doug-lewars

[doug-lewars]

Born to Write

I've been reading John Irving's, 'The Last Ski Lift'. In it the MC is a writer and believes he has a 'writing gene' in his DNA. I never thought of that but looking back, I enjoyed amusing my friends with made up stories back when I was quite young so maybe there is something to it. (Mind you looking back those stories were pretty awful so while I seem to have the inclination, my abilities were sorely lacking. Fortunately my peers at the time were not harsh critics.)

[doug-lewars]

Small Grammar Point

If you have two complete statements - subject, verb and predicate - separate them by a period of semi-colon, not a comma. Comma splices, also known as comma faults, just look weird.

[doug-lewars]

Development

If you write humour, and encounter something making you laugh in a story, there's a good chance you won't want to stop to record what it was; however, such books are worth a second read so when you come to the scene in question, you can stop, figure out what the author did to make it funny, and add the technique to your authors' toolbox.

[doug-lewars]

Horror

Too many authors seem to think writing horror means writing blood, blood, more blood and bits of goo. Good horror is not just messy, it's scary. When you write horror you want to leave your reader hiding under the bed and quivering; otherwise, the story just isn't working.

[doug-lewars]

Lack of Flow

There are times the words won't come. This is not necessarily a case of writers' block unless it is chronic. More likely you are either distracted or tired. In either case, set the writing aside while you do something else or even lie down for a brief nap. I find a short pause along these lines does wonders to get me going again.

[doug-lewars]

Not A Seer

My ability to make incorrect predictions remains unblemished.

I didn't think Trump would win the nomination in 2016. He did.

I didn't think Hillary Clinton would win the nomination in 2016. She did.

Having won the nomination, I thought she would go on to defeat Donald Trump. She didn't.

I didn't think Trump would win this past election. He did.

I'm four for four.

[doug-lewars]

Cool Politeness

A difficult scene to write is on in which two or more characters are forced together despite not liking one another. The conversation will be cool, rather forced, and the silences long. One way to handle this is to fill the scene with sound, the ticking of a clock, traffic noises from the street, the sound of a furnace starting or AC if it's summer. In addition a couple of eye rolls or raised eyebrows can assist. Even character movement such as crossing or uncrossing legs, a slight straightening of spines, possibly just a hint of shifting away from one another. You can even leave a question hanging unanswered in the air to add to the tension.

[doug-lewars]

Easy Material

The real winner of the US election tomorrow will be writers. Whether you write drama, thrillers or comedy it's all there.

[doug-lewars]

Halloween Accounting

Candy ready for kids = 50

Kids coming to door = 4

Candy left over for me = 46

[doug-lewars]

Nanowrimon

I wish the best to all of you starting out to produce 50K words over the course of the month. This being the first day I trust you got off to a great start.

[doug-lewars]

Dark Places

Today is October 31st, Halloween. Somehow it doesn't seem like Halloween. The temperature is 23 C and while it's clouded over now, earlier in the day it was bright and sunny. Perhaps this weather is all part of a rust to lull us into a false sense of security, so when THINGS, come creeping from dark places when night arrives, we won't be prepared and for us to be unprepared, is most convenient ...... for them.

[doug-lewars]

Story for Halloween 2024

A Very Bad Day

She turned the corner and saw blood everywhere. Sighing she hurried to the broom closet for a mop while quietly cursing the vampires for being so sloppy. With the mess out of the way, she continued on to her office and printed off a sharp memo advising all who chose to remain in the boarding house, untidiness would not be tolerated. She’d pin it among the other posters on the bulletin board and hope they paid attention. Then she made use of her scying device to determine who, or what, in the neighborhood had gone missing. She hoped it was nothing more than a cat. Few cared about cats, although the witch living in number thirty-eight would be more than miffed if her familiar had been eaten, particularly if she was residing in its mind at the time. She was fairly confident she could blame any missing dogs, on any of a number of activist groups intent on liberating, and then killing pets; but if a resident, or worse yet one of their children had gone missing, there would be hell to pay … literally for the magic needed to cover up the incident and send the police coursing down a wrong lead would require Satanic intervention.

There was a knock on her door and she looked up.

“Enter,” she said.

Vladimir stepped into the room. He was one of the older residents of the establishment, four or five hundred years she guessed, and was beginning to look a little frayed around the edges. Vampires she knew didn’t die, not exactly; they just sort of became increasingly insubstantial until there was nothing left.

“There was an incident this afternoon,” he said.

“I noticed,” she replied dryly, “I was the one who had to clean up the mess.”

He nodded, “Sorry about that, but it wasn’t what it seemed.”

“You weren’t feeding?” she asked.

He shrugged, “We took advantage of the situation, but no, this wasn’t active feeding. You see a vampire hunter came around and we had to deal with her.”

She rolled her eyes in frustration. “Not another one. How do they get this address? The place is so warded they shouldn’t even be able to see the house much less enter.”

“It seems they have new technology. They make use of an electromagnetic tracking device to locate and follow our energy.”

“The energy here isn’t electromagnetic,” she snapped. “It’s magic.”

He nodded, “True, but it seems to have some sort of effect at the quantum level and they’ve learned to follow it.”

She sighed, “Very well. Did you capture the device along with the hunter?”

“I’m afraid not,” he replied, “there were two of them and the one driving the van took off before we could neutralize him.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she replied. “Did you at least get the license number?”

He extracted a slip of paper from somewhere on his person. Bowing, he left the office. She looked at the number, turned to her computer and using a back door to the police database, identified the owner.

She winced. It seemed they’d just eaten Buffy. This, she thought, was turning into a very bad day.

[doug-lewars]

Horror Genre

We're drawing close to Halloween and some of you may be thinking about writing in the horror genre. This is more difficult than it seems. Turn it around. How many books within this genre have actually scared you? You likely enjoyed a few, but did they scare you? Probably not. This also applies to merely telling stories. A group of friends sit around and try to tell scary stories. Many are interesting but very few are truly impressive. One way to improve them is to make some use of the second person. Something like, "... so in the darkness of the night, when you hear windows rattling and the rustling of bushes near the house, can you be truly certain it's just wind? Or perhaps, it's ... <whatever you built up to in your story>" can be tacked on to the end to provide a proper chill down your audience's spines.

[doug-lewars]

Lighter Material

I belong to two writers' groups and I've noticed the vast majority of people write on serious subjects; however I prefer comedy farce and satire. I write four genres, comedy, light fantasy, dark urban fantasy and nostalgia in the form of coming-of-age in the 1960s. Of these,the comedy gets most positive feedback. Therefore don't be afraid to indulge yourself with lighter material. Readers seem to enjoy it.

[doug-lewars]

Correct Word

You're writing about a murder, a nasty one. it is a grisly one, NOT a grizzly one. If you mistakenly use the latter, you'll have to bear the laughter of your critics.

[doug-lewars]

Marketing Possibility

One marketing technique is to give some copies of your book away but standing on a street corner handing them out like pamphlets would not only be expensive but probably a lost cause since the person's receiving them may not be readers or st least not readers of your particular genre. Donating them to a library would be good but libraries have very limited space and are extremely choosy about what they accept. That leaves those little free libraries you see around. Tucking your book into one might work. Anyone selecting it is someone who already things he might like it from the cover and blurb. It increases the probability of getting your work into receptive hands.

[doug-lewars]

Rules

I'm not really a big fan of creative writing classes although they have their use. If your objective is to win literary prizes the people running such courses are an excellent resource to guide you on your way. Unfortunately I'm not convinced they're of much use is your objective is monetary. Art wins prizes but a more basic style of writing wins readers. Consider J.K. Rowling. The Harry Potter series was a smash hit both in literary and movie terms; however, if you reread the books with a more critical eye, you can detect some variation from what you might learn in school. Take for example the Dursley family. They are presented as cartoon characters. The provide a nice contrast to Harry but in terms of character development a tiny bit can be observed in the final installment, but for the most part they remain largely undeveloped and rather cliched. A creative writing instructor would put a stop to that in short order. I'm not suggesting you should avoid creative writing classes. Just remember, what passes as 'rules' may be taken as suggestions. Make up your own mind as to what works and what doesn't.