I have been working on this story since I crossed the finish line of the 2008 NaNoWriMo competition, trying to solidify the plot to something intelligible and believable. The mind mapping technique worked to outline the newer characters, and I had constructed what I thought was a solid plot at the time. My characters evidently [...] Read more »
Duma Key: Satisfyingly Creepy
Stephen King draws a lot from his experience with his accident when he fleshed out the character of Edgar Freemantle. Freemantle was the owner of his own construction company until a crane crushed him inside his truck and changed his life forever. If you want to learn more about the plot, visit Amazon to get [...] Read more »
Scrapping NaNoWriMo This Year
I started this year’s contest with the best intentions, but it just didn’t happen. Every time I launched my word processor, my mind would immediately focus on the rewrite of Shades of Evil, even as I stared at the words of the outline I started the weekend before the start date. My progress on that [...] Read more »
Creative Frenzy
Writing I’ve finished the rewrites of Chapters 3 through 5. I feel like I’ve gotten a better sense of who my antagonist is. The mind mapping technique is really helping me out not only for character development, but to get a visual of what should happen by the end of each act. With this technique, [...] Read more »
Writing Progress: Shades of Evil
The rewrite is going very well so far. I’ve just finished the second chapter and plan on starting the third sometime this week. So far, I’ve established (re-established, if you read Prosperity) that Amanda is clairvoyant and that people often get squeamish over the subject, depending upon their religious beliefs. I’ve also established what she [...] Read more »
How to Draw a Basic Mind Map of Your Characters
Knowing the Basics About My Characters Before I start writing my stories, I have to know the basic attributes of my characters: Who are they? Where did they come from? What event brought them into this story? What are their attitudes and why? How will they solve the problem in this story? Will they grow [...] Read more »
Writing Progress: Back to the Drawing Board
After careful consideration, I’ve decided to scrap the draft of Shades of Evil that I’ve been working on. I made the same mistake that I did with Prosperity by crowding the plot with too many characters. There are also some inconsistencies that I felt needed attention before I can continue. Yesterday, I spent the better [...] Read more »
Flash Fiction: Secrets From the Other Side
I came to bury one father and found out I had two. One is confirmed dead, and the other is presumed dead by a family I never knew. Both called themselves Bob. Though they looked identical, the subtleties were there. I thought I was the only one who knew, but I was wrong. I was [...] Read more »
Plot Backstories
I put weeks of thought into the backstory of Prosperity because I wanted to know why it was haunted by thirty-some ghosts, two of which are very angry and vengeful. Originally, I had only one ghost, who was lynched 80 years ago for a crime he didn’t commit. Then, as I was delving more and [...] Read more »
Prosperity: My First Writing Challenge
I was sitting at my kitchen table when I found myself invisioning a woman standing on an island in the middle of Hell, searching for the soul of her dead husband. Black Roses was still a chapter or two away from being finished, but I had to jot this idea down in my notebook. I [...] Read more »
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