Category: Writing Exercise

Other Cool Blogs: Liana Brooks

Erin Penn

Snape "Detention, Saturday night, my office."

Meme from the Internet

At the beginning of January I reviewed a book by Liana Brooks. She is one of my favorite authors, and I follow her blog. Back in 2014 (when she updated her blog it was moved to a June 25, 2016 post) she wrote an amazing piece about villains; more precisely how to layer the villains in a story. If you are a writer of mysteries, superhero prose, or other genre where the character has people-type conflict, this blog is an absolute must-read. Her breakdown of the immediate villain, the intermediate villain, and the big bad really helped clarify writing for me.

For Harry Potter the immediate villain was his family (uncle, cousin, etc), the intermediate villain was Professor Snape, and the Big Bad was He-who-should-not-be-named. I never really thought about this formula before so I found this advice really good. … Sometimes formulas are bad because authors follow them mechanically; other times they are a reveal how the masterpiece was created. 

You can find the blog post here: https://www.lianabrooks.com/nanowrimo-boot-camp-day-3-the-antagonist/

WRITING EXERCISE: Think about your Work-In-Progress or other story you have read and watched. Is there a progression of villains within the story? I broke down Harry Potter – what other stories can you think of? Comment below.

Writing Exercise: Permanence of Object

Erin Penn

Remote Control Stock Photo

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net

When writing, one of the challenges is keeping track of all the stuff in a scene and then throughout the manuscript. Some things are just window dressings, like a pillow on a couch, and other things carry as much weight as a character from the beginning of a story to the end, for example the One Ring in “The Lord of the Rings”.

Good writing keeps track of all the “stuff” unlike a fight scene where you may end up with more (or less) opponents than you had at the start of the fight. Most “stuff” is quick and little more than set dressings. In “Used Tissues”, the flash from 1/17/2016, I have a couple-few inanimate objects: the used tissues, a pillow from the couch, the TV, and some schoolbooks. These were just pieces floating around giving a little more depth to the story. The tissues, even though they are an impetus to ignite the change, have no actual permanence. The schoolbooks appear more than once but are purely scene dressing.

The permanent object in the flash is the remote control. When I originally wrote the story, I just had the mother flick off the television. Then as the story developed, I realized I needed to show her teasing nature, not just tell you about it (show, don’t tell rule), so I decided she would take the remote control with her. But then I had a problem. I had her start with the remote control and had her leave with the remote control, but why wouldn’t the children notice her take it with her. What happened to the remote control inbetween? I needed to create a permanence. The remote control had risen from scene dressing to a full prop which needed to be tracked through the story.

So I added the sentence of the mother putting the remote control in her back pocket. Now the reader can track the remote control from the beginning of its existence in the scene to the scene’s end. How important is the sentence? Look over the flash again https://10094e2.wcomhost.com/erinpenn/2016/01/flash-used-tissues/, but think about it without that middle sentence on the remote control. Are you more satisfied with the finish of the mother taking the remote control with her because of the sentence or does it not make a difference to you?

YOUR TURN (Comment below)
WRITING EXERCISE: Attempt a flash, 500 words or less, which has a prop you need to keep track of. An easy one is a gun or knife in a fight. If you have a present WIP, look over your scenes and see if you need to create of permanence of object in one.

READING EXERCISE: Think of a story where the location of the prop and tracking of the object was important.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words November 25, 2015

Erin Penn

Meme: Alignments of Muppets

Image courtesy of the Internet

Character Alignment

Tamsin Silver is part of the Magical Words crew. Living in New York City she rarely slows down, regularly publishing books, writing the web series Sky of the Damned, and being an awesome panelist and blogger, willingly sharing her hard-won knowledge of writing, directing, and producing. She is an amazing person in writing and in person.

In November, she wrote an informative blog (Some People Just Want to Watch the World Burn) on character building using age-old D&D alignments. The grids she found (see above for an example), really help define things. I loved the Harry Potter one with the additional “between” alignments which increased the full range of alignments to 25. That one is an absolute must see to get the full impact of the discussion.

Central to the blog is characters do not need to remain one alignment. In fact, amazing writing happens when characters change during the story. For example, for me one of the most powerful plots within Babylon 5 is when Londo Mollari character flaws drag him from the seemingly chaotic good into evil because he really was lawful – totally loyal to his failed empire. And other characters move in reaction to his descent into darkness, G’Kar goes from slime to saint and Vir Cotto goes from bumbling to iron. J. Michael Straczynski was a virtuoso as he played with our expectations. His characters slid around the alignment chart like it was an ice rink.

WRITING EXERCISE: After reviewing the Some People Just Want to Watch the World Burn, look at your present work-in-progress. What alignment are your main characters? Do they change during the story?

In Honestly, my self-published novel, Kassandra, the heroine, would be Neutral Good. She is just trying to raise her child right and get ahead within society. In the expanded alignment chart she would fall under Social Good. As she faces different situations, she may slide around the chart. At the end of the day her first loyalty is to family, not any particular moral code.Troy, the hero, is lawful good. Very little could change him from this position. But like Kassandra, he is loyal to family before all. I don’t see the lawful ever budging, but what will he do to protect Kassandra and Terrell?
Dewayne, Kassandra’s ex, would be Chaotic Neutral, himself before anyone, and on the expanded version he would be Rebel Neutral. He is never mean or cruel deliberately, but his selfishness, if he doesn’t get a handle on it, could slide him into Impure or even Evil. Kassandra’s son, Terrell, at the moment is the Chaotic Neutral of a child. The world should revolve around him, and he cannot even understand how it does not. The question will be as he grows, which of the adults around him will impact his moral code: Kassandra, Dewayne, or Troy? … I have some ideas and you may see these characters again, as they live in my Queen City Coven world.

YOUR TURN: Comment below on your WIP characters alignments, and speculate if their alignments are fixed or malleable.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words December 9, 2015

Erin Penn

Book Cover for How to Write Magical Words

Cover from Amazon

Fictional Holidays

I love Magical Words as a reader, writer, and editor. Member bloggers include self-published, small house published, and big house published individuals. And they know their craft.

For example, Gail Z. Martin’s December 9, 2015 post on world-building. (see http://www.magicalwords.net/really-i-mean-it/world-building-with-holidays/ 

Adding the layer of Holidays to your world can help define the values of your world, what they spend money on, and how they celebrate.

WRITING EXERCISE – After reviewing the above blog, create a fictional holiday for your world and/or work-in-progress.

My present work-in-progress, Cons of Romance, is set in contemporary America and actually has some world-building based on holidays. A lot of conventions cluster about holidays, because the long weekends allow people to take time off. I tried to tie my fictional conventions to real American holidays, which made added an interesting twist for my world-building.

The first convention is located in Maryland during March. I will come back to it.

The second convention, “GearFest,” is set in North Carolina during June and is only a two-day convention because it doesn’t fall on a holiday weekend. I specifically wanted this to be a short convention.

The third convention, “Tea Party,” is set over the July 4th weekend and is located in Boston.

The fourth convention, “WyvernCon”, is located in September over the Labor Day weekend and runs nearly five days. 

Again all conventions are fictional and created specifically for this romance novel.

Back to the first convention. I had decided the convention started life on the main character’s, Tara Miller, college campus and was tied to a holiday in Maryland. I wanted the convention to happen before June but after the weather started to get warm. Something that wouldn’t interfere with finals but warm enough people wouldn’t get snowed in. Low and behold Maryland Day is March 25th. Thus my fictional “ConButtony” (a Cross Buttony appears on the distinctive flag of Maryland) was born.

YOUR TURN – Comment below about your use of holidays in a work-in-progress or, if you are a reader, a book you enjoyed specific for the holidays such as Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.