Tag: fiction

Emotions are hard.

G. Derek Adams10 Comments
Catbus dislikes your prose.

My beloved gave me some constructive criticism on my writing recently, and of course I handled it maturely.

Which is to say, I was dismissive, hurt -and jerked my knee REAL HARD. Rejecting what she said out of hand, and refusing to accept any remote validity to her statement.

Fifteen minutes later I realized she had a point.

Then I pouted for a day or so.

Then the crying.

And now that I’ve processed, I’m ready to obliquely admit that she had a point, a small point.

[Read: She was completely right.]

Her criticism was:

Since you write in third person exclusively, you have a tendency to not show character’s emotions. I understand that you’re trying to “show, not tell” — but I’d like to get more inside the character’s heads, and get a sense of their emotions. [Heavily paraphrased, she’s the one with the eidetic memory.]

I read back through a few pieces, and I can totally agree with this assessment. And while I’m always going to err on the side of allowing my audience to make their own conclusions about characters — I feel this is a tool I need to be able to master, because it can be extremely effective.

So, my question is: How do I do this, without my stuff sounding like a Harlequin romance?

I can’t just write “The mage was sad. Her sadness was strong, and full of more sadness.”

Can I?

Opinions, suggestions, and examples if you got ’em!

Worldbuilders: Auctions for Professional Critiques

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

One of my nerd-crushes, Pat Rothfuss, runs an excellent charity every year –raising money for Heifer International. Here’s the homepage for the Worldbuilders charity itself.

As I’m sure you all know, Pat wrote Name of the Wind and smells like cinnamon rolls at all times. He does a lot of work collecting donations from lots of published authors, and putting them up for lottery and auction via his blog — SHOW OFF.

However, one of the tastiest set of auctions every year is a brace of actual, honest-to-goodness professional critiques. All of the reviewers [including Pat himself] are industry legit – and I know there are probably several people here on WP who would be interested, and could benefit from an opportunity like this.

Remember, it’s all for charity — and if I had some scratch and a metric ton of more confidence in my unfinished manuscript of That Thing, I’d be jumping in on this hardcore.

Here’s the link: Auctions for Professional Critique.

 

Something old.

G. Derek Adams2 Comments

The dying villain drifted back to awareness a few hours after dawn.

A little girl with purple hair and empty eyes stood over him, holding a wooden mallet and a metal spike, cannibalized from a nearby conduit.

Philipp Dornbierer

A slow stream of green ichor dribbled from his eye sockets, but Izus managed to cock an eyebrow skeptically.

“You’re holding it all wrong.” he said, corruption burbling in his chest. “Don’t choke up so much on the handle, you won’t get a clean swing.”

Sinoe corrected her handhold on the hammer, and placed the tip of the spike surgically on his throat.

“I’m glad there’s someone with half a brain on this ship.” Izus said calmly. “Even though yours is just gears and wire.”

The construct carefully lined up the hammer with the top of the spike, and made a few practice swings -perfecting the arc. The mallet hit the spike with the lightest of chink sounds.

Sinoe raised the hammer to strike, then stopped.

“Problem?” Izus asked.

“Your death is the most logical conclusion to several sets of problems. It would benefit the overall well-being of the ship immediately, as well as prevent any possibility, however remote, of future danger from your actions or influence.” Sinoe replied.

“Absolutely.” the villain said. “Very sound reasoning.”

“But – I can’t.” the barest edge of confusion entered her mechanical tones. “I can’t. Something..old…won’t let me.”

Izus looked up towards the cargo bay ceiling for a moment, then angled his eyes towards Sinoe. The construct stood as still as a statue, still holding the hammer high.

“Too bad…too bad.” he said.

Fanfiction under Duress

G. Derek Adams7 Comments

They were warriors.

Gods of battle.

Heroes of legends forgotten.

Their hands were formed for the hilt of a sword, their eyes had seen red blood flow.

Demons of night, and unending legions of evil had fallen before them.

But tonight, no conflict had prepared them – no sword was sharp enough for this challenge.

Mooglesitting.

—–

The three men stood around the ornate brass crib, and stared at each other.

One was blonde, with sharp features — he grasped the brass bar tightly and tried to think of anything that would delay the inevitable.

The older man straightened his dark sunglasses, and grunted.

The final man pushed his long, dark hair out of his face and casually thumped the delicate blue stars that hung above the crib — the mobile spun, emitting a light jingle in protest.

“Well, I guess we should…”he began, making an indistinct gesture towards the crib’s occupant.

“…should…what?” the blonde man replied.

The older man said nothing.

“You know—“the dark haired man continued, repeating the same vague gesture.

“No — absolutely not.” the blonde man said firmly.

“We have to, it’s our duty.” the dark haired young man insisted.

“Is that some kind…of joke?” the blonde man said.

The two younger men locked eyes, then shifted their gaze to the older man wearing sunglasses.

The older man said nothing.

“Kupo.” the moogle chirped, rolling over onto it’s stomach.

The dark haired man shrugged, and pulled off his jacket. The collar was a fluffy mane of white fur. He laid it carefully on the floor, and rolled up his sleeves.

“So, you’re going to do it then?” the blonde man said hopefully.

“Can’t be too bad – I mean, look how cute they are…probably has cute…you know…” he stopped, his hands hovering over the crib.

“I guess.” the blonde man said.

The older man, straightened his sunglasses and pointed down into the crib.

“Baby’s crying. Our time is now.” he said.

The baby moogle sobbed. “Kupoooooooooo0-po-pooo.”

The three men leapt – the call of battle overcame all their hesitation. Each burned with a golden light,  their eyes gleamed with purpose.

The dark haired youth took off the soiled diaper.

The blonde man wiped.

The older man with sunglasses put on the new diaper.

“Kupo!” the infant moogle cooed, hanging on to the older man’s finger. It snuggled in, and quickly fell asleep.

The older man pulled his bottle with the other hand, and took a long swallow. He passed it wordlessly to the other men.

“We shall never speak of this.” he said quietly. “Ever. This is not our story.”

The other two nodded, and tiptoed quietly from the room.

 

Binky

G. Derek Adams1 Comment
Artist - skippylynn.tumblr.com

“Take Binky with you!” Scarlet sobbed into the summoner’s chest.

Carbunkle looked across the weeping philosopher’s head into the dead eyes of the monkey, Binky.

Binky put down the piece of toast he was slathering jam upon. With the jam-encrusted knife he drew three slashes of raspberry across his forehead.

Simian War Paint — Carbunkle recognized it immediately.

The monkey crunched down on his toast, and turned to pack his bag.

Escaped.

G. Derek Adams5 Comments

“Wake up, child.”, the cold voice said.

The dark figure stood over the rough brown blanket that covered the child, and the smooth stone slab that was the room’s only bed.

A patina of ice formed on the blanket as he approached. Candle-wick veins, wax-hands — long fingers snatched the blanket away.

Revealing only a pile of rubble, carefully placed.

The figure allowed himself a moment of appreciation at the child’s audacity.

Then he turned and called for his hounds.

Rough Writing Day

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

I see you, blank page.

Getting cocky — acting like you’re all that. AND A BAG OF CHIPS.

Well, guess what?

I’m about to soldier on – I’m going to write anyway.

I’m going to fill you with TERRIBLE PROSE.

Yeah, deal with that.

I might even put in some CLOUD DESCRIPTIONS and ADVERBS.

I’m crazy like that.

 

Setting Goals

G. Derek Adams13 Comments
VOLTRON?!?!?

I’ve set myself a writing schedule for the new year, where I need to complete five pages of my first draft each week. That may not seem super-ambitious, but I write when I have free moments at work, or a spare hour I can snatch at random. My live is not conducive to a set writing time each day — so five pages a week is a good stable amount that I can keep up. Just enough pressure to keep me working, but not so steep that I feel overwhelmed.

It’s been going well, honestly — I’ve stayed a couple of pages ahead, and haven’t had any difficulty staying on track. For example, this week my goal is 65 pages — and I’m sitting on 63 already. Next week the goal is 70 pages, the week after that 75.

My question is this: Should I stick to my writing schedule as-is, OR simply add five to whatever my page total is at the end of each week? So, if I finish this week at 67 pages, the next week’s goal is 72 pages.

What do you think? What works best for you?

Third Person Perspective Omega Gold – Championship Edition

G. Derek Adams5 Comments

In working on the rough draft of That Thing, I’m realizing more and more that I’m using the Third Person-Omniscient Perspective extensively AND I’m switching between two characters. I’m only doing it at natural breaks in the action, but I realize I’m quickly treading into the realm of FORBIDDEN FICTION.

I’m not going to stress out about it too much at the moment — if I hate it/think it’s confusing, I’ll restructure when I edit.

But — BUT. Anyone got some input on whether I’m freaking out about nothing, or if I should take this more seriously?

Get your grammar straight, son.