Monthly Archives: August 2007

“The Empty Room”

Posted on by
Reply

100 Words:

Your free association word of the day is empty.

My entry:

“I hate locked room mysteries,” Chrys pouted.

Roger shrugged.

“I mean it!  And you know why?”

Roger shrugged again.  He’d heard it before, but he certainly wasn’t going to interrupt her.  Once was enough.

“Because they’re never the ‘mystery’ people think they are.  Haunts.  Faeries. Magicians. Psychics.  Demons.”

“Deities,” Roger suggested.

“Oh, yes, deities.  And that’s not even counting half my family.  And all of a thousand flavors and homelands.  It’s a wonder anyone vanishes from an unlocked room.”

Roger let her voice fade into the background as his eyes started taking in details of the chamber from which Mr. Duffy had disappeared last night, screaming.

“Long Day, Long Night”

Posted on by
Reply

100 Words:

Today’s theme is complete and utter exhaustion.

My entry:

Roger slumped into the wingback chair.  He’d been all over town searching for the vase — including chasing Tony Marcozzi a good mile over a couple of the city’s tallest hills before finding out that Tony didn’t really know anything involved in the case.

He pondered staggering to the kitchen to grab a Schlitz — but the fact was, he didn’t want to do anything that involved standing, moving, or not just sitting there quietly in the parlor’s twilight gloom.

The front door opened and Chrys was looming there, grocery bags in hand. “Honey?  What are you doing?  Mother is going to be here in thirty minutes!”

“If This Be Dinner …”

Posted on by
Reply

100 Words:

A hero’s not just a sandwich.

My entry:

“So you finally beat him.” Doctor Dread put down his wine glass.  The table was set with finery from a hundred heists.

“Simple enough,” said the White Widow.  “Omegaman thought I was still using those old Mark V Dreadbots you sold me a in ’03.  He had no idea I’d upgraded.  When those terawatt lasers hit …”

“Then you left his head on the doorstep of Team Justice’s HQ.  Nice.  But what about the rest of his body?”

A small smile played on her face, “Oh, I’m dealing with that a bit at a time.”  She paused over the carving board.  “White meat or dark?”

Getting shot

Posted on by
Reply

George Orwell on his experience (in the Spanish Civil War) of getting shot:

 Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the center of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all around me, and I felt a tremendous shock – no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing. The sandbags in front of me receded into immense distance. I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentally and shot me. All this happened in a space of time much less than a second. The next moment my knees crumpled up and I was falling, my head hitting the ground with a violent bang which, to my relief, did not hurt. I had a numb, dazed feeling, a consciousness of being very badly hurt, but no pain in the ordinary sense.

Pulp goodness

Posted on by
3

Lester Dent’s outline for a successful pulp action tale.  Since he was the guy behind Doc Savage and the Avenger, he knows whereof he spoke.

FIRST 1500 WORDS

  1. First line, or as near thereto as possible, introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a problem to be solved–something the hero has to cope with.
  2. The hero pitches in to cope with his fistful of trouble. (He tries to fathom the mystery, defeat the menace, or solve the problem.)
  3. Introduce ALL the other characters as soon as possible. Bring them on in action.
  4. Hero’s endevours land him in an actual physical conflict near the end of the first 1500 words.
  5. Near the end of first 1500 words, there is a complete surprise twist in the plot development.

SO FAR: Does it have SUSPENSE? Is there a MENACE to the hero? Does everything happen logically?

Not that I recommend being completely formulaic — but like all rules, it’s best to know how to use them so that you understand why you’re violating them.

It also occurs to me that a lot of this would be easily adaptable to a pulp RPG like Spirit of the Century.

(via De)

“Cutting Remarks”

Posted on by
Reply

100 Words:

Your free association word of the day is sharp.

My entry:

“This blade is very sharp, Mr. Donne.”

“I believe you.”

“It can be used to pierce through to your heart … or to simply carve off slices of my choosing.”

“I said I believed you.  No need to demonstrate, pal.”

“I’m not your pal.”

“No, no, I guess not.  Though most folks know me a while, they kinda grow to like me.”

“I don’t intend to know you a while.”

“Yeah, kinda figured.”

“Though I do have a few hours — and you — to kill.  Will you grow on me, Mr. Donne?  Or simply bleed on me?”

“Don’t suppose you’d rather go out for a beer?”

“Win some, lose some”

Posted on by
Reply

100 Words:

Failure.

My entry:

He couldn’t wait to see her face.  In his pocket was the very nice letter from the CEO, congratulating him on his promotion to VP and on the tremendous job was doing in his ever-more-promising career.

Better yet, he’d just gotten an e-mail that morning from his agent.  The publisher had accepted the changes, and The Modern Monday Manager was due to be on the shelves in November, which Christmas sales (and royalty checks) to follow.

He couldn’t wait to see her face. 

“Honey!  I’m home!”

“Did you pick up the milk on the way like you said you would?”

Crap.

A Ray Bradbury quote

Posted on by
Reply

“If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.”

Ray Bradbury (b. 1920) American writer, futurist
Zen and the Art of Writing (1990)

I need to cultivate more gusto. 

(via WIST)

Wilder’s Tips

Posted on by
Reply

Writing tips on screenplays (but applicable, I think, in regular prose) from Billy Wilder (from Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe):

  1. The audience is fickle.
  2. Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.
  3. Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.
  4. Know where you’re going.
  5. The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
  6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
  7. A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.
  8. In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing.
  9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
  10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then — that’s it. Don’t hang around.

“Four Words”

Posted on by
Reply

100 Words:

Today’s theme: Secrets.

My entry:

“Can you keep a secret?  Even from the cops?”

“Depends.”  Roger shrugged.  “Depends on the money involved, the risk, and whether I think the world would be better off with the cops knowing about it.  That last doesn’t happen often, but it sometimes does.”

The man in the rumpled suit bit his lower lip, then nodded.  He leaned over the desk toward Roger.  His breath was old.  He whispered four words.

Roger wasn’t sure when he’d stood up, let alone when he’d fired his gun. 

The man looked up at him from the floor and smiled.  “Now — it’s yours to keep.”

Roger shot him again.