Fiction Writing Books: The Only One You'll Ever Need

Image by The Shane H via Flickr

Anyone who's read some of the writing help books out there on the market knows that they're a slew of problems with nearly each and every one of them. It's actually quite a bit harder to find one that helps you than it is to find one that discourages you from writing ever again. Seriously, sometimes I think that the writers of the aforementioned books write them just to discourage new writers and eliminate the competition.

The two biggest problems with writing help books:

--The writer almost always pushes his process on you, telling you that the reason why you've failed is because you weren't doing it his way. Oh, please. A writer's process is like a fingerprint. A true writing HELP book (the key word being help) will aid you in figuring out what your own writing process is and using it to the best of your abilities.

--Work is being pushed and creativity is being ignored. I wouldn't be lying if I said that I had read books that actually discouraged you from being creative. One book even went as far to as say that it really was all work and no play. Well, all work and no play makes a novel dull as hell. I would know. I got as far as my outline before I read over it and had to admit that it was directing the writing of one of the most boring books in history. I shudder to think of what it would have been like had I actually written the thing.

You can only imagine how discouraging it was for me to fail this hard while reading a book that tried as hard as it could to convince the reader that if he or she couldn't make their novel come out in ninety days with the instruction they were given, they were just a terrible writer and not cut out for the buisness. It was literally impossible NOT to fail, however, when I remember how I felt about my writing during those few weeks.

The writer of the book seemed to think that you should hate writing and dread the time you set aside for it as if it were the worst part of the entire day. If you enjoyed it, well, you just weren't pushing yourself hard enough. Sometimes professionals get so caught up in making their job look hard and important that they actually end up stripping all the passion out of it.

So what is an aspiring writer who's having trouble mastering the novel to do?

Well, I'm absolutely thrilled to say that I've actually come across a book that's helped me tremendously. I've taken classes on creative writing and can honestly say that they weren't as good as Alan Watt's The 90 Day Novel: Unlocking the Story Within.

That's exactly what I did. I followed the advice within the pages, and I can't even explain how it worked, but it did. I seriously didn't know that all of that plot was sitting inside of me waiting to explode onto the page. The story is almost one hundred percent different than it was when I went through it the first time I had novel writing doubts, and it's almost that much more interesting. It's not just a story---it's a good one. When I read his book, I get the impression that he actually gives a crap, rare as that is in today's world of self help books.

So if you've been trying to write a novel for the longest time (in my case, bordering on four to five years) and just can't get it to work no matter how hard you try, I highly recommend this book. Translation: GET IT. GET IT. GET IT.

I'm beginning to see what my writing process is now, and it's working so much better than trying to roll with everyone else's.

This book is a must for aspiring writers. The reviews are not lying. It really is that helpful, and I will swear on a stack of whatever religious documents you wish that I am not being paid a cent to say any of this stuff.

Prompts, Straight out of My Head

Image by J. Paxon Reyes via FlickrI have antibiotics in my system, and I believe I just might be back.

Or, well, hopefully. Today I went to a College Composition class where I was told that I would have to think completely mechanically for the next fifteen weeks. I could have died that very second. Good Lord, how am I going to manage writing something technical that isn't about wizards and space aliens?

It sort of reminded me, however, about one of my bigger problems lately. My writing is, well, too mechanical. It sounds like Ben Stein is the narrator (no disrespect intended to Mr. Stein, of course). So, I took a little break from my novel and decided to brush up on some stream of consciousness exercises. These are always fun. I always produce the most interesting little things when I work this way. It isn't at all filtered through my stupid left brain. I'm just writing, and that's the best thing any writer can do.

That being said, I thought it would be great to post up some good stream of consciousness prompts just for the fun of it. If anyone decides to tackles these and comes up with something they think particularly hilarious (or frightening), feel free to put it in the comments. The best possible thing that could come from this is you getting a whole new story idea. These really are just the best around for generating ideas.

• The thing you want to do most of all before you die
• Write about the one thing that scares you the most and why it scares you.
• What is your passion and what about it makes you passionate?
• The thing you feel society has most screwed up on
• OR the thing you feel society is doing best of all
• What you feel is the biggest injustice today
• An event or period of history that makes your skin crawl
• The most admirable thing about the person you think of as your hero

Remember to give yourself a good set time (the usual one is about five minutes) and not stop until the time limit is up. If you're writing, don't let that pen or pencil leave the page until the whole five minutes are up. If you're typing, you're fingers shouldn't leave the keyboard. Just go and let it come straight from your heart and as you yourself would say it. Don't think it. Just feel it. Above all, don't judge it.

I Lackadaisically Made This.

The photo pre-GIMP is credited to Jon Sullivan, but the boredom is all mine.

I Think I Just Saw a Pink Elephant

I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to post or answer people for a little while! My internet has been just terrible. I had the Ginsburg post backed up just in case that happened (because, well, it happens often), but I think things are finally ready to go much more smoothly.

The novel I've been working on, however, could only dream of going so smoothly. I've been horribly sick for the past two weeks and haven't been able to make the hamster running around on a wheel in my brain active for what feels like an eternity. That's my excuse, poor as it is, for the bad writing you've been seeing in the past few blog posts. It seems I keep forgetting what I've already typed by the time I get to the end...sometimes of the sentence.

There's a fine, misty haze over all the world and the tiniest sound might as well be a hurricane outside my walls. For some reason that I'll never quite understand, however, I was able to read every single word of the animal behavior chapter of my Biology textbook and understand every word.

I know, not hard stuff...but normally I would be flipping through the pages and screaming, "WHERE THE FLIP ARE THE DRAGONS AND UNICORNS?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!"

So this post is basically an apology for the crappy content you've been seeing recently. I'm off to go drink an entire bottle of hot sauce.

I'm not even joking. This morning I shouted obscenities at Martha Stewart on television just because she saw it necessary to buy silver straws worth more money than I'll probably see in a few years. The entire house was amused.

Shoutout to Allen Ginsburg

Image via WikipediaJoseph Roux once said that, "Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes."

Allen Ginsburg showed us all that poetry is sometimes better when it strips down naked and says, "Hey! This ain't pretty, but it's how it is."

And you know what? Sometimes a thing is beautiful in its own way just for being what it is. 

Even Steve Buscemi, as much as I hate to say it.

My favorite Ginsburg poems:

Wild Orphan

A Supermarket in California

Song

An Eastern Ballad

Refrain

4 Annoying Things About Urban Fantasy

I have come to the realization that I cannot stand urban fantasy. I know, I know...it's quite possibly one of the most beloved genres in all of bookdome. I'm not saying that I've closed off my mind to it, either. Everyone knows that all it takes to completely redeem a genre is one really amazing book. There are just a few little things about urban fantasy that have really been jumping on top of my nerves and doing a nice little two step lately, and over time they've manifested themselves into a nice little article-worthy list.

1. It's a genre that continually tries to be cool to the extent that it just isn't.  Vampires are cool without dressing up as a circa 1970s Henry Winkler, and for some reason I just can't entertain the idea of them regularly attending nightclubs and behaving like a fourteen year old girl. 
2. It's almost always coupled with some sort of paranormal romance which is almost always based on nothing but sex because everyone knows that's all love is anymore. Sure, Guy #1 is seriously in love with you and would do anything for  you, but he's like, a human! And like, Guy #2 is half dragon and wants to eat your face for breakfast! How can you compete with that, Guy #1? How?!?
3. Everyone who isn't magical has to have a skull that's three inches thick. There's a dragon perched on top of the Empire State Building and I'm supposed to believe that nobody sees? This is the one thing that makes urban fantasy so hard to write--the fact that the writer has to make a believable excuse for the magical elements in the story and the fact that no one seems to notice that they're there. Most writers nowadays don't even seem to be making the attempt.  
4. All of the books are basically the same but with different characters.  In other words, urban fantasy has been way overdone. Nearly ever book that comes out nowadays is either it or just plain nonfiction. After being written so often, it's not hard to believe that elements of different stories criss-cross. Originality is getting harder and harder to find these days. 

Image via WikipediaChances are that if you're alive, you've heard of the Amazon Kindle (or some other sort of e-reader). What you may not have heard, however, is the changes that many believe it is causing in the ways people read, write, and publish their books.

Okay, let's get real here. You've probably heard. But what does it mean for you as a writer? What about you as a reader?

It's hard to tell at this point, but I think the results will be quite favorable to writers. As a writer you are presented with a wonderful opportunity to get your book out there without going through a publisher. It's a great way to get some valuable experience on what people actually like to read without sinking too much money into self publishing in print, which can quite literally cost you an arm and a leg. Well, if that's the type of currency they take, that is. In that case, I would probably become suspicious.

Not to mention all of the trees you save. And if you decide not to do the indie thing anymore in the future, it might help quite a bit if an editor knows you as, "that chick or dude who wrote that book that was in the top ten on Amazon Kindle for a year straight" instead of just a no-name right off the streets.

Not to mention, of course, well...this. I can only imagine the toes I'm going to step on by linking that one.

KDP (that's Kindle Direct Publishing, not Kurdistan Democratic Party) isn't just a boon for writers, however. Can you imagine a world with no book trailers hyping up terrible books to the point where you actually find yourself buying them when you know they're going to be terrible? How about world in which a book gains merit by impressing its readers alone and is hailed as a classic, while less well written and executed novels sink to the bottom of the barrel where they belong? Ladies and gentlemen, such is the world I've seen come into existence while browsing book reviews at the Kindle Store. Well, not always of course...there are those authors who ask their friends to leave incredibly favorable reviews of their products. In fact, you'll more than likely notice that all of the reviews for books that have just been added are usually five stars. The one star reviews don't start coming in until later when, obviously, other people have started buying and reading the book.

Then again, I have also seen people give low ratings to a book just because it "contained swear words", so I'm not saying that this is wonderful for writers and readers just yet. I'm just saying that, at the moment, it seems like it will have a pretty positive outcome.

I wrote this thing in a room full of screaming, cackling, tongue clicking people. I'm one of those people who requires absolute silence to write anything worth reading, so I apoligize if this post isn't...well, if it isn't worth reading.

Gah. This is one of the reasons why writing a novel takes me so long. Has anyone ever had absolute quite in their homes when they weren't home alone (which I never am anymore -.-).

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This unfinished poem will be the death of me.

I missed my post yesterday evening because I was at a funeral. Yikes. I've been meaning to post more often, but I don't want to turn this into one of those blogs made up of nothing but mundane posts about the author's life. Like, I dunno..."Today I ate some cereal I never tried before. I think I liked it. Not too sure. Peace, out."

I, out of desperation, choose to present you with this poem that I began an eternity ago. I warn you that I am a terrible poet, so please try to remember that I'm not trying to pass this off as Poet Laureate material like some writers who clearly aren't strong in poetry do.

****

Night descends like a blanket of lead.

Extinguish the stars. The light is dead.

Now is the time for the things that creep

to arise from their slumber and crawl out of the deep.

****

...and then that's all I got.  I've probably been working on that poem for six months now and that is always as far as I get. Still, it has a nice ring to it. I might throw it in a story as one of those songs that are overheard in the middle of a bar or something.

Though I have no idea what sort of bar would play a song like that, I'll have to admit.

Three Useful Resources for Designing Your Own Book Cover

Since I'm young and just now working on getting my name out there, I've decided to publish independently, at least for now. It's made me feel a bit crazy and free, which is something I rarely feel. I've been told I often have the personality of an eighty year old woman, after all.

Anywho, independent authors often have to work harder at marketing strategies and whatnot, in addition to spending a lot of money for things such as book cover designers. I decided that that wouldn't fly for me (translation: I'm poor as crap and don't have $500 laying around), so I began looking into designing my own book cover. I've always liked playing around with photo-manipulation programs, so I figured I wouldn't mind working with a few tutorials.

Book covers are amazingly important. Studies show that people really do judge a book by its cover, deciding based on what they see on the front jacket if they're even going to consider reading it. Here are some things that I've found incredibly useful when embarking on that sometimes tedious but always fun journey. Only your own creativity limits you!

1. GIMP -- If I could kiss this program I would. It's arguably the best one out there next to Photoshop, which is extremely freaking expensive and more than I actually need at the time. There are tutorials strewn all over the net that can help you accomplish what you're looking for, but I would recommend starting by just opening up a few pictures you have on your hard drive and playing around with it. You'll be surprised by all the cool things you can learn to do yourself that way!
2. Several Sources of GIMP Tutorials ---  Here, here, and here. While playing around with the program to learn what buttons do what and how you can combine them for different effects is fun, sometimes it's equally as fun to learn what others have discovered they could do. Or, you know, already knew because they were some sort of fancy schmancy photographer person.
3. Public Domain Photos --- I cannot begin to tell you what a nuisance it is to try and find good images that you can manipulate for your cover without owing your firstborn child in royalties to the photographer (or getting sued). Even if the photo is creative commons, most of the time it clearly states (or states in the fine print that you get chastised for not reading when that big fat lawsuit slaps you in the face) that you cannot use the image for commercial use, i.e. the cover a book that you are going to sell. Ladies and gents, I hereby present you with a website of great images to serve your purpose that are free for personal AND commercial use.

Even though the last one says that the images are free for commercial use, it would probably be best to steer clear of the ones with people in them just to be safe. I state the Vampire Weekend mishap as an example. Just because the photographer releases the image into the public domain doesn't mean that the model won't see her image on something famous and demand a piece of the action.

At Least 42 is an Even Number

Image by phatcontroller via FlickrHow many scenes does the average novel have? Mine, after I made a little timeline, appears to have forty two with about three scenes per chapter. I wanted to make my usual tediously detailed outline for it by the end of today, but I don't think that's going to happen. I worked on it for a few hours yesterday and only outlined eight scenes.

Yes, eight. Out of forty two. Looks like I've got to either give myself an extra day or down a gallon of coffee and work from now until Kingdom Come. I'm starting with the former, but like always will most likely switch my plans to the latter. Either way, it's work getting done, right?

I know I can't be the only one who sits there staring mindlessly at my blinking cursor unless I have a perfectly prepared outline of the scene. Seriously. I even need to divide the scene into a beginning, middle, and end. After that I divide the different parts of the scene into their own beginnings, middles, and ends. Sometimes I even go further than that, but I won't delve too deeply into my insanity. It makes people  nervous.

I'll have to note that the excerpts I posted were done without any sort of scene outline at all (let alone the hyper detailed one that I prefer), which is why they tended to suck. I honestly don't see how some authors can spin a tale out of an outline that's basically just a bulleted list of the scenes. Everyone has a different process, though. Most indie authors, what with their freethinking ways and such, scorn the outline entirely.

Me, I need it to survive. I didn't even realize it until my current novel. All of my previous works were attempted with absolutely no outline at all, and they never made it past a few horribly written chapters with no concept of any sort of narrative arc. One common mistake of novelists is, after all, that they're writing a novel from beginning to end and literally making it up as they go. Makes foreshadowing a bit hard when you're literally writing the thing as a reader.

Looking back over my old writing makes me nervous. I shudder at how terrible it is, and back then I thought it was so good! That in turn makes me worry that what I'm writing now isn't good even though it at least feels decent. Isn't it frightening to work so hard on something that you might scorn later when you've gotten more experience?

Anyone else afraid of this? Or are you perfectly comfortable with laughing at your old work (whether it's in writing, art, performing, or sports) and beaming at how much you've grown? I wish I were. I'm going to try, anyway. I'm definitely going to do the whole, "wait a few weeks and then proofread again" once this baby is through, though.

I would like to close by leaving all you other indie authors out there with a link to one of my favorite blogs, Publetariat. I always get a kick out of the title, and it's an amazing source of valuable information for independent authors.

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Hindrance, Thy Name is Procrastination.

Image by Nemo's great uncle via FlickrWhat should I be doing?

Working on the long, hyper detailed version of my outline.

What am I actually doing?

Typing a blog post, eating fried rice, and mindlessly browsing the Kindle Store. Am I proud of myself? No, but I'm definitely not ashamed, even though I should be.

Yep. Should be.

I want to read Lolita, but I'm afraid it will be one of those classic books that turns out to be amazing and incredibly boring at the same time. That was how the 1962 film struck me, anyway: I just couldn't stop watching because I was so interested, but I'll be skinned and left out in the sun to dry if it didn't drag on forever! I know that you can't judge a book by it's movie, so I think I might just give it a shot.

I downloaded a sample on my Kindle to see how I liked it. I was immediately stricken with the desire to both slap Humbert Humbert in the face and crane my neck and stare at him as if he were the eighth wonder of the world. I've been told that this feeling will persist for most of the novel.

 This is very different from how the movie made me feel about him...mostly, I would assume, because they changed quite a bit about Lolita to redeem the tale a bit.

It's almost like looking at a train wreck. You just can't stop, and a tiny, sordid part of you actually wants to see more.

To POV or not to POV?

Today I have a question. That's right, a question. No rambling about nothing important at all, not even a little bit. Just a simple question.

Which point of view is your favorite? Is it first? Third person limited? What about omniscient? It may even be second, rare as it is these days. Does it change from one to the other when you're writing instead of reading?

When it comes to reading I usually like what best fits the story, but am definitley limited to third person in writing. It's just so hard to make good prose when you're limited to your narrator. I envy those of you who are gifted in that area, I really do. First person may be a lot harder to pull off, but it really does look fun.

I would also like to note that the single most viewed post on this entire blog is the one that mentions My Little Pony. Truly, it is capable of mind control. I hope I didn't scar those of you who were unfamiliar with the story by linking Cupcakes a while back, and just want to warn everypony one more time that you should be very, very afraid of Pinkie Pie.

Excerpt the Second

Image via WikipediaI'm fairly certain that I've at least got an actual scene from my novel going on here. The goal was to focus on character motivation...I was going to write about how Muriel wants to be a daredevil and find adventure but can't have it because she's stuck in the city. You can all see just how well that went. I gave the nutjob just what she wanted...or, well, what she thinks she wants for now.
 Somehow I never end up developing the parts of my characters that I sat down to develop.

I do believe I have a new development for my Muriel, however: She's crazy as a loon.

(Psst...I hope there aren't as many typing and spelling mistakes in this excerpt as there were in the first!)



------

The snow was falling in sheets. As she leaned out the window, feeling the tiny, icy pinpricks land on her skin, Muriel tried to make out the building across the alleyway beneath her bedroom. It was all in vain; there was simply too much snow.

She leaned back into the room and shut the window. Chilled water dripped down her face as the flakes that had lighted on her head began to melt in the warmed air. Snow, and lots of it. Just what she had been hoping and praying for. December and January had almost passed completely without so much as a flake.

Behind her the television was chattering away, and she crossed the room to her dresser so that she could turn it off. The entire house was finally asleep. Now it could be quiet.

While she was still at the front of her room she flipped off the light switch, leaving the room in complete darkness, and felt her way to her bed. Muriel didn't want the slightest bit of glare on the window. She was hoping that the man would come and stand on the sidewalk that night like he had every night for the past two weeks, the one that she could see if she looked as far to the left as she could while staring out at the city beyond. Of course, the snow that night would make it harder to see him, but Muriel had the feeling she would. It was almost as if the world around him wanted him to be seen.

The snow was so thick that night, however, that she couldn't even see the fire escape directly outside. There was only a thick, animated whiteness, squirming and moving as if it were alive as each snowflake rocketed toward the ground. Muriel tried to zero in on a single flake and follow its journey to the ground, but it had left her field of vision before she could really even focus on it at all.

All seemed still in the frozen world outside save those madly swirling snowflakes.

Muriel snapped awake before she had even realized that she had fallen asleep. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she was covered in cold sweat. Something had frightened her, of that she was convinced. But what?

She rested her forehead on the glass. A chill shook her as the heat of her body met the frigid windowpane. How long had she been asleep? It couldn't have been very long, for the snow had not slowed one bit...unless it was going to snow buckets all night.

That was when Muriel saw it. Or him, rather.

He was in the alleyway this time. Not very far into it, as he still would have been quite visible from the street were the weather not so bad. He was only a relatively small black form, shaped very much like a man and nearly invisible behind the wall of falling snow. But it was him, there was no question.

Muriel slid her window open and climbed out onto the fire escape wearing nothing but her pink flannel nightgown.

The cold snow quickly penetrated her slippers, but she didn't care. Holding onto the rail to keep her balance, Muriel climbed down the metal stairs, taking note of how many level areas she came to. There were three floors between her bedroom and the alley below. Before long she came to the ladder and nearly slid down it rather than climbed.

Her foot finally struck pavement when she realized that what she was doing was absolutely insane. She was a thirteen year old Jewish girl standing in the middle of a snow filled alleyway in Brooklyn at who knew what hour of the night to meet some stranger that she had seen from her window. It was completely mad.

Mad and wonderful.

Muriel grinned and set off in the direction of the anthropomorphic black figure.

The closer she got, the more of him she could see. It was as if they two of them were concealed in a bubble; the blizzard was raging all around it but not inside of it. It could have simply been that she was so focused on him that the snow didn't matter anymore, but Muriel always liked to imagine that something simply wonderful was happening, even when nothing out of the ordinary was going on at all.

When she was only a few feet away from him he turned, and she saw that he was wearing a bowler hat pulled down over his face that was as black as the suit he wore. It looked as if not a single snowflake had landed on either one. They were still both just as black as black could be.

He reached out his hand, palm up, and beckoned to her.

Behind her was her apartment, and inside were her mother and father. Muriel loved them more than anything else in the world and couldn't stand the thought of leaving them alone. She also knew that it was incredibly wrong to go with a stranger, because when one did such a thing one had no idea where one would end up.

And that was what had her pinned. She didn't know why, but Muriel knew that this individual wasn't your garden variety stranger. He had somewhere that he would like to take her, and if she didn't go with him, she would never find out where that place was.

Crazy, irrational, and sometimes unbelievable Muriel took his hand and followed after him when she felt him pulling on her. He threw the jacket of his suit over her shoulders and led her on toward where she knew the street was, but where she saw nothing but that moving whiteness.

Before long the white was still and hazy, and she realized that there was no more snowfall. There was only seemingly endless white fog, and various details and outlines coming gradually into focus.

Though she was dazed and dizzy, Muriel actually managed a laugh. She had come into the alleyway just to talk to this gentleman, and so far she hadn't said a single word. 

Is the future now? God, I hope not.

Image by Witer via FlickrI finally began Fahrenheit 451 the other day. I'm only on part 2 right now, but I can already tell that everyone who told me that the book was a must-read was completely right.

They were also right about how, though the story is set in a dystopian future, it reflects our own society today so much that it's almost frightening. I can say that it's much more frightening than not because I'm certain it reflects our society more now than it did when it was first written in the 1950s.




Books are illegal, television shows and games have been dumbed down to the point that they're nothing but series of bright colors, sports are all anyone cares about because they don't require much philosophy, and all of the liberal arts schools are closed because people stopped going to them. All of the jobs involve technical and computer skills, and sitting around on the porch talking is seen as useless and dangerous because, golly gee, if people start thinking then they just might get ideas! Different ideas! Then there will be war over those ideas, and it won't even be the "fun kind" of war.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm scared that this is where we're going to end up fairly soon, especially since I spent eight hours in a lecture hall the day before listening to a lady tell me that it didn't matter whether or not you were doing what you loved if there wasn't a job market for it. You know what? I don't care if I'm going to be poor because being a writer isn't corporate enough for the future. I'll open up a can of beans and eat it like it's a turkey dinner because I'll be doing what I love.

And besides, people with no house don't have to pay the bills. So nyah.

In short, read this book and let it scare you. You'll thank yourself for picking it up, and don't ever let someone tell you that you shouldn't follow your dreams just because they're becoming obsolete. Don't let the man keep you down, and don't get stuck in the three piece cage if you want to work with whales and wear a scuba suit.

Three guesses as to what this post is going to be about.

ThImage by brody4 via FlickrI'm sincerely sorry that I can't shut up about this novel. It's just really coming together, and quite frankly, I'm overjoyed. Nothing has ever come together like this for me. Usually it starts as an idea and stays as an idea because I'm more than afraid to plan it out and actually DO it. Fear of screwing up? Oh yes. I should think so.

This time, however, I told myself that such a thing simply would not fly. I buckled down and actually started outlining the thing, and didn't make myself too scared to plan out the story from start all the way to finish.

The only problem is that now I'm terrified of actually writing it.

On a related matter, I decided to bump the age of my main character from fourteen down to thirteen. While she's supposed to seem young and naive for her age, I was writing my scenes and realized that she just might be a bit too young and naive to be fourteen.

Is she too immature to be thirteen?

Incredibly. But not so much that it makes it look like I such at characterization. I've just got to say that I'm glad I made the change before I actually started on the manuscript. Does anyone out there know how annoying it is to go back and change things about a character (such as name or age) and then go change all of the references made TO that thing you changed? And all of the plot points it influenced?

Ugh. That's another reason to make sure you've got it straight before you start writing. Believe me, the more sure you are about exactly what is going to happen and when, the easier the actual writing will be.

Excerpt, maybe?

I'm not exactly sure when this scene will appear in my novel, only that it will. I know that the writing is suckish at the moment, it only being the first draft of a first draft. It will probably change quite drastically before things are over with, but I believe it will remain essentially the same scene.

I kind of just went with the flow on this one and wrote. It's from the novel I'm hoping isn't terrible that I'm working on right now, the one I recently decided to turn into a series (seeing as the synopsis alone was going to span several pages in Word).

Writing this scene has told me, however, that I'm incredibly rusty, especially at dialogue. Definitely need to work on some more prompts before I start outlining this baby. I'm thinking I might actually start the writing in about three weeks, so I'm excited :D

I also have my fingers crossed as I copy and paste this, seeing as the past four attempts (at least) have resulted in disaster. Seriously, this thing has taken me days to get up.

-----


The knight lightly shoved Muriel into a room that was so dark the window looked like a patch of stars on the wall. Without a word he left, nearly slamming the door behind him.

She felt a hand grab onto her shoulder to stop her from going any farther into the room and assumed, or rather hoped, that it was the Retriever.

“Follow me to my room. There isn't any light in your's.”

She recognized the voice. Muriel didn't know why she breathed a sigh of relief, but she did.

His hand found hers, and the Retriever led her straight on through the darkness for at least a few yards. “Wait here. I'll light the fire.”

Muriel listened as he fumbled around in the darkness. Tears were welling up in her eyes, and her face was hot. She had kept saying the entire way up to the room that she needed to go home...why hadn't anyone listened to her?

The room was suddenly illuminated with flickering, steadily growing light. The Retriever had found the fireplace.

From what little light there was Muriel could make out teal wallpaper, colored slightly yellow from the firelight. The fireplace was cream colored, and decorated with all sorts of carvings that she really wasn't in the mood to look at. As the light grew stronger she could see dark polished wooden floors and a bed in the corner of the room opposite the fireplace.

“Please, sit down...I'll be with you in just a moment.” the Retriever turned towards the window and lifted his hat, placed it on the windowsill.

Muriel didn't budge, her nails digging into her forearms as hot tears streamed down her cold face. “Can I just go home? Please?”

The Retriever was silent, his jaw tightly clenched. He leaned out the window, palms gripping the windowsill. “No...not once you're in.”

“But-”

He pushed himself up and crossed the room, taking her hand. “Please? Come and sit down.”

Muriel, tears now streaming freely down her face, finally complied.

The bedsheets were white and plain, making the bed look large and spacious, if not plain. She drew her knees up to her chest and sobbed, no longer caring to hold back.

“Come on, don't cry...please? There's nothing either one of us can do about it.” he laid his hand warily on her back, patting it gently.

Muriel would have pulled away from anyone else, but she could tell that he was a kind man and meant what he said. “Why...won't...you...let...me...leave?”

“Because you can only come in. You can't go out. Your kind, I mean...once you're in, you have to stay.” the Retriever explained. “Oh, please stop crying...this happens every time, I hate it!”

He leaned forward, his head in his hands.

Muriel wiped her eyes and sniffed thickly. “What do you mean? My kind? Every time?”

“Every one of you...you always cry.” he sounded exhausted, his voice muffled by his hands.

Muriel tugged at his shirt collar until he sat up. “You've...brought in more people like me before?”

“Yes...or rather, I used to.” the Retriever ran his hand through his hair. “Nowadays we can't get them to come anymore...especially when they're as old as you. Usually only the little ones can even see me calling to them.”

“I...I don't understand.” Muriel shook her head.

“You're not just here for the fun of it, um...” the Retriever paused.

“Muriel.”

“You're not just here for the fun of it, Muriel. I never would have taken you away from your world unless I had a reason. We need you here. To survive.”

He stood up and made his way to the door, stopping in the doorframe. “I know tonight's been rough. I'll talk about it more tomorrow, I promise. Your room is adjoined to mine. I'll sleep there tonight since it's this one is warmer becuase of the fire. We didn't have any in your fireplace because, well, quite frankly we didn't expect to have anyone come.”

He chuckled, so lightly that it was almost inaudible. “We had almost given up on getting anyone at all...you don't know how much we need you here, Muriel. It's been...such a long time.”

Muriel wiped another tear off of her cheek—she knew there was no way she was going to get them to stop flowing enough to get a decent night's sleep---and, when she saw that he hadn't moved yet, managed to keep her voice from shaking enough to ask, “What's your name? You know mine. I want to know your's.”

“I don't have one. They just call me The Retriever when we don't have one of you and The Guardian when we do.”

“Ah.”

Muriel reclined onto the bed and stared up at the blurred ceiling. “Nick, then.”

“What?” the Retriever asked, stopping in the middle of his slow retreat into the other room.

“Nick. That's what I'm naming you.”