The Pen of a Ready Writer

     It's just a rough draft.  It's just a rough draft.  It doesn't have to be perfect -- just finished.  Press on.     Snow White has partaken of the notorious apple.  Things are starting to move pretty fast.  I think I will be pretty close to 20k words when I finish the first draft.      We can do this.

    So...it's not story related...at least not Snow White related.  But there was a big slug on the median by Food Lion.      And I thought you should see it.      That is all.

Please enjoy this video of John Branyon reciting the tale of the Three Little Pigs. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OxoUUbMii7Q

     One of the honors of being in a circle of authors is the opportunity to beta-read for each other.  Writers bare their souls, sharing their precious stories -- sometimes in raw, unpolished format -- in hopes of receiving feedback that will help them improve their craft.  And, in exchange, they will read your own hatchling tales and provide constructive criticism for you.      My husband was not familiar with this process.  To be honest, I only learned about it when I started a blog and heard about it from other bloggers.  But the value is real.      It's so easy to be wrapped up in your own head when you read your own story.  You overlook misspellings.  You fan-girl over something clever that you wrote on page 9.  You weep over the scene on page 14 because it was a scene you promised your grandmother that you would someday write.  And you think everything you  have w...

     The sound of a mannish dwarf song began to filter through the forest.   Several voices raised in chorus, marching toward them through the forest.   Snow White’s face lit up with eager welcome.   Moriah’s thoughts spun and she reached into her pocket for the sleeping potion.

     I found it very interesting in the original Snow White tale that the honest mirror proclaimed the queen to be the fairest in the land.      The mirror is supposed to tell only the truth -- a fact that is demonstrated by the fact that it switches to Snow White as she grows in beauty.  It was not swayed by the queen's position or power.  And I like that about the mirror.  Apparently the queen did, too, or she would have smashed it.       But here is where I am confused.  Who is to say what beauty is?  Isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder?      How do we define beauty?  Is it a set of physical features?  Is it that attractive quality in a person?  Is it measured by inner goodness?  What is beauty?     If it is physical features, who dictates what those features are?  Haven't the ideas of "ideal beauty"...

     I hear writers complaining about their stories being too long or too short.  Particularly when you are writing for a contest or a specific genre that has a required wordcount, this can be a big deal.      But the funny thing is: some writers find it easier to lengthen from their first draft and others prefer to shorten.      For me, I find it easier to make a short story longer.  I think I'm a little bare-bones of a writer in my first draft, plus there is a lot of filler that happens in my brain and doesn't make it onto the paper.  In other words, I know the motives and scenes and backgrounds so well that I forget that my reader doesn't.  So when I send my stories out to betas, they tend to be caught off guard by how quickly a relationship buds or completely confused over why my king decided to go to war.  So I come back through and fill in the missing development and, voila, I have a dece...