A Conversation with Betsy Trapasso

I have long been waiting for the right time to introduce you to Betsy Trapasso, an End of Life guide, who has devoted her life's work to helping people and their families through the dying process. Her uniquely gifted spirit guides people to ensure that they have, what she calls, a peaceful death. This month I had the chance to talk with her about her newly launched organization called Death and the Arts, which is committed to creating death positive cultures by bringing artists together from all over the world to explore the topic of death. Read on below for our full conversation.

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After receiving her Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California in 1993, BETSY TRAPASSO began working as a hospice social worker in Los Angeles. She fell in love with this work and knew that she had found her calling. 

The first hospice facility in the US is in her hometown of Branford, Connecticut. Betsy's grandfather and mayor of Branford, John Sliney, fought to have Connecticut Hospice built there. He believed that the dying deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. Betsy is carrying on his vision by working to change how we view and do death in the United States. In addition to her advocacy work, she now works as an End of Life Guide and has helped hundreds of people and families through the dying process. She has studied Thai massage, yoga, essential oils and meditation, which influence her work. Betsy is also the hostess of Death Cafe Los Angeles.

Betsy is the Founder of Death and the Arts, devoted to creating death positive cultures through the arts by bringing artists together from all over the world to explore the topic of death. She has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, MSN, and Forbes. As a speaker at TEDxMalibu her talk was Death and the Desire for a Hollywood Ending.

Karin: Can you start by describing the work that you do and where it began?

Betsy: I guess it began being a social hospice worker over 20 years ago. 20 years ago, wow! Of just starting to do hospice social work in Los Angeles and falling in love with it and finding it was my calling and my passion. I was able to go into complete strangers' homes and help them to have a good death and to help their families. Usually when people are in crisis they don't know what to do, and I could go in and help them really make sense of it - and help the dying person die without fear and get them to kind of accept what was happening, because no one really knew what to do. And even today people still don't know. There are more resources but people are just lost. And it was such an honor to go in and help people die.

Why do you believe people are afraid of death?

I think people are afraid because we just don't talk about it. If you don't talk about something, you don't know about it. You don't know what it is.

What do people discover when they talk about it?

What their true feelings are, and what their fears are. I find when you talk about things, you can actually really discover what you're thinking. So sitting there and asking people point blank, “What do you think... is there an afterlife? Where do you think you're going? What is your fear? What are your regrets? Who do you want to talk to, is there anyone you want to make things right with?”

For so many people, their biggest fear is that they will be forgotten, and their life didn't mean anything. Nowadays, you can leave things. When I started there wasn't a computer, there wasn't the Internet. There were just photos, and not even digital photos yet. People write stories now; they can do so many things. They like to be able to hear, “You did matter.” You bring the family in, bring their friends in. Have people tell them, “This is what you meant to me.” You help them figure out what they got out of this life, and what they did right and what they feel they did wrong. If they believe they're coming back, what they can do next. It's just endless.

Is this similar to what the Death Cafés are about?

Death Café is different. Death Café is not a support group or a therapy group. It's just a place for people to come together to talk about whatever they want to talk about. There's no topic, no speaker. I just gather 10 people together for about three hours. I just say 'I'm the hostess', and I sit back and let everybody just talk. Maybe someone in their family died, maybe a friend died, and they can't talk about it anywhere with anybody.

My big thing is that I'm not an expert, this is not for me to teach you anything. It's just a time for you guys to get together and talk about whatever is meaningful to you. I don't even say, “What brought you here?” The first half hour people are just getting the food and getting to know each other. We don't even sit down right away and talk. So people are already getting to know each other like as if you're at a party. So it doesn't feel like you're coming and sitting right down in a group of complete strangers.

The three tenets of it are: it's not-for-profit, everything is confidential, and we call it just “be nice to each other.” Just don't steer anybody towards what you believe, everyone be supportive of each other, and that's it. So it's actually really simple.

You can talk about death, life, whatever is meaningful to you. Some want to talk about advance directives or what am I going to do when I'm in the hospital? Or how have I lived my life? What do I want to do with my life, what's really motivating me? Some young moms say, 'Oh I have a baby now and I'm really thinking about death. I've never really thought about it before.' So that's what I'm saying, it can be anything and everything. I never know, I'm always surprised. No two have ever been alike.

How did your work evolve after your hospice work?

What I learned through doing my hospice work is that I'm always very drawn to the spiritual part of it. As a hospice social worker, you're just in that little box doing social work, which is wonderful because you help people with all their issues. But I also through the years have my guru, my meditation, chanting, essential oils, Thai massage, and all these things I've learned through the years that would be helpful to the family, because you're not just working with the dying person, you're working with the family, too. And that's a whole other issue - the caregivers - and supporting them. So it's just putting a vision together of what would work best for the dying and the family.

And then also, the advocacy: just trying to change how we deal with the dying and the caretakers, and everything that's happening in the country, because there's 78 million baby boomers and people are getting older. There are more people with dementia and Alzheimer's. There are not enough people to take care of the dying. People are having to leave their jobs and be caretakers. So what do families do? People are getting involved in it and realizing that there's a crisis. So there are movements everywhere. I love all of them and want to be a part of all of them!

Tell me about your new organization Death and the Arts.

Yeah, I'm so excited. My whole interest in End of Life is: I want people not to be afraid of death. That's what I discovered when I was a hospice social worker. People always said, “God, if I had known about this, talked about it earlier, I wouldn't have these regrets” or “I would have done my life differently, I would have made different choices, I would have enjoyed things.” I just found that over and over and over. People just weren't happy with their lives. And it wasn't until I came in at the end that they really realized it.

So my whole goal is to get people not to have regrets, to live their life now how they want to live it. And the only way to do that is to get people thinking about death, dying and end of life, but they're afraid. So then I saw that movies about end of life were very popular, songs about death and dying, theater and plays, everything. People will go to those things. People will listen to songs. People will go see Julianne Moore in Still Alice about Alzheimer's. She's a young person who got Alzheimer's. That's devastating. There is early onset. They probably wouldn't look at a real person in real life, but it was easier to look at Julianne Moore do it. Or the Stephen Hawking movie about ALS. You know, that actor won best actor. So it's the way people can talk about it without feeling so vulnerable.

So that's where I came up with Death and the Arts. I want to connect people all over the world to each other and do projects. That's what always fascinated me, because in Los Angeles I was exposed to different cultures and how people do death. Like, wow, if we all knew what each other does, then maybe it'd be fascinating to talk about it in a way that's not threatening. So I want to get musicians from all over the world - different countries - to write a song about death. Or the photographers could take picture about what death represents to them. It doesn't have to be a dying person. Just put projects together so everyone can communicate all over the world about it, which is kind of my dream. Because I love learning. I think that people could look at it and not be afraid and start talking about it in that way.

How can people get involved?

If anyone is an artist or wants to contribute something, I have a Facebook page. They can post their own art on there. I want people to start posting things up there now, so people can see what they're doing, and they can write a little thing about it. I'll put projects together, but it's just a place to share.

What's the coolest thing you've discovered in terms of how a culture deals with death, or the ritual around it? Is there anything that was particularly eye opening for you?

I love Day of the Dead. I went down to Mexico in 1995 at the same time I was doing hospice social work. I saw my first Day of the Dead festivals and I was like, “Ahhh.” I fell completely in love with it. They actually go to the cemeteries and honor the dead, so there are parties there. They bring the flowers, they bring the food, they make altars to honor their people. There were plays in Mexico City. There were fireworks. It just blew me away. I loved it. That's my favorite.

It sounds very celebratory.

It's so celebratory, and they're not afraid.

To learn more about Betsy Trapasso, visit betsytrapasso.com

To joint the Death and the Arts community, visit the Facebook or Twitter page, or join Betsy's e-list for future updates. If you'd like to be a host of a death cafe, see the guidelines.

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A Conversation with Pat Verducci

This month I had the amazing opportunity to chat about Story Structure (one of my favorite topics!) with Pat Verducci whom I first met at Cinestory's Writers Retreat in the mountains of Idyllwild. In addition to being generous and radiant in spirit, Pat is a screenwriter and story consultant who has taught at Cal State Fullerton, UCLA Extension Writers' Program and most recently at The Daily Love's Writer's Mastermind in Bali, where she helped writers complete their manuscripts in one month.

Scroll down for the full interview, and be sure to look out for the few books Pat mentions if you want to explore Story Structure more deeply.

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PAT VERDUCCI is a screenwriter, film director and story consultant. She has written scripts for Touchstone Pictures, Witt Thomas Productions, and Disney's animation division.  She has also worked as a story consultant for Disney/Pixar, brainstorming with writers and directors as part of their story trust. She teaches in UCLA Extension's creative writing program and has guided memoir and novel writers through writing their first drafts in one month at The Daily Love's Writer's Mastermind in Bali. 

You can sign up for her free weekly blog posts about craft and inspiration, and find out more about her consulting services by visiting her website.

How do you approach teaching Story Structure with your students?

I like to give my students three different models to work with. The first one is “The Hero's Journey,” which is the classic, most deep story structure model, because it originates in our unconscious.

Then I talk about the “Three-Act Structure,” because if the students want to actually make a career out of screenwriting, they need to know how to speak the language of Hollywood. And most people in Hollywood talk in Three-Act Structure. As I do that, I'm showing them how the Three-Act Structure lines up perfectly with The Hero's Journey.

Then I talk about Jule Selbo's 11-Step model. I really like it, because it focuses on the character's goal.

Then I say, “Now pick the one that you like best.”

Then we just start brainstorming action for each of those models, until we get a story that's working, where we can clearly see how the main character has transformed - because for me, it's always about the character and how they change in the story.

What Story Structure model do you personally use?

I like The Hero's Journey. I think that it's the deepest psychological model; and to me, even though it's called the “Hero's” journey, I feel like it's a really female model. Clearly, I'm female, but I have a very strong masculine side. I feel like this model embodies both sides of my brain, and I like that. It gives me the structure that I need, which is the masculine, but it also has that female side, which is all that emotional, psychological stuff built in to the model, which I love. It encompasses both the animus and anima.

There's a reason why it's been around since the beginning of time. It really allows us to tell a story in a way that creates a moment of catharsis for the audience, where all the emotion that has built up throughout the story is purged in the resurrection. It's a very clear structural model. And the great thing about it, too, is that it's a form not a formula. Some of the phases can float around, so there's play and fluidity in it.

What's your take on the Three-Act Structure, compared to the other models?

I love Three-Act Structure. This is what I learned at UCLA Film School. Here's the thing about Three-Act Structure: It clearly establishes Turning Points in a story. In a movie, those are probably the most important landmarks, like the “Inciting Incident,” the “Act One Turning Point,” the “Midpoint,” the “Act Two Turning Point,” and the “Climax.” These are the major beats in any movie. Unless you're making an experimental film, I think that holds true for every movie; that structure is there. So I think that's the strength of Three-Act Structure; it allows you to know that in a movie that has a prescribed length of time, you have these Turning Points that need to happen. And each one propels the Hero's Journey forward in some way.

What I think the Three-Act Structure lacks, which Jule Selbo's 11 Steps and The Hero's Journey supply, is using the character's desire as an engine to drive the Hero through those Turning Points.

The best book I've ever read on Three-Act Structure is Linda Seger's book Making A Good Script Great. She talks about what a Turning Point is and all the things it needs to do to actually work as a Turning Point. That helped me so much. She has six functions that the Turning Point has to fulfill, and if that moment in the script doesn't fulfill those functions, it's not strong enough. So it gives you a reference and you can say, “Hey, are my Turning Points working properly? And if not, how can I add that one thing that's missing and make it really strong?” She also has a really great chapter on how to create “stakes” for your main character-how to set up that if your main character doesn't get what he or she wants, something important will be lost.  So we feel suspense whether it's a comedy or drama.

Do you think the Three-Act Structure will evolve and change with new mediums for telling stories?

I personally do not and here's why. I think that Three-Act Structure - beginning, middle and end - exists because it's the way we need to have stories told so we get satisfaction from them. Now I'm not talking about non-linear filmmaking, which is a completely different discussion. In Robert McKee's book Story, he has a whole chapter on alternative forms, and most of those forms are a reaction to Three-Act Structure. They're literally taking Three-Act Structure elements and tweaking them. So I actually think that we need stories to be told in a certain way so that we can relate to the character; we get pulled into the question, “Will they get what they want?” And we want to see if they get it or not in a big climax.

I don't know about you, but when I see a movie where the Three-Act Structure is off, and there's no catharsis, I get mad. That's not true if I go to see a movie that's non-linear or if I go to see a Beckett play, I don't expect that. I expect a different experience. But for myself, I think the Three-Act Structure is around and hasn't changed because it works. And it always will. And yeah, people are going to come up with different responses to it, but it's all really just a response to this model.

When you're working with writers, what are some really common mistakes or pitfalls that pop up for you?

The main thing that took me a long time to learn in film school, is that everything comes from what your main character wants. That was my big epiphany - like, “Hey, you know what... I need to know what my main character wants because this is what actually compels them through the narrative, and allows them to hit obstacles.” And because this goal is so difficult to achieve, they have to change to get it. So I always try to tell the people I'm working with, “Hey, this is the secret!” Some people get it right away, and some people it takes a while. I was one of the people it took a while, like I almost didn't believe it - like, “No, I need to have a fancy plot! Lots of cool things that happen.” But really, what I needed was someone who wanted something really badly; and if they had that, and they were determined and went after it, all these fancy plot things happened in response to that.

Do you think all characters know what they want at the beginning?

In some stories they do. If you watch Bridget Jones' Diary, we start at her parents' house, and she's wearing this ugly outfit and she's single and she's pissed. She wants to be with somebody. She's trying to put a brave face on it, but she wants love. So she knows what she wants.

But there are other movies where the main character is just going along in [his or her] ordinary world - like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings - he's in the shire, he's kind of happy, he's just living his life, and then - BOOM - he has to do this thing. He doesn't want to do it, but he's the only one who can. And in undertaking this task, he discovers who he is and what he's made of. He has to destroy the ring. That's the quest, the specific mission.

But here's the thing: underneath that is the emotional want. So I believe, even if you have a main character in the beginning of your movie who doesn't know what they want, you 'the writer' have to know exactly what they want. You have to know exactly what they want emotionally and how the specific goal in the story fulfills that emotional need.

Isn't that going back to the idea that in the beginning the protagonist wants something, typically a more external goal, and then by the end discovers what he or she actually needs, on a deeper, emotional level?

Take Wreck it Ralph: in the beginning he wants to get the medal, because he thinks it'll make him belong. Then by the end, he realizes that what he really needs is to accept himself as he is.

Yes, and like you said, it's the external goal that brings him to that understanding. That's exactly what I'm talking about. You, the writer, know who your character is and what they actually need, but you have this external goal that they go for in the story, and as they pursue this and face obstacles and find their strength, they discover, usually in the climax, what it is that they really value. And lots of times it's about embracing who they are, and accepting who they are.

In The Hero's Journey, in the climax, it's all about the Hero facing the bad guy, called “The Shadow.” Usually The Shadow is the darkness inside the Hero that he or she can't face, so really it's about embracing the darkness inside you and accepting it.

In The Hero's Journey, all the characters in the journey are sort of fractured pieces of the Hero, and by traveling on this journey through the narrative, he or she is pulling all the pieces of him or herself together so at the end of the story they're whole. The Hero's Journey dovetails a lot with Jungian psychology.

The weird thing about storytelling is that there are so many different structural models and terminology, but it's all the same. We're all talking about the same stuff. Each of the models is just describing the same structure in different ways. 

To learn more about Pat Verducci, visit patverducci.com

To learn more about The Hero's Journey, you might pick up Christopher Vogler's book The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.

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A Conversation with Leslie Lehr

In the summer Unlocking Your Story workshops we've been discussing the differences between fiction and nonfiction, and what each one offers as a form to share the story that you want to tell. For some writers it's an obvious inclination toward one or the other; for other writers, it's not so clear.

I had the great pleasure of talking in depth with prize-winning author, essayist and screenwriter Leslie Lehr about her point of view on this topic. As someone who writes both fiction and nonfiction, she shared openly about her own creative process and approach, which I found extremely thought-provoking. Leslie also teaches novel writing at UCLA Extension Writers' Program and is a story consultant for Truby Writers Studio. You can read the full interview below!

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Leslie Lehr is a prize-winning author, essayist and screenwriter. Her new novel, What A Mother Knows, follows Wife Goes On, 66 Laps, and three nonfiction books, including Welcome to Club Mom. Her essays appear in the New York Times, Huffington Post, and anthologies such as Mommy Wars. Leslie mentors writers through private consulting and Truby's Writers Studio. A graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts with an MFA from Antioch University, she is a member of PEN, The Authors Guild, WGA, Women In Film, The Women's Leadership Council of L.A., and is a contributor to the Tarcher/Penguin Series "Now Write."

Karin: You write both fiction and nonfiction. How would you describe the difference between the two?

Leslie: With fiction, like my new novel, What A Mother Knows, every single element is designed to express an emotional truth, so you design and funnel everything for that purpose. With memoir, you are limited to reality. You can expand and compress time or include some things and not others, but it's a tricky thing. It's still your point of view, but our memories are not always reliable, nor popular. Fiction offers a structure in which to include the things that are the most important to you. 

So would you say fiction is more structured or formulaic than memoir? 

Not formulaic in a bad way. The best memoirs have a frame, but you're still dealing with weighing personal experience with what you learned from it. In a novel you are forced to make things up around those ideas. You have to tell a story based on a person who has a need and a desire, strong opponents, a battle, a climax and a resolution - and more things that happen in between depending on what the genre is. It all springs from your theme but doesn't explain it. Writing a novel, the reader needs to know where the characters are all the time. You need to be the camera. And if a certain element doesn't work to tell your story, it shouldn't be there. Everything needs to be carefully designed.

In memoir, you can usually take more time with internal narrative. And you have to tell the truth even if it's just your side of the truth. You can't add stuff that happened to help make your point. That said, if you have something to say, you can say it in either form.

My dad is a scientist, and he doesn't read any fiction. We've discussed this often over the years. And I've written both. I've written three fiction books, three nonfiction, screenplays, and I do a lot of personal essays. My dad writes a lot of articles, but he thinks that fiction is make-believe. I have to tell him that nonfiction - even books on science and history - is according to the statistics of that day. History changes. It also tends to be one person's point of view. So if you're trying to tell a story about an emotional event or some reality, fiction is the way I like to do it. There is a real truth you can get to in fiction that you can't always get to in non-fiction.

There are benefits to both forms, but I am having the most fun with full-length fiction. And I do use fiction as a device to explore real life even beyond the entertainment or escape value. Currently, I'm working on the script for What A Mother Knows, which is truly puzzle-making, cutting so much while keeping the meaning intact. I'm also developing a new story, based on emotional and cultural truths that I want to express. I also do manuscript consultations for Truby Writers Studio using story structure techniques that enhance memoirs as well as novels.

If someone is debating between fiction and nonfiction to tell a certain story, is there a way that they can answer that question for themselves?

That's a personal choice. In fiction, stories are better told in particular genres. But when you want to tell a certain truth, either commit to transparency or wrap it in a fictional story.

Years before I wrote What A Mother Knows, I wrote a memoir that a family member objected to so much that I decided to hold off on publishing until it felt safe for everyone. Some writers feel comfortable even when others are not comfortable - I'm just not one. I think life is challenging enough than to ask for trouble, especially when I can deal with the same issues in fiction. And sure enough, a bit of it ended up in What A Mother Knows - the emotional truth of it, anyway.

The advantage of writing fiction is that you can make up things in order to tell a story in a way that can magnify the idea that you want to explore. On the other hand, you're in competition with people making up any story, and so it has to be really good and bigger than life and yet more intimate and precise, because you're trying to tell your story. So it's a decision that you, as the writer, have to make, and be 'all in' whichever you choose.

Last year a woman from the State Library of California read all of my work for an in depth interview at Literary Orange. She pointed out that most of my work begins with a personal essay then expands into a novel. So, without being conscious of it, I've been playing with the best of both worlds.

Is it true that you always know the ending to your stories when you begin?

I always figure you can't hit the bull's eye unless you can see the target. But that's just me. I know a lot of people who don't know the ending. If you know where you're going, then you're going to design a story that makes it all logical. You want the ending to be a surprise, but it has to be a logical surprise. You know how disappointing it can be when the butler did it? All the time we put in to watching or reading something and then there's no pay-off because something came out of the blue. It has to be really synthesized to work in a certain way. I'm not saying that everyone should have an ending and stick to it. The character's journey can inspire a writer to change the ending. For me it just helps to know where I'm going. Writing a novel takes a lot of time and a lot of passion. For me, caring that much about a story typically means caring that it gets to a particular ending.

In memoir, you might not know the ending when you begin, unless you are ten years hence and have built a strong story frame. The writing can be part of the journey to a deeper understanding. It's a process of finding that transcendent meaning; it's eureka. It's having those epiphanies. And it's often cathartic. That's why it's so important to keep a pad of paper by your bed, to write things down, because it's in there. And you may think you have the ending, and then four years later you find the real ending. But it's never really an ending because you're still alive and you've got other things going on, and maybe those experiences contribute to your understanding.

To learn more about Leslie Lehr, visit leslielehr.com

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