Writing Exercise: Genderless

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Can you write a story with no gendered pronouns? The most common substitution by authors is “them/they’re”.

I’ve been really impressed with the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. Her main character is never defined with gender as a mechanical being. At the book club where we talked about the book “All Systems Red”, half of us thought the main character had “he/him” pronouns and the other half used “she/her” pronouns talking about the character. I went through the first book again and discovered a complete blank and none of us had noticed while reading the books.

That is some awful good writing.

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a flash or scene where at least one of the characters’ genders is never defined.

My Attempt: The Dream of You and I (2/4/2024).

Writing Exercise: The Stars of Character Development

Photo 127476676 | Astrology © Dwnld777 | Dreamstime.com (Paid for)

Creating unique characters to play off each other can be difficult. How do you make them sound different, act different, be different? I usually tap into the Sixteen Personality Types, but much of that is crouched in scientific mumbo-jumbo making it hard to access especially when you just want to pants a story. Struggling with the difference between Extrovert and Introvert when all you want to do is write a scene right now can take all the wind out of your sails.

What other groups of personality architypes are there that a writer can take and run with?

Astrology could be tapped to make each of your characters different. Just google a sign – the definitions provided are involved from romantic features to preferred jobs, how they are good and bad at relationships, familiar and romantic – from there you have the basics of a character. And since it isn’t a “scientific” thing, the websites are much more accessible and often give humorous examples. You can use the Western Signs like Pisces and Scorpio or the Eastern Signs like Dragons and Rabbits.

WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Pick two astrological signs and create a scene of 50 to 250 words. Comment below how it changed your character development.

My Attempt: When the Stars Align (12/24/2023) – I had named the first character Leo just at random, but as the scene went on, I decided to match characters to star signs. Some of the characters I named because they were already showing those traits (Virgo/Virga), and others had personality quirks driven by their astrology name (Sagittarius). I found it really helped make the characters be different people without much effort. In the future, if I think my characters are sounding or acting too much the same, I might tap into these architypes again as a character development tool.

Magical Words: Revisions Revisited

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Time to break out the red pen again. An edit is in the door and needs some work.

One of the things I will say, many times is – “this is just a suggestion.” or “It needs fixing, here is an example so you can see how I think it is wrong, but you are the author.”

David B. Coe paraphrased his editor in the Magical Words post from November 29, 2010, “Revisiting Revisions” with:

“You don’t have to use my wording,” he said with maddening equanimity, when I complained about some change he had made to a previous manuscript. “You’re the writer; I’m sure you can come up with something better.  I changed it because the original wording didn’t work.  It wasn’t clear, or it didn’t work with the rest of the scene.  I was just trying to draw your attention to it.”

And that is the horrific thing editors do. They point out what is wrong. Maddening cruel and loving essential, every red mark.

And it isn’t always “wrong – wrong”. It could be “not as good as you are capable of”. Sometimes I think that is the worse, because wrong is an easy fix – “make better” oh boy, that is going to take some effort.

This particular Magical Words is mostly a reminder for ME on how to be the best editor possible. Sometimes ruts happen. Tired happens. And people need to be reminded of best practices. This post by Dr. Coe is full of them.

Again, the URL is: https://www.magicalwords.net/david-b-coe/revisions-revisited/

Writing Exercise: Pull Through

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This is a comment I wrote during an edit:

Need more pull through – I read about half-way through, about 12 hours over two days (I read for pleasure faster, but doing mental edits while reading takes longer). I stopped last night at the start of chapter 10 (page 150 of 300). Waking up this morning, I didn’t feel the need to jump right back in. Yes, I had something else to do this morning – but still, nothing in my mind thought “what is happening next with these people.” The chapters don’t really end on cliffhangers and nothing makes you want to jump back to the character you were cut off from – a scream of “really, a POV switch NOW?!?” followed by “Oh, right I wanted to know this about this character, carry on writer”.

Pull-through is the mirror of the hook. The hook is at the beginning, drawing the reader into the story; pull-through is what keeps the reader in the story. That wonderful, disastrous entanglement keeping us engaged in the story long after we should be in bed. While you don’t need a “cliffhanger” at the end of every chapter, as a writer, you should be leaving enough IMMEDIATE questions that the reader feels if they read just one more page, one more paragraph, even one more sentence after the chapter ending, all will be revealed.

READING EXERCISE: Review your present work-in-progress for final paragraph pull-through at the end of chapters. Has the author made it easy to put the book down between chapters, or is it a struggle to shut the book every night? Comment below.

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a scene where the reader will end up screaming at you, “YOU ENDED IT THERE?!?” Again, this isn’t a cliffhanger. It shouldn’t be a huge buildup being left unanswered, but something simple where the reader had a pretty good expectation of what happens next, but they don’t know for certain. The difference between a protagonist getting shot while stepping into the shower, assailant unknown, versus the protagonist and their love interest stepping into the shower after just putting their two-year old into bed and they hear a sound at the bathroom door.

My attempt: Even when the trees are apart (6/23/2024). It’s a romance, obviously the two are getting together … but are they getting together right then?

Writing Exercise: Rep-Pre-Sent!

Image by Luiz Gustavo from Unsplash

(Aqui não existe barreiras . Projeto social Amar e vida Surf transforma vidas)

The photo is from Loving the Surfing Life Project (?? – not sure about the direct translation from Spanish), There Are No Barriers Here.

Representation matters. Latino and physically challenged. Immigrant or homeless. Black and people of color. Gender fluid or gray-haired. All types need to exist in stories. Not just for people to see themselves as the hero, but also to see that other people can be the hero as well.

And to be aware that as their identity changes, they can still be a hero.

Will reading Ms. Pollifax as a teen affect me now that I am reaching retirement age? We shall see. The Chosen One is not a trope restricted to people coming-of-age. Everyone ages, even the Chosen One.

I should note, with age comes injury. Between ages 5 to 15, only about 5% of all people are disabled. At 75 and older, nearly half are disabled (46.1%). (https://www.statista.com/statistics/793952/disability-in-the-us-by-age/).

So while a reader might not change skin color, they could change social standing, age, religion, or become challenged physically or mentally. They could be forced to flee their home and become a refugee. Their cognitive abilities might become compromised, like a friend of mind whose ability to make decisions went from “high power” to limited – she can still make decisions, but the energy they take destroy her after a few each day. Reading about characters who are living in different circumstances can help a reader survive these seismic shifts of identity.

WRITING EXERCISE: Today write a Representation Matters scene or flash – between 100 to 500 words. Age, race, gender identity, sexuality, disabled, religion. (Somehow, the person you are writing about should not “look” like you, now or in your past.)

My attempt: Join the Crew (5/5/2024). Writing a science fiction where the planet was settled by Spanish speakers created a set of challenges for me, barely remembering the void that was my high school language, but I have two niblings who look like the characters in this story. They should be able to see themselves when they read fiction.