This week on Writers’ Bloc, we talk about the Protect IP Act [PIPA] and Stop Online Piracy Act [SOPA], address what makes the internet awesome, and bring a call to action for writers everywhere to oppose these bills.
***Update***
Apparently the ESA is backing off their support of both PIPA and SOPA as of today. Good news, good news. :]
Life is busy! It’s hard to make episodes for the video series as often as I’d like to. The kinda bi-weekly thing works though, so you’ll still get your fill there.
That being said, blogging is REALLY easy. And it’d be nice to see the WB Tumblr more active. Which is why we’d like to start something of a writers’ help center.
If you have any question - any at all - about writing, crafting fiction, making a novel, or something even a bit theoretical (those are the fun questions!), ask it. Spam our ask box, and we’ll respond to the best of our abilities. Who knows, your question might even get featured in a future video.
Source: swellerando
- Don’t try so hard. Struggling over the wording of every single sentence will just cause an enormous thought blockage. Let the words flow for a while. If you really need to adjust the prose, you can do that later.
- Keep going. Sometimes the best way to break out of writer’s block is just to keep calm and carry on.
- Go somewhere. The best inspiration comes from things you discover. Walk someplace. Watch people. Staring at a screen or a piece of paper for hours won’t do you any good. Don’t force the ideas to come, just wait for them and then run with it when they do.
- Keep a notebook and pen. Getting an idea and having no place to keep it is no fun at all.
- Don’t think too much. If you get an idea, take it and GO. Try to write as soon as you can. It doesn’t matter if you have no idea where it’s going. I find that the best plots form while I’m writing, not when I’m sitting around try to think through everything. If you keep it in your head too long, it may get stale and you’ll find yourself losing interest.
- Remember that everyone writes differently. Some prefer a pen and paper, some prefer a computer. Some like to outline and strategize, some like it footloose and fancy-free. Some like music and noise, some need the stark silence of outer space before they feel like they can concentrate. Don’t feel like you aren’t doing it right just because someone else goes about it differently.
- Chances are you aren’t as bad as you think you are. Don’t worry.
- The beginning is not always the very best place to start. Sorry, Von Trapp family. You can write it any way you want. That’s the beauty of writing.
- Read books. Watch movies. Not only can they show you ways of doing things you may have never even thought about, they’re also brilliant in the inspiration department. We’re not looking for plaigarism here, just the sorts of things that make your imagination run wild. So find something really good, something that makes you say, “I want to write like that!”
- Remember: You can do this.
Lemme get real with y’all for a minute or two.
I tend to write fantasy, personally. And I also happen to be pretty liberal, so sexual equality and the whole LGBT (what a horrible looking acronym…) community are a pretty big deal to me. Thus, I’d really like to incorporate ideas of sexual equality and gayness into my fantasy novels, when I’m confronted with an odd problem.
Most of you all probably are aware of tropes (we mentioned it briefly in our video on zombies). In fantasy, one of those cliché, good ol’ tropes - a perfect plotline archetype - is “prince saves damsel in distress.” You’ve heard it a million times; we love it as readers because it’s just so dynamic and fun. All about the perfect man who loves his lover without waiver, and must fight all that stands in his way to save his true love, so they can be happily ever after. Think about the film The Princess Bride for further detail. It’s a plotline that’s been around since the middle-ages, and we’re going to see the plotline for the rest of our lives. And I think that’s a good thing, because it never gets old. I think the fact that there are so many Legend of Zelda games is testament to that.
Naturally, as a novelist, I want to incorporate my interests - including sexual equality - into my fantasy novels, including the ones that incorporate this archetype of story structure. Here’s the problem: I need diversity in protagonists.
The damsel-in-distress type of story isn’t nailed down to man-saves-woman. Of course, any prince could save his prince, and likewise for women. But suddenly, if you make your main protagonists gay, you’re faced with an opposing difficulty: now you have lost a male/female protagonist. You rob your story of diversity while making a distinct inclusion for a different type of diversity. As much as I love sexual diversity, I also love gender diversity. I like boys and girls in my story, and I like my central characters to be diverse as well. Thus, all my working novels have featured a mixed cast, and by extension, heterosexual protagonists.
I’m torn. I want to offer homosexual protagonists or at least bisexual relationships in fantasy - there are so few gay protagonists in fantasy - yet don’t wish to destroy the dynamic that the archetype offers of boys and girls. It’s a tough call for me. We here at Writers’ Bloc try to give straight answers and thorough explanations on fiction construction, but this is one of the places where we honestly have to shrug our shoulders. There are no right answers here.
So this begs the question, what do YOU - as a writer - like to do with hetero/homo/bi characters in your story? Is it a big deal for you? Or is it something you leave completely absent?
This is exactly the problem I have encountered with writing my story! I wrote a killer beginning, and some really great things coming up — but I’m stuck at that boring part in between these things. I’ve already gotten everyone’s attention with a suspenseful introduction to this little world I’ve created, but now I’m at the boring part, where the world needs to be explained and less-important characters introduced.
So let’s take a look at some great advice, and maybe bust out of this slump together!
All moments in all of my novels are always, constantly cool. Even when they involve characters throwing bottles of alcohol at each other or refusing to take phone calls for days. This article was helpful though. ^_^
It’s always hard knowing part A of your plot arc, and the wonderful ending known as part Z…and having only the faintest idea of what happens inbetween.
(via ashleygravlin-deactivated201207)
Source: seizethestarsblog
Source: young-writer-diariesThis week’s article will about the famous and feared writer’s block, that every writer has already experienced at least once. If it’s called in French the syndrome de la page blanche (“blank page syndrome”) there’s a good reason : sometimes, no matter how motivated you are to write something, you just sit there, in front of your screen or your notebook, and you stare at the page, and feel like your mind is empty. You try to write, but the only words you manage to put on your paper or document don’t have any sense, and actually, you even sometimes feel like you weren’t maybe meant to be a writer, that this book was a terrible idea, that you’re never going to end it and it will stay forever in your forgotten drawers… But, my friends, don’t despair, I have the solution !
- Skip the moment where you ended your story last time you wrote a bit and wrote about a moment, maybe far away in time from where you are stuck, but that interests you. Let’s make an example. Your two main characters are sitting in the cafeteria, they’ve already talked a lot, and you don’t know how the hell they’ll arrive at that moment where they’re supposed to… let’s say they’re supposed to kiss. Well, just write the kiss ! I assume that if you’re like me, you probably know in details how that kiss is going to happen, when, why, and you may have pictured it in your head and seen it so many times, like a movie, that it’s going to be really easy for you to write it. So, just write it ! Once you did, get back to that damn moment in the cafeteria, and you normally will know now how they are going to become more-than-just-friends.
- If it hasn’t worked, try to remove the scene you just wrote. That moment was maybe useless, but that doesn’t mean your whole story is ! Sometimes, just after erasing a few lines or paragraphs, everything gets better and you finally can catch a glimpse at the end of the long tunnel that is your novel - or you can finally notice the thick line of land after months of sailing the ocean, that’s how you prefer to see it.
- If 2. hasn’t worked either, maybe you should remove one character. OK, that solution is maybe a little bit… drastic but you know, it sometimes works very well. You can just suddenly realize that that character was “useless” in your story, that he/she was here but if he/she disapeared, it wouldn’t change anything, so why don’t I delete him/her ? After all, your characters are just fictional people, people you may love, consider as friends, family, but they do remain fictional characters. About that option, if there is some characteristics you particularly like in that character you’re about to delete, you can transfer them to other characters - that’s what I did for one of my characters.
You know, sometimes you’re stuck because you’d rather go on Facebook than writing what’s happening next, or because you fear that your novel won’t be good enough to get published or even to be read and loved. But you have to be brave, and always remember that it’s courage that make writers writers. I want to end this week’s article on a quote from Lauren Oliver, which an author I do admire very much, and that said “Don’t worry about what you’re writing or whether it’s good or even whether it makes sense”.
Manon.
Once again, I hope I’ve helped you ! Next week’s article will about the focalizations. See you next week !
In this week’s Writers’ Bloc, we talk about some cool digital applications that can help with you as a novelist!
