Friday Free-for-All

Another week has gone by, which means its time for the Friday Free-for-All.

Today’s article come via Guardian.co.uk and deals with metaphors, something we all like to use!

Rules for Writing: Block That Metaphor by Thomas Jones

“Metaphors don’t have to be mixed to be a problem: any figurative expression, if it’s overused or used carelessly, can be confusing or off-putting.”

“One implication of this is that cliches are fine if you don’t notice them; there is such a thing as prose that is too laboriously original. Metaphors, new or shopworn, work when they bring things into sharper focus. If they don’t do that, they are best avoided. It’s especially annoying when expressions that have a precise literal sense are used in an imprecise figurative way, so that meaning is lost from both.”

Play Your Game: The Miracle On Ice Approach to Plotting

The opinions contained in this article are solely those of the author and not Fictionista Workshop.

Plotting: the art of building a story.

The very word stirs the embers of a conflict that stretches way back to the day writers first took up sharp rocks to cut stories into stone tablets.  It probably even pre-dates that, goes all the way back to the beginnings of oral storytelling.

Plotters versus Pantsers.

Now, we’re not talking Hatfields and McCoys here.  The people of the page tend to be united lot (except where Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks, and the Twilight books are concerned).  Plotters and Pantsers consort all the time, and very often arguments kick up over which is the best approach to building a story.

I’m calling bullshit on the whole thing.

Plotters pants.  Pantsers plot.  We all know it.  We may have our own trusted methods, but when that deadline’s getting close we’ll do anything we have to do to get the story told… which leads me to what I call, “The Miracle on Ice Approach.”

The Miracle on Ice.  The year was 1980. Lake Placid, NY. The U.S. Men’s Olympic hockey team beat the invincible Soviet Central Red Army Team en route to a gold medal.

Coaching the American team was Herb Brooks.

Brooks’ created a scheme for playing hockey in an attack style, a style designed to pounce on opponents’ mistakes and be in position to make the most of any given opportunity.

It was all about options.

Coach Brooks stressed this point: when a player wound up with the puck on his stick, he had the greatest chance of success if he had options for what to do with it instead of being forced into a single course of action.

This approach translates well to plotting a story.

There has to be an end-goal in mind, but you have to give yourself options as to how to get to that end.

It means following a game plan, yet allowing yourself the freedom to explore a different direction if a new idea pops up.  It gives you the chance to riff on a tangent as you see fit while having the safety net of an outline to keep you on track.

Plotting and Pantsing at the same time.

Does this work for everyone?  I’d imagine not, but it’s a fun way to think about a subject that tends to give writers major agida.

If you find something works for you, that’s what you do.

There’s footage of that famous game against the Soviets that shows Coach Brooks pacing behind the bench, from one end all the way down to the other, repeating his mantra over and over.

It went, “Play your game.  Play your game.”

That’s damned good advice for pretty much any endeavor.

Play your game.

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Jeff Tsuruoka’s life as a writer began at the age of six. He wrote stories based on the monster movies he watched on the 4:30 Movie after school.

Thirty six years later he still writes monster stories, though the monsters that populate his current work have a little more on the ball- at least in terms of conversation skills and the ability to drive cars- than Godzilla and his pals did.

He is hard at work on his first novel.

You can follow him on Twitter at @JTsuruoka and on the Daily Picspiration blog, www.picspiration.blogspot.com

Monday Musing

It’s time for this week’s Monday Musing.

Do you like to plan in advance or do you operate spontaneously? How do you plot?

Tell us how your answer on our site or on Facebook!

Friday Free-For-All

Another week down. Have you met your writing goals this week?

Today’s Free-For-All is a little different. We’ve posted a lot about publishing and the changes to the publishing world over the past several years. It seems like now something changes every month if not more often.

Author and rabid blogger, Nathan Bransford, discusses this very topic on his blog. “In the Future, Will Everyone Be a Publisher?”

“…while the package of services that publishers provide to authors will still have appeal, [it's] not sure whether those services will be enough to constitute an industry that looks like the one we know.

For now, publishers can still rely on those services and their print distribution to attract authors. In the future, they won’t have that. And as those services become the central differentiator, you have to wonder if the adversarial approach publishers occasionally take with authors (slow payments, lack of transparency) will give way to a true service-oriented approach.”

One can only hope.

The Importance of … Where are we?

The opinions contained in this article are solely those of the author and not Fictionista Workshop.

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“Come in and sit for a spell.” Old Mrs. Haverty beckoned me toward her. She looked more the type to cast a spell, but my tired feet accepted the invitation.

“Thank you kindly.” I noted the absence of a door, but didn’t want to be rude and point it out. I lowered myself—and landed on my backside. “Ow.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mrs. Haverty covered her mouth with a withered hand, fingernails tipped in cotton candy pink. She spoke in hushed tones for my ears only. “I think the writer forgot to give me a chair.”

“That’s not all.” I rubbed my sore tailbone and glared at the lack of surroundings. I’d been so caught up in meeting the old woman— “Where are we anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Her already wrinkled brow scrunched together like a squeezed accordion. “Don’t you know?”

“No one tells me these things.” An idea had me inhaling a sharp breath. I’d heard whispers of it, but never thought I’d see it myself. “Maybe this is the Nothing?”

Mrs. Haverty swept her hand out at the emptiness around us. “Well of course it’s nothing.”

“No, I mean—the movie? About the stories, and the wolf, and—you know what? Never mind.” I dragged a hand over my hair. “I don’t suppose you have coffee?”

“Dearie, I’d love some, but now that you mention it, I don’t think I even have a kitchen.”

I sighed. “There’s always edits.”

So, yeah. Setting. In case you’re wondering, I think it’s pretty darned important. And I say that with a straight face, knowing full well I suck out loud at writing setting. At least in the first draft. I am the writer who forgets to give characters chairs and kitchens, who neglects to fill in the empty worlds I create with color, scent, texture, form, name—in other words, life.

Who would Darcy be without Pemberley? What adventures would await the Pevensies without Narnia? How would the Hobbits find the strength to go on without the promise of a return home to the Shire? And where would 90 percent of Stephen King’s characters be without Maine (dodgy place, Maine) to fuel another nightmare-riddled thriller?

Stories don’t happen in the Nothing, much as our jobs would be easier if they did. In my first drafts, I focus so much on the action and dialogue, I emerge from the writing haze to discover my entire tale takes place in a sort of featureless ether. I tend to forget that all my writerly brilliance needs a home, be it a house, a big city, or a distant galaxy. Thank goodness for edits and beta readers politely clearing their throats (or commenting a ridiculous number of times along the margins until I get the point).

Take time to give the worlds surrounding your characters life. Setting adds depth to any tale, and done well, earns a place in the memories of your readers. Don’t worry if you don’t get it right in the first draft, though… there’s always edits.

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Cara Michaels is a dreamer of legendary proportions (just ask her about the alien pirate spaceship invasion). Her imagination is her playground and nothing is quite so much fun for her as building new characters and new worlds with at least an edge of the fantastic. She’s writing whenever the opportunity presents itself and can typically be found tinkering with half a dozen projects. Occasionally all at once.

Cara is the author of the Gaea’s Chosen sci-fi romance series and has multiple shorts and novels in the works.

A flash fiction addict, Cara hosts the #MenageMonday challenge on her blog, Defiantly Literate.

Save the Day. Get the Guy.
Heroic Science Fiction & Paranormal Fantasy
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