IWSG_ WHEN A SCENE DOESN'T WORK

lhttp://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html

{My Current Work In Progress}

You're looking at your NaNoWriMo novel, slashing away at words that don't fit.  BAM!

You run into an entire scene that doesn't work.  You study it for a moment.  Nothing occurs to you.

Now, what?

1.)  DON'T BE A WRITER ... BE A READER.

You read a scene that lodges in your muse like a bottle cap in the throat of a straw.  Ouch!  Nothing seems to work as you play out different scenario's in your mind.

It could be you're reading as a writer.  Read that scene as a reader coming to it cold.  Is it suspenseful?  Funny?  Needed?

Your subconscious mind is reading the scene as a reader.  Look at that scene as if you had paid hard cash money to read it.

Is it worth the time and the cash the reader paid to read it?  If something in that scene is not entertaining, trash it.


2.) THERE IS NO LITERARY LICENSE FOR INFO DUMPS.

Info dump draws flies just like dumps in the real world.  If a scene strikes you as awkward and clumsy, it probably is ... and it is probably also an info dump.

BE ENTERTAINING ...  don't drone on about airport security protocol: 

have your heroine endure the tedium and humiliation of enduring it.

GO FOR THE HUMOR OF THE DATA ... 

Put one of your characters through the mill of the aspect of your culture you want to describe.  A laugh will stick needed facts into the minds of your readers much better than a lecture.


3.) DON'T GIVE ME ANY LIP, PUPPET.  JUST SAY THE DAMN LINES!

If a scene doesn't work, it may be what you want the characters to say just wouldn't come out of the mouths of the people you've created.

SOCK PUPPETS SMELL ... They also destroy the sense of reality you have been crafting up until this scene.

SPEAR CARRIERS SERVE A PURPOSE ... It isn't against the laws of Literature to so re-write a scene to introduce a character to say the line you want to be spoken.

Sometimes that character even takes on a life of his or her own ... as did Falstaff with Shakespeare.


4.) IF YOU'RE HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, GOING FASTER DOESN'T HELP!

If a scene isn't working for you, maybe it is headed in a direction that your instincts tell you isn't where you really want to go.

If a scene bumps and spurts like a Mexican bus on a gravel road, then perhaps where you thought you wanted your novel to go, isn't really that great of an idea.  And your unconscious mind knows it.

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT WOULD BE A GREAT TWIST TO MY STORY RIGHT NOW?


5.) SOMETIMES IT IS THE DESTINATION, NOT THE JOURNEY, THAT IS IMPORTANT.

If nothing important or significant happens on the journey from Point A to Point B.  Just skip the journey.

"We need to get to Tanis," says one character at the end of the chapter.  Start the next chapter with your band of heroes just arrived at Tanis.


6.) NO DANGER, NO READER

Does your scene contain an element of suspense or danger?  Is someone's happiness, life, security, or sanity at risk somehow in that scene?

No?  Re-write that scene.  Re-write the chapter if need be.


7.) THERE IS A REASON NO ONE BOOKS A CRUISE ON A SWAMP

Is your difficult scene one in a parade of directionless scenes: a long line of disconnected incidents that fail to add up to a plot?  Have your scene plugged into the flow of your plot.  Don't have one?  That could be the problem.


8.) DO THE ELECTRIC SLIDE

The cure to your difficult scene could be as easy as changing what your characters are doing and still get the words said or the point made.

Changing the location of the scene could add fire to the scene, too.  Exchange a drab location for one with complications and movement.

I HOPE THIS HAS HELPED IN SOME SMALL WAY

LET'S TALK EDITING

One striking image can say more than pages of prose.  Remember that.

1) COLOR OUTSIDE OF THE LINES

WRITE IN THE MARGINS as you read your book.  But don't read it as you.  Read it as your best friend, sister, or co-worker.

Read it through, writing in the margins as you go.

And then, start editing.

JJ Abrams co-wrote a strange book called S:

A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. 

She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown.


2.) USE THE FORCE, LUKE

Go with your instincts.  If a sentence or scene or chapter seems wrong somehow.  It is.  

Re-write or remove it.  Even if it means a major change in your book, do it.  Better a Major Change than to have a Major Flop on your hands.


3.) RE-CHARGE THOSE BATTERIES

By the time you’ve written 90,000 words, you can be pretty tired of the storyline, the characters, the plots and subplots, and you’re generally itching to start that new project, too.

So write the first chapter of that new project.  It will re-charge your enthusiasm for writing.  Mark Twain did that often.  Try it.

You will return to editing a new writer.


4.)  BE A BULLY -- PICK ON A CHARACTER

Pick a character (other than the protagonist) and follow her or him through all the chapters, seeing if certain phrases repeat ad nauseum about said character.

See if the character remains consistent throughout your novel in manner of speaking, way of handling situations, or way of dressing, etc.

Shift from character to character like that.  See if they change slightly from beginning to end.  

All real people change somewhat during the course of an adventure.  Make sure it happens with each character.

Following one character through your whole novel keeps any character from mysteriously going AWOL without explanation.


5.) BE LOUD ... OUT LOUD

Read each chapter aloud after the written edits.  You will catch misfires in rhythm and flow that way.  Think listener.  Would he or she be bored, waiting for something good to happen?  

Like Elmore Leonard said: "Leave out the boring stuff!"


6.) PYRAMID SCHEME YOUR BOOK

Take one chapter at a time to edit.  Polish that chapter.  Make it flow and shine -- then go on to the next.

A neat trick is to edit your first chapter and then edit your last one, striving for a symmetry of images, a Before and After bookend effect.


7.) EAGLE EYE VIEW 

Your book is a whole.  Your final edit should shape it into a coherent, consistent whole.  Put your novel on a diet if you must.  Weed out those needless flowery phrases that slow the flow.  

No long paragraphs to tire the reader's eyes.  Alternate types of sentences.  Want to craft a scene of action?  Short sentences with words denoting the tone of the scene.


8.) MAKE YOU SENTENCES BREATHE.

Each scene of action should be introduced with a pensive scene so that the reader will be caught off guard.  

The action scene should not end predictably, but with a twist that floors the action into even more danger for your heroes.


9.) EDITING IS LIKE PEELING AN ONION

With each layer completed you cry a bit, and then you go on.  But eventually, you stop or you run out of onion.  

Do not edit the life out of your novel.  Keep it fresh by stopping for a few days, doing something else you love, and then go back to it.

Remember why you thought your novel would be such a good thing that you committed to it.  Limit yourself to three full edits.  If you can, try for only two.

Remember that test when you kept changing the answer to that troublesome question?  Odds are, your first answer was the right one.  So I end with ...

10.) TRUST YOUR ABILITY.

You are not aiming for the PERFECT novel but one that ENTERTAINS your reader.  Keep it fun.

Let Kirk & Bourne Teach You How NOT To Fight!

If ever you should find yourself in a life or death struggle on an alien planet or an exotic locale ...

Do NOT follow Kirk's or Bourne's example!!

Ever in search of ways to break his fingers, Kirk stumbled upon the Ax-Handle Blow, guaranteed to shatter those finger bones and lose the fight!





But did the good captain give up or show good sense?

Hey, this is Kirk we're talking about:





Then, there is Jason Bourne whose genes must have ended up in Kirk somehow:

Children, do not try this stunt at home.  Let suicidal rogue agents do it!

And if you guys are wondering how the BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN duel will end --

Let Darth Vader give you a clue:

Then, there is this Batman match: 

WHAT IS TODAY?

Today can feel like a mockery to some.  

In the contrariness of human nature, when we hear of Thanksgiving, we focus on just what has been taken from us ... 

not what we have left.

Native Americans call this day: Thanks-Taking, 

for the White Man repaid Squanto's kindness with taking, killing, and lying.  I wrote a Fable on it:

http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2014/11/happy-thanks-taking.html

But each life has treasures unseen and taken for granted by their constant presence in our lives.  

We usually only notice them when they slip from us.

I have made it a practice that as I lay my head on my pillow to sleep,

I thank the Father for the good things He brought into my life that day.  

Listing them all makes me aware of how much good I hadn't noticed that day.

Sometimes in the midst of my daytime prayers, I almost hear Him ask, 

"And would you like fries with that order?  Roland, you receive so that you may give.  How much have you given today?"

As the first photo shows: 

We may not have much.  But we can still share.

Sometimes if we merely acknowledge the other person's pain and his very existence, 

it can be healing to that person. 

 I think Jesus' touching lepers, who for years had not felt human contact, was healing in itself.

Thank you, friends, for being my friends, 

visiting, and commenting.  

It means a lot.  

And may your Thanksgiving be a healing one!
 

I AM A RACIST?

S. Hullen in a comment on my last post called me a racist.

Racist?

I went to Hullen's profile to pay a courtesy call to her/his blog.  

There is none.  So I will have to reply on my own.

"I have a huge, HUGE problem with the things you're saying here."

Though you disagree with me and call me names, I do not have a problem with you.  I am merely saddened.

"First of all, no matter how much it offends you, black people are NOT proving their critics right or hurting their own cause by burning a flag 

which represents, to them, the system that released a man who murdered an eighteen-year-old, a system that protects white men and persecutes minorities. 

And no, they aren't mocking any sacrifice of their own people, either, as they can attest to more than any white person can. 

They weren't the ones who burned down their own church or other businesses. Those were looters and rioters, some affiliated with the KKK."

Odd, I saw no KKK hoods in the Ferguson coverage.  

The KKK did, indeed, bomb churches and killed Black, Jewish, and White Civil Rights advocates in the 60's.

My mother's People live in the world's largest concentration camp: the Rosebud Reservation.

No barb wire is needed just hundreds of miles of harsh desert.

Again, I am not offended by those burning the flag -- 

just saddened that they are acting out in rage against the flag which stands for the justice that sooner or later will visit those bigots in Ferguson.

Were you on that Grand Jury?  I was not.  I can suspect foul play, but I cannot prove it. 

The young man's parents can sue the policeman for denying their son his civil rights which will go to a Federal Court not a local one.

It is far from a perfect solution but O.J. finally received justice in the murdering of his wife in a similar fashion.

"THEY are not infected with any illness, except the wariness of having their children shot for crossing paths with the police. 

THEY are not robbing, and it is sickening that you would blame people who are peacefully protesting 

(yes, peacefully, why don't you look it up on Twitter or Facebook) for what some jerks are doing."

I know many are peacefully protesting.  The young man's father is pleading for calm.  It seems a small minority.

As a child, I was spat on, beat up, rousted by white policemen, denied access to the public swimming pool, or local Boy Scouts --

No dirty Indians allowed you see.

It hurt both physically and emotionally.  

My Lakota mother urged me not to let their hate infect me, for she assured me it was a disease.

I bought gas at a station whose sign read: NO DOGS, NO SPICS, NO INDIANS.

On the streets of New Orleans after Katrina, I lived in fear of the few remaining policemen who acted out their own rage and fear, beating and shooting some of us.  Was it fair?

No.  And it took YEARS for them to be prosecuted.  But in Putin's Russia nothing would have been thought of it.

I do not get my news from FB or Twitter whose reliability is questionable at times.  

I get my news from THE WASHINGTON POST which can hardly be called a conservative paper.

"You should be ashamed for appropriating Martin Luther King's words."

I did not know I have to be of the same race as the man whose words I quote, only of the same mind-set and have the courtesy of quoting him correctly.



 "It doesn't matter if he experienced worse. 




"They are experiencing their children getting shot in the street with no justice and that seems pretty damn protest-worthy to me. 

You please think about how you know nothing about what these people are suffering through. Neither do I, to tell the truth, but at least I realize that."

I did not say it was NOT protest-worthy. I even gave an example of WASHING the flag instead of BURNING IT.

I did not say that their suffering was not grievous. 

 I have lived long years of being the brunt of prejudice, and I have tried to honor my mother by living out her wisdom of not giving in to hate.

"You are part of the system that tells black people they should stay quiet 

and wait for white people to acknowledge their rights because any protest (unlike throwing tea into the ocean to protest taxes, I guess) is violence."

I advocate fighting a larger adversary intelligently and in a manner that does not aid your opponents ... 

and has a chance of obtaining lasting results as did Rev. King's struggle and ultimate sacrifice.




 "You are a racist, Roland."


That I disagree with senseless violence and advocate fighting bigotry with the laws already in place makes me a racist?

I think it makes me someone who does not want any more black mothers crying over slain sons or daughters.

It makes me someone who wants to see the black citizens of Ferguson to tap their outrage 

to unite to fight injustice in ways that preach nonviolence and stress fighting smart.

WE LIE TO OURSELVES

 

 When you prove your critics right with your violent behavior, 


you help them and hurt your own cause ...

When you burn the flag for which millions of black people have fought and died, 

you mock their sacrifice.  

If you feel the Ferguson Grand Jury dirtied the concept of American equal justice under the law ...

You WASH the flag.  You do not BURN it.  

You aid the cause of those who say you are filled with nothing but hatred and rage.

When you rob a liquor store, you ARE NOT PROTESTING ...

YOU ARE LOOTING.

When you revel in the burning of property belonging to someone else 

merely because you are angry and they are white, you are saying that prejudice is right.

You have allowed yourself to become infected with the same sickness that you decry in the police.

Breaking into and stealing from a beauty supply shop is NOT PROTESTING.  

It is ROBBERY done shabbily under the guise of civil rights protesting.

BUT THEY FORCED US TO DO THIS!

Really?

People can take from you everything but your choice of how to respond to their actions.  

You are not shaming your critics by the nobility of your actions and words as Martin Luther King did.

You are supporting their case AGAINST you.

When you burn down your neighborhood to protest how it is being treated, 

YOU ARE HELPING THOSE WHO OPPRESS YOU.

MARTIN LUTHER KING endured much worse than you in Ferguson are experiencing.  

His nonviolent protest enabled the Civil Rights Act to be passed into legislation. 

Your hate, violence, and open looting under the false guise of Civil Rights Protesting cheapens his sacrifice.

Please think about living his dream with 

bravery, compassion, and nobility.

HIBBS! IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!!

http://www.audible.com/pd/Kids/Hibbs-the-Cub-with-No-Clue-Audiobook/B00PZJYFO8/

 

 

In a Time that could have been but wasn't, yet might still be,

 

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In this timeless fable, the small cub evokes the largest of themes:

 

Hope amidst Loss, 

 

Compassion born of Hurt

 

and

 

Laughter in Loneliness ...

 

all told with the lightness of a moonbeam's touch and the laughter of childhood's lost innocence.

 

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Make Hibbs' day & download it!

                       

DON'T GET TOO ATTACHED TO THE WORLD AS IT IS_Alex's OH, HOW I MISS YOU BLOGHOP

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2014/11/live-rifftrax-experience-how-i-miss-you.html

Jerry Weintraub in his fascinating memoir: 
When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead 
wrote:

“Do not get attatched to the world as it is. Because the world is changing something new is always coming.” 

He also wrote:

 “Relationships are the only things that matter in business and  in life.” 

 http://www.amazon.com/When-Stop-Talking-Youll-Know/dp/B003FX6INM/ref=tmm_aud_title_0

 {Jerry's Twain-like tales

from Elvis to Sinatra to Lead Zeplin to Bush to JFK

to his strange love for his 2nd wife, the singer, Jane Morgan,

kept me alert these past 3 days over 900 miles in blinding rain.}

I was concerned about David Walston of Blah, Blah, Blah Yackity Smack

http://blahblahblahyackitysmackity.blogspot.com/2014/11/out-of-service.html

 But his two month long absence from blogdom was explained by his post that his house was hit by lightning and his electronic devices were all fried.

My very first follower besides personal friends was VR Barkowski

 {Her Halloween Selfie}

But she came back and my blog world was back as it should be.

http://vrbarkowski.wordpress.com/2014/11/24/and-then-this-happened/

Terry Stonecrop disappeared four years ago. 

Her personal blog address has been given to someone else. 

Now, only the blog of her detective hero remains.

http://hankypankyseason.blogspot.com/2010/09/truth-or-fiction.html

She and I used to exchange comments and friendly banter.  But she has disappeared.  

The world is so violent. I worry.

As for which bloggers I would miss?  

Simple.  

ALL OF YOU

You are my cyber-family.  

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES!!!

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

 


It is the calm after the storm ...

I drove all last night through some of the scariest, most terrible weather I can remember ...

This morning's sky is sparkling and fresh, 

gleaming from the torrential rains which rocked my blood courier van from one side of the interstate to the other.

Once I wrote of THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM 

(from ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM) --

 http://www.amazon.com/ADRIFT-TIME-STREAM-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B004XZUY4U/

 
Samuel McCord is alone. 

Meilori is off selecting her gown for the night's festivities, the Ball of Love and Madness.  

It is to celebrate the DEMETER entering the legendary Devil's Triangle.

Samuel is admiring the molten, sleepy head of the dawn peeking up over the horizon. 

Dr. Stewart, the ship's doctor, approaches him.


Footsteps to my left. I turned. Dr. Stewart. He looked gutted.

“Maija,” he said and explained everything.

“What about her?”

“I - I thought we had become --”

“Maija is like the sea. You never know all about her.”

“I was an old fool.”

“Lot of that going around.”

“Lady Meilori is her sister. I thought you would have some idea of how -- I mean -- just what I might have done to offend Maija.”

“How do you know you offended her?”

“She told me not to come to tonight’s Ball.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“She actually does care for you, doctor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Things are set to get awfully ugly tonight at that Ball.”

“Maija knows this?”

“She’s part of it, doctor.”

He paled. “I knew she had a dark past.”

“Her present’s rather black, too.”

He looked anguished off into the horizon. “I sensed that. Good Lord, how can I be attracted to such a woman?”

“People are never one thing, doctor. There are always several faces behind the mask they show you.”

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “One of those faces cares, truly cares, for you. Just be glad it exists -- and that whatever you two share is real.”

He swallowed hard. “But if something criminal is being planned for that Ball, I should be there.”

I shook my head. “No. Let Maija have the knowledge that she saved you, and that in your heart she is still someone worthy of being loved.”

He smiled as if that heart were breaking. “You are not the typical policeman. You are a romantic.”

I put my gloved forefinger to my lips. “Shhh. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

He straightened as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll stand in for you.”

He nodded and walked away. Soft footsteps behind me. I turned. Maija. She looked at me intensely for long moments.

“Thank you.”

“De nada.”

“This changes nothing between us. You will still be destroyed by the end of this evening, and I will play my part in it. Play it most wholeheartedly.”

“I would expect nothing less from a future empress.”

She looked hot into my eyes. “Fool! You will hold back against me for my silly attachment to the good-hearted doctor, will you not?”

“I imagine so.”

“It will be your undoing.”

“Probably will.”

“Then why do it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know any other way to be.”

She studied me. 

“I shall feel the emptier tonight after what must be done is accomplished. Yours is a face I shall miss, strong without the cruelty of toughness, kind without the bruise of weakness. When I have rid the world of that face, I shall have deservedly earned the hatred of my sister -- and of myself.”
         
“Then don’t do it.”

She bled a smile. “I know of no other way to be.”
***
Below is the evocative STANDING THE STORM by the piano genius of William Joseph. 

Endure the darkness at the beginning, and you will reap the light and beauty of the tune -- much like what happens when you find the courage to "stand the storm."

 Reading my post to the music adds to the enjoyment I think.

I AM 179 YEARS OLD THIS MONTH

Ghost of Samuel Clemens here.

Who am I you ask?  

Why you under-educated rascals, I'm the writer Mark Twain.  I shouldn't get so aggrieved I guess.

My books are like water.  Those of the great geniuses are wine. Fortunately everybody drinks water.

I shouldn't take on airs either I reckon.  I should learn from the vegetable kingdom 

where cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

I am 179 years old this month. 

 It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; 

when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a lifetime and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your ghostly summit and look down and teach—unrebuked.

I achieved my earthly seventy years in the usual way: 

by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else.

The moral?  

We can’t reach old age by another man’s road.

I hear much talk about the end of the world.  

Children, if Doomsday does come, you want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.

Now, I have been called a pessimist (and nearly everything else you can conjure).  

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

Can you believe it?  

My estate still pays this danged government taxes.  You know the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? 

The taxidermist takes only your skin.

Of course, you shouldn't get mad at the government.  

The government is made of men.  

And what a sorrowful creature is Man.  But then, what can you expect?  Man is but a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

Oh, so some of you would want to have a bit of writerly wisdom?  Here is something to chew on:


You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

As for how to reach the pinnacle of fine prose ... like with old age your path must be your own. 

Don't follow in anyone's footsteps.  You'll only wind up tripping over your own feet. 

Even if you "succeed," you will only be a copy.  Aim to be a first class you.