The Pen of a Ready Writer

Connor A Malayan Tiger (photo: Frank B. Baiamonte) via Pinterest      How many of you read this piece in school: The Lady or the Tiger by Frank Stockton?  The end both tortured and intrigued me.  The author carried me along with the story and left me pondering the decision-making processes required of myself...and of all humanity.  And, still, I do not know how the story ends -- how it ended after the author stopped talking.  I find myself thinking deep thoughts and examining the story from many angles.  There are so many meanings in its folds.      What do you think of the author's "humility" in not presuming to tell us how the story ends?  Does it make you evaluate how you think of yourself as a writer?  Sometimes we like the feeling of power as we control our stories and, to a certain extent, the reader's thoughts.  But there are more powerful forces than we are, if only we are wise enough to not...

     I clutched the steering wheel and shot a nervous glance at my wife.   She flashed me an excited smile.      “This is it,” she said, happily.   “We are having our baby!”      I smiled back, trying to look confident and reassuring.   I hoped I had brought all of the bags she had packed for this event.   She had poured over her list a dozen times, packing and repacking what she called the “absolutely necessary essentials.”         “Oh, here comes another one,” my wife moaned.   Her attitude changed quickly from excitement to dread.      With one hand on the steering wheel, I reached to squeeze her arm.   “Remember to relax and breathe,” I said.      She nodded, her eyebrows contracted tightly over closed eyes, and began huffing and puffing like a champion.   I looked up to see the traffic light turn red and sla...

ALWAYS   Always receive it graciously and always re-assess your work.   It may be that the critic has found something you need to work on, either in the art and creativity, the technical aspects, or the communication arena.     EITHER   Either make an adjustment based on what you found in your assessment or decide that the critic was in error and your writing is exactly as you desired.     NEVER   Never give up or quit.  If you know that you should be a writer, then no amount of criticism of your work will dissuade you.  Criticism is meant to help you become a better writer.  It is never meant to discourage a writer from writing.  Keep working on it!

via Pinterest     It has been a while since I penned a short story.  Usually it takes something like a "short story contest" to inspire me.  But I have noticed my writing skills improve with each contest so there is something to be said for writing short stories.      I say all this to lead into the fact that I am going to try another short story.  There is no contest looming on the horizon, but it has been so long that I think I am due to write a short piece.  Life cannot be entirely devoted to novel-length plots...      I am rolling around different ideas in my head.  There is no one to give me the first three words or a picture to base my story on.  There are no restrictions, no props, and no judges.      Methinks I will try something that is both epic and ordinary...something I have seen before.  After all, personal experience, great things, and the expression of the...

from a scene in City of Ember via Pinterest      Okay, you read my post yesterday and you felt a little confused.  Your story involves people that can fly and a fish that can talk.  It doesn't make sense, you say, and yet...that's the way a fantasy story is supposed to be, isn't it?  Am I restricting authors' imaginations to the ordinary parameters of real life?      No.  The fascinating thing about fiction literature is that it doesn't have to be realistic in order to make sense.  Strange but true.      There are two things required in making a fantasy or sci-fi story "make sense." 1. Have a panel of experts explain it.      This is easy.  If the world is to be destroyed by an exaggerated natural disaster, have a panel of experts use important sounding words to convince everyone that this is a possibility.  If your hero has just landed in a world wher...

Wait a minute! That doesn't make sense! via Pinterest      So I am looking for things in BB that don't make sense.  You know you've seen these anomalies before.  An athletic man walks for three days to get to a secret cave and then, in a climactic scene, a little boy with a limp runs to the cave in a matter of hours.  Really?  Or, in the days before electricity, a woman forbids the use of fire in her home and then proceeds to cook a nourishing soup.  Now how do you suppose she did that?      I found one such anomaly in BB by doing separate short stories (summarizing the book) for individual characters.  I had character A tie character B in a shed somewhere.  Then character A went and did about a week's worth of activity, maybe more.  He visited some people and took a long trip and did all sort of things before returning to his captive.  When I looked at character B's story, I realized I...

via Pinterest      Twists and surprises are one of the things that keep a book interesting.  I read a book the other day that did that for me, and now I am reading it again.  Funny thing about that.      But who is your twist is trying to fool?       Sometimes it is the reader.  She is reading along, thinking one thing, and then, BAM, there is a shocking revelation and your reader gasps.  This occasion is usually followed by the reader thinking back over the story and kicking herself for not seeing it coming.      Sometimes it is not the reader -- it is a main character.  Maybe your reader knows who the villain is but your hero does not.  Now your hero is blindly trusting the bad guy, and your reader is biting her nails or yelling at the hero (something along the lines of "No, no, no!  Don't go with him!  He's only going to...!").  Your reader see...