Month: December 2018

Author Spotlight: Dr. Seuss

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

What was your favorite Dr. Seuss growing up? Go on, I’ll wait.

My sisters loved to torture me with Fox in Socks. I personally loved Hop on Pop. Other people identified with Horton Hears a Who or Cat in Hat. And off course the seasonal favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which has permanently embedded into our society the concept of anyone hating Christmas is a Grinch. And most people accused don’t care because the Grinch was awesome in his wallowing in his grinch-ness; they can only aspire to his commitment to the grump.

Answering a bet to write a children’s book with fifty or fewer different words, Green Eggs and Ham was born. From there Dr. Seuss made reading accessible as the boring Dick and Jane stories never could; the rhyme and meter and cartoonish art delighted children in book after book.

But did you know he had two books written in straight prose? One is high fantasy, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, and the other is horror – it certainly meets most of the horror tropes and ticks – Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss

Memorable first lines in books – we writers always try to hone the hook. Here is one:

In the beginning, Bartholomew Cubbins didn’t have five hundred hats.

Going Christmas shopping for nieces and nephews I ran across a high fantasy story I read again and again growing up. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss. Still a fine story; I hope nephew number five likes it.

Written in prose instead of his normal poem scheme, the fantasy by Dr. Seuss has a beautiful pace and flow. Enemies and friends – from the executioner to the spoiled Grand Duke – distract Bartholomew from his ongoing issue of the hat which would not come off. The 1940 story still holds up perfectly for today’s world.

Amazon Cover

Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss

A revisit to Bartholomew Cubbins who previously appeared in The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins finds him the King’s page and the Grand Duke missing. Again the prose form rules this darker fantasy (sequel?) written 9 years after the original story instead of the normal Seussian poetry; I vastly prefer the clever and surreal 500 Hats of the two books.

The king wants to establish his power and uniqueness and calls his magicians to make Oobleck fall from the sky. Bartholomew attempts to be the voice of reason to the hubris-plagued king, but the king wasn’t having it. When the first drops of green fall, the royal page feels nothing but fear.

Want to know where the generation of urban fantasy – horror fans came from? I bet many of them had this book in their homes growing up. Where 500 Hats is fantasy, Oobleck is a horror – child version.

Still a solid book after all this time. 

Flash: I Was Never There

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of elxaval at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Two man stood at the back of the middle school auditorium, watching a badly performed production of Shakespeare’s Midsummers Night Dream, their clothing tight across the top and loose around the legs in a fashion-style unlike the seated patrons. The larger, younger one whispered sideways. “What are we-“

“Shh,” cut him off, even though no one else could hear them. His companion hung on every word spoken by the barely teenage actresses presently on stage.

***

Striding away from the temporal-porter, Harry tossed aside the harness which had dragged him back. “I can’t believe you did that. All of time and space, and you use your fifth trip on a school play.”

“I get one free ride, and you got your required training trip.” Brandon slipped out of his harness and started packing it away for the crew to recalibrate for the next traveler.

“I thought my training trip would be crazy. Like to Woodstock or the Battle of Hastings. Maybe even a real clock turner with dinosaurs.” Harry spun in anger to face the other man. “All the others in my class have been telling us about the absolutely amazing trips they have been on.” He blew air out of his mouth in disgust. “Me, my presentation is going to be a sixth-grade play from fifty years ago. Even with the audio-vid, nothing is going to have impact. We still have so much surviving video from that time, everything has been documented. I’ll be lucky to get a passing grade.”

“Luck of the draw.” The now-retired traveler closed the container and leaned against it, his shoulders slumped and head bowed.

The younger man tramped back to spit words into the back of his trainer. “Luck of the draw? At least tell me why I just spent one of my five observing that travesty to playwrights everywhere.”

“I was drunk,” came the whispered reply, bouncing off the plasti-steel wall of the chamber behind the storage container.

“What?”

Brandon turned around to stare up at Harry with red-rimmed eyes. “I had been drunk that night and didn’t make the play.”

“So? I would have considered both of those things pluses.”

“That was my daughter playing Helena.”

Brandon left the room with Harry following close behind; they squeezed together in the decontamination chamber, Harry activating the sterilization sequence.

“All of time and space, Mr. Pollard, couldn’t you have chosen something more interesting? Even when stuck in your little nostalgia kick there had to have been something better. Maybe a graduation. They usually had important speakers during that era, and I could have presented a forgotten speech.”

Brandon stared off into the mist and purple lights for several moments before responding. “It is the last thing she did before committing suicide because I was never there.”

Words 465; first published 12/16/2018

Editing Rant: Drafts

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Drafts are the self-editing phase of writing. If you participated in NaNoWritMo in November, my fearless author friends, you now have a ROUGH draft. This is NOT a final draft, not even close. What you have is the foundation to build your novel. Bet you thought those 50,000 words were the novel. Nope – average sellable novel on the low end is 70,000 for romance, mystery, horror, and urban fantasy; and 100,000 for science fiction and fantasy.

If you are like most, you worked NaNo without an outline. Time to put that together. A previous blog post covers the benefits of outlining here. Now you have your basic story flow, and the beginnings of a synopsis for later trying to sell the product.

Looking at the outline, combined with the Rough Draft, the Macro/Content Draft begins. Are there things missing – characters dropped, action slowing down when it shouldn’t, a plot line needing beefing up? Make notes on the outline of the fixes needed and take your Rough Draft to Macro/Content Draft. When done, an increase in word count should have occurred.

Update the outline, maybe start a Bible if a series is expected. What are the major characters and locations? Heights, clothing, props, eye color, etc. With the Book Bible beside you, go over the Macro/Content Draft and update it to a Micro/Line Draft. Check for consistency of character in dialogue and actions, verify permanency of props – do they appear before they are first used, and see if any “tell” can be flipped over to “show”.

It’s okay to do one or more passes for each concentration. For example, Macro pass one adds the scenes you thought you wrote, but never got around to, while Macro pass two you rewrite the Point-of-view character because you realize the story is really about the “side-kick” and not the leader.

(Mug can be bought at GearBubble and other locations)

Once you have reached the “I hate my life FINAL.docx” phase, time for the proofreading to start. I recommend using an on-line proofreader such as prowritingaid or grammarly. As mentioned in a previous blog, it’s hard to proofread your own work.

All done.

You have gone from Rough Draft to … BetaReaderDraft. You’ve lined up those beta readers, right? Beta reader blog post is here.

A revisit of the editing levels can be found in “Editing Rant: Choose a Color“.

Congratulations on completing the National Novel Writing Month. Now you can make magic.

Quote from James Maxey

Flash: Undercover

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

“God, I hate undercover.” Malcolm started peeling out of his business jacket. “I swear if one more woman pinched me, I was going to slug someone, most likely the good-for-nothing bouncer.”

Sally stepped out of the kitchen to watch her man get comfortable. His sculptured chest was from weights and gym workouts, but for honest reasons instead of just to look good. He had to be ready to run a mile or swing a ram after pushing a few hours of paperwork at the station. The upside of his using a gym to make his muscles instead of hard labor was his hands stayed soft and subtle to stroke her just right. Her lower regions loosened, remembering how he had stroked her last night.

“Your own fault for speaking the language,” Sally pointed out. “You blend better than anyone else on the force.”

Malcolm unbuckled the S&M harness he was wearing under his street clothes and put it beside his unloaded piece in the small safe in the front closet. He rubbed his regulation weapon a moment, partly in longing, partly for luck. The present assignment didn’t provide a place to hide the gun. He had to depend on his backup across the street hoping they were listening in on the wire sewn inside the harness if some shit went down.

Crossing the room to kiss his wife, Malcolm admitted. “Cost of a misspent youth.” He tucked a curl behind her ear while they held each other in a light embrace. “But eventually I will be old and fat and they won’t send me on these trips.”

“Somehow I am not seeing the fat, my love. Instead I see distinguished, which means you will still pull undercover until you retire.” She teased before stepping back into the kitchen area.

“Don’t say that.” He rolled his eyes before following her. The table was already set. Sally pulled the last simmering pot from the stove. “Though I admit this gig is better than most. I get to come home every night to your cooking.”

Sally smiled, ducking her head to hide the blush. The look in his eye said he was glad to come home for more than just the food.

“So how was your day at the daycare center?” Malcolm asked changing the topic away from his work before they hit stuff he wasn’t supposed to talk about. Occasionally they did anyway. She was a better sounding board than the police psychiatrist, and sometimes brought things to the table his fellow officers could not see.

After the dinner table was cleared and the dishwasher started, Sally and Malcolm went to the living room bumping hips. The honeymoon was far from over despite the wedding being two year in the rearview mirror. Metal on Malcolm’s hip jingled as they walked.

“Mal, you forgot to put away the handcuffs.”

Pulling his wife past the television towards the bedroom, Malcolm growled, “I didn’t forget.”

(words 490 – originally appearing at Breathless Press 5/30/2013 for the 12/18/11 Sunday Fun – See the picture that inspired the story! – As I do not know the copyright permissions, I have not copied it here; republished in new blog format 12/9/2018)