Monthly Archives: October 2015

5 Ways your Children Can Help you Become a Better Writer.

Introduction
Though the many eons of the written word, there are many examples of authors writing stories for children they knew. This often included their own children and relatives. The world is indebted with some great literature as a result.

But there is a question that ends up as part of my “mental traffic” from time to time. That is does being a parent help make you a better writer? If so, is this is still true if you do not write children’s stories?

Based on my experience, I would say an emphatic YES!

Five Ways How Children Positively Impact your Writing.

Some of the reasons for saying this include the following.

1.You have a ready test audience. Reading stories out loud is a tremendous laboratory. Children’s reactions will let you know if a story is on target on not. Obviously, don’t inflict on them the first drafts , very adult stories, and other faux pas or they may never forgive you.

2. They want to hear new and some old stories. This is a great opportunity to push the creative juices to the fullest. It may initiate a chain of brainstorms that may result in something completely different.

3. You have to explain things simply and clearly. This means use of examples, humor, strong mental images, and more. Explaining things in many different ways helped tremendously in thinking how to describe a scene to my reader.

4. They can help characters come alive. Children are great in exploring situations in stories. Asking questions such as What if this character did … They also have a strong sense whether words spoken are true to a character or not.

5. You can determine quickly the needed images to create for a work. The scenes that get the greatest reaction likely need an illustration to go with the text.

All of the above helped in putting down in writing an always changing special bedtime story/meditation called “The Floating Bed” that is part of In Small Doses 2. It was a culmination of multiple night time renditions each a little longer and a little more detailed.

I would be interested I hearing how your “little reviewer(s)” helped your writing.

Eleven Ways Why Missed Landing is Different from my other Works

Introduction
I am in the process of wrapping up the first draft of Missed Landing. It ran into serious issues early on. (But that is a future blog topic.)

This completes a sort of “historical fiction trilogy” that started with Killing Thoreau on Walden Pond and followed by Saving Eddie. It is an enjoyable task to make the quirks and currents of history presentable.

Eleven Differences
This book is different than anything else that I’ve written. There are eleven major differences than my prior works. These include the following:

These differences include:

1) Timeframe. Although the work alludes to the past, it is set at some indefinite date in the future. (Originally it was to be 1940-1970s.)

2) Use of an unreliable and far from omniscient narrator. We clearly have a character here that has access to a vast but incomplete database. Also, she has memories of how rosy the past was. But how are false memories from tales from her mother and how much is real?

3) Life-defining issues. The lead character is grappling with overcoming loss, discerning what is truth and myth, and finding her place in the world. These are more mature themes than I have dealt with in the past.

4) Fake quotes. Each chapter starts with a snippet from an imaginary book that sets the mood.

5) Chapter titles that ask key questions. And the body of the chapter attempts to answer that query. And with each answer, we are closer to unraveling the truth.

6) Writing about a topic that I knew little about. Ballooning is an area that I haven’t delved into before so there was a lot to ramp up on. (Just like characters, the Calvez Brothers had to do.)

7) Most of the characters discussed in the book are deceased or presumed dead. And that makes it challenge for the protagonist to gather information. As the investigation gets underway, only one living character is interviewed.

8) The book uses an interesting mix of the future and visible signs of the obsolete past. Although everything is online, government offices, in-person tests and universities with physical campuses, and ballooning itself are also available if needed.

9) Ties to the late 1960s. The Gaul University protests and what happened to the Calvez brothers clearly has its antecedents with incidents of this turbulent time. This is discussed.

10) The use of triplet brothers as characters. Originally it was supposed to be twins but writing about the former was more.

11) Having a rich protagonist. The main character can purchase anything she needs except peace of mind. But she can obtain the needed tools that move her closer to reaching it.