Monthly Archives: November 2015

Blog, Writing

How to Reroute your Story For A New Twist

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When I started my novel We the Damned my outline was no longer than a paragraph. All I wanted to know was the premise, the players, and the conflict.

In the story the demon Court of Skulls puts Eugene Black’s life on trial. They sabotage his defense by assigning him Murphy O’Dell, a day drinking public defender in the process of being disbarred. The courts rigs the evidence, alters procedure, and calls a series of couched witnesses to convince Eugene his life has no meaning. The court’s victory seems like a foregone conclusion until Murphy comes to care about his client.

I knew the surface conflict, but wanted to wait until I was in the thick of writing to understand the characters’ underlying motivations. All I knew was the Court of Skulls wanted to damn a soul while concealing its importance, and Murphy wanted to win, because it gave him a chance to stick it to the demons who he learned have been sabotaging his life all along. Continue reading How to Reroute your Story For A New Twist →

Blog, Featured, Writing

What First Dates can Teach You About Writing Dialogue

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When you want extra anchovies on your pizza you ask the person on the other end of the phone. When you want a pair of acid wash pre-frayed jeans you ask a clerk where to find them. When you want a tall non-fat half caff Latte you ask a barista for one.

When you want love you don’t just ask the person you’re attracted to. There’s a dance to romance. You don’t say, “I couldn’t help but notice that your face was symmetrical and the proportions of your body are agreeable. I like how your loose garments reveal your good genetics. Would you like to copulate and imagine what our offspring would look like, or just copulate for recreation’s sake?”

That’s a little too on the nose. Continue reading What First Dates can Teach You About Writing Dialogue →

Blog, Featured, Writing

Is It Safe: When to Tell People About What You’re Writing

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Right now many of you are cranking out stories for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). You’ve got two more weeks to hit your 50,000 word goal. If the words are flowing you might feel an urge to share your idea with everyone and their mom, but now isn’t the time.

It’s hard to stay on the right path when your friends say, “What if, instead, you took your story in this direction?”

It’s hard to concentrate on where your story is going if someone questions where it’s been. It’s hard to power through to a deadline when criticism derails your train of thought. Continue reading Is It Safe: When to Tell People About What You’re Writing →

Blog, Featured, Writing

Use Your Darkness: How Writers’ Shortcomings Benefit Their Characters

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Know Thy Self

Most of us avoid doing anything out of character. We don’t want our routines to get broken. If our lives have to change we want it to be so gradual that we don’t even notice. If we’re stuck in a rut we try to make ourselves comfortable with it. It doesn’t matter if every day feels the same, we choose to live in Groundhog Day scenarios because it’s what we know.

We predict how we’ll manage in tough spots, overlooking the difference between our ideal selves and our applied selves, between our routine self and our chaotic self.We gossip about other losers who fell apart under pressure, patting ourselves on the back for how we assume we’d react differently. We’d like to believe we wouldn’t panic from the comfort of our love seats. Continue reading Use Your Darkness: How Writers’ Shortcomings Benefit Their Characters →

Audio Shorts, Blog, Featured, Multimedia, Music, Writing

Spring Forward, Fall Apart: A Spoken Word Album

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This is my first collection of musical spoken word recordings. Each recording puts a satirical slant on self improvement, self medicating heartbreak with humor, and dropping the mic on depression. The recordings are scored with synth melodies, backing beats, and radio drama sound FX.

Blog, Featured, Writing

How to Use Writing as a Remedy

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A lot of people avoid moments of quiet contemplation for fear they’ll get stuck in them. They don’t see the therapeutic value in journaling. Some writers even discourage the practice, saying that an abstract record of your thoughts won’t enhance your ability to write narrative fiction, but what if journaling could benefit your writing and your state of mind with the right direction?

When I started journaling it looked like I was transcribing the ravings of dizzy man pacing a bus station. I switched from the past tense to the present tense without sensing a disturbance in the time space continuum. I switched from the first person to the second without warning. I started sentences with confusing modifiers. I left my particles to dangle. I was less concerned with good sentence structure as I was with getting my free floating feelings out there. Continue reading How to Use Writing as a Remedy →