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mary rosenblum
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Hello all.
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mary rosenblum
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I hope you had a great week.
Can you believe that it's February?
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mary rosenblum
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Whew!
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mary rosenblum
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I'll be planting my peas
tomorrow.
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mary rosenblum
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If you're cold, go read some
of the responses I got to my writing prompts in the newsletter this week.
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mary rosenblum
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I wanted to get warmed up and
get warmed up I did.
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mary rosenblum
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I'm going to post some of my
'also rans' next week -- with a comment or two from me. Nothing I got was
'bad'. Some were just better than others. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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I wanted to talk about getting
a story from an idea tonight.
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mary rosenblum
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That stumps a lot of novice
writers. You get a great idea....but then what the heck do you do with it?
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mary rosenblum
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How do you get a plot, a good end,
all that stuff.
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xana
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Why are my stories easier to
construct in the shower than in front of a piece of paper?
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mary rosenblum
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I'm laughing, xana. For me
it's not the shower. It's either bed, at 3:30 am when I really need to be sleeping,
sigh, or it's while I"m out shoveling manure.
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mary rosenblum
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I think it's because you have
two different brain areas that get involved in story and the wrong one
takes over while you're staring at the screen or the page.
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mary rosenblum
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You have that conscious brain
--it's good at organizing. And then you have what I call the 'hind brain'.
That's the one you can't consciously control
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mary rosenblum
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but if you leave it alone it
tends to hand you that cool idea, way to get past the block, what have you
all by itself.
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xana
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Thankfully, I don't have to
shovel manure.
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mary rosenblum
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Hey, if it gets me ideas, I'll
shovel all day. :-) (And my garden loves it).
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xana
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Although i used to have to grade
math papers, and that's probably worse.
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mary rosenblum
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Worse. I don't have to THINK
while I shovel. :-)
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johnw
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Is there such a thing as
historical fiction short story?
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mary rosenblum
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Sure John. You do a short
story featuring Benjamin Franklin doing something and there you are.
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mary rosenblum
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Actually, some of the small,
less sweeping moments in history would make great short stories.
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geezer
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I found a good book. Plot and
Structure by James Scott Bell
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mary rosenblum
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Cool, geeze. Email me a review
and I'll publish it in the next newsletter. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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I've got email links all over
the issues.
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mary rosenblum
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While some ideas come to you
very specifically -- you instantly think of a character and a conflict and
you're set to go...
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mary rosenblum
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others might be much more
general. And when you end up with pro status, you get invited into a lot of
anthologies
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mary rosenblum
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and you get a theme. Period.
Write me a YA about wizards. Ten thousand words. Due date is June 1.
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mary rosenblum
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And then you are responsible
for coming up with plot and character, conflict and resolution, everything
from scratch.
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pendemon
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I am new to writing fiction. it's
hard to plan a story, but if i just sit and turn on my imagination and
write an idea might pop out.
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mary rosenblum
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That's a great way to do it,
pendemon. That's about what I do. Sometimes I write notes down, mostly any
more, I just think about it.
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mary rosenblum
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I read several good science
mags cover to cover, always looking for ideas. When I get one -- chickens
genetically engineered to lay eggs that contain drugs --
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mary rosenblum
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I grab it and then I have to
come up with a story.
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charie'
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Do you have a "file"
of potential characters, plots, conflicts, etc?
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mary rosenblum
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You bet, Charie. And I try
hard to forget it's there. So when I notice it on the hard drive one day
and think 'gee, what did I stick in there' I am often surprised and
something leaps out at me. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Before I began to live on my
computer, I did this with a box full of pieces of paper.
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mary rosenblum
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I called it the dump file and
every so often I'd dump it out and sort through it.
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mary rosenblum
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I've published many stories
that originated in the dump file.
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mary rosenblum
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If you simply run into a good
idea start thinking about it.
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mary rosenblum
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Since John asked about
historical fiction, let's go with that.
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mary rosenblum
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I was listening to a science
program on the radio talking about how the nature of Cholera was first
determined...
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mary rosenblum
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people thought it was airborn
on 'night vapors' and didn't have a clue it was water borne.
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mary rosenblum
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A particular doctor discovered
it kind of by accident after an epidemic devastated a London neighborhood.
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mary rosenblum
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All the sick people used a
certain well. When he removed the handle of the pump, the epidemic stopped.
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mary rosenblum
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So let's turn this into a
story.
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mary rosenblum
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It could be a novel or a short
story.
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mary rosenblum
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We know the result -- this
particular doctor mapped the outbreak and connected it to the particular
well.
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mary rosenblum
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So we have to keep these
facts.
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pendemon
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When thinking of ideas there
seems to be no limit to how far out you can go, like in science fiction, or
is it better to ground an idea in 'reality' when you are a novice?
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mary rosenblum
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It entirely depends on what
you want to write, pendemon. You'll find a lot of space opera -- that's
Star Wars type of stuff where everybody has warp drives and visits lots of
alien planets.
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mary rosenblum
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Or military SF.
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mary rosenblum
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The one foot in reality kind,
I have to tell you, is harder to write. :-) (That's what I write). You have
to know your science.
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mary rosenblum
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And your future politics and
social development.
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xana
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Perhaps he was highly motivated
because the story begins with the death of someone he cared very much for
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mary rosenblum
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Good Xana. That's a great
motivator for our doctor. Someone he cared about died. Now this was mostly
a lower class neighborhood. So who was it who died and how was this person
connected to the doc?
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johnw
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But can we fictionalize the
doctor to make him come alive?
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mary rosenblum
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Of course, John.
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mary rosenblum
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Not much is really known about
the man himself.
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mary rosenblum
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We know who he was, what level
of society he moved in, where he lived.
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mary rosenblum
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Who he was as a person is up
to you to create.
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geezer
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MC could be the doctor's
assistant
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mary rosenblum
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That could work, too. And that
assistant maybe has a family in the neighborhood.
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charie'
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The characters in the Cholera
story could be close to the sick people or one of the medical people.
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mary rosenblum
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Yep.
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mary rosenblum
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So now we have a strong
conflict -- the epidemic.
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mary rosenblum
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And a related internal
conflict. Our MC has either lost someone to it, or someone he cares about
is at risk.
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gwanny
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or the Docs cleaning lady's
little boy
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mary rosenblum
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That could work.
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mary rosenblum
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It could be a lover, a family,
an illegitimate child.
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destiny8
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Or a little boy he delivered 2
years ago in a near fatal delivery and who just started thriving.
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mary rosenblum
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There you go. These are all
good.
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mary rosenblum
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If every one of you wrote this
story right now we'd have a ton of very different stories. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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(this is why you don't worry
if someone steals your idea. Who cares? )
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xana
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I just did some quick research;
the doctor's name was John Snow in Sept. 1854
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mary rosenblum
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That's it.
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mary rosenblum
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And not a lot is known about
him other than the superficial events in his life.
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mary rosenblum
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And we can do a LOT of fictionalizing
without contradicting any of them.
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mary rosenblum
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Let's give him a secret child.
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mary rosenblum
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He was in love with a lower
class girl when he was younger and she had his son.
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mary rosenblum
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And he doesn't want to hurt
his wife. The woman died in childbirth and the grandmother is raising the
boy.
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johnw
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And if you fictionalize Dr.
Snow, do you use his real name?
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mary rosenblum
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You're not libeling him, John.
He's dead.
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mary rosenblum
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You can use real people in
your fiction if you don't libel them.
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mary rosenblum
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You can safely say just about
anything you want of him. I doubt he has any legal heirs who would want to
waste the money suing you. But I wouldn't contradict known facts.
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geezer
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There could be political
contrversy too. Isolate the people and forget about them type thing.
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mary rosenblum
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Excellent. This expands the
story. Dr. Snow is facing growing pressure. They will cordon off the area
and quarantine it. His son will almost certainly die then.
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gwanny
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in other words you wouldn't say
Ben Franklin discovered how cholera was spread...gotta stick with the facts
:-)
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mary rosenblum
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Exactly, gwanny. But you could
say that Dr. Snow was visited by a ghost from the future who came back to
tell him about bacteria and outhouses, or that he figured it out from the
map (as he really did) but he had an
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mary rosenblum
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illegitimate son living in the
neighborhood.
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mary rosenblum
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Neither of those premises
contradicts known fact.
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xana
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The writer needs to know a
sufficient amount about the London of 1854 to create a believable story in case a reader
happens to know a lot about that period
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mary rosenblum
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Ohyes!
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mary rosenblum
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That's what makes historical
fiction WORK.
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mary rosenblum
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But that's easy to research.
(We'll talk about researching stuff at the Tuesday forum, by the way)
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charie'
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There could be a time
constraint. Only three days to find the source of contamination or burn the
whole place down.
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mary rosenblum
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There you go!
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mary rosenblum
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Now we have a ticking clock.
Man, we are coming up with a really good story here!
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mary rosenblum
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Somebody needs to go write it.
:-)
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robastor
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In working with an alternate
universe type story, how much change becomes too much when trying to keep
worlds/settings similar?
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mary rosenblum
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Generally rob, you are
expected to show the point at which this universe diverged and why and make
a good case for how things evolved differently.
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mary rosenblum
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How differently is up to you,
as long as you can justify it.
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robastor
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Could glimpses of the alternate
histories be enough?
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mary rosenblum
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Could be. Then you have to
make them plausible through those small glimpses. That's going to be
harder. But if the reader can't see how you got there from here, you lose
'em.
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mary rosenblum
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Just because does not work.
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mary rosenblum
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So here we now have nearly all
the elements of the story already.
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mary rosenblum
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Dr. Snow has a son in the
community that is affected. He can't admit to the boy or his wife will be
terribly wounded and he loves her.
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mary rosenblum
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The Mayor of London is going
to cordon off the neighborhood and just let the epidemic run its course and
the kid will surely die.
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mary rosenblum
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He has to find the cure. Now
we just need the means of how he figures it out.
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xana
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after Dr. Snow maps the cases,
he tries to get the public authorities to do something and is stonewalled;
this leads to his removing the pump handle himself and getting caught
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mary rosenblum
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There you go. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Or it could be that the map
doesn't trigger it. He's stumped. And the half sister of his son sneaks out
to come tell him that his son is fine.
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mary rosenblum
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And when he shows her the map,
she says something about the well that has really good water.
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mary rosenblum
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And that connects for him and
he gets it.
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mary rosenblum
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That's a little more dynamic
than him figuring it out all by himself. We know that's what
happened....but what if that wasn't how it happened?
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mary rosenblum
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What if this girl with the
dirty pinafor told him the key without realizing it?
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mary rosenblum
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You add a bit more interest
that way.
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gwanny
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I would never come up with this
but I guess a visit from the dead childs mother could tellhim
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mary rosenblum
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aha, cool, gwanny!
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mary rosenblum
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That makes this a ghost story.
Good one.
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charie'
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Maybe one of the doctor's quirks
is that he's brilliant with logic but inept with machinery. His removal of
the pump handle could be violent and determined instead of simple proof of
his conclusions.
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geezer
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He has to have a reason for
suspecting the water. Perhaps some that go in and don't drink don't get
sick
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mary rosenblum
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Well, the brewery staff didn't
get sick. :-) That's a matter of record. They got to drink free beer while
they worked.
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johnw
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That's where you'd have to know
about 1854 London
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mary rosenblum
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Yes, but fortunatley that's
quite easy to research, John. We know a LOT about life then, including maps.
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pendemon
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inthe davinci code for example
if you make it complex enough you get all these other people researching
and writng books to correct your 'facts'
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mary rosenblum
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Well, just don't write about
the Civil War and get any facts wrong. Those people are FANATICS!
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charie'
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Does boiling the water kill the
bacteria (like for tea)?
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mary rosenblum
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Yep.
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mary rosenblum
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It's just a bacterium.
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mary rosenblum
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They are very heat intolerant,
unlike some viruses and of course prions (Which can survive deep space)
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mary rosenblum
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You really can't let George
figure out that it's a bacteria -- Louis Pasteur did that as a matter of
record.
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mary rosenblum
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But he did figure out that
water did it.
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geezer
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Does he know about bacteria yet?
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mary rosenblum
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I'm pretty sure Pasteur made
his discoveries a bit later, geeze.
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gwanny
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It can be a simple matter of deduction.
He's a smart guy. Realizes that the folks in this neighborhood, with this
pump are sick while other ones with different pumps are not
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mary rosenblum
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Which is what he did. He
didn't know why it was that water, just that it WAS that water.
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gwanny
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boring but more possible I guess
than a ghost
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mary rosenblum
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Oh, the ghost could work. Of
course you'd have to explain how she knew it was the water. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Maybe the dead can 'see'
illness and she sees it in the water.
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mary rosenblum
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So you see? It's not at all
difficult to come up with that story.
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mary rosenblum
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Take an idea, like my
engineered chicken eggs.
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mary rosenblum
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Start asking yourself, who
could have a problem here?
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mary rosenblum
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What might happen?
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mary rosenblum
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What is this character's
involvement? How can he get hurt here?
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mary rosenblum
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What does he need to get out
of this story?
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xana
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Leewenhoek (sp?) first looked at
bacteria under a microscope in the 1600s, but didn't realize the connection
to disease
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mary rosenblum
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Right. He saw animalcules (I
think that was his term)
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mary rosenblum
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Pasteur proved the nature of
infection.
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charie'
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The shipment of engineered eggs
get switched with a batch going to the grocery store.
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mary rosenblum
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There you go.
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mary rosenblum
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Now who's our protagonist? The
poor dock worker who didn't read the label?
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mary rosenblum
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Or someone higher up in the
company?
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mary rosenblum
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Or is it sabotage to discredit
someone?
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charie'
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The single mother who scrambles
the eggs for her kids and winds up with super genius offspring.
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mary rosenblum
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There's one. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Or let's make it a romance.
The poor shipping clerk is desperately trying to find the eggs...
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mary rosenblum
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and meets the woman who bought
them, who is young and single, taking care of mom who is dying of cancer.
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mary rosenblum
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And these eggs, or course, can
fix that.
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mary rosenblum
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But he'll get in BIG trouble
once his mistake is found out.
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janecj333
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Makes you wonder what we don't
have the technology to see, yet, or the knowledge to put two and two
together.
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mary rosenblum
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Oh lots, I'm sure. :-) The bio
and physics texts are out of date about the time they hit the bookstore
shelves.
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xana
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He's trying to steal the eggs to
sell them to make money to give his beloved to pay for drugs she needs
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mary rosenblum
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There's another entire plot
direction for you. :-)
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charie'
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Does he tell her that the cure
is at hand and get in trouble over that too?
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mary rosenblum
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yep, there's a dilemma for
you. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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And he could discover that the
eggs are not carrying drugs but have been sabotaged by a competitor to ruin
the company
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mary rosenblum
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and if he hadn't made the
mistake it would have killed a lot of people.
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xana
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Or the drug hasn't been
sufficiently tested yet on humans, but it's his furture mother-in-law's
only hope
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mary rosenblum
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Oh that's a good one, Xana.
Maybe he steals the eggs and pretends they got switched by accident.
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mary rosenblum
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And you guys aren't even close
to my version. :-) There's room for a hundred stories in every idea.
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gwanny
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The possiblity for almost any
idea to begin a story is virtually endless isn't it?
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mary rosenblum
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It really is. And that's why
it's silly to worry that somebody might steal your idea. Your story will be
different anyway.
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mary rosenblum
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I have given story ideas that
I was actually using to students who were stumped many times.
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lore alley
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I have a pretty easy time coming
up with ideas, but actually getting them written down is a whole 'nother
issue... any advice?
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mary rosenblum
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Try setting up a regular
writing time -- even a half hour. As it becomes a habit it'll get harder to
break, easier to do.
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mary rosenblum
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Even a half hour a day is a LOT of writing time.
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writermom
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the executive that made the
decision to mix up the eggs how much of his past do we need is there a need
for him to be an mc or tell the story from his pov
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mary rosenblum
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We just need to know enough,
writer, that his actions make sense to the reader -- seem plausible.
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mary rosenblum
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You can imply a lot of
backstory in a conversation or two.
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mary rosenblum
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We sure don't need to know his
life history!
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april cassandra katko2
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Can a story start in the middle.
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mary rosenblum
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That's the best place to start
a short story, april. Just make sure you weave the beginning in as
backstory so that we know how it all got started. We dont have to watch it
get started.
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charie'
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Or the doctor knows that the
eggs aren't working but doesn't want to lose funding.
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writermom
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but what if his life story is
behind his actions now
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mary rosenblum
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Well, then it needs to be
there, writer. There is no right or wrong answer here. The story has to work,
the character has to be as involved as the character needs to be.
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geezer
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What's your version, Mary?
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mary rosenblum
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Ah, it's set in my global warming
future, Geeze. :-) Stay tuned. See if it shows up in Asimov's in about a
year.
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mary rosenblum
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title is The Egg Man.
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mary rosenblum
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So as you see, a little
brainstorming gets you a LOT of stories.
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mary rosenblum
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And actually, this is a great
thing to bring to the chat rooms.
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mary rosenblum
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Do exactly what we did here
tonight and everybody can go home with a new story to write.
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mary rosenblum
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I have to say, I'm celebrating
tonight.
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mary rosenblum
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Someone just sent me Locus
Magazine's 'recommended reading list' for 2006, and both Horizons and my
novelette Home Movies is on it.
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mary rosenblum
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I am so thrilled.
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april cassandra katko2
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does the title make a big
diffrence
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mary rosenblum
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Well, a catchy title is always
good, April.
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mary rosenblum
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If a good title was important
I would never have ended up a pro believe me! LOL
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xana
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Perhaps you could schedule
brainstorming sessions every so often...
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mary rosenblum
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I'll do that. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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It's fun.
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tory
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Congratulations, Mary. That's
fantastic. Who how will you celebrate--before you plant early peas in the
morning?
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mary rosenblum
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Probably by working on
Interface, the current novel. I'm in the 'homestretch' and it's waking me
up at night!
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mary rosenblum
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I'm beat!
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robastor
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How often do you come up against
a new idea so fantastic, you just have to clear the deck and do it first?
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mary rosenblum
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All the time. That just
happened with Egg Man actually. Like I need to be working on a short story
when I'm in a fever pitch of finishing a novel?
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mary rosenblum
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But the right
idea/plot/character struck me so....here I am. Sigh.
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charie'
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I like to combine ideas,
settings, characters and plots that don't seem to go together. The
challenge is to make them mesh.
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mary rosenblum
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That's a great way to bring
something fresh to the story, charie.
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mary rosenblum
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And it's a delicate balancing
act to make them dissonantly harmonious instead of just dissonant!
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sol
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Ah, to be so productive. Sigh!
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mary rosenblum
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Oh, lets talk about the weeks
I have spent sitting in front of the screen with my teeth clenched,
dragging the words out one at a time and hating every one!
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mary rosenblum
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Ha!!!
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april cassandra katko2
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did yiu ever change a title more
than once
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mary rosenblum
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Let's see, April. Horizons
started out as something, I forget what, became Eternity Shift, went to
Eternity Horizon and is now Horizons.
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mary rosenblum
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Short answer. All the time. I
either get the perfect title right off or I struggle.
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sol
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Really, Mary? Wow! Who'd a thunk
it. LOL
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mary rosenblum
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Oh gosh, sol. Anyone who tells
you that words flow from them like water 24/7 is either lying or hasn't
written a whole lot. LOL
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mary rosenblum
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Sometimes I yearn to vaccum
the living room. Dig ditches. ANYTHING else.
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sol
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Thanks for sharing that tidbit.
It continues to give me hope.
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mary rosenblum
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Writing can be the most
wonderful sensation in the word or it can be the most painful sensation in
the world.
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mary rosenblum
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Usually it alternates a lot,
sigh.
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writermom
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I'm working on a historical
fiction/contemporary mystery and protagonist has a family history that has
motivated him to do some not so nice things like murder, my problem is I'm
struggling with whether or not to tell some of the story from his pov and
how not to reveal to much of the mystery
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mary rosenblum
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I hope this is a novel,
writer! :-) That is a problem.
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geezer
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Is there a preference for a
title's length?
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mary rosenblum
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Publishers LOVE a one word
title.
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sol
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LOL. Yep. Even cleaning the
toilet can look good, eh?
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mary rosenblum
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You have those days, sol!
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xana
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A little like child rearing...
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mary rosenblum
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Yep.
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pendemon
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i got the first draft of my
first short story finished yesterday, yippee, but it took two extensions on
the deadline for three weeks each
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mary rosenblum
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Good for you, pen! You got it
done. That counts.
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writermom
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yes Mary it's for the novel
course
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mary rosenblum
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Oh, good. Your instructor
should give you some help there.
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mary rosenblum
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Are you my student or someone
else's?
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writermom
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I'm ready to start my third
chapter and debating on introducing the protagonist as another pov so far
the only pov is the antagonist
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mary rosenblum
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Ah, not my student I think.
:-)
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mary rosenblum
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I'd remember that.
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writermom
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Kathryn Jensen
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mary rosenblum
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ah. Send her a letter and ask
her.
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mary rosenblum
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She can help ou.
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april cassandra katko2
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what the length of a book
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mary rosenblum
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Depends, April. From 40,000 to
well over 100,000 words.
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mary rosenblum
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Well this has been a fun
Forum.
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mary rosenblum
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We'll have to have a
brainstorming Forum where we evolve stories from ideas.
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mary rosenblum
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I'll post the transcripts in
the usual place.
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mary rosenblum
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And be sure to drop in Sunday
for our casual chat.
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mary rosenblum
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They're a lot of fun.
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mary rosenblum
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Night all!
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mary rosenblum
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See you Sunday!
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