Showing posts with label writing about writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing about writing. Show all posts

Monday, August 14, 2017

Summer, Interrupted

This summer appears to be the nonstop roller coaster ride type.

All I want to do is get in some writing time! It appears that my focus is on too many pans in the fire. Ugh! The sad thing is: those aren't my pans. 

Yet here I am cooking meals I have no idea what I am doing for each one. So I stopped myself and figured out a game plan. I will fry up that order at this time. The next order will come after, and so on. Then I can free up my evenings to do some writing. 

Much better. 

I have a few projects I would like to get off the ground this autumn. So it's back to the keyboard for me!

How has your summer been?

Have a great and wonderful day. 



Sunday, July 30, 2017

Reimagining Robin Hood for the 21st Century

That is a tall order!

I have always wanted to write a Robin Hood inspired story. There are a few revisions I would like to make to the old, tried and true mythologies of our modern age. Robin Hood is just one of them. 

I want to do some reimaging to the likes of Dorian Gray, The Raven, Pride and Prejudice, and Taming The Shrew to keep me busy for the next decade. 

This year the muse descended on Robin Hood. I have to take modern themes and ideas to formulate a new and exciting version no one has ever seen before.

So what is out there?

I do love the Kevin Costner version from the early 1990's. Funny how I took a noncredit script writing course through a community college at the same time that the film was released. The Hollywood screenwriter helped my classmates and I breakdown the scenes, characters, and story lines. I learned so much about storytelling during those six weeks than in any creative writing class I have ever taken.

So do not pass on noncredit courses! You might be happily surprised the knowledge you receive. 

When I was sketching out some dialogue for my take on the classic tale, the main character pretty much told me his story. Scene after scene, I could tell that this type of Robin Hood was going to be a mesh-mash of elements from the original story and a few others from external sources. 

I cannot wait to get it all finished. 

I hope I can keep up the momentum and get this origin story edited for an autumn release. 

As long as the characters keep writing the story themselves, I do not see why not. Stranger things have happened.   

Have a great and wonderful day.



Thursday, July 13, 2017

Storytelling: Character Development

When I am in writer's forums and groups, I see concerns about how to write believable characters. 

One of the exercises I like to employ is writing in fanfiction. Every once and awhile, another person's universe intrigues me. I have written for Babylon 5, which is online. It needs a good polishing but I can still live with it. 

In that universe, I can play with characters. I can use the already made universe to stretch my writing muscles without having to do all the heavy lifting. I can see how close I can come to recreating the characters of someone else. 

I make note of my thought processes. What do I need? What am I missing? How close can I get? 

I then take what I learned trying to mimic and apply those lessons to my own creative world building. 

I implement the same brainstorming ideas to develop original characters in a universe I created from scratch.

Writers can use any character out of literature or film they wish to try their hand in character development. 

That is one exercise, but character development is a more involved process than one exercise. To make three-dimensional characters, a writer has to take the time. Write a description. Give your character some real life quirks. Don't make your characters perfect. 

And, have fun with your characters. Show their sense of humor, pet peeves, phobias. A character should reflect the time and place s/he is being written for. So take different aspects of people and a little of yourself, a character needs to be built for the task at hand... make your character worth the read.

Character development does not have to be a dirty job. Create exercises that appeal to you and brainstorm a new character. When a writer takes the time, characters can virtually write the novel themselves. 

I actually prefer a feisty and spirited protagonist... it makes writing less complicated. 

Have a great and wonderful day!



Friday, June 23, 2017

The Perfect Metaphor

Writing is not about noun and verb agreement even though that really does help. Writing is about speaking to an audience you never will see, meet, or converse with verbally. So the challenge of writing is to be understood in the two dimensional aspect of communication.

Black on white. White on black. People can choose their own colors, fonts, and pica to beautify their dialogue. Technology has made the 2D communication experience better, especially the advent of emoticons!

Now, I know when you are joking.

In formal writing, like poetry and story writing, writers are not given the emoticon out. Writers have to be able to express with language what the meaning of a phrase is. How to convey emotion without explaining the punchline. Encapsulate a moment in order to set a mood. Writers have to learn to be psychologists and sociologists.

So writers learn to speak in metaphors. A metaphor is an object or idea that replaces another to better clarify the meaning of the original object.

Sounds complicated, but it really is not: She is as beautiful as the day I met her. A character could be discussing her aunt, grandmother. So the day I met her is the metaphor of not aging as beauty in this instance is being epitomized by a bygone youth. 

Yet a metaphor takes on a plethora of meanings. Youth does not have to mean physical beauty. The beauty could be her giving nature. Beauty could mean her vulnerabilities. Beauty could mean her kindness. 

So let's read the line again: She is as beautiful as the day I met her. Did the explanations for beauty change your idea of how beautiful the "she" really is? 

Metaphors are beautiful additions to the writing craft. 

What will you use a metaphor for in your writing? 

Have a great and wonderful day!


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