Monday, January 12, 2009
Thursday, October 30, 2008
An Excerpt from My Latest Story, "Cammie and Cousins"
Hello! It's Kendra! I just reached my word count of 15,000, so I'm going to try for 20,000 now. Is that okay to change my goal? I think I've asked that before, but I just wanted to make sure.
In honor of my reaching my goal (lol), I'm going to post an excerpt from the story I'm doing for this challenge. It isn't very good, as I was hurry to reach my word goal, but here it comes. :) Oh, and the picture is what Cammie looks like in the dress. LOL I found it on the internet and thought it was too perfect not to use. :)
“Here,” the woman said, opening the door to a small house. “Go in.” Cammie cautiously stepped into the dreary looking house. The woman followed, shutting the door right in Rogth’s face. Cammie heard him harrumph through the door, but he didn’t knock or come in.
“In here,” the woman said impatiently, waving Cammie into a tiny bedroom. “Let us see about getting you presentable.” Cammie frowned a little, wondering if that was an insult.
The woman pulled Cammie over to the wash basin and nodded at it. Cammie tossed her dark hair back and dipped her dirty hands into the water. She washed her face with some sweet-smelling soap and was embarrassed and dismayed to see how dirty the water was when she was through.
The woman pulled Cammie to the center of the room and began undressing her. Cammie yelped in surprise and flushed, but the woman didn't seem to think anything of it, so Cammie allowed her to dress her.
The woman fussed over the sleeves of the dress and getting everything to hang just right. Her practiced hands calmed Cammie as they flicked from this to that with experienced precision. Cammie wondered vaguely if this was something like what having a mother was like. She quickly dismissed the thought when she found it made her sad.
“Hmmm,” the woman eyed Cammie critically. “You don’t look half bad, girl. Let me just…” She took a brush from a dresser top and pulled it roughly though Cammie’s messy, crudely cut hair, which had darkened from brown to a glossy almost-black.
“Ouch,” Cammie muttered crossly as the brush snagged on multiple tangles.
“If you’d brush your hair at least annually this wouldn’t hurt so much,” the woman said dryly. Cammie scowled.
“I brush my hair plenty,” she replied indignantly. “It isn’t my fault I’ve been kidnapped and have no brush!” The woman frowned.
“Kidnapped?” she repeated.
“Yes, kidnapped,” Cammie said. “Rogth kidnapped me yesterday. He says the king wants me.” The woman tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“Hmm,” she said. “Well, if the king wants you, I suppose it wouldn’t behoove me to stand in his way.” She looked troubled though. She patted Cammie’s cheek.
“I’m sure things will turn out just fine, dear,” she assured her. She tossed the brush back onto the dresser and pushed Cammie to the floor-length mirror. Cammie’s mouth fell open and her eyes bugged. She couldn’t say a word.
Cammie hated to admit it, but she looked like a real lady in the dress. The tightly tied stays of the corset nipped her waist to even thinner than it was. Her usually shaggy-looking hair looked glossy and fell nicely against her cheeks and shoulders. She looked graceful and fine and almost nothing like usual herself.
“Thank you,” Cammie whispered, still awed at her appearance. “I feel beautiful.” The woman nodded shortly.
“You look pretty close to it as well,” she replied, propelling Cammie out the door. “Be mighty careful not to get your dress all dirty. Don’t muss your hair or let your skirts drag the ground. And be sure to tell the king Madame Clementine Bixby was the one who dressed you up.” Cammie giggled at the woman’s name, but nodded.
“I’ll tell him,” she assured Mrs. Clementine, stepping outside the house. Mrs. Clementine followed. Rogth’s eyebrows shot upward when he saw Cammie. He nodded slowly.
“Very nice,” he said awkwardly to Mrs. Clementine. “Appreciate it.” Mrs. Clementine nodded impatiently, but gladly all the same. She held out her hand.
“Thank you. I’d feel even more appreciated if you’d pay me, though.” Rogth paid the woman in real gold, something Cammie had only seen once before, and lifted Cammie onto the horse, which he had apparently gone back to fetch. Cammie neatly arranged herself sidesaddle, feeling quite the lady. For a moment she forgot how afraid she was to meet the king and how much she missed her cousins.
Rogth climbed up behind her and they rode with renewed fervor toward the huge, gray castle.
Okay...that's it. LOL! I'm open to comments if you want to tell me what you think. Thanks!
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Inklings of Advice, Part I: Jumpstarting
Jumpstarting
So, you have a brilliant idea for a story. The thought of it hasn’t left you alone for days, and you feel that you’ll absolutely burst if you don’t write it, transplant those vivid images and characters from your head onto the reality of written words on a page or computer sscreen. Or maybe you’re already working on something, and you’ve just thought of the next scene. You know how you want it to feel and the essentials of what’s going to happen in your story or scene, and that’s enough, right? You sit down to write, but the words don’t come, and you can’t just wait for them to magically appear. Okay…so…maybe that wasn’t enough after all. Darn it! How do you get this started, get your fingers tapping or your pen gliding over the page, transmitting those brilliant ideas into something you can articulately share with others? Hmmm…maybe… “It was a dark and stormy night…”
I’m not even going to groan “Noooo!” here, because chances are you’re already doing it. If not, that’s okay; that’s what this article is for.
It’s a natural tendency, especially (but not by any means specificly) of beginning writers, to want to set the stage at the beginning of a story or scene; to describe how the setting and/or the characters look before actually telling us, the readers, what they’re trying to say. Of course it is; we want to be familiar with our setting and have a picture of our people in our minds before we start writing about them and letting them talk. Sometimes, if this is done well, it works, “if it’s done well” being the key. Unfortunately, it’s much easier to do it poorly than otherwise. There’s a better reason even than that to be careful, though, and to decide how your setting and characters look beforehand: if you spend your first page or two writing about only the dark, spooky woods or the sunny pasture or the busy city or the quiet office building or the mysterious old house, chances are very high that you and your readers are going to get bored before you’re done, and you’ll get stuck. You’ll get to the end of this long, eloquent description and realize that none of it was really what you wanted to write about, that you’ve accomplished next to nothing. You’re faced with the same problem you had to begin with: How do you start working on what you really want to write?
The answer is dialog and action. We’ll start with dialog. Letting one of your characters have the first line is a great way to free you from a brain-freeze right at the beginning of a story or jumpstart that slow-moving scene. It captures the readers’ interest at once and makes them want to find out more about the speaker, as well as the character being addressed. However, there are still a few important things to remember.
First, make it dialog, not monolog. It’s not a good idea to start by having a person talk to himself. This is standard practice in plays, and often happens in older literature; even Shakespeare and Louisa May Alcott used this technique; but unless your speaker has a habbit of talking to himself, be careful about this. If he does happen to have that peculiarity, make it realistic. Think about people you know who talk to themselves, or, if you do it, your own spoken thoughts; consider the things that are said to oneself. We who talk to ourselves, or just talk out loud without anyone else being present or to no one in particular, might remark about something that has bothered or surprised us, the weather, something that is going to happen later or that has just happened, or what we’re doing or are going to do in the next five minutes, etc. A healthy person is not very likely to describe what he sees around him in vivid detail or hold forth eloquently upon his troubles and misfortunes to an empty room; these things are best kept for inner dialog or part of the narration. However, if your character has a specific reason for talking to himself, such as an overactive imagination or a mental illness, these suggestions may or may not apply; neither might the typical saying addressed to those who talk to themselves: “Just don’t start answering yourself!” Your character might have another part of himself, a “voice” or a figment of his imagination who replies to his remarks. This is, of course, okay to do.
Second, beware the “as you know, Bob” unless it’s appropriate to the situation. In other words, avoid having a character tell another something that the other already knows simply for the sake of explaining it to the reader. We don’t do this in calm, everyday conversation. Imagine this:
“Mom, we really have to leave now,” said Ron. “As you know, I have to be at school by nine o’clock.”
“Yes, dear, and you know I have to be at work by nine thirty. Come on, then; let’s go.”
Boring and unrealistic. Ron might still say this if he were impatient or angry with his mother, to remind her of something she already knows; in reality the conversation might go something like this:
“Mom, we really have to leave, now!” said Ron, shifting from foot to foot. “I do have to be at school by nine, you know.”
“Yes, honey, I drive you every day, remember? I’m ready; grab your books and let’s go.”
In this second example, the impatience and slight sarcasm is evident in Ron’s actions and words and implied tone, and he’s stating a well-known fact to his mother in order to make a point; in her turn, his mother is stating another fact that he knows well to make her point that everything is going to be fine. We also naturally do this when we’re angry or “up on our soap box” about something that makes us passionate. Think of students complaining to one another about a particularly difficult teacher, or two like-minded people having an animated discussion about some political issue that they both feel strongly about. “As you know, Bob” is frequently used in such situations by real people, so, with care, you can use it effectively under similar circumstances in your dialog.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, don’t make your dialog at the beginning of a story or a scene idle conversation. The beginning of a story is crucial; if you don’t grab the attention of your readers then, there aren’t many who will wait around and wade through a lot of words until their attention is grabbed later. Make sure everything said has a purpose. If you want to use idle conversation to demonstrate something, or divert attention away from something dark and dangerous that is being hinted at in the background, that’s fine; but don’t use it as a space-filler in hopes that it will get your story moving, because it won’t. This doesn’t mean that every single word has to be vital to the plot, but dialog should contribute to the story in some way.
Action is also a great way to get your story off to a good start. This doesn’t necessarily mean starting off with a fight scene, but showing your character(s) doing something right from the outset, whether it be dueling with swords or running late to work or washing dishes. These action scenes are good times for dialog if your character is not alone or internal dialog (thoughts) if he is. It breaks internal thoughts and bits of history or facts up so that readers absorb them and become interested in what the character is doing at the same time, without feeling that he is wasting his time and theirs by sitting or standing there and thinking or talking about things he already must know about.
“But what about my descriptions?” you ask. Easy: break up the lumps and sprinkle them through your dialog and action, using them to augment it. Your readers will remember what your characters and setting look like more clearly if they have a reason to be interested in them, and you won’t get bogged down in an excess of detail. Sometimes you can put a lump right at the beginning and get away with it, but if you find yourself toiling along, hating what you do but knowing this and that have to be described, try employing some dialog and action to spice things up for you and your reader.
Happy writing, and may your sailing be smooth!
© Copyright September 30, 2008 Elizabeth More
So, you have a brilliant idea for a story. The thought of it hasn’t left you alone for days, and you feel that you’ll absolutely burst if you don’t write it, transplant those vivid images and characters from your head onto the reality of written words on a page or computer sscreen. Or maybe you’re already working on something, and you’ve just thought of the next scene. You know how you want it to feel and the essentials of what’s going to happen in your story or scene, and that’s enough, right? You sit down to write, but the words don’t come, and you can’t just wait for them to magically appear. Okay…so…maybe that wasn’t enough after all. Darn it! How do you get this started, get your fingers tapping or your pen gliding over the page, transmitting those brilliant ideas into something you can articulately share with others? Hmmm…maybe… “It was a dark and stormy night…”
I’m not even going to groan “Noooo!” here, because chances are you’re already doing it. If not, that’s okay; that’s what this article is for.
It’s a natural tendency, especially (but not by any means specificly) of beginning writers, to want to set the stage at the beginning of a story or scene; to describe how the setting and/or the characters look before actually telling us, the readers, what they’re trying to say. Of course it is; we want to be familiar with our setting and have a picture of our people in our minds before we start writing about them and letting them talk. Sometimes, if this is done well, it works, “if it’s done well” being the key. Unfortunately, it’s much easier to do it poorly than otherwise. There’s a better reason even than that to be careful, though, and to decide how your setting and characters look beforehand: if you spend your first page or two writing about only the dark, spooky woods or the sunny pasture or the busy city or the quiet office building or the mysterious old house, chances are very high that you and your readers are going to get bored before you’re done, and you’ll get stuck. You’ll get to the end of this long, eloquent description and realize that none of it was really what you wanted to write about, that you’ve accomplished next to nothing. You’re faced with the same problem you had to begin with: How do you start working on what you really want to write?
The answer is dialog and action. We’ll start with dialog. Letting one of your characters have the first line is a great way to free you from a brain-freeze right at the beginning of a story or jumpstart that slow-moving scene. It captures the readers’ interest at once and makes them want to find out more about the speaker, as well as the character being addressed. However, there are still a few important things to remember.
First, make it dialog, not monolog. It’s not a good idea to start by having a person talk to himself. This is standard practice in plays, and often happens in older literature; even Shakespeare and Louisa May Alcott used this technique; but unless your speaker has a habbit of talking to himself, be careful about this. If he does happen to have that peculiarity, make it realistic. Think about people you know who talk to themselves, or, if you do it, your own spoken thoughts; consider the things that are said to oneself. We who talk to ourselves, or just talk out loud without anyone else being present or to no one in particular, might remark about something that has bothered or surprised us, the weather, something that is going to happen later or that has just happened, or what we’re doing or are going to do in the next five minutes, etc. A healthy person is not very likely to describe what he sees around him in vivid detail or hold forth eloquently upon his troubles and misfortunes to an empty room; these things are best kept for inner dialog or part of the narration. However, if your character has a specific reason for talking to himself, such as an overactive imagination or a mental illness, these suggestions may or may not apply; neither might the typical saying addressed to those who talk to themselves: “Just don’t start answering yourself!” Your character might have another part of himself, a “voice” or a figment of his imagination who replies to his remarks. This is, of course, okay to do.
Second, beware the “as you know, Bob” unless it’s appropriate to the situation. In other words, avoid having a character tell another something that the other already knows simply for the sake of explaining it to the reader. We don’t do this in calm, everyday conversation. Imagine this:
“Mom, we really have to leave now,” said Ron. “As you know, I have to be at school by nine o’clock.”
“Yes, dear, and you know I have to be at work by nine thirty. Come on, then; let’s go.”
Boring and unrealistic. Ron might still say this if he were impatient or angry with his mother, to remind her of something she already knows; in reality the conversation might go something like this:
“Mom, we really have to leave, now!” said Ron, shifting from foot to foot. “I do have to be at school by nine, you know.”
“Yes, honey, I drive you every day, remember? I’m ready; grab your books and let’s go.”
In this second example, the impatience and slight sarcasm is evident in Ron’s actions and words and implied tone, and he’s stating a well-known fact to his mother in order to make a point; in her turn, his mother is stating another fact that he knows well to make her point that everything is going to be fine. We also naturally do this when we’re angry or “up on our soap box” about something that makes us passionate. Think of students complaining to one another about a particularly difficult teacher, or two like-minded people having an animated discussion about some political issue that they both feel strongly about. “As you know, Bob” is frequently used in such situations by real people, so, with care, you can use it effectively under similar circumstances in your dialog.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, don’t make your dialog at the beginning of a story or a scene idle conversation. The beginning of a story is crucial; if you don’t grab the attention of your readers then, there aren’t many who will wait around and wade through a lot of words until their attention is grabbed later. Make sure everything said has a purpose. If you want to use idle conversation to demonstrate something, or divert attention away from something dark and dangerous that is being hinted at in the background, that’s fine; but don’t use it as a space-filler in hopes that it will get your story moving, because it won’t. This doesn’t mean that every single word has to be vital to the plot, but dialog should contribute to the story in some way.
Action is also a great way to get your story off to a good start. This doesn’t necessarily mean starting off with a fight scene, but showing your character(s) doing something right from the outset, whether it be dueling with swords or running late to work or washing dishes. These action scenes are good times for dialog if your character is not alone or internal dialog (thoughts) if he is. It breaks internal thoughts and bits of history or facts up so that readers absorb them and become interested in what the character is doing at the same time, without feeling that he is wasting his time and theirs by sitting or standing there and thinking or talking about things he already must know about.
“But what about my descriptions?” you ask. Easy: break up the lumps and sprinkle them through your dialog and action, using them to augment it. Your readers will remember what your characters and setting look like more clearly if they have a reason to be interested in them, and you won’t get bogged down in an excess of detail. Sometimes you can put a lump right at the beginning and get away with it, but if you find yourself toiling along, hating what you do but knowing this and that have to be described, try employing some dialog and action to spice things up for you and your reader.
Happy writing, and may your sailing be smooth!
© Copyright September 30, 2008 Elizabeth More
Get set...and...GO!!!
The day is here, people! Time to decide your word count goal and write!
Anyone feeling unprepared? Let me just say right now that you are most definitely not alone. I still have character development to finish with my heroine, Kate. My hero, the harder of the two, is ready and waiting for my attention, however, so that's a relief. And writing the first article today made me realize just what an undertaking this whole project is. Oh my...I'm really starting to question my sanity now, but oh well, let's have fun anyway! Woohoo! :) That article will go up directly after this post, and I hope it will help at least one person; if it does even that it will have been worth the time it took to write and my own feelings of inadequacy while I was writing it, and perhaps give the evil voice in the back of my mind that whispered, "Aw, why do you even try, Liz? You can't help them; you hardly know what you're doing yourself," something to think about. *crosses fingers*
Anyway, moving on. A good thing to do might be to leave a comment on this post to let us know what you want your word count goal to be. You don't have to do this, but having supportive people behind you might help when the going gets rough, as it's bound to do at some point. Going to go leave my comment now and post the article, so happy writing to all, and to all a good night! :)
Anyone feeling unprepared? Let me just say right now that you are most definitely not alone. I still have character development to finish with my heroine, Kate. My hero, the harder of the two, is ready and waiting for my attention, however, so that's a relief. And writing the first article today made me realize just what an undertaking this whole project is. Oh my...I'm really starting to question my sanity now, but oh well, let's have fun anyway! Woohoo! :) That article will go up directly after this post, and I hope it will help at least one person; if it does even that it will have been worth the time it took to write and my own feelings of inadequacy while I was writing it, and perhaps give the evil voice in the back of my mind that whispered, "Aw, why do you even try, Liz? You can't help them; you hardly know what you're doing yourself," something to think about. *crosses fingers*
Anyway, moving on. A good thing to do might be to leave a comment on this post to let us know what you want your word count goal to be. You don't have to do this, but having supportive people behind you might help when the going gets rough, as it's bound to do at some point. Going to go leave my comment now and post the article, so happy writing to all, and to all a good night! :)
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
On your marks...
Okay, guys, this is the pre-pre-MOTM call. Tell your friends, anyone who might want to join before kickoff, because we start Wednesday. This Wednesday! Waaahooo! And I seriously would love you forever if you want to help with the weekly writing articles; if I don't get some recruits, we're combining the advice column and the pep talk into one. May do it anyway. The first article will go up on Wednesday.
Are you all ready? Do you know what you're going to work on and what your word count goal is? Please remember that all the writing for this challenge must be on a single project to count toward your goal, and 10K is the minimum word count goal. However, also remember that there is no "winning" or "losing"; any writing that you get done during this month is a good thing, and that's the goal of MOTM, to encourage writers to do what they love: write, and be serious about it.
Okay, seriousness out of the way for the time being. If you're like me, you're just itching with excitement. I don't know if I can wait till Wednesday to start my story! But I'm going to because I still have character development to finish up with my heroine, and I want to get some descriptions down.
So, on your marks...
Are you all ready? Do you know what you're going to work on and what your word count goal is? Please remember that all the writing for this challenge must be on a single project to count toward your goal, and 10K is the minimum word count goal. However, also remember that there is no "winning" or "losing"; any writing that you get done during this month is a good thing, and that's the goal of MOTM, to encourage writers to do what they love: write, and be serious about it.
Okay, seriousness out of the way for the time being. If you're like me, you're just itching with excitement. I don't know if I can wait till Wednesday to start my story! But I'm going to because I still have character development to finish up with my heroine, and I want to get some descriptions down.
So, on your marks...
Friday, September 26, 2008
Hello! I'm Kendra
Hi! My name is Kendra Logan! I'm excited to try out this new writing challenge. I've never done NaNoWriMo or the April Fool's thing, so I'm new to the whole idea.
For the most part I write fantasy, but I've done some stories set in our world. :) Fantasy is my favorite. I started a Christian fiction once, but I didn't finish it. I sort of specialize in stories that start on Earth, and then sometime in the story the characters get swept away to another world.
Thanks for letting me join, guys! I'm really looking forward to this!
~Kendra~
For the most part I write fantasy, but I've done some stories set in our world. :) Fantasy is my favorite. I started a Christian fiction once, but I didn't finish it. I sort of specialize in stories that start on Earth, and then sometime in the story the characters get swept away to another world.
I'm not sure what story I will work on to achieve my word goal. I have quite a few stories, but since I have to focus on one work for the challenge, I don't know what to pick. I have the series that I've been writing, but I think I want to try to do something else. I will let you all know when I decide what!
Thanks for letting me join, guys! I'm really looking forward to this!
~Kendra~
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Enter Eva Turner
Greetings, all!
My name is Eva Turner and I am... Well, many things. First and foremost, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am a Patriot, a dreamer, potential journalist and a writer. But I won't bore you, so if you're curious, you can view my profile. :)
I'm not sure when my interest in writing started. It's always been rather innate for me. I've loved reading since my brain could make sense of the markings on paper. In most things (as with my writing and reading), I'm a chameleon. I can blend into and like any genre, really. A little bit of thriller, fantasy, historical fiction, modern.... you name it, I'll probably like it. My primary focus right now, though, is historical fiction.
As for what my project will be...I will either try to finish my current novel Mercy's War or try to jumpstart my languid upcoming novel, affectionately titled WWII Novel. :)
That's me in a rather short, hurried blog post. I look forward to getting to know everyone and giving our muses a little bit of adventure.
Ciao,
Eva
My name is Eva Turner and I am... Well, many things. First and foremost, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am a Patriot, a dreamer, potential journalist and a writer. But I won't bore you, so if you're curious, you can view my profile. :)
I'm not sure when my interest in writing started. It's always been rather innate for me. I've loved reading since my brain could make sense of the markings on paper. In most things (as with my writing and reading), I'm a chameleon. I can blend into and like any genre, really. A little bit of thriller, fantasy, historical fiction, modern.... you name it, I'll probably like it. My primary focus right now, though, is historical fiction.
As for what my project will be...I will either try to finish my current novel Mercy's War or try to jumpstart my languid upcoming novel, affectionately titled WWII Novel. :)
That's me in a rather short, hurried blog post. I look forward to getting to know everyone and giving our muses a little bit of adventure.
Ciao,
Eva
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)