EXERCISE: Write a letter to your favorite character

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Original Posting May 7, 2014

This was inspired by the writing prompt this week at Writing Excuses. http://www.writingexcuses.com/ Writing Excuses, for those who aren't familiar with it, is a weekly 15 minute podcast about writing. Regular members of the podcast are Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler. This week they were talking about how to show emotion with your character without going overboard.

Anyway, the exercise is simple. Take a character from a novel, story, or poem. All right, movies, TV shows, and other media are also welcome. Next, imagine that you are a person living in that time and place. Then write a letter to the character. You can pick the subject, but make it something that really is suitable for someone living in that setting to write to that character about. Make it something that you would expect the character to respond to. Of course, depending on the story, you may want to send them a telegram, comm them, or communicate in some other way (smoke signals? Well...). But the basic idea is that you "step into" that world, and write a letter to that character.

Go ahead. Write that letter! But remember, the post office cannot be responsible for delivering your letter to the Wizard of Oz, or other locations that are out of this reality.

WOW: Poetry and community service?

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Original Posting May 21, 2014

Over here, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/graduate-students-encourage-poetry-community-service/ there is a video and transcript from PBS talking about a program at Antioch University where graduate students have to "participate in a community service project to enhance the writing life of others." So students go out and lead poetry writing exercises, and so forth. I have to admit, I read the transcript instead of watching the video. It's kind of interesting... Here are a few snippets:

"... What if these poets on the street took over the world, wiped the slate clean like sand on the beach, rewrote the daily news to reflect the street?"

"...these programs encourage all kinds of people to write, right, through poetry. I don’t know if that means everybody is a poet or a writer, per se. Does it matter?"

" I don’t think it matters. I think poetry lives in all of us. ... the people who turn to poetry out of everyday need to articulate something difficult or important ... "

Poetry in everyday life? What will they think of next?

Did you say you wanted to write a poem? All right!

How about five phrases? Red carpet, Mississippi Delta, uproar, dental, ditched stereotypes

There you go.

TECH: A Twist by any other name?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting May 26, 2014

Over here http://www.magicalwords.net/specialgueststars/a-return-visit-with-jodi-mcisaac-three-tools-for-plotting-success/ Jodi McIsaac talks about three things that help her plot. I'm going to focus on the second one... "Mind the gap" (which I think is a great explanation of that advice that we often hear, you need to include a twist?)

Basically, Jodi points out that "in order for your plot to keep moving, while at the same time remaining unpredictable, almost every scene should end with a gap. A gap is the difference between what the POV character (and the reader) expects to happen and what actually happens. It also needs to completely change your character’s dramatic desire."

She gives an example, where a character is going to get money from the bank. Even having the ATM out of order, and going to another bank, doesn't really qualify as a gap, because the character's goal, their desire, hasn't changed. But if the character walks into the bank and someone sticks a gun to their head -- now we have a gap. There's a big difference between what the character and the reader expected, and what happened, and the character now has new goals, new desires -- escape! Or as Jodi says, "The story has taken a sharp turn in a different direction. By peppering your story with gaps, you’ll keep your reader guessing—and turning the pages to see how your characters deal with each new challenge."

So there you go. A twist, a change, a turn, a gap -- it doesn't really matter what you call it, the point is that the character, and the story, encounters something surprising, and it changes their priorities or direction.

What do you think? Do you prefer reading stories with a twist or gap at the end of every scene? How do you write stories with those gaps?

Go, and write a twist!