A Conversation “It’s really only a matter of time before they take that away.” “Nah, they don’t even see me.” “They seem to know when you’re into something you’re not supposed to be in.” “It’s the silence. Go make some noise. Scratch your crotch or something.” “It doesn’t itch.” “Don’t just stand there watching me. Go somewhere else.” “I can’t. It’s so fascinating.” “In what way?” “How you can get that whole thing in your…
When I was in college, I was driving across Nevada around Christmas and hit a cow with my car. I wasn’t driving too fast, but I managed to come out of a cloudy valley onto a pass and there was a herd of cows in the roadway keeping warm. Since I was driving pretty slow, I managed to weave the car between the standing cows and most of them ran away. However, there was one…
A Conversation “I’m just going to take a quick walk to stretch my back.” “Does your chair tighten you up too?” “Something awful.” “I heard a rumor we might get new chairs.” “I heard it too.” “Either they give us new chairs or they supply us with an unlimited supply of Ibuprofen.” “Honestly, either option couldn’t hurt.” Other Writings You May Like Pantser Plotter Finding the Character’s Pain A Cure for Diabetes Buddy, The Rottweiler, and…
I spent twenty minutes holding my head to the right as a doctor went in again for my fourth thyroid biopsy. “Boy this is really deep,” he said. “Yep, maybe you’ll be the guy,” I said. It is clear with have a nodule or two. We don’t clearly know if it is cancer. “At least if it is cancer, this is the best one to get,” said my endocrinologist. “It takes so long to grow.” Comforting.…
Author’s Note: After my stroke in July 2015 I had to think about how I would proceed. This project started out as a way for me to focus on writing. The year took a different turn for me. I spent two months relearning how to walk, talk, and type. A had a stroke at the age of 51. It became a rebirth. After My Stroke: A Year of Possibilities A year ago I started this experiment…
Character pain is what a character needs to survive. Give them a past full of strife and challenges. Allow them to triumph. And then smack them again.
By all means write as fast as you can and put the words on paper. In the movie Finding Forrester, the fictional reclusive author William Forrester tells Jamal Wallace, “No thinking — that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is … to write, not to think!” No thinking — that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart.…
Every story needs to introduce the main characters and this is often a tough process for a writer. A character needs to feel three-dimensional and alive. A long description of each certainly would lay out their foibles and tics. Describing each for their unique attributes, hair styles, and shower habits can be fun. However, character descriptions can tend to be like describing a photograph: sort of flat.
I have mentioned that many stories fail to gain traction in the second act. This is where the viewpoint character forgets why they are in the story. Of course, it is the writer who has forgotten; either by writing by their pants or failing to plot in enough conflict to keep the story moving forward. Stories thrive on conflict and bad things must happen to the hero before it all ends up as good and…
There are two camps of thought: the people who listen to the muse and write by the seat of their pants and the people who write an entire book-length outline prior to starting to write. I prefer to combine the two, without writing an entire book-length outline. Let me explain my thoughts on this debate. Pantsers argue they are free to listen to the story and the characters. It is a muse-centric approach, with the…