Writer Fuel

Free food. That's the best part about the writing center on campus. Ok, so I can't actually say that for sure, since the free food is the only reason I've ever gone in there. For instance, last semester, they were having an open house with lemonade and cookies. I had no plans to actually make an appointment or anything, but I wanted lemonade and cookies - so I went in.

Today, and actually, all of this week, it's International Writing Centers Week or something like that, so they have free food just about every day this week. So Wednesday (today) was Waffles for Writers Wednesday.

In other words, I went in there and hung out, eating waffles with butter and blueberries and whipped cream (yes, there was syrup, but I didn't use it) and sort of writing on my laptop. Waffles were delicious. And I was quite excited to hear that they'd like to make it a monthly thing. xD Writing...well, I didn't get past a page of new stuff I don't think...and the quality of my writing degenerated the further I went. Oh well - that's what editing is for.

I plan to visit the writing center on Friday too - there's going to be chocolate fondue. In the morning there'll be donut holes, and in the afternoon, bananas and strawberries. Yum. (I'm a great fan of chocolate.) Perhaps I'll ask if they'll help me with editing my novel. Since I'm fairly sure anybody who's seen even a corner of it knows it's...well, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Although waffles and chocolate fondue is all well and good - not to mention delicious - it doesn't really make for the best writing food, since both require at least one hand. This alone is not a big deal. It's the fact that both have the potential to be rather messy. I prefer to avoid splattering chocolate, butter, and syrup on my laptop as I'm writing, and I can not stand typing with messy fingers. So for me, food that I have when I'm writing is usually finger-food that isn't messy. So dry food...say, granola. Trail mix. Not chips though, much as I like them, because they're greasy.

I know some people have food and/or drink that they habitually have whenever they sit down to write. I don't have that, although I enjoy food and drink - even though it slows me down. Are you like me, and generally don't have to have food/drink when you write, or do you need something (a cup of coffee, a piece of fruit, anything) when you write?

Grab Your Quill - Let's Write: Overall Structure

I know that some of you will have seen this on Shelfari, but for the rest of the people who view this blog, here is a bit I wrote on overall structure - these will come somewhere around monthly, and will probably be more continuous (maybe) than the other posts I do, which are just whatever I feel like writing at the time. Hope you enjoy!

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As a writer, I have no fear of writing long passages - I hope you won't be afraid of reading this one. A lot of you will probably already know this stuff, but I figured it would be best to start at the beginning for this writing corner. And where better to start than with structure? Enjoy. :)

Everybody knows that in any good story, there's a beginning, middle, and end. A good beginning will hook the reader, the middle will keep their interest and force them to keep turning pages as fast as they can, and an end will satisfy them while still leaving them wanting more. Some people describe the structure of a story through what's known as the 3 Act structure. This is basically three Acts, like in a play, with two Plot Points in-between the acts.

The first Act is the beginning of it all, and the first Plot Point is what I call the trigger point. Some people include backstory in the first Act, but if you're writing a more lengthy work, it's actually better to work this backstory into the later Acts as needed, rather than dumping it all at the beginning – that's called an info dump.

Info dumps are characteristically very boring because they take too long to get to the action. As numerous little kids have said, "When do we get to the good stuff?"

The first Plot Point, or the trigger point, is the point where something happens that causes the rest of the story. Perhaps this is your main character deciding he (or she) is going to take a vacation in Egypt, but then the plane crashes in the middle of the desert, where he/she is stranded. Fortunately for him, he encounters a tribe of desert dwellers, who, although they don't speak English, take care of him. Unfortunately for him, these same desert dwellers who are so kindly taking care of him are also under attack by another tribe – then your main character finds out they want to use him as barter.

This brings me to Act 2. Although the reasons behind your main character's decision to go to Egypt might be in Act 1, and his actual decision to go, or perhaps when his plane crashes, would be the trigger point, all the stuff I said after that are additional problems or conflicts. Act 2 comprises of all the conflict and problems that your main character encounters. These conflicts will escalate through Act 2 until the final crisis comes. This crisis is the second Plot Point, or the climax.

As a note, when escalating conflicts, you don't want to simply throw the same thing at your character over and over. Having one dinosaur attacking your character, and then having twelve dinosaurs attacking your character won't escalate the tension in your story (you want to build this to the climax) nearly as well as if the conflicts change each time so that your main character has to adapt.

The second Plot Point, or climax, is the final push in the story. This is where everything is on the line. This is the point where something happens and suddenly, there is hope again that everything will be all right. (The exception to this is if you're writing a tragedy, in which case you should just kill everybody off.)

Finally, we have Act 3. Because it is nearly impossible to hold a reader's attention for very long after you've finished with the great crisis that your poor main character had to suffer through, it is generally a good idea to wrap everything up and finish. If you're planning a sequel, or just want your reader to keep reading, you can also throw in a question that you don't answer, even though all the loose ends of the story are wrapped up.

There's a lot more about structure I could say, but hopefully this wasn't too boring, and it helps – look for more about each of these (the three Acts and the Plot Points) in the future!

Award!

First of all, thanks to Ella at Musings in Ink for giving me the Versatile Blogger Award! I was completely unaware there were awards like that. :) I'm also slightly amazed that anybody actually reads my blog. But anyway. Requirements for the award as follows!

Requirements

- Link to the blogger who gave you the award.

- Share 7 things about yourself.

- Pass the award to 15 bloggers recently discovered. (<--I can do this now!)

- Notify the blogger recipients.

So, I've completed the first requirement (thanks again Ella!) - 7 things about myself.

1. The first thing I thought of when I saw 7 things was the Miley Cyrus song, and I'm ashamed of myself. :)
2. The title of my blog, Normal is Boring, is a quote from my great-aunt. Who said it several years ago. Yes, I loved it, and hence it is up there in great big letters.
3. I have written *counts* three novels (ok, almost...two of them still need endings) and yet, none of them are fit for human consumption.
4. I just went to look up "consumption" because I thought, as I was writing the word, "Isn't that a disease?" (In case you were wondering, it is. Specifically progressive wasting away of the body, especially due to pulmonary tuberculosis. Don't ask me to define that...I'll just tell you it's something to do with lungs. But consumption does have another meaning, which is what I originally intended.)
   
5. I would love to be published - preferably a novel. Although I think traveling on a tour would be absolutely terrifying.
6. I believe my right arm is becoming/is stronger than my left arm, mostly due to the fact that I always lift my backpack with my right arm...and that thing is heavy!
7. I'm an incredible night owl. If I could, I would sleep from 6 or 7 AM to 7 PM, and then be awake for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, I have not been successful at getting the rest of the world to follow this. My plans for world domination have been stalled!

And now for my 15 blogs! Except...we'll just say this is 15.

Evergreena's Treehouse
Glittering Compositions
Living, Learning, Eating
Sweets Galore
The Writing Kind
Scribbles and Shorts

Woot woot! Off to let them know!

And Then and Then and Then...

And then I suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth! And then I came back. And then I complained about school and whatnot to some friends who kindly listened to me. And then...wait, are you falling asleep? That's not a very polite thing to do when somebody's telling you a story.

And yet, that is exactly what we all tend to do when somebody tells a story. Any good writer knows how, whether consciously or subconsciously, to show a story. Heck, any reader knows how to tell between a story that is told and a story that is shown - mainly because told stories are boring. From this comes the Golden Rule of writers:

Show, Don't Tell.

This is one of the most basic fundamentals of story telling, and yet, it is often the one that many people miss. I'm sure you all either remember being a kid who tells stories with "and then"s the whole way through, or have at least seen a kid who did this.

(You all? What am I, Texan? A Texan with a northern accent?)

When an author shows, rather than tells, the story, it is much more vibrant to the reader. For example:

The rain was cold.

This is not nearly as effective, or image-inducing (no, you aren't supposed to slip hallucinatory drugs to your readers...just supposed to make them think you did) as:

The rain froze my skin.

Or:

I shivered, my body protesting the icy fingers that slid down my neck.

The second one here also uses personification, which is a way to create relatable, vivid imagery for your reader. (There are other tricks for this too, and I'll have another blog post on them some other time.)

As an author, it is your job to put me into your story so I can see it for my own eyes. I don't want a second hand account, seen through your eyes, I want to see it for myself. As a reader, you demand this from an author. Show, don't tell, and not only will your story be much more interesting, but everyone will be happy. :)

Strange Skies

Woot! I just did my first songskirmish of the year! By just, I mean today...it was a few hours ago.

For those of you who don't know, a songskirmish is when a bunch of FAWMers (i.e. people doing FAWM) set a time. At the appointed time, they all converge on the designated forum thread for the revealing of the title. This title is then used for a song that each person (individually) creates.

The catch? The song has to be written in under an hour.

It's super fun, and I encourage any of you that like to compose to attempt it sometime, even if you aren't doing FAWM. This time, the title was "Strange Skies". Since I'm slightly sick, I decided to make it instrumental. Not only that, but I kind of failed at doing it in under an hour - I spent about two hours working on it. I still don't think it's quite perfect yet. But in any case, check it out on Youtube - link below!

Strange Skies

FAWM

I've been utterly failing at 60k/60day. But regardless of that, I'm joining FAWM! What is FAWM you ask? FAWM stands for February Album Writing Month, and it's a challenge to write 14 songs during February. This year, since it's a leap year, the quota is 14 and a half songs. :)

In case you didn't figure it out, that's a song every two days. *eyes calendar* It's nearly the 4th. Number of songs I've produced? A grand total of *drumroll* zero.

This isn't to say I haven't had a good reason for it. It's midterms time, and I've got a cold, which makes it nearly impossible to sing well enough that I would dare listen to it myself, much less unleash it on the rest of the world. But really, those are just excuses. I can play other instruments...there's no reason I can't create an instrumental song.

Oh well. I've promised myself that as soon as I catch up on my homework, I'll spend a day and devote it to writing music. Phew.

Questions for you: What instrument(s) do you play, and would you do FAWM? The second one is really more me trying to get you to do it with me so I can get my butt kicked into action occasionally. ;)