Scribbled Fiction

Inflicting terrible things on characters is the number one way to create sympathy for them. And where there is sympathy, there are readers who will continue to read your book to make sure that things turn out for your characters. And usually they do. But in the middle (*crazy laugh*) bad things happen to your characters. Terrible, eclectic assortments of injuries, embarrassments, friend fights, and moments of crying into threadbare pillows behind closed doors come flying toward the characters like so many dodge balls on the playground. Ah, how I love tortured moments. These moments will have all the readers in complete agony for the characters, longing to yank them out of their nest of problems and give them a cup of hot chocolate and some TLC. But they can't. So the characters are left all alone to weep over their problems. And the best part is, as the writer, these problems are all your fault. You're welcome. And now I present to you (drum roll please): The stages...

Prince of Persia. Power Rangers Super Charge. Ninjago Season 6. And from what I've heard, Flash (the series). All of these have gotten themselves into such a big mess by the end that they have to go back in time and undo it all just to fix their own mistakes. Time travel is nothing but trouble, and we can all thank our lucky stars no idiot has invented it yet in real life. While it sounds appealing to be able to visit people who lived long ago, or see what the future looks like, doing that would mess everything up. If we traveled to the past, our very presence there would change everything. If we traveled to the future, we would find out what happened in our own time, and our knowledge of that would still screw up time. Because whether we meant to or not, we would change our actions, therefore changing the future we just saw. And now that I'm thinking about it, since the future is constantly in flux, would it even be possible to travel there? But I'm getting off topic....

"Main Characters can't have parents! They never do! Mine shouldn't, either! " Don't make me laugh. The life of an orphan shouldn't be the first thing we hand to our characters when we create them. I mean, come on! Quick, think of a Disney character, any Disney character. Nine and a half out of ten of them won't have any parents... or they're missing a parent... or all they have left is an evil step parent... or, like the Fab Five, they seem to have appeared out of thin air and don't have any parents to speak of (the fab five are Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto, in case you didn't know). With almost any other character in fiction, it's exactly the same. Now think of someone you know. Chances are, that person has two parents. So, if fictional characters are supposed to be realistic.... uh, why don't they have any parents? I think the basic problem with parents is this: Unless the character is an adult...

Well, um, hi there. If you're one of the first ones on the blog, here to see this post as it goes live for the first time, welcome and thanks for helping me get started. For those who have dug deep through the old files for this blog's first post, this is the ancient history you were looking for. My first post! This first one isn't anything special or interesting, just me telling you what my blog will be like. I wanted to do a writer blog, one of the many thousands out there, but I wanted to do something a little different. There will be a few posts here with helpful tips for writing better, just like the other writer blogs, but that's not what I want this blog to be about. I want this blog to be about being a writer. Being a writer isn't all sipping tea at seven in the morning while you type on your 1870's typewriter, and it's not just about staring off into the distance in your bathrobe with your best melancholy face on. It's full of t...