Add Your Story’s Secret Sauce: Recipe Revealed!

Paul Newman's Secret Sauce to Story from 1966 is on the plate...Join our 4-week Writing Challenge. It starts next week!

Update! I added an example of a Secret Sauce Recipe for my family-friendly animated feature story, SWISH. If you’d like to see it, scroll to the comments. Post your secret sauce recipe in the comments, and I will send you feedback.

Thanks for reading!

For those of you who love Paul Newman’s acting career and food company, we’ll uncover his secret sauce to making movie magic by studying his starring role in the film HARPER (1966), starting April 2, 2024.

So, what's the key ingredient to that mouthwatering 'secret sauce' in a script?

It's all about using literary and storytelling techniques that not only grip the reader but also strip away the superfluous, leaving the essence of the story bare. So, in the end, the 'secret sauce' of a story or script can be found in the RECIPE for the conviction of its characters, making them—and their journey—unforgettable.

Next week, we’ll look at HARPER, written by William Goldman and discover why Goldman crafted a long ‘2 minute and 41 second’ character introduction. It was a risk that paid off.

Paul Newman learned the secret sauce technique from Goldman, which might explain why he started selling his salad dressing in 1982. I can relate. I learned to cook growing up in a Sicilian catering business family in New York that’s been in business for 70 years. I can’t live a day without my grandmother’s salad dressing. It’s because of the spices, which is a clue to why it’s bottled and sold in stores like Wegman's.

Early on, I learned the meaning of a company’s secret sauce. My family’s slogan for their chicken barbecue was “Famous for Taste.”

With my background as a storyteller and sugar-free/gluten-free and sometimes vegan chef, I understand why I'm fascinated by the writing concept: The Secret Sauce.

Chiavetta’s Chicken BBQ, 1954

Our four-week writing challenge demystifies the secret to adding secret sauce to your story by showing your concrete writing steps in the form of screenwriting and storytelling techniques taken from masterworks. We’ll also use a secret sauce recipe and food analogies to fire up our creative imaginations.

Take Story Waves’ 4-Week Writing Challenge to elevate your story’s…

CLARITY. COMMERCIAL APPEAL. AND CREATIVE POTENTIAL.

So, what's the recipe for your story's secret sauce? It starts with a character brimming with flavor, seasoned with 100% conviction in the face of the improbable.

This isn't just about adding a pinch of this or a dash of that. It's about crafting a character who can carry the weight of the narrative, who believes so fervently in their journey that the audience can't help but root for them.

Using spice metaphors allows us to create infinite types of characters and conflict.

LAST WEEK’S RECAP: A Writer’s Secret Sauce

• A writer’s personal secret sauce is their conviction to write unforgettable stories.

• The secret sauce is also a treasure trove of proven writing and storytelling techniques that can make a story successful.

• Both types of secret sauce are “must have” ingredients to make stories famous for taste.

What’s in this post

• Revealed: Your SECRET SAUCE RECIPE to writing unforgettable stories. Use the formula to prepare for the 4-week writing challenge starting April 2

• Create the synergy of your story’s special ingredients: flour, fat, cream, salt/vinegar/acid, sugar, and spice.

• Pre-Writing Challenge: Post your Story’s Secret Sauce Recipe in the test kitchen

• Review our April’s four screenwriting and storytelling prompts and get a sneak peek at Paul Newman’s secret sauce

YOUR STORY’S SECRET SAUCE RECIPE

DIRECTIONS: Read through the secret sauce recipe ingredients. Brainstorm and write your responses.

INGREDIENTS

Sprinkle the SPICE

• Q: How do I write a strong premise or logline using a food analogy?

  A: Add spicy conflict to your character traits. Make the protagonist and antagonist exact opposites. Then make fight for the same goal. One character is peppermint (cold), and the other is cayenne (hot), and they both want love.

Character spice is the most important ingredient when start to craft a story because it will intutively point the way to writing a strong premise. Choose at least one CHARACTER SPICE TRAIT that correlates with the story’s overall action (WIN, ESCAPE, RETRIEVE, STOP).

For ex., ask: What does my character want? Is it to win, to gain freedom, to amass money, or stop crime? Then, using spice analogies, describe your character, showing their unique quirks and traits. Next, put these traits into motion, making the character flavorful, unforgettable, and most of all—in constant conflict with the antagonist. Blend the main character’s traits as you would blend spices, giving them at least two main spices to describe their inner/outer behavior or appearance.

Add spice to taste…

• Compare/Contrast your protagonist and antagonist using the spice analogy, creating a symphony of traits, hitting the low, mid, and high notes of the ensemble and infusing the cast with as much “opposite” energy as possible to drive your central conflict.

• Everyday or Exotic? Describe your character's spicy embodiment as whole, crushed, or finely ground. Ask: Is this character an everyday spice like pepper, an exotic spice like saffron, or a colorful spice like turmeric?

• Adding spice to character builds a foundation for a strong story premise using opposing forces of the desires/weakness of your protagonist and antagonist.

Sift in the FLOUR

Sifting in the flour builds a character’s conviction and keeps the story engine running. Describe your character’s pure conviction that is only found in the grinding of the bones, deep inside, that no one can see. Conviction is the glue, the glutenous flour, which holds the character together emotionally on the inside, against all odds, even when they’re losing on the outside or have lost all spiritual or material hope. What are the grains of wisdom or intellect or actions your main character has that no one else has to make the impossible possible? What’s the storyline of them digging deep, creating a character of transforming adversity into victory? Or is the character gluten-free and falls apart?

Add the FAT

Adding the fat allows you to give your main character a weakness/need from their past. Reveal the main character's toxic backstory, which is a reservoir of human trauma fueling addictive behaviors and or bad habits that ignite and lie dormant until fired up by a search for the truth. Or do they still hide from the fat? Do the same for the antagonist, villain, or supervillain. When the main character decides to “lose the fat” they can change their mind and beliefs and reach their goals.

Dollop with CREAM

Adding a dollop of cream is necessary to create a complex character and the story behind their birth. They were born for a reason. What is it? Tell the main character and antagonist's dark or light “mother” story, enveloping each character in a shadowy cave of starving for love or bathed in the stark light of truth. Reveal their dark or light connection to the black or white Madonna. Show and describe nurture vs. nature's inner and outer conflicts and the possible upward healing journey of ascension or the downward disintegration to dust.

Shake the SALT | VINEGAR | ACID

Shaking the salt, vinegar, acid is a necessary evil of revealing the deep emotional wounds of the past. It’s important to plant the seeds of your main character’s arc through alchemical transformation. Shake the healing salt crystals on the main character’s opened wounds (fat/cream) and then, through the sharp sting of truth (salt | vinegar | acid) arising out of your central conflict (between main character and opponent), your main character experiences a necessary pain that catalyzes their step-by-step transformation and character arc.

Pour the SUGAR

Pouring the sugar is for your audience as much as it is for your main character. Everyone wants to experience sweet redemption. Show the sweet change of heart that comes, paradoxically, through the main character’s embracing and accepting the broken romantic promise after a long resisting of life's bitterness. Twist this beat, and pouring the sugar could be a “false romantic win” scene early on that can be paid off later in the story.

Expand your story’s success with a pantry of creative writing tools that add depth, flavor, and unforgettableness to your premise, characters, and conflict.

4-Week Writing Challenge: Tuesday, April 2-23, 2024.

Join and grow the Story Waves’ writing community.

Put your conviction, creativity, and secret sauce recipe with your unique story ingredients on paper!

Grow your creative writing practice with proven secret sauce screenwriting techniques: visual montages, bookends, family dinner scenes, and dance scenes.

A PRE-WRITING CHALLENGE PROMO: This week!

Get started this week with your story’s secret sauce recipe:

1. Follow the secret sauce recipe in this post and write the special ingredients that make up your story.

2. Reduce your recipe’s ingredients (spice, flour, fat, cream, salt/vinegar/acid, and sugar) to one sentence. This will help you streamline your premise/logline.

3. Write your premise or logline in one sentence.

4. Post any of the following for your story’s unique recipe (premise/ingredients) in one sentence each, and post them in the comments. I will also post in the comments and support your writing.

STARTING APRIL 2: Writing Prompts at a Glance

Starting Tuesday, April 2, 2024, we kick off Add Your Story’s Secret Sauce.

SNEAK PEEK: In Week 1, we’ll find out what Paul Newman knew about a story’s secret sauce when we uncover his PI mystery film HARPER (1966). Our first writing prompt will recreate an unforgettable opening character montage as Paul Newman showed us in HARPER.

Use your SECRET SAUCE RECIPE during our 4-Week Writing Challenge:

4/2/24: A character montage, using the mystery HARPER (1966), w/ Paul Newman.

4/9/24: An animal spirit bookend scene, using the Hulu TV series, THE BEAR (2022).

4/16/24: A family dinner scene, using the comedy STEP BROTHERS (2008).

4/23/24: A dance scene, using the rom-com THE WEDDING PLANNER (2001).

Use the Secret Sauce Ingredients in the Writing Challenge

• Add Conviction + Creativity + Secret Sauce techniques for Storytelling Success

• Each week, we’ll use your recipe ingredients to practice a specific screenwriting and storytelling technique, such as a character montage.

• The goal of this writing challenge offers an opportunity to create your “special story formula” and to practice applying the story ingredients to your premise, character, and conflict using screenwriting proven techniques from TV and film.

Writing Challenge: What to Expect

All subscribers can expect to achieve the following outcomes:

Enhanced Screenplay Elements Mastery:

• Action Mastery: Learn how to craft vivid, dynamic action lines to set the scene, evoke emotions, and immerse the audience in the world of your story.

• Dialogue Development: Gain the skills to write sharp, character-specific dialogue that reveals personality, advances the plot, and enriches the narrative.

• Character Depth: Discover how to use the secret sauce recipe to add layers to your characters, making them more complex, relatable, and memorable through their actions, choices, and dialogue.

• Persuasive Writing Techniques: Employ persuasive writing strategies in combination with the secret sauce story ingredients to convince readers of your characters' motivations, the importance of the central conflict, and the necessity of the journey they undertake.

General Outcomes for All Participants:

• Understand the Secret Sauce Recipe: Grasp how to apply this unique formula to create memorable characters and stories that embody conviction.

• Enhance Story Crafting Skills: Learn to effectively use the secret sauce to craft compelling opening pages, strong character introductions, setting up the initial story framework, deepening the central conflict, and designing a gripping inciting incident.

• Boost Creativity and Conviction: Gain insights into using your conviction and creativity to add a special flavor to your storytelling, making it stand out.

• Apply Key Ingredients: Learn to infuse your writing with the FAT (toxic backstories), CREAM (the mother story), SALT & VINEGAR & ACID (seeds of transformation), SUGAR (change of heart), and SPICE (unique character quirks).

Specific Benefits for Joining the April Secret Sauce Challenge (free):

• A Collection of Writing Tools: Acquire a treasure chest of storytelling principles and specific tools applicable across various writing projects.

• Works in Progress: Create new works in progress, including scenes, dialogue, and more, with the opportunity to apply the secret sauce recipe and techniques.

• Community Engagement: Practice writing with deadlines, share your work, and interact with a community of like-minded creatives in the comments.

Additional Perks for Paid Subscribers ($8/$79):

• Personalized Feedback: Receive written supportive feedback from the challenge host on your storytelling efforts. Just reply to an email during the challenge with REQUEST FEEDBACK in the subject line. I’ll write back and give compliments, ask questions, and offer suggestions.

• Exclusive Content and Opportunities: Gain access to additional resources, future challenges, and workshops.

FULL ACCESS Subscriber Benefits ($159):

• One-on-One Story Waves Session*: Enjoy a personalized 15-minute session focusing on the opening pages of your script or manuscript. The session will offer direct feedback to improve your writing.

• Chance to Win a Comprehensive Story Session*: Participate in a drawing for a detailed, one-hour story consultation, providing an in-depth review of your story outline, full script, or manuscript. For Full Access subscribers who post in all of the four weeks’ challenges.

·       *Please see my genre preferences on the About page

By focusing on these screenplay elements, participants will not only refine their storytelling skills but also enhance their ability to create scripts that are compelling, visually engaging, and ripe for the silver screen.

What people say

Kelly Keough is a genius! Not only does she take the time to ensure that every writer gets an adequate amount of notes that successfully sets them up for the next draft, but she also uses her industry expertise to bring every script to the next level. I couldn’t recommend her workshops more. ~Zach B.

Working with Kelly Keough is amazing! She has helped me with two of my scripts now and I cannot be more grateful. She always has incredible insight and her knowledge and command of structure are top notch! She’s great at helping you get through writer’s block. Kelly is direct, honest, caring and has a keen intuition that really benefits her clients! Thank you Kelly! ~Beth N.

Kelly Keough is an incredible teacher and writer whose skill and wisdom can only be matched by her compassion and encouraging nature. I was lucky enough to have her as my professor in college and the way that I approach my writing has been forever changed by her teaching. As you can tell from her workshops and videos, she is concise and clear, accomplished and knowledgeable, and most importantly eager to help you succeed and find your voice. ~Emma M.

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Happy writing,

Kelly E. Keough