Tag Archives: writing

“And then what happened?”

writing,
Why I write meme.
Ain’t it the truth?

Some time back an acquaintance was ranting on-line about his pet peeve: people who criticized a movie by saying it had no plot. This was his pet peeve, he said, because it was impossible. “No matter how badly written or executed a movie is, something happens. So it has a plot!” He wasn’t very happy with me when I told him that he didn’t know what the word “plot” means, at least in regards to a narrative such as a play or novel.

The definition I usually cite is one common in books and articles about writing: “a plot is a problem, riddle, or obstacle that confronts the protagonist at the beginning of the story, is resolved by the protagonist’s own actions at the end of the story, and is the thread which connects everything the happens between the beginning and ending.”

In other words, it’s not just that things happen, it’s that the events of the story need to be related. A well constructed story can appear to have a lot of chaotic things happening, but by the end the audience needs to feel that those seemingly random events meant something, or contributed to the character’s struggle. The whole point of a narrative—the whole reason humans tell each other stories—is to create meaning…

Continue reading “And then what happened?” →

Focus, what’s that?

writing, ,

Kitten falling asleep on an Apply keyboard.
I nap a lot…
Almost all the writing I’ve gotten done in the last 7 weeks (outside of work) has been posting for this blog. On my novel, I’ve done some revision, spelling clean-ups, sorted out some of the scene- and chapter-order issues I ignored during NaNoWriMo, and have managed to write only one actual new scene. Since between us, we’ve been sick pretty much continuously since late December, maybe I shouldn’t feel so bad about how little I’ve actually finished.

The last 7 to 9 days have been particularly bad. Those days that I’ve worked, pretty much every bit of energy I had has gone into trying to make deadlines there.

Last night was the first commute home from work since February 6 that I didn’t feel it was a struggle to walk the last block (or more) to the house. Even the day I drove in, I had to sit in the car for a few minutes after I parked to work up the energy to pick up my laptop bag and walk into the house.

And what did I wind up doing? I read, finishing off the book that I’ve been reading on my morning bus rides the last few weeks.

Maybe I needed a recharge before I can get writing again.

Four-color boy’s club…

culture, genre, , ,

Male superheroes in revealing costumes.
If only…
I love superheroes. I read superhero comic books sporadically as a young kid, but didn’t get into seriously following them until I was a teen-ager. Even then, I thought the costume choices artists made were a little weird. I understood why Batman’s costume was mostly black and grey and covered most of his pale skin, because his crimefighting style included lurking in shadows a lot, but if Wonder Woman could fight crime in what was basically a one-piece bathing suit, why did Superman (who had similar super powers and fighting style) need to cover everything up?

On the other hand, since Captain America’s costume included armor (in the the silver age comics the costume included chain mail on his torso!) why didn’t Batgirl take advantage of similar protection?

The classic costume for Marvel's Valkryie.
Marvel’s Valkyrie. Seriously?
And then, when the Valkyrie was introduced in the pages of the Defenders, she had armor… Except originally it was only her breasts that were armored, everything else was either covered with spandex or it was bare. And that made absolutely no sense at all! Yeah, she has those shiny metallic wristbands and the upper arm bands, but those look more like jewelry than body armor, right? (Saddest of all, within the story, Valkyrie was created by an evil Asgardian goddess for the express purpose of proving that women were the equal of men! Her superstrength originally only worked when fighting males. Take a guess as to how long after the character joined the superhero group before a story line saw her falsely accused of a crime and sent to a women’s prison, where the artist got to draw a lot of ridiculous women’s prison scenes…) Continue reading Four-color boy’s club… →

Everyone likes a puzzle, but…

writing, , ,

Otter in a log.
“You’ll never guess what I found carved inside this log!”
I’ve been known to plot overly complicated puzzles for my roleplaying group. I’ve been known to plot stories with intricate interrelationships between characters and groups of characters. I worry, while writing some stories, that I have put in too many characters, or too many subplots, or hidden clues too subtly for the reader to follow.

But nothing I have every concocted is one-billionth as elaborate or labyrinthine as the puzzles supposedly concocted by various historical figures in order to hide treasures, warn future generations of impending doom, explain to allies how to defeat evil forces, and so forth as chronicled in the typical suspense/thriller/historical mystery: A strange epitaph carved onto an old tombstone leads to a cryptic phrase engraved on the wall of an old building, which points to the hiding place of an old family Bible, which has more cryptic phrases hidden in invisible ink on certain pages, which leads to the map that can only be seen by finding six antique objects and arranging them in a specific formation, which shows the location of a hidden crypt, which is accessed by recognizing an obscure symbol on a brick, which leads to another hidden map, which points the way to another part of the old family Bible where another cryptic clue is hidden in almost random looking dots on the edge of a page, which shows the location of a hidden room under an old church… Continue reading Everyone likes a puzzle, but… →

Each canvas a world

writing, , ,

culturecat.com
“Just let me finish this scene…”
My friend, Barb, who can write circles around me, more than occasionally writes about the process of writing. She’s doing a meme this month answering questions from her followers, and she recently posted a combined answer to a question from me and one from Lyrstzha. Her explanations are great, as always, but as I read her response to the question, “The difference in process between writing a stand-alone fic and writing a whole universe?” I realized that my answer would be a lot different.

For me, there is no difference between how I write a stand-alone story or a long series of stories set in a single universe. That’s because in one sense, I never see any story as a stand-alone, even if I never write any sequels, prequels, or stories otherwise set in the same universe…

Continue reading Each canvas a world →

Bad at herding myself

blogging, ,

Kitten falling asleep on an Apply keyboard.
I haven’t had a lot of energy lately.
Coming down with the bad cold that’s been going around a bit over a week ago really messed up my schedule. Besides having to cancel several planned events with friends, taking some sick time and working from home a few extra days, I haven’t had a lot of energy. Some nights I’ve had trouble sleeping. Even when I don’t, I just haven’t had much energy. On those nights that I don’t conk out shortly after dinner, I wind up staring at the computer attempting to write and not getting a lot done.

So, for instance, when I wrote and scheduled the post called, “I don’t mean to be a jerk, part 1,” I had the opening sentences of a related part 2 post sitting in the draft queue. Continue reading Bad at herding myself →

Diverted intentions

writing,

Cat with a manual typewriter.
“Where’s the delete key?”
I’ve been trying to wrap up the end of my novel, the one I worked on finishing during NaNoWriMo. I got 58,000 words added to the novel during November, and was well into the epic battle at the end, but I didn’t quite reach the denouement by the end of the month. And then, of course, I had to change gears and work on a Christmas ghost story before the party.

So, I’ve been struggling with the ending, and it occurred to me it was fitting that I was doing so as the last days of the year were ticking down. So when I hit another snag last night, I started writing a blog post about writing endings in fiction, and how difficult that can be.

When I got up this morning for my morning writing time, I figured I could finish the blog post and schedule it to publish later today. A blog post on composing the final scenes on stories to post on the final day of the year. Perfect, right?

Well, I instead spent my hour of morning writing time re-reading the last three completed chapters and correcting the rather prodigious number of typos and writing a bit more of that stalled denouement.

And now I spent five minutes writing a post about why I haven’t finished the post about writing endings.

And maybe a post about writing something different than I planned is a better way to cap the year.

Happy New Year!

Conjuring the proper ghosts

writing, , ,

A cat peering at a Macbook Pro.
Sometimes there’s a lot more staring at the screen than pressing of the keys.
For the last 19 Christmas seasons I have written a new Christmas ghost story to read to friends at our Christmas party. It started out simple enough. The holiday party was scheduled for the third Saturday of December because we usually got together on the third Saturday of every month for a writers’ night—an event where several people bring a story or a partial story we are working on, we read it, and everyone gives a critique. The December meeting wound up having a Christmas Party feel no matter what, because we were all friends and it was an extremely convenient time to exchange gifts.
Continue reading Conjuring the proper ghosts →

The Law of Fumble Fingers

blogging, , , , ,

Cat looking at a Macbook.
This may or may not be an accurate representation of me writing.
One of the problems with the way I run this blog (and it’s a subset of the way I write), is that from time to time, I accidentally publish something that isn’t ready.

I have a certain number of posts in draft form at any time. Continue reading The Law of Fumble Fingers →

NaNoWriMo Rebel Winner

writing, ,

Image of typewriter keys and the words The Alternate NaNoWriMo.
The Alternate NaNoWriMo, as proposed by Cafe Aphra (cafeaphrapilot.blogspot.com)
So, this year, inspired by the fabulous people at Cafe Aphra, I decided to do an Alternate NaNoWriMo.

Continue reading NaNoWriMo Rebel Winner →