EXERCISE: a collection of lines

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting Friday, May 17, 2013 8:45 PM

Here we go. Over here, http://madgeniusclub.com/2013/05/15/expose-it-yourself/ Sarah Hoyt talks about some different ways to heinlein background information into your stories. That's the antidote to info dumps, those unsightly author intrusions where we suddenly yanked the reader out of the story so that we can lecture them about the information we think they need. Heinlein just slip the information in around the edges, with hints, comments, and such.

Anyway, in the process, Sarah tossed off a few examples. So here's my challenge. Take one of these examples and spin a tale around it. What's happening, who is involved, and what happens next? Any and all scenes and tales happily accepted, so let's get started writing.

Sly examples

The car took off, low altitude at first, then rising.

Every morning at 6 AM, the Mars launch rattled the house and woke me up.

My suit needed reprogramming.

Misdirection examples

It seemed like all the representatives of the 50 planets were fixed to give us their sort of law, again, long on graft opportunities in short on substance.

The corn crop is going to be terrible, of course. They'd been terrible the last 15 years, since the Mage War had devastated Krevalen.

Mina was not going to use a mage spell to make herself prettier. She always thought the girls who did that and got elected Queen of the Prom should be flayed with a butter knife.

Matter-of-fact example

It probably was going to come to war, and when 50 civilized planets get in a war, every world was likely to get time-bombed out of existence.

There you go. Slide that information in, and let us see what kind of a tale it spins.