Wanderer's Pen

Friday, May 22, 2015

The 777 Writing Challenge

Here is yet another tag Adriana Gabrielle has tagged me I'm finally getting to lol. This is why I needed the Friday posting day.

Le Rules:

The 777 challenge requires you go to Page 7 of your work-in-progress(wether writing or editing), scroll down to Line 7 and share the next 7 lines in a blog post. Once you have done this, you can tag 7 other bloggers to do the same with their work-in-progress.

And to double the fun I'm going to take an excerpt from both Red Hood (steampunk fantasy) and Subsapien Biomech (science-fiction). (The italics makes the lines look too long, but I assure you it's seven lines lol.)

Red Hood:

Annette sat on the ground, clutching her leg and holding back sobs. Blood poured from the butchered flesh. Suna fought a werewolf with her twin sabers, and the hounds still bit and scratched at the others—but one lay in a pool of its own fluids, motionless. Some of the werewolves tried to reach the log, but Dina and Oske kept firing.

Mor jerked out her blood and ooze-coated axe as Suna finished off the werewolf. They were getting overwhelmed. No. They could handle this. They would keep them back. “Suna, get Annette to safety!”

She nodded and hurried over to them.

If you'd like to know more about Red Hood check out the Beautiful Books link up Part one, two, and, three, and Claes and Mor's interviews!

Subsapien Biomech:

Soon he could hear footsteps, then five graftings ran into Bryce’s section of the maze. They were as tall as Emil, at least six feet each. All of them had wings and tails and other animals parts from all of the different kinds of graftings. They all only wore hospital pants except the one female who wore a bra too.

Their eyes were either black from their dilated pupils or constricted until their pupils were just a slit. Their teeth were bared, their tails swished, their wings were spread aggressively, claws out and the line of hair going up their backs standing on end. They approached Bryce slowly.

They were going to kill him.

If you'd like to know more about Subsapien Biomech, check out a tag about it as well as Bryce, Caleb, Pro, Cynara, Judah, Able, and Matt's interviews. ^ ^

The seven souls doomed to be tagged:
Cassidy Clayton @ The Wanderings (And Wonderings) of a Wildheart
Deborah O'Carroll @ The Road of a Writer
Samantha Smith @ Snow White
Cassia Taylor @ Dimensions of My Universe
Leah K. Oxendine @ Apassionata
Storyteller SilverLoom @ Storyyeller A Writers Journey
Tracy Dyck @ Tracy Dyck Adventure Awaits

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed a little sneak peek of my stories and thank you for reading! Have you done this tag before? What are some short excerpts from your stories?

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Wonderful Word Wednesday: Simulacrum

It's Wonderful Word Wednesday again! Do you as a writer ever struggle finding that perfect word to describe something or you want to shake your writing up with some new words? Each Wednesday I post hand-picked descriptive words for writers and other vocabulary nerds out there. ;)

simulacrum

noun, plural simulacra [sim-yuh-ley-kruh]

1.) a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance.

2.) an effigy, image, or representation:

a simulacrum of Aphrodite.

Example Sentence: A statue in front of the manor, provided a simulacrum of Mor's ancestor, Aithne Galbraith.

Mor, my main character from my steampunk fantasy Red Hood.

Have you seen or used this word before? What do you think of it?

If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! :)

Click here for last week's word!

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Tea Tuesday: Serenitea

I'm not really a coffee person. I prefer tea, and I know a lot of fellow writers love tea, too. But have you ever wanted to break out of the Early Grey or English Breakfast norm and try something new? Well, let me help you find some cool new teas! If you need a little hot and flavorful boost to help you reach your writing goal or you're just a lover of tea or you'd like to try some tea but aren't fond of the stereotypical types, these Tea Tuesday posts are for you.

This weeks tea is ...

*drum roll*

Serenitea

How I found it: I'm back with another fandom set from Adagio Teas. I've had my eyes on this one for a while and now I've finally gotten the Firefly set! Shiny! Any Firefly fans out there? Then this is the set for you. I'll be reviewing the six teas of this set: Serenitea, Captain Mal, Inara, Zoe, Jayne, and River Tam.

This is the same site I bought the Avengers set,Sherlock set, Tolkien set, Avatar: the Last Airbender set, Doctor Who set, Attack on Titan set, RWBY set, and Divergent set from!

The Tea: This blend fits the good ol' boat Serenity so well! The smoothness and smokiness of the gunpowder reminded me of the ship's might and the Asian flavor of the Firefly world. The hazelnut reminded me of the fact that's it's a home and a bit of the Western flavor of the show, and the spearmint gave a hint of the serenity the ship was named after as it cruises through space. Lastly, the marigold and safflower remind me of the sweet memories spent on the ship. I think this tea would definitely have Captain Mal's seal of approval. Speaking of him his review's up next! I could see the Firefly crew sipping this tea after a hard day's work.

Serving Recommendations: I steeped this tea for five minutes and added sugar.

How much is it and where can you get it? You can find this tea at the Adagio website. I bought this tea in a sample set which was about $22 including shipping and you get a goodly amount of tea since you only need about a teaspoon per cup. Some of these teas you can buy individually for about $10 a pouch.

So how good is it? I give this tea four shiny stars! It is unique and perfectly fitting for the fandom it's made for!

Have you tried this tea? What did you think of it? Have you seen Firefly? Who's your favorite character?

Bonus! If you are a first-time Adagio customer I can send you a $5 giftcard! Ask in the comments for details! (This is no joke and no catch I seriously can. It's part of the amazingness of Adagio Teas)

Click here for last week's tea!

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Soundtrack Sunday: Sadness and Sorrow (Naruto)

It's Soundtrack Sunday again! The day where I post awesome music to write to or just listen to for pleasure if you're a fellow soundtrack junkie. Along with my superhero kick of late the latest of season of Naruto Shippuden is coming out ... oh ... so ... slowly. I love this show so much and I love the score almost even more. It has so much power to it.

This is one of my favorite pieces from Naruto. It is so touching and a beautiful mix of both Western and traditional Eastern instruments in this beautiful harmony with this heartbreaking piano section near the end. Perfect for writing one of those heart to heart moments in your novel. You can listen to more epic music in my Soundtrack Sundays YouTube playlist.

Have you heard this piece before? What do you think of it? Have you seen or read Naruto?

Click here for last week's Soundtrack Sunday!

Saturday, May 16, 2015

7 Tips on How to Give Your Shorts Stories the Power of a Tornado, A Guest Post by Cassia Taylor

This week is a very special post, because one of my good writing buddies Cassia Taylor is guest posting for us today! I'm so excited! I've been trying to get her here forever. Since I don't specialize in short stories, I've gotten my lovely friend to write on that. I hope you enjoy her tips! On to the post!

Among the writers I’ve met, not many who write short stories. Usually it has something to do with not being able to make a story short. As writers, we’re in love with developing our own unique world and exploring backstories of characters. We love having subplots and battles and confronting side characters that will become important later and it’s hard to cram all of that into a few pages.

It took me a lot of time and effort to get to the point where I could shrink an idea so it didn’t runaway on me and become its own trilogy. Now that I’ve gotten there, I can say with certainty that knowing how to write a great short story will help you with your other writing endeavors.

Before we begin, I’d like to answer the inevitable question: word count. Ideally your short story should be under 7,500 words. Any more and you might as well be writing a novelette. (up to 17,500 words) If you’re writing a short story to get published though, I would recommend capping it at half of that (taking into consideration the magazine limit as well). I’ve learned that most magazines pay per word so the shorter your story, the less they have the pay you and the more likely they are to accept your work. If you’re just writing for fun, go all out!

Now let’s get onto the good stuff!

1.) Short Stories are like Tornadoes, Novels are like Hurricanes - This is my way of seeing the differences and similarities between the two mediums. A short story will roar past you all at once, covering specific thematic areas. It throws you into chaos suddenly but briefly. When it’s over you’re left wondering what in the world that storm was and where it came from. Then you look back on its path and think about the ‘damage’ it’s done.

A novel takes longer to get through—just like a hurricane, it’s quite large. However just like the tornado, you will look back on the storm when it passes and observe the after effects of it.

When you put the two storms side by side, the hurricane covers a much larger area whereas the tornado had one path and did its damage in a more concentrated area.

Make sense? Great! Let’s move on.

2.) Know Your Theme Before You Write - What are you going to tell the world? What questions do you want the readers to ask? Like a novel or poetry, this is your chance to express your worldview and opinion on a topic.

In short stories, the theme is incredibly important because every element of the story must surround that one central idea. In a novel you can explore many different themes and sub-themes but not with shorts. You must know what you will focus on while you write.

Once you choose your topic, I suggest you figure out your ending. Your ending will dictate exactly what you’re trying to say about your chosen topic. Since the ending is the reader’s last taste of your opinion, you need to finish the story correctly. If you don’t, the reader may make a conclusion that you didn’t intended for them to make. Think carefully about this one.

3.) Assume Your Readers are Detectives - You don’t have a lot of words to deal with so you can’t afford to space out your backstory like you would in your novel. (And that definitely means no dumping either.)

Instead, drop the slightest hints. You do these things in novels too but in shorts, these things don’t ever need to be explained fully. Based on the other evidence you give, your reader should be able to piece it together without even delving too much into interior monologue. You should know the backstory inside and out but your readers might never get to and that’s okay.

4.) Keep Your Characters and Settings to a Minimum - Too much of either will overwhelm your reader and take away from your message. While I was in Florida for the Florida Christian Writer’s Conference, I attended a workshop where I was told that a good reference is one character for every 300-500 words. I wrote a short that’s 700 words, has one setting and two characters and guess what? A magazine picked it up!

While you want your story to be complex, adding characters and settings isn’t the best way to do that. You want to add depth, not breadth to you story.

5.) You Don't Have to Name Your Characters - Not a lot of people know this one so I want to address it. In our novels, naming characters is important because we have a lot of them and we also spend a lot of time with them so naturally we want to know who they are. When it comes to short stories though, we can afford to leave out names. For one, we don’t have as many of them, and for two, we don’t spend a lot of time with them either so there’s not as much of a urge to know their name.

When I think about the shorts I’ve writing, I think 98% of my protagonists are nameless. Wait, what? Why?

I find this has a very meaningful effect. By leaving your protagonist nameless you give the reader the opportunity to insert himself or herself into the position of the character. Especially when you write in first person, you let them be the protagonist. Your theme suddenly will become more relevant to your reader because the story now seems like it’s about them.

When writing in third person, you can refer to your character as “the man” or “the girl” or “the old lady” and it gives a more distant perspective. Depending on how you write it and what the story is about it can have one of two effects.

1. The character can be paralleled to anyone or even represent humanity as a whole.

2. The character is in the midst of a crisis of some sort and is unsure of who they are, how to move on, what a certain event means for them etc.

If you choose to name your character, keep it simple and be aware of the fact that some names may date your story. I personally try to stay away from alternate spellings or anything that sounds like it could be in a YA dystopia.

In my opinion, shorts should be about the character’s journey and not the character itself; so for me, the characters’ names in my shorts don’t matter. (Wait until I name the characters in my novel though! I’ll pull an all-nighter for that one.)

6.) You Have the Elements of Surprise So Use It Well! - Unless a friend recommended a short story to you and told you the premise, you probably will pick up a short story not knowing what to expect. There’s no back cover synopsis to tell you anything.

Like a tornado, they come a little more unexpectedly than a hurricane. Hurricanes are forecasted many days before just as novels have a back cover to tell you what they’ll be like. However, use this power wisely. Confusing the reader is not what we want to do but the shock value has the potential to go up.

7.) Short Stories are No Excuse to Be Lazy with Writing - Yes, you have less words but that’s no reason to make your story simple. Before I write a short story, I’ll map out symbols, extended metaphors, archetypal elements, motifs, and setting elements that all relate back to the theme. Your short story should have the capability of delivering the same thematic message as a novel just in a different way.

It’s just like the tornado and hurricane analogy. Both leave an impact, just one covers more ground than other.

So there’s my super short crash course on short stories. I could probably go on for a while but I’ll refrain. If you have any questions though, feel free to ask away in the comments below. I’ll be lurking on Tori’s blog (sorry, Tori, I didn’t ask permission to lurk) so that I can answer anything you want to know.

Have you written any short stories? Do you have further questions about short stories? What is a favorite short story you have read?

Cassia Taylor is the kind of person who wears jeans and zip-up hoodies in the summer but is stubborn to bring a jacket anywhere in the icy Canadian winters. She’s an aspiring novelist who hopes to use her writing to share God’s truth with the world. In the meantime, she writes for the faith/life blog, “9words”, writes and films visual poetry and takes her camera outside to capture story through everyday life. Soon she is the be published in Imaginate and Splickety magazines for her poetry and short stories. You can find her on her blog Dimensions of My Universe.

Victoria here! Thank you so much to Cassia for guest posting! Be sure to check out her blog and leave her lots of wonderful comments!

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Reeling In Your Reader: A Guest Post by Lauren Claire

Nine Ways to Meet Writer Friends: A Guest Post by Lauren Claire

Do You Lack Passion in Your Writing? A Guest Post by Lauren Claire

An Interview with Author Bryan Davis

Friday, May 15, 2015

Interview with Dina (Red Hood)

Me:

*sitting in my room with my laptop in a chair* Hey, everybody! Today I'm interviewing Dina Muir, a secondary character from my steampunk fantasy Red Hood. If you'd like to learn a bit about her before reading the interview, check out her bio. Thank you, everyone who submitted questions! These interviews really help me develop characters! If you'd like to get some tips about interviewing characters, I wrote a post all about it! Now without further ado let's get to it! Hello, Dina!

Dina:

*sitting in a chair to my left like in a late night talk show, English accent* Hello, Victoria.

Me:

Are you ready to get started with questions?

Dina:

*smiles* Very. I'm so excited to be finally interviewed!

Me:

All right then. The first one is from Jamie Terry: How did you and Mor become friends? You sound so opposite, it would seem like an unlikely friendship.

Dina:

I like that she is different from me. We balance each other out. She is courageous where I can be fearful and I am more sensitive where she can be more brash. *laughs softly* She can be a bit of a brute sometimes. We met when we were in a our first year of school. We sat in the very same class with each other and I did not have many friends and I was too bashful to talk to anyone. Mor sat in the desk next to me. She turned to me and said, "I am looking for a new friend and you look like a fine one." And we have been friends ever since.

Me:

Second question is from Amy Covel: Hello, Dina! Nice to meet you. You sound absolutely sweet.

Dina:

*blushes*

Me:

*smiles* What do you like about Mor, and have you ever made anything for her?

Dina:

She is strong and brave and she can be very considerate. She is fiercely loyal and she always has my back. I have made many things for her actually. I have mostly crafted shirts for her since she does not like dresses.

Me:

Next question, well, sort of question is from Annika Smith: Describe the best thing you've ever sewn.

Dina:

Oh I like this question! I made a lovely dress for my younger sister Colleen's tenth birthday. I saved up for silk and linen for the dress and embroidered the fabric with tiny dresses. It turned out so wonderfully. *grins*

Me:

Here is another from Amy Covel: Do you sew gifts for other people?

Dina:

Oh yes. That is usually my Winter Festival present for everyone and birthday and summer festival. I believe all my gifts are something sewn. *giggles*

Me:

The next question is from Cassidy Clayton: Hey, Dina! So, a lot of my questions have already been asked (I suppose that's what I get for procrastinating ^ ^'. ) Along the same lines as Amy, if you've made gifts, what sort of things have you made to give away?

Dina:

Lots and lots of things! Shirts and dresses and corsets and bodices and gloves and pants and jackets. I made Claes a lovely gray blue jacket. He needed a new one so badly.

Me:

Last one from Cassidy Clayton: Also along a similar vein, do you design your own new patterns as well as making of the basics?

Dina:

Oh yes. I have designed a lot of new dresses and jackets. I should have brought some of my patterns. I did not think of that. Blast.

Me:

And another from Annika Smith: What about your favorite [thing to sew]?

Dina:

Dresses definitely. I love doing dresses.

Me:

Here come the deep stuff I've been telling you about.

Dina:

*nods firmly* I'm ready.

Me:

First deep question is from Amy Covel: How does it feel being forced into a "job" that's not your dream? How do you cope with that?

Dina:

It does not feel very pleasant. I am skilled at being a Red Hood. I mean, I am quite the markswoman if I do say so myself, but my heart is not into it like Mor's is. I cope with it by prayer and holding out for some measure of hope that somehow I can leave the Red Hoods.

Me:

And the last deep question is from Sara Letourneu: My question for Dina would be, "How do you feel knowing that you can't pursue your dream to be a seamstress/tailor? Are you OK with doing it as a side hobby?"

Dina:

It is discouraging. Sometimes sewing feels pointless but it is what makes me happy. It allows me to cope with being forced into being a Red Hood. I wish so badly I could do it as a career, but if all I can do is have it as a hobby I rather do that. I love creating beautiful things to wear and making people feel pretty or handsome. Phew. That wasn't too bad. *smiles nervously*

Me:

I hope you all liked Dina and if you'd like to know more about her book and her fellow characters check out Mor and Claes's character interviews and more in the My Characters tab and/or check out more about their book in the My Books tab. Have a good day! And thanks for reading!

Dina:

Farewell and thank you for the lovely questions!