Rain Rain Go Away – Characters You do not Love

Every story has it. That character that you just don’t care for. Many times they are introduced near the middle of the story and just seem to drag it down. There are times you wonder why the author would write in such a character. But the thing is, a little of a bad character doesn’t make a story bad. They are the characters that you love to hate, the characters that give the story a certain meaning, make it realistic. I mean, you can’t love everyone that you have met in your life. I know I don’t.

But at what point does the annoying character overshadow the main character and pull away from what the story is presenting. If the character becomes the main focus in the reader’s mind then they will continue to focus on that character, long after they are gone. Pushing the limit with this type of character wouldn’t be recommended if you want to have a great story.

What types of characters have this flaw in your mind? What posses a writer to keep this character around?

New Ideas – That New Car Smell

Today we are going to talk about new ideas and how they can affect your writing. I’m a flighty person. I have no short term memory. I’ve forgotten more things to do at work then most people. As you can tell, I get distracted easy. Not the best trait for a writer.

New Ideas bring out the biggest distraction for me. It pulls me away from my current story. They just get in the way. I try and try and try to continue to work on the task in front of me, but the new idea continues to throw things at me to get my attention. The new idea wants written, the new idea wants love.

But if I stop every time I have a new idea, I will never finish the WIP that I have going. As a writer, we need to be disciplined. There is time to work on a new idea, but you need to be able to keep focus on the story that you are writing. Even during the hard times. Especially during the hard times. There always seems to be a scene that isn’t going anywhere and no matter what you do, you can’t get that darn character to keep going in the right direction. In comes the new idea to swoop at your weakened mind and pull you towards it. “Focus on me!” it screams, but you must focus on your WIP.

The screaming is usually what gets to me. Like a baby needing attention, my new idea drags my mind towards it as if it is the light and I’m checking out. I’m drawn to it, but the WIP notices my neglect and screams back until I just end up with a headache and a bunch of work not done.

I try to give new ideas a place to shine in the annals of potential stories I keep in my notebook, but I keep my focus on the latest story I’m working on. Otherwise, I’ll never get published. Gotta keep pushing through.

What things do you do to keep your focus on your WIP and not get distracted by the new ideas?

Reviews – the Good and the Bad

As an author, reviews are something that you are going to have to deal with. With the internet involved in purchasing a book – whether it be hardback or e-book – cruel people have been allowed to show their heads when it comes to writing reviews. The anonymity of the internet makes everyone out their feel safe to say whatever they want. As I’m sure you all have seen, occasionally they can go to the extreme.

I myself don’t have anything published, but there seems to be a certain fear associated with finding out what others think of my writing. Will they like it? Will it be worth their money? Will they tear me down in the review? All these things can add to the fear of putting those finishing touches on your story and pushing it out into the market. But we can’t let the fear of other people’s opinions get in the way of our dreams. People are going to write whatever they can on the internet and they don’t hold back, but everything will be ok. The best thing we can do is listen to the people we trust and continue to grow as a writer.

Have you had a bad experience with reviews?

Hospital Blues

Sitting in the hospital waiting for some tests to get done on my daughter, I was thinking about how a hospital can turn out like the beginning of a bad book. Waiting, it is always around the corner. To me the cornerstone of a good book pulls your right into the action whenever it begins. It pushes the limits and makes you want the main character to make it through the action so you can find out more about them. A hospital does just the opposite.

A hospital can sometimes make you go crazy. I was crazy once….. but anyway, the waiting can be intense. Doctors can either hold the key to your future or they may have the worst news you could ever hear. But the one thing that can be sure, good or bad, you are going to have to wait forever to hear it. A novel that is slow to start and keeps dragging on will have a hard time bringing any readers to the table. If you have no excitement, your book ends up as the sacrificial lamb that is under the coffee table. Don’t worry they won’t come back for seconds.

The story must move from the beginning. Pushing everyone and everything into conflict to get things going. Heck there are even times that you don’t have to understand what the conflict is, it just needs to be there and you need to feel it as the reader. If you are bored, the book will disappear. I know you might just have the best story int he world that needs six chapters of explaining to make it all come to life but if you write it in that fashion, I bet your reader doesn’t get past chapter three.

Conflict is what the reader lives for, present it early and present it often. Now if my damn doctor would give us results that didn’t take six hours to hear.

What things do you do to keep the action moving early in the story?

The Night Sky

Many people will wonder how the night sky can affect their life in any way possible. Well, it can’t, but it can sure be beautiful. Below is a picture from a NASA Expedition 30 crew member on the International Space Station.

An International Space Station, who would have thought. Not many people in the past would have seen something like this scientific equipment pushed through in their lifetime, let alone in the early part of this century. I mean 50 years ago we were starting out on our journey into the heavens and now we have people that are stationed around the Earth on a daily basis. How far we’ve come.

I know this doesn’t really play into a literary post, but sometimes you just have to sit back in awe of everything that has been accomplished.

First Campaign Challenge! The Sacrifice

Shadows crept across the wall. Valon, mage of the light, watched as the darkness crept about the room. He knew that he didn’t have much time. The hour was upon him. The ritual had begun.

Throwing his wand in the air and focusing on the particle, Valon was able to bask the room in an orange glow. The light showed him the location of the ghoul that stalked him. Jumping back, Valon sent his fear flowing out his wand in the form of a lighting bolt that hit the ghoul square in the chest, lifting it and throwing it against the wall. Valon knew his bolt did little to deter the ghoul and his thought was confirmed when it sprung out from behind the couch.

Catching the ghoul in his arms, Valon could feel the bones dig in. The pain was enough to draw away his focus. Falling backwards, Valon feared he had no where else to go. The ritual would be completed, the undead released. Reaching deep into himself Valon felt the power building. An explosion rocked out of his body, burning the ghoul and the house they were in. Everyone is safe, he thought to himself as everything faded.

Interviews, oh the joy..

Interviews have been the main portion of my last two weeks as we try to fill an opening at my day job. We have reached a growing phase in the business and we are looking to fill a position that would allow more opportunities to be found for the business. Seems simple enough right? WRONG!

We sent out an ad in the local paper and by the end of the second day I had to shut off applications and resumes. And here I had heard that our local economy was returning, but I had almost 100 applications in two days for a person to answer phones and do a little paperwork. I was amazed. So after dwindling that number down to a more manageable number, we held interviews. Oh the joy….

I bring up interviews because as I have sat through these different people all coming in battling over the same job, I think back to my writing. Just like an interview, we all have to be prepared whenever we move to the next step in our writing career. The people who had the best shot at getting the job where those who researched the company in advance. These people showed the initiative to spend their own time researching the company and position to better understand what they were going to be doing, the same way a writer needs to research what agents to send their stories too. If you send your story to the wrong agents, the idea will never get off the ground and you will be stuck in writer unemployment forever. Research is key.

Also don’t guess. We sent out our add with just my e-mail address on it, and yes it is my first initial and last name but a lot of people tried to guess at what my name was and failed miserably. Now unlike some people I know, this didn’t make me throw out the resume right off the bat, but it did make a hurdle that the person would have to overcome right at the start. So in your writing, don’t guess, if you don’t know something, research it. There are times that fiction will allow you to stick in some made up ideas and concepts, but they still need to believable if you ever expect your readers to believe you.

Last but not least, the major quality that I saw that played a factor in a good interview is confidence. The confidence of the speaker could make or break the interview. As the position was for someone to be social and the front of the store as customers walk in, we need someone who will engage the customers and help stifle any waiting time, should they have any. If someone appeared to be unconfident in their interview presentation then that translated as someone who would have confidence issues when it came to meeting customers they did not know. If you are confident in your writing, it will show and it will stand out on the page. Focus on what needs to be done and believe that you can do it. Be confident!

Have you had any situations, interview or writing, that you felt like you could have done more?

Sometimes it can be aggravating…

Sometimes it can be pretty damn aggravating whenever everything in your life pulls you in the wrong directions. I am a manager and salesman for a local store for my company and occasionally it can be a pain when the big corporation gets in the way. You are allowed autonomy as long as you follow the guidelines and do things as they should be done on a daily basis. But sometimes when you are going about your business, the corporation can come in and get in the way of what should be your location.

I’m not making this blog to complain about the little things that have happened in my life recently, but I couldn’t help but think how my current situation with my company can relate to my writing. It seems that everything keeps pulling me in different directions. As a new father and house owner, my day fills up pretty quick. It is almost impossible it seems, to find time to sneak in some writing. Between the crying baby and trying to make my house livable again, time flies right out the window. Add on top of that a full time job managing a distributor and taking on the dual role of manager and salesman, time really flies out the window. I promise there will be a link to writing soon. All these things add up and can bury you if you don’t put things together and plan accordingly. I have found this out as I took on these new roles. I mean heck, I’m down to the point that I put my dinner schedule in my IPad. Crazy, I know. Oops, one second, baby crying again. Be right back.

Diaper change, oh the joys of being a father. Nah, I love it. Anyway, back to my blog. The basic moral of the story is that things can pull you in a thousand directions. You are never going to be focused enough to work on writing and get everything done that you want in life, if you don’t plan for it. I have always been one of the true believers of no planning, but as things start to pile up, the more and more I realize that planning is the easiest way to success. No plan can equal no project.

I don’t know why inside I feel that writing can be different. I have fallen into the trap of so many aspiring writers that believe that this job could be easy. But from my two years of experience and lack of a story published, I can tell anyone out there that it is not. Hell, I haven’t even been able to finish a story since I started. Only shorts are done here. There is always this year. I do know that I won’t be successful unless I can sit down and plan my next day’s writing. My boss has made me a believer that you cannot see success unless you plan for it. So plan away!

New Year and Moving Forward

Hey all,

I know that I haven’t been posting on any sort of regular basis recently. In fact, I think it might have been a couple months since I last posted a blog, but my life has been in somewhat of a hiatus because of a new birth in the family and with purchasing a house. Over the New Year holiday, my family and I moved into the house we were able to close on the week before. It was known that we were going to be the proud owners of said home, yet for some reason we hadn’t really boxed anything up. I guess the thought of owning our own place had never really set in. I know to this day, and we’ve had the house a week now, I still can’t believe that I now own something long term for my family to live in. 

I have been blessed to have landed the job that I have and to be able to work on writing on the side. I am also extremely blessed by the family that I have. I couldn’t ask for anything more. I guess as this new year rolls in, I plan to be much more active on this blog and in my writing. I have talked about doing the work for the last year and a half, but nothing has really coalesced out of all that time spent staring at the blank pages or tearing up stories I have written. This year is going to be the year that I work in my first published story, I can feel it. I don’t know what it is about the first week of this year so far, but I have been feeling that this is the year that I get all the things done that I have wanted to finish. I feel good about 2012 and I hope that everyone else feels the same. 

May your year be great! I’ll see you next week. 

Hard Science in Science Fiction

Science Fiction is fiction, should it follow the science of today’s world or should it not? This is a question that you have to figure out if you are planning any type of science fiction project. There are problems that can arise by using real science when creating a science fiction story. Sometimes the rules as we know them just aren’t enough to make the story happen. You might have to fudge the science a little to get the story to work. A perfect example is the faster-than-light technologies that have been created to make space travel possible.

Do your readers get turned away be the fact that you had to create ideas and science to make your story work? I don’t believe that they do. In most science fiction works there are ideas and theories in place that could not be sustained in the “real” world, but readers tend to look past the actual facts behind the science for the overall story that is being presented. If people were set on the science, they could see the inherit flaws in the X-Wing design from Star Wars and how there is no noise in space. But time and time again these items are overlooked because of the entertainment value of the story.

There are some readers who enjoy the hard science behind a story. I know and follow author and astronomer Mike Brotherton, who has written books based on hard science, and they are popular. I am also a fan of the late Michael Crichton, who worked in some real science with his fiction ideas, and his books were popular. So is it the science that draws the readers or just the story tellers ability to write a great story? I believe it is the great writing skills of these authors that made them popular, not the fact that science was used.

Readers want realism in stories, but the facts can be overlooked as long as they fit into the realm of the story. Any scientific rule can be broken as long as it fits into the fiction world. We all try to keep our stories real, but it is the essence of the story that drives the readers to keep on reading and will keep them coming back, time and time again.

What do you think?