Author: Erin Penn

Editing Rant: Chapter Ending Questions

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

I recently read a book where nearly every chapter ended with the point of view (POV) character asking themselves a question. What’s up with that?

I think the problem is they were told to end chapters on a mini “cliffhanger” to keep the reader moving forward, making the book unputdownable (yes, a word). John Hartness (recent book release of Eternal Winter in his Bubba series)) and Jason Gilbert (Three Dog Knight, which I edited) are masters of this technique; fortunately they write shorter books so you can survive the unputdownable structure and, maybe, get enough sleep that night to work the next day. But why didn’t a pleasure-read book work if this is a valid techinque?

Well, the cliffhanger can work different ways, sometimes it is a beat break within a battle. Sometimes it is a climax of a scene, emotionally or physically, then a switch to a different POV character. Writers master getting the scene to the point where everything is in place, then break to a different stakes in the next chapter. That one gets to the high stakes, then switch back to the original POV character or situation. Then the cruel-writers resolve the problem they had ended on but before they return to the second issues, they raise the rollercoaster back to the edge and leave us hanging again. Rinse and repeat for the second plotline. No sleep at all, but what a ride. Why didn’t this ride work for me?

The other big way to end, rather than continuing action, is with a question. The way to do this is have the POV character be asked a question or ask someone else a question, encapsulating either what had just happened or bringing up something that had been left by the wayside. “Did that seem too easy to you?”;  “Should Billy have been here by now?” Both sorts of question interchanges have the reader freezing for a moment going, “oh no!”, and jumping into the next chapter to find the answer. Why doesn’t the character asking themselves a question work?

If the book had been a literary book, with layers of self-reflection, it might have worked, but the book was a middlegrade action-adventure. Asking questions like “What should I do next?” and “Should I return home to find out what happened to my family or continue on my quest?” doesn’t create tension for genre. These are internal questions and slow down the action. Self-reflection is fine to figure things out, but a self-reflection question, even “Should I take a boat down the Rapids of Death?”, at the end of a chapter to create a cliffhanger actually pulls a reader back from the edge and leaves them questioning why is the character questioning themselves instead of acting. Literary is self-reflection; genre books are action. Why ask yourself a question?

Action, dialog, interaction, raising stakes. All these are genre tools to pull the reader through the book and make it unputdownable. Asking questions through dialog is fine. Asking questions of yourself is fine as a place to slow down and contemplate, to have a breather for the reader before returning to the rollercoaster.  But using self-reflection questions (which slow things down) as the tension technique to pull the reader through to the next chapter doesn’t work. Do you got that?

Good. Go forth and write something that is unputdownable.

Flash: Monsters in the Closet

Erin Penn 2 Comments

Photo by ajiss on Unsplash

“Hey, Mom,” Kiara sat still in her seat while her mother separated her wet hair. She loved hair washing day, the only time she got her mother to herself. Her father took her three brothers and buzzed their curls down to scalp then fired up the grill to give her mother and her the two hours needed to redo their braids for the next six weeks. Sometimes they even had time to do nails.

“What is it, Little Bit?” Her mom shifted a bank of hair to the front of Kiara’s face now she was old enough to practice on her own with the nearly empty jar of butter cream they saved for that purpose.

“Why don’t monsters come out of our closets at night?”

Fingers stilled a second before starting to gently finger comb the loose hairs out between spritzes of stay-in conditioner. “Why would they come out?”

“Well, Timmy and Karen at school say they have their parents check their closets for monsters every night. Timmy’s dad opens the closet and shines a flashlight under the bed to keep him safe and Karen’s parents spritz monster spray in her room. Lucy, Chuck, and Mandy all say that they have had their parents do something like that too, but not every night. Why isn’t it a problem for us?”

“Ah, well, first off, we train our monsters much better.” Her mother moved to a different section of hair and started the water, conditioner, and fingercomb routine again. “If you need to spritz your monsters nightly, you aren’t doing a good job taking care of them.”

“Oh, should I teach them how to take better care of their monsters?” Kiara asked. “I take really good care of Old Baba.”

“I know. I saw you grab the handful of fresh graveyard soil when we visited grandmother last week.” Her mother kissed the top of her head in approval. “But whities don’t take well to people that look like us correcting them.”

“That’s just silly,” Kiara declared. Taking care of pets and creatures was an important job. She only got to help with Old Baba when she turned five. Knowing how to do it right was super, super important.

“No, no. Not all rules make sense, but you do need to follow them.” Her mother corrected her without worrying about whether Kaira cared about the correction because mothers could do that with their children.

Kiara worked her lock of hair but didn’t nod agreement because her mother was still pulling her hair gently. “Like wearing shoes to school and in restaurants.”

“Well, the school shoes are so you don’t forget to take shoes for the cafeteria. Unless you are really careful, and not everyone is, shoes should be worn where food is being made and served. And always worn around fire and cutting knives. We can get away with it at home for stirring and shucking and other kitchen and cooking things because your dad and I are very careful and we are teaching you the same, but not everyone is.”

“So where there is a lot of people, community rules apply.”

“Exactly.” Her mother kissed her head again and switched to the last section needing moisturizing. “And safety rules always apply. You’ve gotten really good at keeping on your shoes when we tell you they have to stay on.”

“Could I keep Old Baba in the closet or under the bed like Timmy and Karen do with their monsters? Out in the shed gets really hot in the summer.” Kiara started picking out red and yellow beads out of the container. She loved using the purple only last time but wanted different colors for the start of summer.

Kiara felt her mother smile. She didn’t know why, but sometimes just being around her mother she could hear laughter.

Other times she could hear the grumbles. Like when she and her brothers tried to sneak Baba into the house to help with their chores and play with them when they have used up all their screen time without asking for permission first.

“No, we can’t have Old Baba or Milly in the house at night. They must have a waking controller with them while they are ambulatory, and they keep each other company out in the shed when we aren’t interacting with them. It’s not fair to let only one in and leave the other out.”

“Milly is smelly.” Kiara wrinkled her nose.

“She is over ninety years old.” Her mother’s hand reached around and Kiara dropped two beads in it to finish her braid. “I’ve been thinking, when you reach six you can help me with a renewal spell like I did with J-J on Baba.”

“Really?” Kiara bounced in her chair until her mother put a calming hand on her shoulder. “I would get Milly for ever-and-ever?” J-J didn’t need mom’s help with giving Old Baba instructions.

“No Little Bit, the agreement was one hundred years, but there is no need to let her be run-down when we release her. It’s only polite to keep her well-maintained.”

“Oh, I didn’t know…” Kiara’s voice got smaller. “Milly is going away?”

“Not for another ten years. She will keep us company until you turn fifteen.”

“Good, that will be forever from now.”

“Not quite, but it is still a long time for you.”

“When that happens, we should have Old Baba come into the house so he won’t be alone.”

Her mother came around to work on the front which Kiara had prepared for braiding. “Well, Old Baba and Milly both were formed by grandmama-mama at the same time and have the same agreement.”

“What do you mean?” Kiara frowned up as her mother worked on her hair.

“We will need to release both Baba and Milly at the same time, Little Bit. You, me, and J-J, like a proper coven who keeps its promises and contracts. Aunt Esther and Cousin Izzy should be there too. Maybe even Great Aunt Sunshine if she is still around. It will make a good family reunion. … And done.” Her mother kissed Kiara on the forehead. “Ready to help me with mine?”

“Yes, yes.” Kiara scrambled out of her chair and they moved to her mom’s makeup station with the big mirror. The stool there was right up against the big bed where her parents slept, so there wasn’t room for her mom to walk around and work on her hair there, but Kiara could climb on the bed and help her mom with hers.

Her mother placed Kiara’s special bead on the white marble table. The jade and gold bead winked and sparkled as her mother turned on the lights of her makeup table.

When they finished working on her mother’s hair, they put the bead into Kiara’s hair with a quick asking to the Loa Erzulie Danto and leaving a small hand-rolled cigarette on the altar. The bead helped keep Kiara quiet and safe. Mom used to put it in the back of her hair where she couldn’t reach it, but when she started kindergarten, after a long summer of teaching about when and when it shouldn’t be taken off, moved it to the front so Kiara could remove it in an emergency. They left it cracked open because they would be eating in the backyard, which mean Old Baba and Milly would be joining them and Kiara loved being able to talk to both of them freely even though Milly was smelly.

(words 1,250; first published 5/10/2026)

Ordinary Monsters series

One) Monsters in the closet (5/10/2026)
Two) Monsters in the school (5/24/2026)
Three) Monsters in the Restaurant (6/28/2026)

Writing Exercise: The Twist, Make It Real

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Photo by Martijn Baudoin on Unsplash

You have reached the center of your story, the mid-point of the second act, and need to add “the twist.” Somehow you need to change all the rules without changing the rules. If you have read a lot, you’ve been exposed to dozens of twists. Sometimes they work, sometimes they are pretentious, and sometimes they fail badly. What makes a good twist?

First and foremost, the twist cannot introduce anything new. It must follow rules and events previously established. To do otherwise is deux machinst (god in the machine), the writer forcing a change for the sake of change. The challenge is to have the event be cause and effect and still be a twist.

In life, twists are those moments where you imitate Homer of the Simpsons cartoon and go “duh”. Or say “that is so obvious, I wish I thought of that”. Recently I was admiring all the escaped balloons decorating a big box store ceiling. How do they get them down? Then I see two retail workers approach with another helium balloon covered with large clear tape in the little circles one does to attach a bow to a gift and the balloon tied to a very, very long string. They released the balloon to the ceiling until it touched another with the clear packing tape, and then pulled down both balloons. They continued until the ceiling was clear. Pure genius. Obvious, following established rules of gravity and adhesion, but a twist I never saw coming.

For the Ah-Ha video I’ve previously written about in blogs on June 2017 (Agency), November 2017 (POV), and May 2018 (Three-Acts), the heroine was pulled into the story. And when the panel police show up to hunt the intruder to the black and white world, the main characters run. The twist to escape is obvious when it happens, but you don’t see it until the hero does it because you are so absorbed in the chase. If one can be drawn into the comic world, one can rip out of it. The woman escapes, and the comic book character guards her exit.

Comedy is great for studying twists. This Bud LIght commercial starring Cedric the Entertainer captures a twist perfectly. Act one establishes the characters, hot chick and lucky guy, act two has the journey to get the beer and the joyous dance celebration, and act three has the resolution. The twist is delivered with the twist of the bottle. Again we get so absorbed in Cedric’s victory dance we forget he is holding the bottles until he sits back down on the couch. A second before the bottle opens, everything that went before plus the rules of carbonation runs through our head and we shout “no” just as the bottle sprays like a firehose into hot chick’s face.

Amhezer Bush, or their advertising department, is good at comedic twists. The ongoing football game between teams of horses with the spectator ranchers at the fence have established the world over the years. Combined with real-world vocabulary and situations translated from the football scene has made for many the perfect twist. From the streaker (all the animals are naked, but a recently sheared lamb is more naked than the rest) to the ranchers complaining about the zebras, in the body of both a referee and a real zebra, we have been surprised again and again by the twists that are no more than typical effect following cause of established rules.

One famous twist happens Aesop fable of the Snake and the Farmer. Used to happy endings, we expect the kindness of the farmer reviving the snake to be repaid. But in the end, the bitten and now poisoned farmer asks the snake why he returned kindness with cruelty: “you knew I was a snake”. So again, natural real-world cause-and-effect already established in the story creates the twist.

WRITING EXERCISE: For you present Work-In-Progress, review your twists. Do all follow rules you have already defined in the story?

READING EXERCISE: Think about a twist you did not like in a story you read. Why didn’t it work for you?

My Attempt: Flash: Magical Menace Mode Part Two – Special Meeting (2/1/2026) – The group of friends discover not everyone is seeing the same thing. Now they have to figure out who is seeing what.

Book Review: Nightfall

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Amazon Cover

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov (original short story) and Robert Silverberg (expanded into novel)

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

An expanded version of Asimov’s short story, “Nightfall,” reveals a world on the brink of chaos, torn between religious fanaticism and scientific denial and faced with the end of civilization

 

MY REVIEW

When I first read this (mumble) years ago, it was groundbreaking and amazing. The original short story was published in 1941, written by Isaac Asimov when he was a grad student. The novel was published in 1990, with an extended beginning and an extended ending written by Robert Silverberg, but approved by Asimov.

The conceit of a world without night (because at least one of the six suns in the vicinity of the planet is always shining down, one sun is the primary which the planet orbits), reacting to an astrological phenomena – a once in two-thousand year eclipse, bringing Darkness and something more. Stars. All the wonder and fear, awe and insignificance we normal Earthlings are exposed to each night (when city lights don’t hide the night sky) in one painful twelve-hour period with no preparation.

I always think about how quickly and decisively humans jumped off planet because we had our sister planet, the Moon, just hanging up there, taunting us, tantalizingly close. If all we had to see were the stars, it would have taken much longer to dare space. I wonder about other worlds with intelligent life without Moon to tease them to “come play”. About worlds with perpetual cloud cover, like Venus or Jupiter, never even seeing the stars, and maybe not even their own sun clearly. Would they even leave their planet? Our relatively thin atmosphere (compared to gas worlds), is “only” six thousand miles. Our tallest mountain is 5.5 miles; if everything above that distance is hazy nothingness, why would you ever go further?

Nightfall asks the question of what happens to a people who have never seen further, whose furthest sight line is maybe two light-years, who – with far more reason than our Earthling predecessors – think they are the center of this small scape, suddenly see so much more.

I love the question. I love the development. The science Asimov used to create this world is still believable; the archeological support and psychological support and governmental maneuverings added by Silverberg make it that much better. It is perhaps one of the best short stories and novel adaptations ever in the science fiction genre.

That said, I hate how the social aspects have aged over the 35 and 80 plus years since the novel and short story have been written.

First comment is just a writing style change. The book is set in omnipresent third person, as well as second person, and also has first person POV switches, with some head hopping. Not something we do now, but was an acceptable writing technique in the past. Styles change over time. I am already seeing how fanfic, video game storytelling, and electronic delivery systems are changing writing styles now; not good or bad, just different.

Second comment is “Wow, the toxic masculinity.” Even though the characters have witnessed, have experienced, the danger of Darkness, each of the men think “I am stronger than this.” Over and over again. “I cannot be a coward; I would not be able to live with myself.” But it is like asking a normal man without training to lift a thousand pounds, it is going to break him. … But, you know, can’t be a coward.

Third comment is “Smurfette Syndrome.” No, the archeologist isn’t the only female of the book but I do think the ratio of male to female is one in four or one in five, and among the scientists and people of power more like one in ten. There is an ingenue sex partner, but she is more an obstacle than a person and only one person actual talks to her. Siferra is the only female with agency and initially she starts with absolutely no interest in sex; but eventually she falls for the one man with the persistence (stalking) to continue to pressure her until there was a yes rewarding the action-hero non-scientist with a beautiful, physically fit, amazingly intelligent, supportive woman who he proceeds to overtalk, ignore, and actively manipulate to get his way. Chapter 38 onward is a study in the many of the ways science fiction writers have mistreated women characters over the years. So much potential, but using a 2025 lens, completely unacceptable. (Also the female-needs-to-be-threatened-with-rape trope, but at least she gets herself out of it, even if she is completely insane when she did it, because, of course, a real woman wouldn’t have overreacted that way … oh, but we do imagine it.)

In conclusion, great concept. A worthy ready, especially the beginning and middle (Asimov’s original story), for the history of science fiction. Don’t give to the book to your female children to read; the teenagers and twenty-somethings won’t see Siferra as a strong-woman character. They have been deprogramed from this level of toxicity and will see it for what it is: a male chosen-one reward-in-female-shape. (She started out Ace; a modern writer would have let her stay that way, but times were different.)

When I originally read this in the nineties, the story would be a five-star. Now, toxic tropes would take it down to a two and history pulls it up to a three-star.

Flash: Positive Punishment (Or I don’t think this means what you think it means)

Erin Penn 2 Comments

Photo by Eduardo Soares on Unsplash

“And furthermore, if I get one more customer complaint, you will get a three-day suspension.”

Yada, yada. Maribeth had been nodding along, doing her best to ignore the growing three o’clock cashier lines from all the parents running errands while picking up kids from school which she would get to dive into after her once-every-couple-of-weeks being-bitched-at session with her manager was done. Likely another customer complaint would be happening as she dug out of that line with Latoya and Fernanda.

Next on her agenda of the day is rushing to pick up her five-month-old and four-year-old from daycare since her mom had the flu and couldn’t babysit at the moment after her custodial job. Damn Tim for dumping her the minute she started showing. You think after Seth she would have known better, but one keeps hoping guys actually mean what they say.

Wait, back up.

“A three-day suspension?” Maribeth asked, her voice wobbling.

“Yes. It is a new corporate policy. Three strikes, three-day suspension.” Aaron smirked, pleased to finally get a rise out of her.

O.M.G. The only time she had got three days off in a row since returning to the workforce after a short round of unemployment for the audacity of needing a week to recover from birthing issues with her first kid was the birth of her second kid after her water breaking on the job Monday. The store had scrambled to cover her shifts the final two days before Christmas and had convinced her to come back Friday because Return Day is always crazy.

Punishments had been undesirable hours, which usually worked out well with the hours of her mom’s job, saving them on day care. Forced overtime or double-shifts, with the nice bonuses. Stocking instead of cashier, which allowed her to move around more and even sit a little on the floor. But three-days off in a row?

The things she could accomplish with guaranteed hours of not being randomly called in! Likely it will mean a couple double-shifts thereafter because of being short-handed but what else was new? Corporate didn’t like them turning in more than sixty-hours per week for the full-timers so she would get the same hours after they had to rearrange the hours for the other five full-time cashiers. Not a paycheck hit, unless it was summer when they had the high schoolers available during normal work day hours.

“I will keep that in mind, sir.” Wait until she told the others of the new corporate policy!

(words 417; first published 5/3/2026)