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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are thrilled to share our March book club episode on the thought-provoking and pulse-pounding Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.

“An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price. Until something goes wrong. . . .” - Amazon.com

We open this episode by announcing that our first $5 Writing Class live training at the end of March will be on the movie version of Jurassic Park. We chose this topic because the script and story elements are ripe for analysis - and most people have seen it. We’ll be taking apart different scenes and diving into topics such as: establishing clear stakes, exposition hidden in movement, characters with diverse viewpoints, and conflict in entertaining dialogue - and will also create moments for discussion. We’ll be announcing more details this week on social media. We hope you join us!

In this episode, we talk about the context for Jurassic Park - the original draft told the story from a child’s viewpoint and it took many rounds of rewrites and rejections before it was picked up for publication as more of a thriller. We unpack elements that Michael Crichton used really well in this book and others that we felt detracted from the story. Here are some of our key takeaways:

- Setup suspense and heightened stakes through showing what harm and violence the dinosaurs where capable of using smaller side characters. And then make it clear that it’s about to happen again with someone we’re more connected with.

- Create a sense of proximity to the action through using visceral descriptions that immerse the reader in the story world - especially evoking the senses of sound, smell, and touch.

- Choose the right viewpoint to maximize the fear and switch at just the right moment to stretch out the tension.

- Slow down time to make the most out of all the suspense and tension of a ticking clock that would result in disaster that has global implications.

We didn’t love this book - but feel it has a lot to teach about imersing a reader within the story world, playing the lens of viewpoint, racheting up the suspese to 11, and as an exploration of a strong theme.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore