Michael