ACT III
Who the Heck is JC Admore?!?
and what's the admore method?
My father once told me, "Whatever you do -- be it how you live, how you love, or how you write -- always strive to add more."
JC Admore
creator of the
Admore Method
How It All Began
1974
My mother claims I was born with a pencil in my hand. She also says I wrote before I could talk. I'm not sure I believe either story. But, one thing is certain: writing has played a major role in my life for as long as I can remember.
By the time I turned nine, I'd written several novel-length stories, some of them quite ambitious. Unfortunately, they all sucked. And I knew it. Even at that age, I knew my limitations. Writing was hard. Of course, that didn't stop me from doing it. It just meant I went through a lot of paper.
That same year, I discovered Aristotle's Poetics, wherein he postulated that a story has "a beginning, a middle and an end." Which is where we get the idea for the three-act structure. Of course, I studied other scholars, as well, such as Horace's Ars Poetica, in which he argued that "a play should neither be shorter nor longer than five acts." I seem to remember there were even a few Renaissance dramatists who argued for an eight-act structure.
1983
During my junior year in high school, an English teacher noticed I spent a lot of time scribbling in a notebook. When he asked me what I was writing, I told him, "Stories." Of course, I neglected to tell him they sucked. But the next day he loaned me his copy of Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces..
What struck me were the 17 stages of the hero myth. It was the first time I'd seen a method for writing. I immediately started a new story and meticulously followed the 17 stages.
Of course, in spite of my rigorous adherence to the formula, my story still sucked. But it sucked so much less that there was no denying the impact the formula had on the quality of my story.
Needless to say, I never returned it.
An Example of Aristotle's 3-Act Structure
Personally, I agree with Aristotle's three-act structue, because it makes sense. Life also has a three-act structure: childhood, adulthood and old age. And like the three-act structure, the first and third phases of life are shorter than the middle. Just like life, the second act is twice as long as the first and third acts.
While in Film School, I read The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By by Carol S. Pearson. In it, she identified six archetypal characters: the Innocent, the Orphan, the Wanderer, the Warrior, the Magician and the Martyr.
I soon realized that the Lead character experiences four of the growth phases during the course of a story. For example, they start out as an Orphan, advance to a Wanderer, become a Warrior, then ultimately sacrifice themselves as a Martyr in order to defeat their Opponent.
The Universal Human Experience
As a result of Ms. Pearson's book, I began to formulate a theory on the Universal Human Experience.
Just as Joseph Campbell saw a pattern in stories, I began to see a pattern in human experience. Just like Dr. Kubler-Ross identified the five stages of grief, I began to identify the steps that every human, in every culture, throughout time goes through when experiencing an emotional crisis.
Whether it's starting a new job, attending a new school, moving to a new country, tackling a massive project or struggling with the threat of a great loss... human beings all go through the same process. And, as I studied the topic deeper ... I began compiling those steps into a Timeline.
Adding More
I was still working on the Timeline when I became a professional reader at Paramount Studios. Back then, I called it the Clotheline Method, as it was my habit to hang 3X5 cards along a string, which I stretched across my room, to get an overall sense of the story.
1987
One day, a friend came over and saw a bunch of new cards along the string (new prompt points I'd developed) and asked, "Are you ever going to finish this thing?" I said, "Of course - when I can't add any more to it." Then, with his tongue in cheek, he said, "Maybe you should call it the Add-More Method." We both laughed. Then looked at each other and smiled.
Thus, the Admore Method was born.
Through the years, my Method has helped writers all over the world make a LOT of money.
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The Method works.
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Of course, it isn't the only Story Method out there. There's a plethora of methods available today. Mine is just one among many. Where it differs, however, is in the intuitive structure (ie. the steps) that emotionally resonate with a reader. As they read what the Lead goes through in the story, the reader feels a deep connection with the Lead, because they too have gone through those self-same steps. They too have felt the same feelings, struggled with the same difficult decisions and failed and succeeded in the same way.
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The Admore Method works because it's based on real life.
It's based on what I call the Universal Human Experience.
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Armed with this Method, it becomes possible to uncover story blocks, character issues, structural weaknesses, pacing problems, you name it. Whatever plagues your story, the Method can first reveal it, then help you fix it.
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The Admore Method is more than just a tool.
It's both a guide and a source of inspiration.
