Overcoming the Dreaded Mirror Scene

Image via Wikipedia

Don't lie. I don't care if you've won eight Pulitzer prizes; you've done it. We all have.

You're typing out your first chapter/scene, and you find yourself in dire need of some subtle physical description of your main character. Enter the Mirror Scene.

Jane is getting ready to leave the house to start her day. She is deeply contemplating all of the things that make her amazing and "Jane"-like, when she passes by the hall mirror on her way out the door. She turns to the side for a better view and pays an insane amount of attention to each and every one of her features, from her brown eyes speckled with green to the wavy locks of black hair framing her china-doll face. Because, you know, every time I look in the mirror I feel a need to describe myself inside my head in case someone just so happens to be listening to my thoughts but unable to physically see me.

I can't say that I considered the mirror scene to be unproffesional or even  unoriginal until another writer mentioned that it caused her to roll her eyes every time it popped up in a narrative--especially when the writer had a solid reputation. Once I got to thinking about character descriptions, I began to detest the mirror scene as well. Character descriptions that reveal more than necessary have always been my pet peeve. The more that is left to the reader's imagination, the better. I hate the three page long descriptions of how the main character is wearing her curly brown hair and brand specific eyelet tank top that show up in books these days. Character descriptions are best left shorter than a couple of sentences. Anything other physical description that is necessary to the story will come out later as the character interacts with other characters and begins to gain a life of her own.

So what if you find yourself abusing the mirror scene? What on Earth do you do? When I began my first novel idea---a project that I didn't seriously want to finish, but only intended to use for practicing novel writing---I swear that I used a mirror scene to introduce every single character that wasn't seen through someone else's eyes. I kid you not. If it wasn't a mirror hanging on the wall, it was a pool of reflective water. I was only about eleven or twelve, so I didn't really know much about, well...anything. I'm surprised at myself for not noticing that this was way, way too much mirror.

I overcame the overuse of mirrors in character description by asking myself what the reader needed to know right then and there in the story about the protagonist. The readers may never know that she has a mole on her left hip, or that her skin has yellow undertones. There are all sorts of aspects of characters, some of them major backstory elements, that the writer never really reveals to the reader in their entirety. It's always better to have more character development than you're willing to reveal in the story than the other way around. Have Jane run her fingers through her hair while waiting for the bus if she's the nervous type. Let them get caught on snags in her locks if she has wild curls. Let the protagonist's personality reveal what little you must about her appearance. When it comes to writing, less is generally more, especially when it comes to character descriptions.

Of course, if I had just a dime for every existing exception, I'd be able to move out of my cardboard box and into a fancy gilded trailer.

The Writer's Toolbox: A Review

My rule of thumb is that the crazier and more "wtf?" inducing a plot line sounds in summary, the better and more enticing of a story it will make when it's actually written out. I've recently scribbled out an idea for a fantasy novel in which a prince has a lover that he stashes on an island a few miles off of the coast of his kingdom. He feels emasculated, and is often trying to prove himself strong and manly. In other words, he's a douche. Things begin to grow complicated when an escaped convict washes ashore on the island where the prince's lover is kept a virtual prisoner, and she takes him in hoping that she can easily hide him from the prince.

I think I'm going to say, "screw you" to the lover and have the prince and the escaped convict end up together just for the Hell of it. Also, there's probably a flying horse or something in there somewhere. I could very easily grow this one little possible novella-sized fantasy work into a four party series that is absurdly more complicated and epic than it needs to be.

This story idea, one of many scribbled down in my notebook that may or may not see the light of day, came to me while I was screwing around with The Writer's Toolbox, a fascinatingly stimulating and gloriously fun box full of inspirational writing games that I sorely wish I had already bought ages ago.

The box consists of games designed to spark the imagination of writers young, old, and uncreative---just promise yourself that you won't ever discard any idea, no matter how absurd.

In light of the many other story ideas that have come to me over the years, my crazy-assed love polygon  story actually pales in comparison. The best part about using The Writer's Toolbox is that you can easily look at the first lines, the protagonist wheels, the sixth sense cards, and say to yourself, "How on earth did I get this story idea from all of these random collections of words?"

That, my friend, is how the human mind works. It is the very reason why there is a creative writer inside of us all. The Writer's Toolbox takes advantage of the strange ways in which our minds operate, allowing us to quite literally create a fantastical cyberpunk thriller out of a random suggestion of a first line such as, "Jim liked to eat sandwiches."

My advice to anyone who makes the wonderful decision of using The Writer's Toolbox would be to just go nuts and think about nothing else but having fun. That's why we all decided we wanted to be creative writers for a living anyway, isn't it? Who needs a desk job when we can make a living off of our daydreams?

The only difference between writers and non-writers is simply that non-writers judge or fear their daydreams and leave them inside their heads.

Write on, fellow daydreamers!

God on high, kill me for allowing myself to utter those words...

The Inexplicable Evolution of a Character

Image by jlseagull via FlickrPeople change. So do characters. I've never been the type of writer to viciously hold onto a character design to the point that I virtually halt the story development for fear that the character will change. A lot of times that can happen without you even knowing you're doing it. In fact, if you've been struggling with writer's block for quite some time now, I'd recommend you ask yourself if  you've noticed your character trying to do things that you'd describe as particularly out of character.

Me, I just write and see what happens. It wasn't that way when I typed up my stories, but once I started handwriting them I noticed that I was a lot less willing to go back and second guess my decisions. I spent roughly four weeks getting all the imagination related crap squared away, and by the end of the first month I had developed a main character that was nothing short of your typical shy and sweet bookworm.

Yeah, I know. Not the most relatable of protagonists. I think that's probably why Muriel changed so much once I actually put her into action. What I see now as I move my pen across the page (and scowl at my consistently poor word choice as usual) is a loud, naive, and not-so-bright girl who probably never acquired the patience to sit down and read a book that didn't have pictures. She may not be as smart and, dare I say it, "perfect" as she was before, but I'll bet she's twice as fun to read about.

And write about. I'd much rather chronicle the adventures of a fun loving simpleton who asked a plant-based character if she eats sunlight than a pompous one who throws out a scientific explanation for everything that happens.

That and I'm barely making a B in Biology 101. Ladies and gentlemen, you will not find me operating on you anytime soon.

I guess the long and short of this blog post (because God help me if I actually make a clear point ever at all) is that you can't really think of your characters as people you can control. Think of them more as people who have a story to tell you so that you can write it down on paper. Or type it up on Word. Whatever floats your boat.

Halloween 'Be Approachin'

Image via Wikipedia Today I finally began regularly working on my novel every day, bringing my goal of at least 1,000 words each day back into the forefront. I've been thinking about doing something weird with the story: cutting out an entire character.

Well, not entirely cutting out said character, but rather cutting them out for the majority of the plot of the first book in my series. I had originally planned to have my main character and this other character, who is her foil in every sense of the term, undertaking the journey of the first novel together. Now that I look at the purpose of the story a lot closer, I think it just might be more useful to have her make that journey solo.

Plus, if I did that, I could cut out the scenes where my main character and this character become better acquainted.

Or, you know, I could just shove them together as still 'sort of enemies' and see what happens from there. That adds drama, for sure.

Part of being a writer is struggling with decisions just like this one. You have several different ways that you want the story to go, but  you just can't let go of any of them to use just one of them. It is in situations like this that I propose a compromise of some sort, or a merging of the plots together so the good parts of all of them sort of happen. Usually, when you do that, one of them shines as the strongest and best one to take center stage, anyway. There's just something about seeing all the story directions in action that helps you figure out which one really was the "one."

Now that the first and most rambly part of the post is over, I'd like to bring to your attention this author and his books.

They are for children, and yet they are amazing. Any true horror fan would love his work; trust me, I'm a horror nut, and after reading the first one after dark, I wasn't able to get to sleep until I forced myself there.

Because, you know what? It always seems like my bedroom door does that violent shaking thing where it sounds like someone is trying to get in RIGHT when I've scared myself silly with ghost stories all day.

After the first anthology of scary stories, O. Penn-Coughin's stories only get better and scarier. Not to mention, of course, that if you read it on kindle you can only view one page at a time, making those scary illustrations seem to actually jump out at you at the end of every story. Trust me, they're a lot of fun.

I've only just started with Kissed By a Clown, and so far I wouldn't recommend that those of you out there with elementary school aged children let them get their hands on it.

But you and your older children?

Go nuts. Knock yourselves out. It seriously rocks so far. 

Off-Days Are For Rambling

-In Soviet Russia, story tells you.

    Looking over my old novel excerpts depresses me. I'm outlining (for real this time--yay!) those parts of the story right now, because they're the only ones that really stayed the same when I completely revamped the plot. This new story really is a 'new story'...the characters are the only aspect of it that hasn't changed, and even they've gotten more developed. Everything is different, even my style of outlining. I think all of the detail that I've been told was absolutely necessary in the outlines was actually killing my story. Not only is every process different, but every story as well. I don't think you can combine a trans-universal fantasy with anything that's supposed to make logical sense at all. You have to keep spaces open and ties loose, or you'll strangle your story to death. It's like squeezing a bird and saying, "No! You can't fly away because it's illogical! Mwahahahahahahahahahahaha!" knowing perfectly well that birds can fly even though most things can't.

In other words, the more things you make certain and set in stone before you start to write, the more your story is going to resist you. I definitely advocate a more paragraph-like summary type of outline now in place of the rigid, hyper-detailed one that I was using.  It has to be fluid, like a living organism. Don't tell your story, let the story tell you.

To an extent...

...oh man, I totally just broke the floodgates and let myself remember every single Soviet Russia joke I've ever heard.

I know there wasn't much to today's post, other than an admittance of the fact that the writing was extremely stilted in any and all of the excerpts that I've posted. At the time I was reading a book that went about everything in the wrong way, you see, and was too scared of never finishing a novel to realize that you shouldn't believe everything you read. If it feels like it isn't working, then for the love of all that his holy try something else before it makes you go crazy. Chances are it works for someone else, not for you. A good story cannot be formulated.

In addition to me rambling about my mistakes in hopes that I can save someone else from making them, I'd like to say that I believe I'll be sticking with Creawriter as my main DFW software. I'm getting absolutely giddy with the background feature. I have a different one picked out for every scene. What can I say? Pictures have always been just the thing to put me in the mood. 

Novel Ramblings

They say the number one rule for writing your first novel is not to tell anyone you're writing it and keep it your little secret.

Whelp, blew that one already.

I'm dying to put up some stuff from my story, but at the moment it's nothing but poorly punctuated pre-writing before I begin the first draft. I literally have around 30,000 words of nothing but free writing trying to form my story world and develop the characters. If this thing were a novella it would be long enough for publication already. I'm obsessed. Good thing I didn't sign up for this to be normal.

Anyone ever seen a first draft? Most of them look like they were written by a kinder-gardener.

If they're mine, they're cringe-worthy. I've heard and found it true that you're supposed to just write and iron it all out in the rewrite, which means that going back over it to stomp out typos may be counterproductive. Second guessing yourself is for technical writers. Let your story be alive. I don't want anybody to think that I'm just blowing smoke here, so I'm going to try and get at least something up soon.

I'm beginning to worry that an anthropomorphic dragon wizard might be too crazy of a character for comfort, even though I believe the fantasy genre is in dire need of some spicing up. Translation: there are so many Lord of the Rings clones floating around out there that the literary world just may drown in them.

I also know that a main character who goes insane by the end of the story isn't a new idea, either, but the one thing that sort of makes mine different could be just causes it to be a controversial story. My intent was to follow a child's descent into madness. While I have plenty of other crazy people in my story, I wanted Muriel's transformation into one of these crazy people to be particularly unsettling. People just cringe at the thought of anything unsettling involving children, even though thirteen isn't exactly a childish age. The problem, I guess you could say, is that most people assume it's a much more childish age than it really is. At thirteen you know a lot more than people give you credit for.

I'm also trying to make it look like her 'descent' into adulthood accompanied her descent into madness to the point that some people might take it to mean that I believe it's wrong to grow up.

Nah, not wrong...just impractical :P

Never Get too Attached to the Magic Man

Image via Wikipedia

 While my sporadicly available internet connection insists upon making maintaining a blog extremely difficult, I have found myself able to actually make a post.

I don't know how long this is going to last, so I'll try to make it quick. Today's post, or at least the first half of it, is about one of my uncountable favorite poems. It is by the sometimes adorable (but always only in my opinion) James Henry Leigh Hunt.

Jenny Kissed Me

by James Henry Leigh Hunt

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping up from the chair she sat in.

Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;

Say that health and wealth have missed me;

Say I'm growing old, but add--

Jenny kissed me!

This poem in itself is adorable. It was a welcome change after pouring myself over The Wasteland.

And just to make sure that some random poem I enjoy that no one else might isn't the only thing on the blog today, I would like to bring to your attention my latest revelation---the wizard always dies.

I'm writing a fantasy, and it's so tempting to kill the wizard just because it's been imprinted into my brain that he always dies. Think about every single fantasy novel you've ever read that had a wise old wizard in it.

Did he die?

Thought so.

I'm trying to be original here, but it just feels like a fantasy series isn't complete without a dead wizard main character. I suppose it happens so often because it adds to the story's dilemma. Not only did the plot thicken, but now the younger, inexperienced, and often magically challenged other main characters are left all alone to deal with it. Now they're forced to grow up and learn to do things for themselves. The agony!

It does add drama, but I know how frustrating it is to feel like you're basically reading the same story with different authors and characters. I don't want to subject anyone to that just as much as I want to provide a valuable story that people will enjoy.

But if I do kill the wizard, I don't think I can resist the temptation to make his last words, “There is another Skywalker.”

George Lucas would take everything I own and more, however, so I more than likely won't. Also, I've noticed that the past two blog post pictures were of the same thing.

So I put up a puppy.

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. 

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.

Related articles

• How Many Scenes Does Your Novel Need? (advancedfictionwriting.com)

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.

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. 

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.”

It makes me want to rip my hair out, but it's completely worth it.

Image by John-Morgan via FlickrSo my novel is finally underway...sort of.

 I'm trying to have the first draft done in three months. I really feel like I have a chance of finishing this one seeing as its more than just a jumbled mess of ideas, so quite a bit of energy is going into the developing and outlining stages. In fact, I spent four hours today on character development alone. Granted, I did stare blankly at my writing journal for some of that time...but it's still something, right? It truly is amazing how long it can take just to decently fill out a bio sheet for one measly little person.


The main character is a fourteen year old Jewish girl living in Brooklyn, though not much of the story is set in the city. She gets taken into a world that the inhabitants refer to as "The Hidden World" by a man known as  "the retriever."

As  you can probably guess, it all goes down hill from there.

It's a magical little world full of all sorts of schmaltzy fairy tale elements and all that jazz, but its sinister secret is that every few years it must take a human sacrifice from our world to ensure that it survives. It's a bit dark, and I don't know how happy the ending is going to be, but I'm thinking that it has the potential to be a pretty good work. I honestly can't wait to get started on outlining the actual novel. This may even extend into a series if I can make enough content.

Tips for Writers Using (or Choosing) Pen Names

Image via WikipediaYes, it's another list. I tried typing this out in paragraph form, but it just wasn't aesthetically pleasing. Nobody likes walls of text, right? I mean...some people do, but they always put me to sleep.

I have a bit of a confession: I hate using a pen name. If I didn't have an incredibly hard name to pronounce and spell, I wouldn't. It's just so...odd. I feel like I'm lying or playing pretend. Quite a few writers use them by choice, however. Even more desire to do so, but can't quite find the name that's right for them. Here's what I've learned in my tedious search to find the right (or at the very least, most acceptable) name with which to sign all of their creative works.

1. Don't be a ham.   I cannot stress this enough. I even think of "Harlow Clark" as too showy, but quite a few people out there want to write with names like "Rain" or "Stardust". I seriously wanted to go with Jane Doe just for giggles, but I figured that it would seem hammy to people even though I was going for the opposite of hammy.
2. Make it genre specific...if you want.    Sometimes it may be helpful to choose a sort of...edgy?...name if you're a horror writer, or a beautiful and romantic sort of name for a romance novel. It may just help make the novel! What would A Series of Unfortunate Events be without Lemony Snicket? The series just wouldn't have the same sort of magic to it if it were written by "Daniel Handler". And what on Earth would people think of steamy erotica written by a Howard O'Brien instead of Anne Rice?
3. Make sure it rolls off the tongue.   A name that has a nice ring to it is also likely to be remembered. I've also heard it mentioned that a two syllable first name and a one syllable last name is a good choice, though no one can really tell you why. 
4. Unisex is always a good choice.    Especially if you're female and write science fiction, crime, or horror novels. It isn't fair, but it's a known fact that people are far more likely to pick up a book of such a genre that was written by a man. If a name is unisex, people are also more likely to assume the author is a man than a woman. I've found myself guilty of this from time to time, as well. You'd be surprised how writers turn out to be women once you look them up! Methinks the tables may be turning. *wink**wink*
5. You can always just use your initials.    If you have a name like Svietgein Horwinkle Zvet Henderson, you can bet it will be easier to sell your books if you write them as S. H. Z. Henderson, or any combination of the first three. It saves a lot of trouble choosing a pen name, and if people find it hard to say the initials, well, they can always just get over it and call you by your last name.

On a totally unrelated matter, I found a random folder on my computer titled, "Japanese Horror Files". I opened it up and found a bunch of images of my friends and people I barely know that I don't remember saving, plus a few weird extremely blurry images and some random anime sprites. There were even some stills from South Park in there. I find this incredibly odd because I'm the only one using this computer. I'm running Linux, so I don't think there's a chance some kind of virus put it there. Spooky, eh? 

A Clockwork Story-line

Image by Kjirstin via Flickr
That is by far the worst parody blog post title I have ever seen, let alone conjured. Forgive me, father, for I have sucked.

Lately I've had an inexplicable affinity with all things involving clockworks. I think I'll scream if I can't incorporate it into my mostly fairy-tale based novel. As of now I have no idea how I'm going to make it work, but it's at least obvious now that it's either going to be incredibly cool or tragically terrible.

I'm not going to call this affinity that I have "Steampunk" because, to be completely honest, no one really seems to know what it is. Plus, I'm not willing to walk around in Victorian clothing. Well...I'm willing, but let's just say that I'm not able.

Anyone who knows me knows that I would dress up as a giant cupcake if I could. Damn society. Not letting me be weird.

BUT...as I was saying...maybe it could work if I stick some sort of machine at the center of my story world. That should give me my gear fix while still giving me my fairy tale fix. I just don't want to to look forced. There's nothing more annoying than forced fiction. Don't you just hate it when it seems like even the characters know what kind of story they're in? Or when the story is set in a technologically advanced age and the author spends nearly an entire page describing gadgets and only a paragraph on actual progress in the plot?

It's like...we get it. They're all in the future. Now what's going to HAPPEN in the future?

I also hate hearing that a book is completely wonderful when I've tried to read it, myself, only to get so  bored that I can't even manage the first few chapters. It's like dangling all of that wonderful-ness everyone is talking about right in front of my face. I know it's in there, but the storytelling bores me before I can get to it.

Of course, sometimes people will tell you that a book is wonderful and you'll read the whole thing cover to cover and never get to the amazing story they've been telling you about.

Such was the case with a certain book series I read a while back. Yes. The entire series. I read it all just because my so called friends said that it started off bad but got better.

Guess what?

It never got better.