Friday, January 28th, 2011 Snow flurries danced in my headlights this morning on my way to work. After two days of sleet and snow (and more than a foot of the fluffy white stuff) I’m not anxious for more. But it got me to thinking about extreme weather conditions and how they can affect the characters in your book.
The “formula” for an exciting story suggests that the author torture his main character with all kinds of dilemma, and then kick him when he’s down. If it’s an action book, we put the character in a dangerous situation: chased by bad guys. If it’s a historical romance, we’ll take away the heroine’s support system.
Usually, the genre will dictate (or at least suggest) what the conflict of the story will be.
How can we make weather one of these tortuous dilemmas the protagonist must ride out?
Rarely will weather be the conflict around which the story is based, though one exception is Jack London’s famous story, To Build a Fire. Written in 1902, it tells the story of a man whose arrogance leads him to his death in the face of a blizzard.
More often, weather is is used to as a prop to propel the story:
On the way to his engagement party at his fiance’s parent’s house, a man has an accident on an icy icy highway. Broken and comatose, he spends weeks in the hospital. The story is about what happens to the man (and perhaps his fiance) after the accident.
Here’s Your Prompt: Bring weather into your story as more than an inciting incident (leading to a car accident, for example.) Instead, make the weather take the part of an antagonist: “someone” the hero or heroine is required to fight against or endure. Write a scene — or several — describing your character’s fight against the heat or pouring rain (or any other weather). Show how he or she got into the situation, and how he or she got out.
What thoughts did your character think as he or she fought the elements? How did he or she feel? (Angry, scared, sad, anxious? Perhaps your character puts the blame squarely on someone else for their predicament. ) Show all of this. Don’t forget to use the character’s senses to relate what he or she is experiencing (what they saw, smelled, touched, tasted, etc.)
Keep in mind the remainder of your story when you choose this weather situation: what drove her to be in this place at this time? How did he wind up there? Whatever you choose, it’s got to be plausible to your story set up: in a historical romance, you can’t make the heroine venture out into a deluge — in which she gets swept away by flash floods – without a really good reason. But you can send her out in a crowded shopping district on an overly hot day after the maid pulls her corset too tight and she’s already feint from skipping breakfast.
Friday, January 14th, 2011  I got some terrible news this morning.
One of my good friends at work is in the hospital and his condition is “serious.”
My first reaction was physical pain: a heart-sick reaction which started in the chest and moved quickly to my stomach. My limbs felt leaden.
I’m still sad, and hopeful — very hopeful — that things will be all right. But I have this nervous energy thing going on and I really want to help.
But there’s nothing I can do. He’s got a good (family) support system, and I’d just be in the way. Besides, as close as we are at work…and as much as I know about his condition…I’m guessing he’d just want family around at such a time.
Still, there’s a frustration factor here. The questions is: how will I handle it? And what if the situation turns bleak?
Here’s Your Prompt: Your character has just received terrible news. What does he do? Is he a manly man who doesn’t cry? Does he punch the wall to let off steam? Does he hit his wife or kick the dog? Does he open a bottle of Jack Daniels?
(Each of these actions tell something different about your character.)
Perhaps he’s only received partially bad news (like me) – the condition is serious, but hopeful. What’s his immediate reaction? Does he swear like he’s angry that this has come to pass? Does he accept it with stoic pessimism (“It was bound to happen anyway.”)? How does your character react if the wost-case scenario comes to pass?
On the other hand, maybe the news isn’t such a bad thing…maybe your character is ecstatic to receive such bad news about someone she knows….and secretly, or maybe not so secretly, she is doing the Snoopy-brand happy dance. Instead of Jack Daniels, does she crack open some champagne?
Write a scene in which your character receives terrible news. Try to show his or her actions without dialogue. How can you use action to relay what your character feels?
Friday, January 7th, 2011  Here’s a photo of me and my best friend, Kathy, from a few years ago. We were painting salt dough ornaments we’d made for Christmas.
She’s been on my mind a lot lately…especially on New Year’s eve.
I didn’t hear the traditional Auld Lang Syne that evening, but I was thinking about it: Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
The opening line is rhetorical, but evocative, and never fails to leave me thinking about old friends…and this year, it was all about Kathy.
She and I played in the sandbox together in Kindergarten. Even though she went off to private school in first grade, we were inseparable. (We got into so much mischief!)
We’ve been friends forever…but I haven’t heard from her since February.
Kathy told me she was quitting her job, selling her house, and moving to Europe to be with the man she loved…and then there’s been nothing but silence. She asked me not to call at first, and I respected that. But her cell has since been disconnected. And she’s not answering her email.
I have no idea how she is, if she’s safe, if she’s happy, if she’s well… It’s hard not to think that something awful has taken place, but I don’t think it has. Kathy’s done this before: neglected to call or write for months on end. But the beauty of our friendship is that it’s easy to pick up where we left off.
If I had a snail-mail address, I’d write her a letter in all caps (like I’m yelling, ya know?) and tell her to get off her duff and call me. (I’m hoping she’s deliriously happy with this guy and just hasn’t had the time.)
Still, it’s strange, and my writer’s mind can’t help thinking the worst…
Here’s Your Prompt: Write a letter to someone you used to know, but haven’t seen in a while: someone you don’t expect to ever see again. What are you going to say to this person? Will you admit some long, buried secret that you never told? (A secret love? The stolen money? Cheating on a test?) Will you blame this person for everything that’s gone wrong in your life?
If you don’t want to write a letter…speculate as to what happened to your friend…what were the circumstances of his disappearance? Did she just walk out the door and never come back? Did he go on vacation to some exotic locale and decide to stay? Did she leave you for someone else?
Friday, December 31st, 2010  I hurt my finger.
Baking Christmas cookies.
I kid you not.
I bake a lot of cookies, dozens of cookies, a gross of dozens of cookies each year for gifts and to put out for Christmas dinner.
I make biscotti and pizzelles using my Italian grandmother’s recipes. These recipes call for kneading the cookie dough, and in the case of the pizzelles, squeezing hard knots of the mixture between wooden-handled irons over the flame of the stove.
(These are not the sissy, liquid pour-and-bake that you buy in the store, or that many folks resort to making because they can’t find the old-fashioned irons.)
I literally wore out my hands kneading the dough. It was so bad by the end, that I couldn’t squeeze out a sponge to wash down the counter tops.
It’s getting better now that I’m wearing a splint, which I’ll likely sport for a few days more. It’s been incredibly enlightening to see how such a minor injury has affected the activities I do daily: signing my name, brushing my teeth, typing.
And strangely, this one injury has beget another: a blister has formed on the pad of my middle finger. From what? I know not. Perhaps the minor rubbing upon it as I still try to do things with this splint (like knit!).
Here’s Your Prompt: Injure your character. Make it as minor as a finger splint or as major as the loss of a limb. See how it affects the plot of your story. What things can your character still do? What things are out of the question?
(Believe it or not, I’m typing with this splint. It’s slow, and I can’t feel the keys I touch with it, but it’s working…)
Do personal research: pretend you’re injured. Put nails in your shoe to make yourself limp. Put a popsicle stick on your finger and pretend it’s broken. Try walking without using your leg. What kind of frustrations do you experience? What thoughts do you have? Attribute these to the character in your story.
If you’re journaling, instead of writing fiction: describe a time when you were injured. What happened? What did you hear? Feel? Think? Was it an accident, or did someone injure you deliberately? What did you feel afterward? What are you still feeling about the injury?
Friday, December 24th, 2010 
I think I’ve already mentioned that I have a thing for the moon.
There’s something mysterious about it that never fails to captivate me. I take time to gaze at the moon nearly every day.
The recent Solstice Eclipse, therefore, was something I was not going to miss. The Husband of Awesome™ set the 2:30 a.m. alarm and out into the cold we went.
This photo, as I’ve mentioned on Facebook, is my inexpert attempt at capturing the event.
So, in honor of the moon, here are some moon-related writing prompts….snippets of poetry and sentence starters…not the detailed suggestions I usually offer.
I’d love to read what you come up with….feel free to post in the comments or send me something via email.
Here are the Prompts:
- “It’s a marvelous night for a moondance…” (Van Morrison lyrics)
- A walk on a monlit path…
- Write about being moonstruck.
- What counsel has the hooded moon… (James Joyce)
- “Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars…” (1954, written by Bart Howard)
- Write about an eclipse.
- The purity of the unclouded moon has flung its atrowy shaft upon the floor… (William Butler Yeats)
- Write about a honeymoon.
- Each night, as the moon rises…
- It’s only a paper moon sailing over a cardboard sea…” (Arlen, Harburg and Rose)
- Write about the cycles of the moon.
- “Everyone’s gone to the moon…” (Johnathan King, 1969)
- Write about the Harvest moon.
- Tubas in the moonlight, playing for me all night, Tell me what I want to hear. (Bonzo Dog Band, 1968)
- And finally, here’s a short list of “moon” words to spark your writing:
honeymoon
moonbeam, moonbow, mooncalf, mooned, moonflower, moonless, moonlight, moonlike, moon maiden, moonrise, moonscape, moonseeds, moonset, moonshines, moonstone, moonwalk, moonward, moonworts, moony
Friday, December 10th, 2010  I collect dolls. The more unusual, the better. I have several mundane and beautiful specimens, but the unusual ones are the ones I like the best.
Sometimes, it’s a defect that attracts me. For instance, I have a Geordie LaForge (Star Trek) action figure with two left hands. (I’m still wondering how that got off the assembly line.)
Or it’s the rarity: I have a tiny little boy doll made in 1960s Italy which is anatomically correct.
I absolutely love my Living Dead Dolls: Sinister Minster and Bad Habit. Toddler dolls, dressed as a priest and a nun, laying in a coffin. They come with their own death certificates. This I find clever, and I like clever very, very much.
Like it or not, we all collect….and our collections reflect something about us. It provides useful information to the people who know us.
For instance, I also have a collection of Matryoshka dolls, sometimes called babushkas: Russian nesting dolls. The collection started when I inherited several from a great aunt who brought them over from the Ukraine. The mass produced ones you can buy these days are horrible — so generic — but hers have genuine character. Collecting them rules my actions:
I scour estate sales and yard sales. I search for them on Ebay. I put them on my Christmas list.
Some people collect unconsciously. Others have collections thrust upon them. Some people display them prominently, some people hide their collections away like dirty little obsessions.
Here’s Your Prompt: Develop a character for a short story or novel (or use one you currently have) and give him a collection. Show us: is it something he or she decided to collect, or did he or she inherit (or simply receive) it in some fashion? How does the character house that collection? Is it displayed prominently? Is it well-kept? Perhaps items are simply acquired and tossed in a drawer.
Next, take a moment to explain how the collection defines your character. What does it tell about him or her? What does how your character’s care of the collection tell you about him?
Friday, December 3rd, 2010  This is a great photo, captured during the 11/27/2010 NHL game between the Blackhawks and the Kings. I love hockey….always a good fight.
Have you heard this really old joke?
“Last night I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out.”
It never gets old.
Let’s talk about fight scenes.
A fight scene should be exciting, fast-paced, and pack an emotional punch. You need to put the reader into the middle of the scene and enable him to feel each landed blow. You’ve got to be descriptive enough to paint the picture for the reader, but not so descriptive that you slow down the scene.
And you’ve got to accomplish this without falling into the trap of describing punch for punch, kick for kick and finger-poke for hair pull.
So how do you do it?
Keep the scene in the point of view of the main character. Describe things through his eyes. Show that your character is engaged in the fight, but is also aware of his surroundings.
What follows is an example from one of my works-in-progress.
In this scene, Karis and his priestess companions are ambushed by a group of sentient, demon-hounds called ahventhí . Out of context, the description of Karis’s two last arrows sounds clunky, but it’s important for the rest of the story to note that he has none left. Still, I think you get the idea here:
The ahventhí charged the women.
Karis jerked in their direction and launched the first of his last two arrows. It misfired, gut string scraping across his wrist. A discordant twang of the bowstring echoed in the clearing and the arrow careened sharply right into the darkness.
Karis took better aim with his last arrow. It struck the cur in the spine, and the great beast rolled to a halt, gasping and choking, paralyzed.
The remaining ahventhí, a large grey creature with white battle scars crossing its snout, leaped at Karis. Using the bow as a shield, he clouted the attacking beast and sidestepped, forcing it aside as he drew his sword.
Note the use of a brief sentence to get the scene started: “The ahventhí charged the woman.” This clipped rhythm is used elsewhere to keep the momentum: “It misfired, …”, “It struck the cur in the spine…” This continues as Karis dispatches the final beast with his sword.
Together, these brief snippets seem like the choreographed movements of a dance: They did this, the arrow did that, Karis did this…” which is exactly what we don’t want to write. But here, these clipped, mechanical statements are temporized with brief description.
Also, strong action verbs are substituted for weak ones: charged, attacked, launched, clouted, paralyzed.
What’s missing is how Karis is feeling. We can get to that as the scene is wrapped up:
He fell to his knee at the foot of the dead beast, wiped a hand across his brow and reset his headband. Lungs heaving, heart pumping, he bent and wiped his blade on the creature’s coarse fur, sheathed it, and recovered his bow.
Karis stood on shaking legs, paused a moment to catch his breath, then bolted in the direction he saw the women flee.
Even later we get to Karis’ thoughts: when he has time to recall the fight, examine what happened, figure out how he got ambushed. This could happen as he’s searching for the fleeing women, or even later in the chapter as a reflection.
Here’s Your Prompt: Your turn! Write a fight scene. It can be men fighting men, or women fighting women (or a combination there of) or, as above, man or woman against beast. Keep it simple this time and limit the players to two or three at most.
Use tight sentences, action verbs and keep the description to a minimum.
Post your scenes in the comments below. I’d love to see what you’ve written.
Photo Notes: Chicago Blackhawks defenseman John Scott, left, and Los Angeles Kings right wing Kevin Westgarth fight during the second period of an NHL hockey game, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010, in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010  “Oh, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
that monthly changes in her circled orb –
Lest thy love prove likewise variable.”
Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet.
I learned this quote before I even knew who Shakespeare was. I found it in a scholastic book of superstitions that I’d purchased in grade school.
I read the quote, loved it, and committed it to memory, because even back then, I was fascinated by the moon.
There’s just something about that shiny spot in the sky that catches my fancy – so much so, that it lives in my writing, usually without any conscious effort on my part.
What lives in your writing? What fascinates you so much that it’s become a part of your writer’s tool kit?
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010  A plotter is someone who makes some sort of an outline of their story before he or she sits down to write it. Sometimes this is an exhaustive document, sometimes it’s just a list of scenes or major plot points.
A “pantser” is someone who gets an idea and runs with it: no idea where he’s going, but eventually, he’ll get to the end of the story. (This is writing by the seat of the pants, hence the name.)
I’m a plotter…usually. I like to know where I’m going. It saves me tons of re-writes and I never get writer’s block.
I say “usually” because I’ve just started a novel which I’m pantsing. And it’s killing me. I can’t stand not having an outline. (I don’t know how you pantsers do it.)
The reason I’m pantsing it this time around is because I’m writing a story which is a bit outside of my comfort zone: a contemporary urban fantasy which takes place in Baltimore. I’ve got (what I think is) a fantastic idea…and I’m running with it.
What I need to do is let the idea percolate in my mind for a while before I start to write, but I’m too excited about it. I just want to get it all down on paper…but I don’t know where it’s going to end.
And that’s the problem: if I don’t know how it’s going to end, I can’t plot it out.
I’ve recently signed up for an on-line plot class to see if that could help. Unfortunately, lesson one included writing the beginning of the story (no problem!) and the end (um, problem). The class is designed to fill in the middle.
Well, I could do that on my own…
I’m toying with S. Andrew Swann’s method right now:
A four step exercise in Plot development:
1. Create a character.
2. Give this character a problem to deal with.
3. Imagine at least three different ways this particular character might possibly deal with this particular problem.
4. Pick one (or more) of these options, and imagine at least three different ways it a) wouldn’t work, and b) would make the character’s situation worse. (Short of killing off the protagonist and ending the story.)
It’s promising, and might help me out with lesson one of my online class. With some luck, I’ll have an outline by this weekend.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. Once you get an idea for a story, how do you manage the plotting through to the end? What do you do if you’re not quite sure how it will end? What are some strategies or exercises you employ to form a cohesive story?
Here are some fantastic resources on plotting I’ve found while trying to hammer out my plot:
* The Butterfly Story Plot Graphic is from Scholastic. It appears it’s no longer available for download from their sight. (Alas.) If anyone has the pdf, I’d love to have a copy!
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010  This was supposed to be the entry full of character naming resources, but I’ve had a fun offer I want to tell you about.
Matt Marotta, the programmer of The Name Stooge software program, happened to wander by my blog as I was discussing character names. He offered me a free copy of his program – no strings attached.
Well, of course I couldn’t pass that up. And of course I’m going to tell you all about it. But the best part is: Matt’s going to give away some extra copies to readers of this blog!
We haven’t worked out the details yet…but keep your eyes here over the next week or two for the details. It’ll be something easy, like leaving a comment about characters, or maybe linking to mine or Matt’s blog.
Name Stooge is intended to help you choose the perfect name for your character. You enter a few bits of data:
- Your character’s age and gender
- When the story takes place
- How common the name should be
…and it spits out the possibilities.
I like the idea that you can determine how common (or uncommon) the name is. And knowing when the story takes place helps to weed out names that weren’t used in a particular time period. (How many Brittany’s or Aiden’s were walking around in 1920?)
I’ve already installed the program (very easy to do) but it’s begging me to register before I take it for a test drive. And you know my litany: I’ve got some writing to do…
So, look for a review of the Name Stooge software sometime in the next week or so…at which time you’ll get your opportunity to score your own copy.
|
Writers - Maryland Writer's Assn.
|